Background: This article critically examines the nature of isiXhosa translations in mathematics learning materials, specifically focusing on the doubling and halving unit within the 'South African Grade 3 Mental Starters Assessment Project (MSAP): Teacher Guide'. Teaching in home languages is encouraged in the Foundation Phase, but unfamiliar…

Recent studies have accumulated to suggest that children, akin to adults, exhibit a processing advantage for formulaic language (e.g. "save energy") over novel language (e.g. "sell energy"), as well as sensitivity to phrase frequencies. The majority of these studies are based on formulaic sequences in their canonical form. In…

In this article, I share two critical incidents from the vocabulary lessons in an instructional cycle on immigration with third-grade bilingual students. In sharing these critical incidents, I seek to raise awareness of how colonial legacies of cultural and linguistic domination permeate translanguaging pedagogy. I use critical reflection,…

Purpose: The study examined the contributions of Spanish and English oral narrative skills to English reading among 95 early elementary dual language learners (DLLs) from Spanish-speaking homes in the United States. This sample of first- and third-grade DLL children attended Spanish-English dual language immersion programs and received language…

In this study, we explore how cross-linguistic differences can contribute to children's scientific thinking. We compared first and third grade Chinese students' pre-instructional ideas of the earth expressed in clinical interviews with that of their English-speaking and Greek-speaking counterparts (as recorded in the literature). Inspired by a…

Using Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) as a theoretical framework, a team of university staff and educators at a traditionally under-performing urban elementary school built a collaboration aimed at enhancing writing instruction. The current qualitative research study, which was part of this larger project, focused on biography writing in Eva…

Disney videos are used across the US as important materials for teaching language arts and literacy in elementary schools. However, how pupils make meaning of the videos has not been sufficiently investigated in educational research. Twenty-five third-grade pupils were taught comprehension skills using "Sleeping Beauty." The students created their…

Recent currents in language learning research highlight the social and emergent aspects of second language (L2) development and recognize that learners need opportunities for interaction in meaningful contexts supported by explicit attention to language itself. These perspectives suggest new ways of conceptualizing the challenges faced by children…

This study examined strategies for spelling accuracy in Grade 3 children. Thirty bilingual, Afrikaans-English speaking children and 30 monolingual, English-speaking children were assessed on their ability to spell English words and non-words. The bilingual children were also assessed on their Afrikaans word and non-word spelling abilities. In…

This paper adopts a rhetorical perspective in order to examine language about children in the discourse of mathematics education through a study of metaphor. Previous research has tended to emphasize the notion of "beliefs", which locates responsibility for problematic conceptions of children within the heads of individuals, particularly…