Language is a vital part of human connection. All people need language in order to build relations with other people. Besides this, language encodes culture and provides the means through which culture is shared and passed from one generation to the next. In this sense, language is the basis of social and communicative ability. Communication is…

Research suggests mathematical stories can support mathematical learning. We discuss an unexpected outcome caregivers of reception year learners (Gr R age 5-6yrs), participating in a mathematics story-time program, shared in interviews. The program, implemented with Gr R learners' caregivers in two South African schools, explained and demonstrated…

In real-life contexts, when we read anything, be it a newspaper article or a supermarket brochure, we usually have some reasons and expectations about what we are going to read or we want to know something because we are just curious. Rarely do we read without any purpose and expectations, and we often know something about the topic that we are…

Previous research suggests that activating background knowledge immediately prior to read-alouds in Kindergarten is an important strategy for improving children's learning (e.g. Cervetti & Hiebert, 2015). But, because children's background knowledge varies considerably at the individual level, teachers are also often providing relevant…

This empirical study investigated the manifestation of prosocial sharing behaviours and how this interplayed with preschool-aged children's Theory of Mind (ToM), described in cognitive science as one's ability to ascribe mental states to others and how the ascribed states are used to explain and predict the actions f others, when using media and…

A key design issue for tutorial CALL is that controlled practice activities need to engage learners in meaningful L2 processing, so that any knowledge developed in such practice may transfer to meaningful L2 use in complex skills. Furthermore, activities for controlled practice ideally engender intrinsic motivation, so that learners are willing to…

Language immersion from birth is crucial to a child's language development. However, language immersion can be particularly challenging for hearing parents of deaf children to provide as they may have to overcome many difficulties while learning American Sign Language (ASL). We are in the process of creating a mobile application to help hearing…

People encounter stories everyday and everywhere. They are the oldest and most natural form of sense making (Jonassen, Strobel, & Gottdenker, 2004). It is a powerful tool that enables one to gain knowledge, understand phenomenon, remembers the unusual and to interact with the people around them. This paper proposes that stories can create an…

The study investigated narrative schemata (abstract, prototypical memory frameworks containing the typical plot organizations for a story) with 17 hearing and 40 hearing impaired college students (poor and good readers). Subjects were asked to order statements into story order for three stories. Analysis of the stories in their original and edited…

Subjective story structures generated by 52 hearing impaired college students were compared with well-known theoretically derived structures and with structures produced by comparable hearing Ss. Ss were instructed to read each of four simple narratives and sort the sentences into groups that made up part of the story. Results of cluster analysis…

The effects of reading to children on the development and production of certain morphological structures are examined in a sample of 20 children, two to seven years old, in matched experimental and control groups. Both groups were pre- and posttested with an adapted form of Berko's nonsense-word test. The experimental group was individually read a…

One of the techniques a teacher uses to enable her students to write poems is to use a story as a springboard. Her students read the story of "The Emperor and the Kite" (Yolen, 1991), which tells about Djeow Sew, the daughter of an ancient Chinese emperor. After students engaged in brainstorming the story, they drew Djeow Sew at the…

This paper presents "popcorn story frames"--holistic outlines that facilitate comprehension when reading and writing stories, useful for outlining stories read and for creating outlines for original student stories--that are particularly useful for elementary and intermediate school students. "Popcorn" pops in a horizontal…

Two studies carried out by James Squire and Jesse Stuart explored processes used in reading the short story, ways of exploring student's processes, possibilities within the short story as a literary genre, and methods teachers can use. Squire's study showed that introspection and retrospection are useful in studying students' reading processes. In…

Reading aloud is an essential part of the classroom instructional program, along with direct instruction and sustained silent reading or book contact, and should not be slighted despite the numerous time demands from other sources. Reading aloud to children provides opportunities for introducing children to good literature and encourages language…