Reading

orientation EFL proficiency in pre-tests. showed that Case Study had EFL reading comprehension those disliking Self-Appraisal. It is suggested that learner characteristics be considered that more appropriate facilitation for EAP reading can be provided. This study charts the current trends and foci of research on writing between 1999 and 2004. In examining a cross-section of writing research, the authors focus on four issues: (a) the general problems being investigated by contemporary writing researchers, and their relative dominance; (b) population age groups in recent writing research; (c) the relationship between population age groups and problems under investigation; (d) methodologies are used in research on writing. Based on a body of refereed journal articles ( n = 1,502) reporting studies about writing and composition instruction that were located using three databases, the authors characterize various lines of inquiry undertaken. studied. and middle and pre-school through 12th grade (P-12) age group prominent, whereas research assessment, and bi- or multilingualism is scarce within this population. The of articles employ interpretive methods. indicator of current writing research should be useful to researchers, policymakers, and funding agencies, as well as to writing teachers and teacher educators. pervasive silence in literacy research around matters of race, especially with both young people and white people. In this article we illustrate that young white children can and do talk about race, racism, and anti-racism within the context of the literacy curriculum. Using a reconstructed framework for analyzing ‘white talk’, one that relies on literature in whiteness studies and critical race theory and draws on critical discourse analytic frameworks, we illustrate what talk around race sounds like for white second-grade students and their teachers. This research makes several contributions to the literature. We provide a detailed method for coding interactional data using critical discourse analysis and a lens from critical race theory and whiteness studies. We also illustrate the instability of racial-identity formation and the implications for teachers and students when race is addressed in primary classrooms. Ultimately, we argue that racial-literacy development, like other literate process in the classroom, must be guided. This paper reports two studies of young English-speaking children’s ability to cope with changes to the metrical stress pattern of spoken words and the relationship between this ability, phonological awareness and early reading development. Initially, 39 children aged 4 and 5 years were assessed on their ability to identify mispronounced words, including words that had their metrical stress pattern reversed. The children were significantly worse at identifying words that had their metrical stress pattern reversed than words that were mispronounced in other ways. The second study was a cross-sectional comparison of thirty-one 5-, 6-and 7-year-old children’s performance on the metrical stress reversal condition of the mispronunciation task. Measures of the children’s written language skills and phonological awareness were also taken. The 7-year-old children outperformed the 5-year-olds on the metrical stress task. Performance on this measure was associated with most of the measures of phonological awareness and literacy, and was associated with rhyme awareness and spelling ability after age had been taken into account. Moreover, metrical stress sensitivity could account for variance in spelling ability after phonological awareness had been taken into account, and after vocabulary had been taken into account. This suggests that stress sensitivity may influence spelling development in a way that is independent of its contribution to phonological representations.