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This study reports on the effects of a 1-year parental involvement intervention on reading development of primary school children. The intervention included a teacher and parent training, focusing on teacher-parent communication and parental involvement in homework and reading at home. We used a cluster randomized controlled trial design with pre-, post- and follow-up measurements to evaluate the intervention. Participants were 600 second grade children (n ¼ 264 in the intervention group, n ¼ 336 in the control group), with their parents and teachers from 24 schools in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. A hierarchical linear model, which assessed children’s reading growth across three time points, demonstrated that compared to children in the control condition, children in the intervention condition made significantly more progress in decoding skills, reading fluency and reading comprehension from pre- to post-intervention, and from pre-intervention to follow-up (8–9 months after the intervention). We discuss the usefulness of this intervention in helping children who are at risk for reading problems in primary school. ispartof: Journal Of Research On Educational Effectiveness vol:14 issue:4 pages:1-22 status: Published online

In Tanzania, the education system focuses on schools and teachers as key educators of children, while little attention is paid to the home environment. This study examines motivational fact...

Statistical learning has been proposed to underlie the developmental transition during infancy from allophonic to phonemic speech sound perception. Based on this, it can be hypothesized that in dyslexic individuals, core phonemic representation deficits arise from reduced sensitivity to the statistical distribution of sounds. This study aims to investigate (a) whether statistical learning contributes to the construction of phonemic representations in typical readers, and (b) whether deficits in statistical learning underlie dyslexia. Fifty-eight children performed an identification task of a non-native phonetic contrast, before and after exposure to the sounds of the continuum. Our results suggest that the statistical distribution of the presented sounds implicitly enhanced the formation of phonemic representations and that dyslexic readers make less use of the statistical cues embedded in oral language, resulting in less distinct phonemic categories and thus a higher risk for failing to establish robust connections between these and written language.

Several studies have reported significant relationships between children’s season of birth and measures of their academic success (i.e., the ‘season of birth effect’). Whereas most of these studies were cross‐sectional, the current study uses growth curve modelling to analyse longitudinal data on 3,187 children in Flemish primary education. The results indicate season of birth effects on both grade retention and mathematics achievement during the first two years of primary school. Because the Flemish cut‐off date is 31 December, children born in the fourth quarter (October‐November‐December) invariably are among the youngest in their grade age group. Almost 20% of these children were found to have been retained or referred to special education by the end of Grade 2, whereas for children born in the first quarter (January‐February‐March), this was only 6.34%. First quarter‐born children also showed moderately higher mathematics achievement at the start of first grade. During the next two school years, this...

A disproportionally high number of children with specific language impairment (SLI) develop dyslexia. Yet it is hard to predict which individual child is at risk. This article presents a longitudinal study of phonological and early literacy development of 18 Dutch-speaking children with SLI, compared to 18 typically developing controls over a period of 2 years. These matched pairs of children were followed from 1 year before until 1 year after the start of formal literacy instruction. Children with SLI had problems with phonological awareness (PA) and verbal short-term memory (vSTM) in kindergarten. PA and vSTM in kindergarten were not good predictors for dyslexia in children with SLI, but rapid automatized naming (RAN) measured in kindergarten was strongly correlated with reading and spelling in both groups. We can infer that only SLI children who additionally failed on RAN in kindergarten developed reading and spelling problems at the end of Grade 1.

Summer learning studies have been set up to investigate the evolution of initial group differences in academic achievement, for example, between low- and high-socioeconomic status (SES) children. Moreover, this approach has been used to demonstrate the absolute effect of going to school on children's learning. In the present study, we used multilevel piecewise linear growth modeling to analyze growth in mathematics skills throughout kindergarten and 1st grade. First, we added to the evidence of an absolute schooling effect by demonstrating that average learning rates were faster during both school years than during the intervening summer vacation. Second, mathematics achievement gaps between children from different socioeconomic, ethnic, and linguistic backgrounds were found to remain stable during kindergarten and the summer vacation. During 1st grade, however, the ethnic and linguistic achievement gaps disappeared, whereas the SES achievement gap remained unchanged. Finally, we found no evidence for sch...

Subtraction problems of the type a – b = ? can be flexibly solved by various strategies, including the indirect addition strategy ("how much do I have to add to b to get at a?"). Little research has been done on the use of the indirect addition strategy with multi-digit numbers. The present literature review entails a summary of three recent and closely related studies conducted by the authors on this issue. The results of our first study revealed that young adults efficiently and flexibly applied indirect addition on 3-digit subtractions. The results of our second and third study showed that elementary school children seldom used indirect addition on 2-digit subtractions, despite its computational efficiency. This held true even in children who received school-based instruction in the strategy. We end with a discussion of some theoretical, methodological, and educational implications of the studies being reviewed.

More than a decade has passed since Rwanda was plunged into the most atrocious genocide of our time. Hundreds of thousands of lives were lost and many more were left in desperate conditions. The ec...

The aim of the study was to analyze the development of children's adaptive expertise in computing sums and differences up to 100.We defined the adaptive nature of children's strategy choices on the basis of problem (addition, subtraction), achievement, and strategy performance (accuracy, speed). Sixty-nine 2nd graders of high, above-average, or below-average mathematical achievement level solved 4 types of additions and subtractions before and after regular classroom instruction in the topic. In both assessments, children answered the problems in a choice condition, in which they could choose between the jump strategy (45 + 28 = __; 45 + 20 = 65, 65 + 8 = 73) and the split strategy (45 + 28 = __; 40 + 20 = 60, 5 + 8 = 13, 60 + 13 = 73) on each problem, and in two no-choice conditions, where they had to solve all problems with either the jump or the split strategy. Our results revealed differences in children's strategy choices on both assessments. The choices of high achievers indicated that they fit thei...

In this study, we examine to what extent psychosocial student outcomes in primary school children vary between classes, and whether elements of teaching can explain some of this variation. Starting with a sample of 379 kindergarten children out of 24 classes, academic achievement and behaviour problems were assessed in 2 consecutive years. Additionally, a set of teaching characteristics was measured in the first grade. Academic as well as behavioural adjustment variables displayed around 20% of class-level variance. The teaching variables seemed to explain more of the variance in psychosocial adjustment than they did in academic achievement. The findings emphasise the importance of psychosocial educational effectiveness for research as well as for teaching.

In this study, we investigated the fluency with which first graders of different mathematical achievement levels applied multiple, school-taught strategies for finding arithmetic sums over 10. We characterized children's strategies with the 4 parameters of Lemaire and Siegler's (1995) model of strategy change (strategy repertoire, distribution, efficiency, and selection) using the choice/no-choice method (Siegler & Lemaire, 1997). Eighty-three first graders who had been taught 2 reasoning strategies (decomposition-to-10 and tie) solved a series of near ties over 10 (such as 8 + 7 = .) in 4 different conditions. In the choice condition, children could choose between the decomposition-to-10 and the tie strategy on each near tie. In the 3 no-choice conditions, they had to solve all sums with decomposition-to-10, tie, and retrieval strategies, respectively. High-achieving first graders applied these strategies more efficiently but not more adaptively than did their lower achieving peers. We interpret these re...

In this concluding article we discuss how the different contributors of this special issue deal with the methodological challenges in special needs education research. The shift from an individual perspective towards an interactional and systemic point of view in special educational needs research has introduced research methods that are able to describe the complexity and the recursiveness of the social reality under study. The different studies presented in this issue provide interesting illustrations of some of these methods. The discussion of these studies makes it clear that social cultural theory is a useful framework for research on special needs education. It is suggested that in their investigations researchers should attach importance to the meaning of discourse and keep their minds open to change and new challenges.

Research on special needs education is often very complex and puts specific demands on the methodology used. Data‐triangulation, at the very least, is required. In most of our recent research projects on the development of special needs education in Flanders (the Dutch speaking part of Belgium), we have made use of qualitative case studies to describe and understand the complex reality of the innovations taking place in our schools. In this article we discuss some methodological aspects of qualitative case study designs, illustrated with a study on the implementation of inclusive education in Flemish primary schools.

This article describes a research project about the development of early numeracy in 5- to 7-year-old Flemish children compared to their Dutch peers. A group of Flemish children was tested 3 times by means of a slightly adapted Flemish version of the Utrecht Early Numeracy Test, and their results were compared to the development of those of a comparable group of Dutch children. The first and the second assessment took place, respectively, at the middle and at the end of the last year of preprimary education, and the third assessment at the middle of the first year of primary education. The results indicate that the Early Numeracy Test is a moderately reliable and construct valid instrument to assess the general early numeracy. At the time of the first assessment Flemish children scored worse on the test than their Dutch peers. However, they showed a faster progression between the first and the third assessment, resulting in a catch up with their Dutch peers at the third assessment. The results are interpr...

This paper presents the results of a qualitative multiple-case study on the implementation of inclusive education and the factors that support or hinder this innovation process in Flemish primary schools. Semi-structured interviews with all persons concerned have been analysed making use of an innovation process model. This resulted in a detailed description of the innovation process in 10 mainstream primary schools. The results of a cross-site analysis show that in the sample schools the first steps had been taken towards inclusive education but that the initiatives were on a very limited scale and the results were variable. Internal and external cooperation and consultation seem to be important positive factors in this implementation process. The fact that teachers still consider children with special educational needs to be a special ('defective') group hinders the development of a truly inclusive vision and practice.