Shelley Stagg Peterson

Successful Practices for Immigrant Parent Involvement: An Ontario Perspective

This article brings together the perspectives of 21 immigrant parents who speak eight different languages and have been in Canada less than six years with those of 61 teachers and 32 principals who work in schools with English as a second language (ESL) populations of 20% or greater who have been recognized for successfully involving immigrant parents in their childrens schooling. We highlight successful school practices for formal and informal immigrant parent involvement in their childrens school learning, for communicating with immigrant parents, and for learning more about the language and culture of their students and their families. The gap between the language of home and school remains the greatest barrier to successful communication partnerships; parents, teachers, and principals should continue to find ways to utilize mother tongues in ways that support student learning in English.

A SURVEY OF TEACHERS’ AND PRINCIPALS’ PRACTICES AND CHALLENGES IN FOSTERING NEW IMMIGRANT PARENT INVOLVEMENT

This research, using questionnaire and interview data, examined practices and challenges of educators in areas of southern Ontario in fostering immigrant parents’ support for their children’s literacy. Results showed that teachers learn about the language and culture of their students, modify homework assigned to their ESL students, and encourage parents to read to their children in their mother tongue. Teachers need to increase their awareness of parents’ perceptions of authority and the role of their first language for success in their children’s English literacy. Teachers also need to understand parents’ role as co‐teachers at home.

Book Leveling and Readers

Book leveling, a way to organize texts to match them with readers, has been widely implemented in primary classrooms. This article questions whether the often excessive attention to leveling leads to the neglect of other factors that influence the reader-text match. The authors present findings from a small study that aimed to determine the uniformity and variability of texts purported to be at the same level for instructional or independent reading in a primary classroom. Specifically, the authors analyzed data related to book and print features; language and literary features; representation of gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status; and criteria that fit with their views on reading as a relationship between readers and texts. On the basis of their findings, they make recommendations for more critical examination, as well as appropriate use, of leveled text to support reading instruction.

Sixth-Grade Teachers’ Written Comments on Student Writing: Genre and Gender Influences

This article examines the influence of genre and gender on comments written by 108 sixth-grade teachers in response to two narrative and two persuasive papers. There were significant genre differences. Process, conventions, artistic style, and format were the focus of significantly greater numbers of comments directed to narrative writing. In contrast, meaning, organization, effort, and ideology were emphasized to a greater degree when teachers responded to persuasive writing. Teachers tended to indicate and make greater numbers of corrections and to provide more criticisms and lessons, explanations, and suggestions when the work was attributed to a male writer. Female teachers generally wrote greater numbers of comments and tended to indicate and make more corrections. Generally, teachers were reluctant to engage with the ideologies in students’ writing. There was a correlation between convention errors and the number and types of comments.

Literacy attitudes, habits and achievements of future teachers

Pre‐service teachers’ reading habits and their literacy abilities affect their views toward teaching reading and writing and how they implement literacy instruction. This study explored the relationship between the past and current reading habits of pre‐service teachers in relation to their reading and writing abilities. Participating teacher candidates completed a questionnaire regarding their reading habits, completed two reading comprehension components of the Nelson‐Denny Reading Test and provided a writing sample. Teacher candidates who received higher scores on the comprehension subtest of the Nelson‐Denny Reading Test recalled a higher degree of early school emphasis on enjoying stories and mastering reading skills, frequent childhood visits to the library, frequently being read to as a child and a higher degree of enjoyment associated with reading.

Another Look at Roles in Literature Circles.

In conversations with colleagues, we find common ground on many issues related to literature circles. We agree that students’ comprehension of what they read is deepened through talking with peers. Students use new information introduced in literature circles to extend their initial understandings (Almasi, 1995). We also find that literature circles are motivational because they tap into adolescents’ social natures. Chuckling with peers over a character’s foibles, reliving favorite events through spontaneous group retellings, or debating the plausibility of characters’ actions heighten students’ interest in the books they read. There is one assumption about literature circles that we question, however. When our colleagues talk about the how-tos of literature circles, they usually start with a description of the roles they assign students. These roles focus students’ attention on particular aspects of the book and facilitate group management. Often, colleagues cite Daniels (2002), who suggests that students be assigned a variety of roles including:

An Analysis of Discourses of Writing and Writing Instruction in Curricula Across Canada

Abstract This article presents a deductive content analysis of the grade 6 specific and general objectives in the writing curricula across Canada’s 10 provinces and two of its three territories. The analysis uses Ivanič’s six discourses of writing and learning to write: skills discourse, creativity discourse, process discourse, genre discourse, social practices discourse, and sociopolitical discourse. Phrases within each of the curriculum objectives that had some relevance to writing were coded to determine the relative emphases of the discourses within each province’s and territory’s curriculum. The analysis showed that the process discourse predominates in all writing curricula. Elements of the skills, creativity and genre discourses are present with varying emphases across the provincial and territorial curricula. However, there is minimal to no evidence of the social practices and sociopolitical discourses. Implications for curriculum developers endeavouring to create more comprehensive writing curricula include taking up more socially and politically oriented approaches to the teaching of skills and genres, and to fostering creativity in students’ writing, thus creating hybrid discourses that are based in a view of writing as a sociopolitical practice.

Teachers' gendered expectations and their evaluation of student writing

Abstract The 94 participating teachers had marked narrative writing for either the third‐grade, sixth‐grade or ninth‐grade provincial achievement examinations in July 1995 and/or July 1996. Questionnaire and interview data revealed that teachers attempted to ignore the influence of gender perceptions in order to foreground the individuals self‐expression and to ensure equality for all individuals in their assessment of student narrative writing. In spite of their efforts, teachers did construct the writers gender while reading student narratives, however. Once constructed, these gender preceptions narrowed the lenses through which teachers assessed the writing, allowing for the perpetuation of gender stereotypes and the inequalities they create.

Examining professional development: Connecting dialogues

Abstract This article investigates reasons for the tensions that exist among stakeholders such as ministries of education, teacher associations, local school districts, and university teacher education programs regarding the meaning and implications of professional development. Interviews and interpretive analysis provide clarification of the stakeholders’ perspectives and priorities. The paper identifies connections and divergences among the stakeholders’ understandings and outlines significant issues.

Grade one peer and teacher feedback on student writing

This article examines a grade one teachers support for her students’ writing development through formal peer and teacher feedback. The teacher modelled and provided examples of effective feedback and good writing in whole-class and small-group lessons and in her own one-on-one verbal feedback on student writing. She allocated time for the students to participate in formal peer-feedback sessions, in turn giving feedback to the students on the suggestions to one another during these sessions. Students gave more content-oriented than conventions-oriented feedback to each other. They revised the content and writing conventions of their writing in response to 90% of the feedback they received from their peers and teacher.