Kristina Danielsson

The relationship between grapheme–phoneme correspondences and reading errors in Swedish beginners’ oral reading

The present study explores the relationship between error frequencies and correspondences between graphemes and phonemes of words in running texts read by 50 Swedish beginning readers. Following the ample cross-linguistic evidence of the impact of orthographic transparency, transparent words could be expected to be decoded more accurately than opaque words. Thus, error frequencies on words with different degrees of complexity in their grapheme- phoneme correspondences were compared in the study. The results reveal that error frequencies can only partly be explained by the degree of word transparency. Instead, contextual factors also seem to be relevant, something which previous studies by the author have indicated.

The Expanding Development of Literacy Research in Science Education Around the World

This introductory chapter summarizes the research background that motivates this book volume and the broad conceptualizations of literacy adopted by the various contributors within the context of science education. It also provides an overview of the six sections in this book, namely (i) national curriculum and initiatives, (ii) content and language integrated learning (CLIL), (iii) classroom literacy practices, (iv) disciplinary literacy challenges, (v) disciplinary literacy and science inquiry, and (vi) teacher development, and summarizes the contributions within each section.

Gains and Losses: Metaphors in Chemistry Classrooms

This chapter reports on findings from classroom communication in secondary chemistry teaching and learning. The data was analyzed qualitatively regarding the use of metaphors and analogies in relation to atoms and ion formation, with an intention to shed light on students’ scientific understanding as well as on their enculturation into the disciplinary discourse. Theoretically we draw on social semiotics, which allows analyses of language use in its widest sense, comprised of verbal language, images, action, gestures, and more. In our data, we identified common disciplinary metaphors in science, as well as metaphors connected to everyday life. Through the analyses based on systemic functional linguistics (SFL), we also identified anthropomorphic metaphors, with particles, atoms, and ions being humanized with intentions and feelings. Linguistic choices signaling metaphoric language were mainly noted in relation to quite obvious metaphors whereas no such signals or explanations were noted in connection to anthropomorphic metaphors. The study has implications for the design of classroom practices, including the use of discussions to enhance a more reflective use and understanding of the gains and losses around metaphors.

Measuring time. Multilingual elementary school students’ meaning-making in physics

This chapter presents results from a study aiming at investigating multimodal classroom interaction and its contribution to multilingual students’ meaning-making. The focus is on how science conten ...