The aim of this study is to examine the nature of questioning in primary classrooms taught by teacher candidates. The participants were 39 teacher candidates enrolled in the Department of Primary Education at a large university in Western Turkey as well as 3rd and 4th-grade students in four schools located in the area. Each teacher candidate has…

Overrepresentation of African American students in special education has been related to the unfavorable academic outcomes and achievement gap for these students. In a search for a comprehensive account of the roots of these perpetuating concerns, narrative skills are of importance because of their relation to reading achievement and school…

This study investigated the effects of auditory and audiovisual text presentation on the three levels of mental representations assumed in theories of discourse processing. A sample of 106 children aged 7, 9, and 11 years listened to 16 short narrative texts, 8 of which were accompanied by a series of pictures illustrating the content.…

This exploratory study examined the influence of different virtual manipulative (VM) types on the nature of student pairs' techno-mathematical discourse (TMD). Three fifth-grade student pairs participated in 9 sessions of mathematics instruction using VMs. The study compared three VM types: linked, pictorial, and tutorial. Students' levels of…

The present study aims to investigate the use of discourse markers (DMs) in nonnative (Croatian) EFL teachers' talk with primary and secondary school students. The study concentrates on the occurrences and frequencies of DMs, but it also provides an account of the function distribution of the three most frequently used DMs (ok, so, and). The…

We explored the feasibility of using automated scoring to assess upper-elementary students' reading ability through analysis of transcripts of students' small-group discussions about texts. Participants included 35 fourth-grade students across two classrooms that engaged in a literacy intervention called Quality Talk. During the course of one…

We explored the feasibility of using automated scoring to assess upper-elementary students' reading ability through analysis of transcripts of students' small-group discussions about texts. Participants included 35 fourth-grade students across two classrooms that engaged in a literacy intervention called Quality Talk. During the course of one…

Prepositional phrases (PPs) are considered an important feature of mature written expression. However, little is known about the development of PPs during the school years. The study examined the use of PPs in 160 narrative and expository texts, written by Hebrew-users in grades 4, 7, and 11, and adults. PPs were identified, counted, and…

Using sociocultural concepts of authoritative and dialogic discourse, I sought to examine 5th-grade teachers' questioning practices during small-group reading instruction to understand the differences between groups reading text on grade level and groups reading texts below grade level. The purpose was also to examine how questions functioned for…

This study considered the linguistic forms used by 63 English-speaking Canadian children from kindergarten to second grade (ages 5;6-8;8) to introduce, maintain reference to, and reintroduce primary and secondary characters throughout their narratives The expected referring forms were used more frequently for the best-matching referential…

Coherence as one of the criteria for textuality is the main element of a well-produced text. In the literature, there are many studies on the classification of coherence relations. Although there are different classifications on coherence relations, similar findings are reported regarding the acquisition order of coherence relations in different…

Adjectives, like nouns and verbs, are one of the three major classes of lexical words. But, unlike nouns and verbs, they emerge late in acquisition. In Catalan, as in many other languages, their use is closely linked to the literate lexicon learned at school-age. Thus, the use of adjectives can be a good indicator of later language development.…

This study examined the mathematical discourse of elementary school teachers and their students while participating in a year-long professional development project focused on implementing reform-based mathematics curriculum. The teacher participants included 12 teachers, two from each grade level from Kindergarten through Grade 5. Field notes were…

Professional development is an important part of creating a culture of continuous school improvement to maximize student learning. Rarely do we measure the impact of professional development on teacher learning, implementation and student outcomes. This study describes a professional development strategy for elementary teachers to promote…

Teachers often assume that personal experience is a rich resource for classroom chat and a gold standard for meaningful exchange of information. But in this paper, we first present three kinds of reasons for suspecting that primary intersubjectivity--the "me and you" relationship in which personal experiences are directly exchanged…