Examines the reading standards of eight cohorts (years 1989 to 1996) of Year 6 children from five randomly selected primary schools within one Local Education Authority in England. Finds little movement in the mean scores of the eight cohorts over time and, in fact, there has been a slight but significant decline in mean scores. (RS)

There have been increasing expectations that all primary school students and teachers actively use information and communications technologies (ICT) in their learning. In order to achieve this it is important that appropriate environments are set up to support the varying needs and potential of the different groups within the school context.…

Studied the introduction of talk and writing to stimulate and sustain conceptual change in science in a class of 12 Italian fourth graders. Data show that reasoning and arguing collaboratively and writing to express and reflect on conceptualizations are useful tools in the knowledge revision process. (SLD)

This article describes the Australian Informatics Competition (AIC), a non-programming competition aimed at identifying students with potential in programming and algorithmic design. It is the first step in identifying students to represent Australia at the International Olympiad in Informatics. The main aim of the AIC is to increase awareness of…

Growing out of the belief that children need to acquire tools that will help them understand and interact with people from different cultures, a study examined the effect of a global education unit about Africa on the images of Africa held by sixth grade students, specifically investigating whether such instruction would reduce existing…

An initial study in teaching style was carried out among Tasmanian primary school teachers who responsed to a questionnaire regarding ten categories of teaching behaviors and attitudes drawn from research. A second study sampled 28 teachers and obtained achievement measures for their 574 pupils. Results of both studies are presented. (Author/MT)

Administered the Survey of Reading Attitudes to 613 fourth- , fifth- , and sixth-grade Canadian students. Means, standard deviations, coefficient of alpha reliability estimates, and standard errors of measurement were computed for the eight dimensions of reading attitudes. Results indicated reliability estimates comparable to previous samples.…

Careers guidance is recognized as increasingly important as young people experience longer and more complicated post-school transitions into and through education, training, and the labor market. They may need to change career several times over their lifetime and to undertake continuing education and training. The Careers Service is the main…

Reports results of a study in Latvia of students ages 10 to 13 in grades 5 to 7 and their interest in different literary genres, their favorite books, and people who influenced their choices of reading material. (SR)

Responses from a stratified random sample of British elementary schools (64 of 102) found generally consistent practices in preparing students for national science achievement tests. Variations in time spent, approaches, and resources were related to variables of attainment, school size, class composition, and teacher's professional…

Assessment of 125 fourth graders in Japan found that 4 boys and 4 girls qualified as dyslexic, challenging the belief that dyslexia is largely absent among Japanese children. Japanese schoolchildren who decoded kana text slowly also performed poorly in digits reversed and other areas. Characteristics of these students are described. (Author/JDD)

Focuses on the performance assessment of the practical component in science education, discussing changes over the years in the rationale and methodology of large-scale performance assessment. Illustrates these changes by comparing the Second International Science Study (1984) with the Third International Science and Mathematics Study. Contains 77…

Finnish seventh and eighth graders (n=196) were surveyed about an antibullying campaign involving peer counseling. Among girls self- and peer-reported bullying decreased and power attitudes increased. Boys showed a slight decrease in self-reported bullying but pro-bullying attitudes increased. (SK)

A collection of seven essays on errors in second language learning focuses on secondary school instruction in the United Kingdom. The essays address three questions that a foreign language learner might ask the teacher, including: What do you mean, it's wrong?; What do I have to do to make it better?; and Why should I get it right anyway? The…

The purposes of this paper are twofold: (1) to propose a dual perspective combining cultural and political concepts as a basis for developing sociological understanding of teamwork in school leadership; and (2) to apply this perspective to examples from the interim findings of the research into senior management teams (SMT) in English secondary…