The purpose of this study was to examine science teachers' self-efficacy with teaching science and their self-efficacy level for teaching ELL students while also examining the types of vocabulary instructional strategies used in the classroom. The study consisted of an electronic on-line survey to measure self-efficacy levels of teaching science…

This study moves beyond previous investigations to examine whether an educational intervention combining shared book reading with a vocabulary game increases children's vocabulary knowledge. Four-year-olds (N = 44) were randomly assigned to dyads in either an intervention (shared book reading plus vocabulary review game) or comparison condition…

Despite evidence that young children are sensitive to differences in angle measure, older students frequently struggle to grasp this important mathematical concept. When making judgments about the size of angles, children often rely on erroneous dimensions such as the length of the angles' sides. The present study tested the possibility that…

Fast mapping weaknesses in children with specific language impairment (SLI) may be explained by differences in disambiguation, mapping an unknown word to an unnamed object. The impact of language ability and linguistic stimulus on disambiguation was investigated. Sixteen children with SLI (8 preschool, 8 school-age) and sixteen typically…

Species identification is essential to biology, conservation, and management. The ability to focus on specific diagnostic characteristics of a species helps improve the speed and accuracy of identification. Birds are excellent subjects for teaching species identification because, in combination with their different shapes and sizes, their plumages…

This study compares parental pause and utterance duration in conversations with Swedish speaking children at age 1;6 who have either a large, typical, or small expressive vocabulary, as measured by the Swedish version of the McArthur-Bates CDI. The adjustments that parents do when they speak to children are similar across all three vocabulary…

This study describes an intervention that uses morphology to support word learning within comprehension instruction of content-specific texts. The intervention is detailed such that the morphological understandings used to support word choice and word learning activities are clear and can be replicated by researchers and educators. Six main…

As a Title I kindergarten teacher, Michelle Pace, second grade teacher at Lake Mary Elementary School in Florida, has seen firsthand how oral language can create roadblocks for students in all areas of the curriculum, both academically and socially. At the time this article was written, the state of Florida had recently adopted the Common Core…

This paper outlines the new opportunities that that will be changing the landscape of geometry education at the primary school level. These include: the research on spatial reasoning and its connection to school mathematics in general and school geometry in particular; the function of drawing in the construction of geometric meaning; the role of…

The pronunciation of a second or foreign language is often very challenging for L2 learners. It is difficult to address this topic in the classroom, because learners with different native languages (L1s) can have very different challenges. We have therefore developed a Computer-Assisted Listening and Speaking Tutor (CALST), which selectively…

Vocabulary knowledge is crucial to literacy development and academic success. Previous research has shown learning the meaning of a word requires encountering it in diverse informative contexts. In this work, we try to identify "nutritious" contexts for a word--contexts that help students build a rich mental representation of the word's…

Opposing views of storage and processing of morphologically complex words (e.g., past tense) have been suggested: the dual system, whereby regular forms are not in the lexicon but are generated by rule, while irregular forms are explicitly represented; the single system, whereby regular and irregular forms are computed by a single system, using…

The goal of this Quick Fix is to inform biology teachers about the availability of online crossword puzzles that can be used to engage students and help them learn technical biological terms.

A collection of cognitive, linguistic, and spelling measures were administered to third-grade English L1 and L2 learners. To capture formative assessments of children's developing mental graphemic representations (MGRs), spelling errors in isolation were subjected to analysis across three metrics: (1) Phonological constrained; (2)…

Information and communication technology (ICT)-based reading interventions have potential to help children with reading difficulties, especially those in resource-constrained environments who otherwise might not have access to support. This pilot study aimed to describe the impact of an online, partner-supported reading intervention designed for…