Framed within the fields of applied linguistics and language play, the writing of three attainment groups of 9-11-year-old children was used to investigate their use of ludic (playful) punctuation in the composition of an imaginative narrative. The scripts were from a larger repeat-design study of writing development that addressed a range of…

In 2012, head teachers responded to the proposed new Year 6 Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling test (commonly known as the SPaG or GPS test) with warnings of curriculum narrowing, teaching to tests, and misery for pupils and families. Despite head teachers' opposition to the test, seven cohorts of Year 6 pupils have now taken it. This article…

The purpose of the current study is to elicit the opinions of Turkish primary school students and teachers about summary writing. The study group of the current research was selected by means of the criterion sampling method. The study group is comprised of 85 primary school fifth grade students and 17 classroom teachers teaching these students.…

The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of contingency contracting on the percentage of correctly used punctuation marks in free writing tasks. Participants were three 11-year-old boys with learning disabilities (LD). A multiple-baseline across-subjects design was employed to test our prediction that the students would show…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper was to investigate the influences of calendar year, year level, gender and language background other than English (LBOTE) on student achievement in literacy and numeracy relative to class size. Design/methodology/approach: Data for this study were collected over five years (2008-2012) as test results from the…

Since 2008 Australia has held the National Assessment Program: Literacy and Numeracy (known as NAPLAN) for all students in years 3, 5, 7 and 9. Despite the multilingual character of the Australian population, these standardized literacy and numeracy tests are built on an assumption of English as a first language competency. The capacity for…

The present study looked at how children establish a relationship between the conceptual and linguistic dimensions of linearization in descriptive text composition. Written productions were compared with oral ones. French-speaking participants, drawn from the fifth, seventh, and ninth grades, produced both a written and an oral description of a…

As teachers plan instruction--even instruction about punctuation--they have the opportunity to engage students' minds and create new labels: question-asking, problem-solving. How teachers teach embeds a vision of who they think kids are and what they think kids are capable of. Are they destined for a future of critical thinking, questioning,…

Extensive research indicates that there are more boys than girls who are struggling readers, although considerable variation in gender ratios has been reported as a result of a lack of consensus in defining and measuring poor reading. The purpose of this study was to establish stable and consistent gender ratios for poor reading using a single…

Research with adults has shown that the distortion of visual word features, and in particular of the multiletter features within words, hampers word recognition. In this study, "CaSe MiXiNg" was employed to examine the effect of disrupting visual word features on the acquisition of orthographic knowledge in children. During the training, 18…

This publication contains an updated academic standards of Arizona public schools for grade 5. The contents of this document include the following: (1) The Arts Standard 2006--Grade 5; (2) Comprehensive Health Education/Physical Activity Standards 1997--Essentials (Grades 4-8); (3) Foreign and Native Language Standards 1997--Foundations (Grades…

This publication contains an updated academic standards of Arizona public schools for grade 6. The contents of this document include the following: (1) The Arts Standard 2006--Grade 6; (2) Comprehensive Health Education/Physical Activity Standards 1997--Essentials (Grades 4-8); (3) Foreign and Native Language Standards 1997--Essentials (Grades…

This publication contains the updated academic standards of Arizona for Grade 8. The contents of this document include the following: (1) The Arts Standard 2006--Grade 8; (2) Comprehensive Health Education/Physical Activity Standards 1997--Essentials (Grades 4-8); (3) Foreign and Native Language Standards 1997--Essentials (Grades 4-8); (4) Reading…

This document contains the Arizona academic standards for Grade 7. The following 11 standards are reviewed: (1) The Arts Standard 2006 --Grade 7; (2) Comprehensive Health Education/Physical Activity Standards 1997--Essentials (Grades 4-8); (3) Foreign and Native Language Standards 1997--Essentials (Grades 4-8); (4) Reading Standard Articulated by…