John Munro

Dyscalculia: A unifying concept in understanding mathematics learning disabilities

Abstract Individuals display a mathematics disability when their performance on standardized calculation tests or on numerical reasoning tasks is comparatively low, given their age, education and intellectual reasoning ability. Low performance due to cerebral trauma Is called acquired dyscalculia. Mathematical learning difficulties with similar features but without evidence of cerebral trauma are referred to as developmental dyscalculia. This review identifies types of developmental dyscalculia, the neuropsychological processes that are linked with them and procedures for Identifying dyscalculia.

Oral language supports early literacy: A pilot cluster randomized trial in disadvantaged schools

Abstract This study examined the impact of teacher professional development aimed at improving the capacity of primary teachers in disadvantaged schools to strengthen childrens expressive and receptive oral language skills and early literacy success in the first 2 years of school. Fourteen low-SES schools in Victoria, Australia were randomly allocated to a research (n = 8) or control arm (n = 6), resulting in an initial sample of 1254 students, (n = 602 in research arm and n = 652 in control arm). The intervention comprised 6 days of teacher and principal professional development (delivered by language and literacy experts), school-based continuing contact with the research team and completion by one staff member of each research school of a postgraduate unit on early language and literacy. Schools in the control arm received standard teaching according to state auspiced curriculum guidelines. Full data were available on 979 students at follow-up (time 2). Students in the research arm performed significantly better on Test of Language Development: Primary (Fourth Edition) sub-tests (p ≤ .002) and the Reading Progress Test (F = 10.4(1); p = .001) than students in the control arm at time 2. Narrative scores were not significantly different at time 2, although students in research schools showed greater gains. Findings provide “proof of concept” for this approach, and are discussed with respect to implications for teacher professional development and pre-service education concerning the psycholinguistic competencies that underpin the transition to literacy.

The Reading Characteristics of gifted literacy disabled students

Abstract A subset of the corpus of gifted students who have learning difficulties are those who have specific literacy disabilities; gifted literacy disabled (GLitD) students. Estimates suggest that approximately 10 per cent gifted read at a level of two or more years below their expected grade level. Surprisingly then, these students have attracted comparatively little past research interest. The present investigation examined the reading characteristics of a group of 37 primary level GLitD students aged between 78 and 121 months. These students displayed a discrepancy in literacy perfor‐mance of at least 1 standard deviation below the mean for their chronological age in at least one of reading prose accuracy, prose reading com‐prehension or isolated word reading accuracy. As well, their spelling and phonemic awareness (segmentation and blending) were assessed. Scores on the cognitive factors of the W1SC‐III identified two groups: a group of 20 students with superior performance (at least 130 points) on both Verbal Comprehension and Perceptual Organisation (the ‘superior VC + PO’ group) and a group of 17 students with superior performance only on Perceptual Organisation (the ‘superior PO’ group). The two groups differed in the literacy patterns displayed. The superior PO group showed the greater level of difficulty, with all measures of literacy at least one standard deviation below their expected score. The superior VC + PO group showed lower performance on isolated word reading and spelling. They did not differ in phonemic awareness. The literacy disability displayed by both groups is attributed to a specific preference for the use of global rather than analytic information processing strategies. This in turn influences phonemic awareness knowledge and consequently orthographic knowledge. The superior VC + PO group are more able to compensate for this cognitive disability. The implications of this study for the diagnosis and instruction of GLitD students are discussed.

Phoneme awareness span: A neglected dimension of phonemic awareness

Abstract The importance of phonemic awareness knowledge in learning to be literate his wellestablished. One dimension of its acquisition, the developmental trend from an implicit awareness of rimes to an explicit awareness of phonemes, has attracted substantial interest.A second dimension, a trend in the amount of phonemic knowledge that can be manipulated, or phonemic awareness span, is examined in the present study. One hundred and sixty children from Preparatory (Prep) to Grade 3 completed five phonological tasks: rhyming, onset-rime segmentation, initial sound recognition, phoneme segmentation, and phoneme substitution. Each task involved words ranging in length from three to five phonemes. Phoneme segmentation and substitution tasks involved words with six phonemes. Over this grade range, phonemic length influenced performance for each task. The nature of the influence varied with grade level; performance for the developmentally simpler tasks was affected at the lower grade levels, whereas the more complex tasks were affected at the higher grades. These trends supported gradual differentiation of phonological knowledge into a network of phonemic units. There are implications for dyslexia subtyping, for reading disabilities diagnosis, and for instructional design.

Fostering Internationally Referenced Vocational Knowledge: A Challenge for International Curricula.

This article examines the issue of fostering vocational knowledge from an international perspective. It is based on the belief that 21 st-century students would benefit from a study of human endeavour that has an intercultural foundation. It identifies the aspects of knowledge that may be seen to comprise vocational knowledge and uses one international curriculum, the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme, to examine the extent to which the knowledge outcomes match the competencies. It proposes a possible curriculum framework for fostering vocational knowledge. The pedagogic implications for teaching the types of competencies are discussed.

Changes in the child's comprehension of simultaneity and sequence

This study investigates the comprehension of various terms used to specify the sequence and simultaneity of two instants, and the claim that there is a cognitive basis for this acquisition. Two groups of subjects, aged between 4–5 and 6–7 years, respectively, were assessed in terms of their comprehension of six temporal pattern. Each pattern consisted of two durations, and was presented to the subject in two formats: as a verbal description, and as a physical demonstration. The description used either the terms first, last, and together (categorical terms) or the terms before, after, and at the same time as (relative terms). Each pattern was defined in three contexts: by the onset and offset of two colored lights (the nonspatial context), and by the motions of two colored beads (two spatial contexts). Three findings emerged: (1) simultaneous configurations of instants were comprehended more easily than sequential configurations, (2) categorical terms were easier to comprehend than relative terms, and (3) context variables influenced the comprehension of each term.

The Learning Characteristics of Gifted Literacy Disabled Students

Some gifted students have specific literacy learning disabilities in areas such as reading, writing and spelling. The present study uses a ‘differentiated models of giftedness and talent’ framework to examine the learning characteristics of these students. The students, 65 gifted primary school students in Melbourne, had a disability in literacy performance in at least one of reading prose accuracy, prose reading comprehension, or isolated word reading accuracy. Their phonemic awareness (segmentation and blending), and general ability using the WISC-III were assessed. As well, to provide an opportunity for the display of their gifted knowledge, tasks examining their ability to infer from what they had read for texts read accurately were used. Scores on the cognitive factors of the WISC-III identified three categories or ‘profiles’ of gifted knowledge: students gifted verbally, nonverbally and in both areas. The three profiles were associated with particular patterns in literacy knowledge. Comparison with matching cohorts of gifted students who were not literacy disabled (N = 60) and non-gifted students who had a literacy learning disability (N = 42) suggests that the literacy disability is attributed to lower use of analytic information processing strategies that influenced phonemic awareness knowledge and alphanumeric symbolic coding ability. It also showed that the gifted literacy disabled students could display their gifted knowledge during reading comprehension when provided with appropriate tasks. The implications of this study for the diagnosis and teaching of gifted literacy disabled students are discussed.

Information processing and mathematics learning difficulties

Abstract Successful mathematics learning requires the efficient processing of the information that defines the arithmetic tasks. Information processing relates to the ways in which individuals make sense of, or interpret, the information to which they are exposed. The present study examines four aspects of information processing and their relationship for whole number computation for third and fifth grade students. The aspects included students’ ability to (1) manipulate numerals, (2) encode number sentences , (3) recognise order among numbers and (4) perform an arithmetic procedure. Information processing in each area correlated with computational skill. At risk students were less efficient in their information processing. As well, the complexity of the numerical information affected how well the students could use it. The more complex the numerical information was, the greater the load it placed on the learner. The implications for diagnosing low mathematics achievement are discussed.

Classroom promotion of oral language (CPOL): protocol for a cluster randomised controlled trial of a school-based intervention to improve children's literacy outcomes at grade 3, oral language and mental health

Introduction Oral language and literacy competence are major influences on children’s developmental pathways and life success. Children who do not develop the necessary language and literacy skills in the early years of school then go on to face long-term difficulties. Improving teacher effectiveness may be a critical step in lifting oral language and literacy outcomes. The Classroom Promotion of Oral Language trial aims to determine whether a specifically designed teacher professional learning programme focusing on promoting oral language can lead to improved teacher knowledge and practice, and advance outcomes in oral language and literacy for early years school children, compared with usual practice. Methods and analysis This is a two-arm cluster multisite randomised controlled trial conducted within Catholic and Government primary schools across Victoria, Australia. The intervention comprises 4 days of face-to-face professional learning for teachers and ongoing implementation support via a specific worker. The primary outcome is reading ability of the students at grade 3, and the secondary outcomes are teacher knowledge and practice, student mental health, reading comprehension and language ability at grade 1; and literacy, writing and numeracy at grade 3. Economic evaluation will compare the incremental costs of the intervention to the measured primary and secondary outcomes. Ethics and dissemination This trial was approved by the Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee #CF13/2634-2013001403 and later transferred to the University of Melbourne #1545540. The investigators (including Government and Catholic partners) will communicate trial results to stakeholders, collaborators and participating schools and teachers via appropriate presentations and publications. Trial registration number ISRCTN77681972; Pre-results.

The phonemic-orthographic nexus: The Phonemic-Orthographic Literacy Program

Any literacy education curriculum, to be optimally effective, needs to take account of the entry level knowledge of those intended to learn from using it. In this way it can target both the needs of those who are currently finding learning difficult and those who may be at risk of displaying learning disabilities in the future. One way of achieving this is to supplement the broad-based literacy education curricula such as Keys to Life, First Steps and CLaSS with programs that target particular aspects of early reading. This paper describes one approach to this issue : the use of the Phonemic-Orthographic Literacy Program (Munro, 1996). to teach the phonological, phonemic, letter cluster -sound and orthographic knowledge necessary for reading. This paper examines: • the theoretical basis or rationale for the approach developed by the Phonemic-Orthographic Literacy Program ; the need for an explicit teaching of phonemic-orthographic knowledge.