These Initial Vocabularies for Reading have been developed by Brian Thompson of the Education Department of Victoria University of Wellington to help teachers in primary schools.
Educational testing, once the subject of debate by teachers and other professionals, is now being debated in public forums and in open court. Public concern has been most clearly expressed in the United States where standardized educational testing has been debated in the media, in state legislatures and in Congress. More and more the law courts are being asked to adjudicate on educational test controversies.
What aids our understanding of what we read? Firstly good writing, clear print, diagrams, and so on. As well as these, we can take notes, or underline important points; teachers and textbooks writers can insert questions in the text, and special paragraphs which help organize our ideas can be given. Here is a review of what research says about these four techniques.
Once upon a time there was a passerby who stopped to watch three workmen going about their labours on a building site. After a time he approached each of the workmen in turn and asked them what they were doing. The first man replied: 'I 'm laying bricks, for $4.50 an hour.' The second replied: 'I'm building a wall with these other two jokers.' The third replied: 'I'm helping to build a great cathedral.' People engaged in the same activity interpret it in very different ways. And this is the main result which has emerged from recent research into how students learn.
Project PATH is investigating issues and developing material for Parents As Teachers of the Handicapped. It was set up at the University of Waikato in February 1978 and will end in September 1981. The philosophy behind it comes from three powerful ideas which have emerged in the last decade, ideas which are particularly relevant to parents, who are, after all, the main teachers of the handicapped. They are: (i) structured, data-based teaching, (ii) early intervention, and (iii) parent involvement.
Learning to read is a remarkable human achievement: a possibility realized by the invention of written language. Each new member of our culture is expected to make use of this invention. How do children learn the skills which enable them to do this?
