Along Came Greedy Cat: Exploring the “Ready to Read” instructional reading series 1963-1988 as New Zealand children’s literature

<p>Ready to Read is a graded instructional reading series that has been provided free-of-charge since 1963 by the New Zealand government for students in the first three years of school. It has therefore been a key part of the reading experiences of New Zealand children for over fifty years. There is a commonly held belief that there is a distinction between instructional reading materials (the materials that are used to help children learn to read) and children’s literature – that the manipulation of text involved in developing instructional materials necessarily detracts from their literary appeal. The Ready to Read instructional reading series, however, was developed with the dual aims of helping children learn to read and want to read. The series also reflects the vision of the Department of Education of “New Zealand materials for New Zealand students.” The Ready to Read materials were (and are) written and illustrated by New Zealanders, and trialled in New Zealand schools before publication, meaning that teachers and children have input into the materials. The materials include contributions by some of New Zealand’s leading writers for children, including Margaret Mahy and Joy Cowley. They have a unique status in the history of New Zealand children’s books as being among the first picture books for young New Zealand readers, and the very first that acknowledged Māori children as part of the reading audience. Moreover, as a “home-grown” reading series, seeking to reflect the interests and experiences of New Zealand children, the materials provide a unique insight into New Zealand society and changes in social attitudes, in particular the emergence of biculturalism. While there is a significant body of research into the New Zealand School Journal, little attention has been paid to the Ready to Read materials (which are for younger readers). Price (2004) has written a short history of the early years of the Ready to Read series and McLachlan (1996) has investigated the visual representation of Māori in Ready to Read and the School Journal. This research seeks to fill this significant gap. This thesis explores how and why the series developed as it did from 1963-1988. It investigates the cultural and educational contexts, the literary aspects of the materials, and the beliefs about children as readers that underpinned its development. The “home-grown” nature of the Ready to Read materials, their literary qualities, their depiction of children’s lives, and the place of the series in the early reading experiences of New Zealand children make it indisputably a significant aspect of New Zealand children’s literature. It is hoped that this examination of the first twenty-five years of the Ready to Read series will be of interest to a wide audience, including educators, publishers, and researchers, and that it may serve as a starting point for further investigation. While this research is of immediate significance to a New Zealand audience, it also has international relevance in its description of an approach to the development of meaningful, engaging instructional texts for beginning readers that is unparalleled in the world.</p>

Along Came Greedy Cat: Exploring the “Ready to Read” instructional reading series 1963-1988 as New Zealand children’s literature

<p>Ready to Read is a graded instructional reading series that has been provided free-of-charge since 1963 by the New Zealand government for students in the first three years of school. It has therefore been a key part of the reading experiences of New Zealand children for over fifty years. There is a commonly held belief that there is a distinction between instructional reading materials (the materials that are used to help children learn to read) and children’s literature – that the manipulation of text involved in developing instructional materials necessarily detracts from their literary appeal. The Ready to Read instructional reading series, however, was developed with the dual aims of helping children learn to read and want to read. The series also reflects the vision of the Department of Education of “New Zealand materials for New Zealand students.” The Ready to Read materials were (and are) written and illustrated by New Zealanders, and trialled in New Zealand schools before publication, meaning that teachers and children have input into the materials. The materials include contributions by some of New Zealand’s leading writers for children, including Margaret Mahy and Joy Cowley. They have a unique status in the history of New Zealand children’s books as being among the first picture books for young New Zealand readers, and the very first that acknowledged Māori children as part of the reading audience. Moreover, as a “home-grown” reading series, seeking to reflect the interests and experiences of New Zealand children, the materials provide a unique insight into New Zealand society and changes in social attitudes, in particular the emergence of biculturalism. While there is a significant body of research into the New Zealand School Journal, little attention has been paid to the Ready to Read materials (which are for younger readers). Price (2004) has written a short history of the early years of the Ready to Read series and McLachlan (1996) has investigated the visual representation of Māori in Ready to Read and the School Journal. This research seeks to fill this significant gap. This thesis explores how and why the series developed as it did from 1963-1988. It investigates the cultural and educational contexts, the literary aspects of the materials, and the beliefs about children as readers that underpinned its development. The “home-grown” nature of the Ready to Read materials, their literary qualities, their depiction of children’s lives, and the place of the series in the early reading experiences of New Zealand children make it indisputably a significant aspect of New Zealand children’s literature. It is hoped that this examination of the first twenty-five years of the Ready to Read series will be of interest to a wide audience, including educators, publishers, and researchers, and that it may serve as a starting point for further investigation. While this research is of immediate significance to a New Zealand audience, it also has international relevance in its description of an approach to the development of meaningful, engaging instructional texts for beginning readers that is unparalleled in the world.</p>

Constructing the emotions of childhood: an analysis of Margaret Mahy’s use of emotion in her literary contribution to the School Journal

<p>This qualitative content analysis research study examines how Margaret Mahy used emotion in the School Journal to form insights into reader appeal, reader response and the social construction of childhood. This research study examines Mahy’s contribution to the School Journal. The study explores this body of work in terms of how its author uses emotion to captivate readers by evoking the feelings associated with childhood. The underlying objective of the study was to provide insights into why Mahy’s work is so treasured and memorable; to explain how she uses emotion to captivate readers, and how this contributes to the social construction of childhood. The prose and poetry Mahy contributed to the School Journal prove to be a significant, rich and uncharted resource for the purposes of this research investigation. Analysis of this body of work has allowed for greater insights and understanding into Mahy’s contribution to children’s literature. It has also allowed for a greater appreciation of how Mahy’s use of emotion contributes to the social construction of childhood. This type of content analysis research study proves to be invaluable in the development of reader’s advisory services to young people. The employment of a content analysis methodology, underpinned by a discourse analysis approach, enabled the emotional narratives of Mahy’s text to be explained and understood. The study’s findings, that lightness and aliveness are the most prevalent and persuasive emotions operating within Mahy’s text, was substantiated through analysis of actual reader responses. This investigation is most applicable to school librarians, children’s librarians and educators. The study has broader implications for the improvement of client interaction and collection development in youth library services</p>

Constructing the emotions of childhood: an analysis of Margaret Mahy’s use of emotion in her literary contribution to the School Journal

<p>This qualitative content analysis research study examines how Margaret Mahy used emotion in the School Journal to form insights into reader appeal, reader response and the social construction of childhood. This research study examines Mahy’s contribution to the School Journal. The study explores this body of work in terms of how its author uses emotion to captivate readers by evoking the feelings associated with childhood. The underlying objective of the study was to provide insights into why Mahy’s work is so treasured and memorable; to explain how she uses emotion to captivate readers, and how this contributes to the social construction of childhood. The prose and poetry Mahy contributed to the School Journal prove to be a significant, rich and uncharted resource for the purposes of this research investigation. Analysis of this body of work has allowed for greater insights and understanding into Mahy’s contribution to children’s literature. It has also allowed for a greater appreciation of how Mahy’s use of emotion contributes to the social construction of childhood. This type of content analysis research study proves to be invaluable in the development of reader’s advisory services to young people. The employment of a content analysis methodology, underpinned by a discourse analysis approach, enabled the emotional narratives of Mahy’s text to be explained and understood. The study’s findings, that lightness and aliveness are the most prevalent and persuasive emotions operating within Mahy’s text, was substantiated through analysis of actual reader responses. This investigation is most applicable to school librarians, children’s librarians and educators. The study has broader implications for the improvement of client interaction and collection development in youth library services</p>

College Journals, Educational Modernism and Palestinian Nationalism in Mandatory Palestine: Majallat al-Kulliyyah al-‘Arabiyyah

This article examines the role of Majallat al-Kulliyyah al-‘Arabiyyah, a ‘School Journal’ published by the Arab College in Jerusalem during the Mandatory period. This School Journal was a key agent of modernisation, enlightenment and national awareness among the Palestinian people. A period of intense national struggle, the Mandatory period was replete with political and military upheavals that decided the fate of the country and ended with the expulsion of more than half of the Palestinians and the Palestine Nakba of 1948. Among the most significant cultural changes during the Mandate, that had a major positive impact on Palestinians, was the expansion of the press, including the School Journals. These School Journals played a crucial role in widening the circle of education in Palestine, reducing illiteracy rates, advancing modernisation processes in Arab society and, importantly, promoting Palestinian Arab nationalist ideas as an instrument of national struggle against British colonialism and the Zionist settler movement in Palestine. The article focuses on Majallat al-Kulliyyah al-‘Arabiyyah as the most widespread and influential Arab School Journal during the Mandate period and analyses the key role played by this School Journal in Palestinian educational institutions and the Palestinian national-political struggles during the Mandatory period.

Primary School Reading Materials and Contexts of Change in New Zealand's School Journal, 1907-1989

This paper considers primary school texts as resources for teaching reading and as children's literature, applying principles of close reading and New Historicism theory to explore the effects on texts of changing social, political, and pedagogical contexts in the twentieth century. Particular issues discussed are predominant themes and ideologies, narrative technique, representations of systems of authority and control, the positioning of the child reader, and the relationship of the text to curriculum and the teaching of reading. There will be a focus on the School Journal, as New Zealand's longest running periodical, an apt illustration of contextual change.

Coloring the $n$-Smooth Numbers with $n$ Colors

For which values of $n$ is it possible to color the positive integers using precisely $n$ colors in such a way that for any $a$, the numbers $a,2a,\dots,na$ all receive different colors? The third-named author posed the question around 2008-2009. Particular cases appeared in the Hungarian high school journal KöMaL in April 2010, and the general version appeared in May 2010 on MathOverflow, posted by D. Pálvölgyi. The question remains open. We discuss the known partial results and investigate a series of related matters attempting to understand the structure of these $n$-satisfactory colorings. Specifically, we show that there is an $n$-satisfactory coloring whenever there is an abelian group operation $\oplus$ on the set $\{1,2,\dots,n\}$ that is compatible with multiplication in the sense that whenever $i$, $j$ and $ij$ are in $\{1,\dots,n\}$, then $ij=i\oplus j$. This includes in particular the cases where $n+1$ is prime, or $2n+1$ is prime, or $n=p^2-p$ for some prime $p$, or there is a $k$ such that $q=nk+1$ is prime and $1^k,\dots,n^k$ are all distinct modulo $q$ (in which case we call $q$ a strong representative of order $n$). The colorings obtained by this process we call multiplicative. We also show that nonmultiplicative colorings exist for some values of $n$. There is an $n$-satisfactory coloring of $\mathbb Z^+$ if and only if there is such a coloring of the set $K_n$ of $n$-smooth numbers. We identify all $n$-satisfactory colorings for $n\leqslant 5$ and all multiplicative colorings for $n\leqslant 8$, and show that there are as many nonmultiplicative colorings of $K_n$ as there are real numbers for $n=6$ and 8. We show that if $n$ admits a strong representative $q$ then it admits infinitely many and in fact the set of such $q$ has positive natural density in the set of all primes. We also show that the question of whether there is an $n$-satisfactory coloring is equivalent to a problem about tilings, and use this to give a geometric characterization of multiplicative colorings.

Topical Issues of Methodology in Teaching Spelling on the Pages of the Russian Language at School Journal (1979–2019)

This article reviews works devoted to the methodology of teaching orthography (spelling) published in the Russian Language at School journal from 1979 to 2019. The reviewed works cover the following aspects: theoretical (linguistic, didactic, psychological and psycholinguistic) foundations of teaching orthography in secondary school; study techniques and methods for explaining spelling rules; essential characteristics of the various methodological systems for a phased process in studying complex spelling rules; types of developmental spelling exercises; lesson plan description, repetition of spelling topics and systematization of the lessons studied at different levels of secondary education from grades 5 to 11 in accordance with changing requirements of Federal State Educational Standards and respective textbooks for teaching Russian as a native language. The article focuses on the aspect of spelling training and preparing students for mandatory written exams in the Russian (native) language in grades 9 and 11, including the final essay in grade 11. In addition, the article provides a general overview of reviews of textbooks and spelling exercise workbooks for pedagogues and pupils published by methodologists. The research methodology was based on the theoretical analysis of scientific knowledge (problematic, comparative, aspective, recapitulative) and practice-based experience of pedagogues. It is concluded that the reviewed publications (in the indicated period) are relevant for modern readers.