Academic literature on the topic 'Comprehension development in 5/6 year olds'

Purpose This study aimed to describe the development of inferential abilities of children age 3 to 6 years in a narrative using a dialogic reading task on an iPad. Method Participants were 121 typically developing children, divided into 3 groups according to age range (3–4 years old, 4–5 years old, 5–6 years old). Total score of inferential comprehension, subscores by causal inference type targeting elements of the story grammar, and quality of response were examined across groups. Results Inferential comprehension emerged early, from 3 to 4 years old, with considerable interindividual variability. Inferential comprehension scores increased significantly in relation to age, leading to developmental steps with regards to the type of causal inferences. The ability to infer the problem of the story, the internal response of a character, and predictions were easier starting at age 4 years. Then, the 5- to 6-year-olds were better able to infer the goal, the attempt to solve the problem, and the resolution. Last, between the ages of 3 and 6 years, children improved in terms of the quality of response they provided. Conclusion This study addresses important gaps in our knowledge of inferential comprehension in young children and has implications for planning of early education in this realm.

Theory of mind refers to the ability to attribute beliefs to oneself and others. The present study used a dynamic systems approach to assess how environment may affect the development of second-order theory of mind (e.g., “John knows that Mary knows that he went out yesterday”). Theory of mind is divided into two major dimensions: comprehension (i.e., to understand a mental state) and prediction (i.e., to predict someone else’s future behavior or mental state). Two age groups were assessed: 5–6- and 10–11-year-old children. In both age groups, participants were assigned to a condition of “support” (help provided) or “no support” (help not provided). Results show that second-order theory of mind follows a dynamic growth law that depends on support. Support facilitates performance in theory of mind production (i.e., to predict one’s future behavior) for both the 5–6- and 10–11-year-old children. Interestingly, the 5–6-year-olds who received support presented an increase in the second-order prediction performance at the expense of the second-order comprehension, suggesting that a temporary dip in comprehension performance may facilitate the development of mental rules to predict one’s future behavior.

Research of the theory of mind (ToM) has long been a central topic in cognitive science and experimental philosophy. A preliminary example of a Moore-paradox sentence would be: It is raining, but I don’t think it is. Understanding the paradoxes in these sentences is considered part of ToM development. This study focuses on the recognition of Moore’s paradoxical sentences by monolingual and bilingual children. According to the first hypothesis, comprehension of Moore-paradoxical sentences is estimated to start at the age of 7. The second hypothesis assumes that balanced bilingual children develop the ability to understand Moore-paradoxical sentences earlier than Hungarian dominant bilinguals, and balanced bilinguals also outperform their monolingual peers. Romanian monolingual and Hungarian-Romanian bilingual children aged between 5 and 8 (N = 134) participated in the experiment. Balanced and dominant bilingual groups were established based on a questionnaire filled in by the children’s parents. During the experiment, children had to listen to a number of sentences. Each sentence that contained paradoxical statements had control sentences matching syntactically. Children had to choose the sentences they thought to be “silly”. According to the experimental findings, 5- and 6-year-old children performed poorly while the overwhelming majority of 7- and 8-year-olds could select the Moore-paradoxical sentences. There were differences between the performance of monolingual and balanced bilingual groups and between the two bilingual groups. Balanced bilinguals performed better, and their comprehension of understanding Moorean sentences developed earlier than those of the other groups.

The effects of bilingualism on child development have been extensively examined in last decades. Research reveals that simultaneous use of two or more languages affects child’s language development, cognitive and social skills. The current study focuses on the so-far understudied theory of emotion understanding in bilingual children. A cohort of 593 bilingual and monolingual 5–6-year-olds took the Russian version of the Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC) that assesses three components of emotion understanding: emotion understanding of external causes of emotions, reflective causes of emotions; and mental causes of emotions. Our results revealed no group differences between overall emotion understanding and understanding of external and reflective causes of emotions. However, monolingual children had a slightly better understanding of mental causes of emotions compared to bilingual children, when controlling for age, gender, and non-verbal intelligence. These results suggest that children growing up in bilingual environments might require more time and/or language/culture exposure to master the ability to understand mental causes of emotions, taking into account cultural differences, as well as the semantic and lexical differences in emotion labelling and emotion expression in each language.

ABSTRACTThe study explored narrative production and comprehension in typically developing Italian–English sequential bilinguals. Thirty 5- to 6-year-olds and 32 6- to 7-year-olds were presented with story telling and retelling tasks, each followed by comprehension questions in Italian (their first language) and English (their second language). The macrostructure of narratives produced was analyzed, considering total amount of relevant information, story complexity, and mental state terms. Comprehension questions focused on implicit story information (i.e., characters’ mental states and goals). The results indicated that (a) older children outperformed younger ones on all measures; (b) an advantage of first language (Italian) over second language (English) emerged for younger children; and (c) comprehension and production were both more accurate in story retelling than in telling. Theoretical and methodological implications of these results are discussed.

Preschool is a sensitive period for laying the foundations for literacy and lifelong learning. Through innovation in education, we aim to introduce and give initial knowledge to future first-graders about the digital media era. The rapid pace of technological change creates the need for new and interesting ways of teaching by incorporating digital interactivity in educational games related to the development of key language skills. The comprehension and interpretation of the material in the educational field „Bulgarian language and literature“ by the children in the fourth age group „Smile“ is carried out through games with the help of electronic educational resources created by us, which provoke and stimulate the high results of the achievements.

The aim of the study was to investigate how Serbian native speaking preschool children comprehend perfective and imperfective aspect in comparison to adults. After watching animated movies with complete, incomplete and unstarted actions, the participants were asked questions with a perfective or imperfective verb form and responded by pointing to the event(s) that corresponded to each question. The results converged to a clear developmental trend in understanding of aspectual forms. The data indicate that the acquisition of perfective precedes the acquisition of imperfective: 3-year-olds typically understand only the meaning of perfective; most 5-year-olds have almost adult-like understanding of both aspectual forms, while 4-year-olds are a transitional group. Our results support the viewpoint that children's and adults? representations of this language category differ qualitatively, and we argue that mastering of aspect semantics is a long-term process that presupposes a certain level of cognitive and pragmatic development, and lasts throughout the preschool period.

Development of comprehension of ironic utterances in 3- to 9-year-old Finnish-speaking children This study explores the comprehension of simple ironic utterances in 210 Finnish children aged from 3 to 9 years. If the child answered the question correctly, he/she was asked to explain correct answers. The results indicated that there was large individual variation within age groups both in answers and explanations. In terms of correct answers there was a significant difference between 6- and 7-year-olds and in correct explanations between age groups of 3-4, 6-7 and 7-8. Analysis of incorrect answers showed that literal interpretation of an utterance was the most common incorrect answer type in all age groups. Totally irrelevant answers occurred only in children aged 3 and 4. In terms of incorrect explanations, "turntaking" and "incorrect focus" categories were the most common incorrect explanation types. Contrary to previous studies, in this study already some of the 3- and 4-year-olds showed an emerging ability to comprehend irony.

Master of Philosophy in Education
Literacy skills include expressive language, oral and written, and receptive language, comprehension. This study explores both aspects of language in six Kindergarten children differing in early literacy development- three judged by teacher assessment to be 'at risk', and three acquiring Kindergarten skills as expected. Oral retellings of a familiar narrative and an unfamiliar story just heard, and a personal recount were taped and analysed using Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar. Comprehension responses to individually shared narratives were also collected and analysed. The children's use of language and comprehension responses varied significantly. Those 'at risk' were unable to retell narratives, needed high levels of support to comprehend texts and produced less cohesive personal recounts. The linguistic analysis revealed vocabulary and rhetorical organisation affected the reconstruction of oral narratives. These children also seemed to find comprehending difficult when questions or recall involved following reference, negotiating marked Theme or drawing inferences. The study was designed as a series of one to one literacy experiences. A listening comprehension test showed that all children except one benefitted from the experience. The findings underline the importance of oral language development and the value of interactive teaching experiences to the attainment of sophisticated literacy skills.

Literacy skills include expressive language, oral and written, and receptive language, comprehension. This study explores both aspects of language in six Kindergarten children differing in early literacy development- three judged by teacher assessment to be 'at risk', and three acquiring Kindergarten skills as expected. Oral retellings of a familiar narrative and an unfamiliar story just heard, and a personal recount were taped and analysed using Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar. Comprehension responses to individually shared narratives were also collected and analysed. The children's use of language and comprehension responses varied significantly. Those 'at risk' were unable to retell narratives, needed high levels of support to comprehend texts and produced less cohesive personal recounts. The linguistic analysis revealed vocabulary and rhetorical organisation affected the reconstruction of oral narratives. These children also seemed to find comprehending difficult when questions or recall involved following reference, negotiating marked Theme or drawing inferences. The study was designed as a series of one to one literacy experiences. A listening comprehension test showed that all children except one benefitted from the experience. The findings underline the importance of oral language development and the value of interactive teaching experiences to the attainment of sophisticated literacy skills.

Literacy skills include expressive language, oral and written, and receptive language, comprehension. This study explores both aspects of language in six Kindergarten children differing in early literacy development-three judged by teacher assessment to be 'at risk', and three acquiring Kindergarten literacy skills as expected. Oral retellings of a familiar narrative and an unfamiliar story just heard, and a personal recount were taped and analysed using Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar. Comprehension responses to individually shared narratives were also collected and analysed. The children's use of language and comprehension responses varied significantly. Those 'at risk' were unable to retell narratives, needed high levels of support to comprehend texts and produced less cohesive personal recounts. The linguistic analysis revealed vocabulary and rhetorical organisation affected the reconstruction of oral narratives. These children also seemed to find comprehending difficult when questions or recall involved following reference, negotiating marked Theme or drawing inferences. The study was designed as a series of one to one literacy experiences. A listening comprehension test showed that all children except one benefitted from the experience. The findings underline the importance of oral language development and the value of interactive teaching experiences to the attainment of sophisticated literacy skills.

The objective of the present work was to evaluate the individual quality of male European roe deer by statistical analysis of antler traits, craniometric characters, and age of hunter-harvested bucks. Those measurements enabled a reliable assessment of antler quality, changes in carcass weight with age and between hunting seasons, as well as phenotypic traits depending on habitat (percentage forest cover, geographic mesoregion). The work also aimed to assess the effectiveness of deer population management in the Cracow Region of the Polish Hunting Association and determine the potential of that population based on analysis of medal-quality roebucks harvested there over the past 10 years. The study involved data concerning roe deer in the 60 hunting districts comprising the Cracow Region for the 2008/2009-2017/2018 hunting seasons. The study material consisted of data concerning antlers from 8132 roebucks taken over that decade, such as the age of hunted roebucks, hunting district, hunt date, carcass weight, as well as the gross weight and form of antlers. A detailed evaluation of antler quality was conducted using records for 2874 individuals, including 284 medal-quality antlers, harvested in the 2014/2015-2016/2017 seasons. The trophies were evaluated in accordance with the criteria of the International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation (CIC) and were subjected to craniometric analysis. For a comprehensive examination of roe deer quality in the Cracow Region, the study analyzed gamekeeping data, that is, annual hunting plans of the Polish Hunting Association, for the period 2008/2009-2017/2018. Several gamekeeping indicators were calculated based on those data to evaluate the effects of roe deer management and gamekeeping practices. The studied antler traits (mean beam length, antler weight and volume, CIC scores) as well as carcass weight culminated in 6-year-old individuals. In turn cra-niometric traits (skull length and width) increased significantly until the 4th year of life, while the width of pedicles increased throughout the life of the individual. The development of antlers over time was characterized by a declining rate of growth for all the analyzed parameters. The highest growth rate (more than 100%) was found between the second and third years of life in terms of antler weight and volume, as well as front tine length. Antler quality in terms of overall CIC scores was to the greatest extent affected by weight and volume. The combined contribution of these factors increased with age, and ranged from 63.9% in the youngest individuals to 74.6% in the oldest ones. Within the study area, the individual quality of roe deer varied depending on the forest cover and mesoregion. Roebucks with the lowest carcass and antler weight occurred in hunting districts with a forest cover exceeding 40%, while the highest values of those parameters were found in districts with 5% forest cover or less. In open-land areas, the share of medal-quality roebucks in the total number of harvested males was higher, at approx. 5%, as compared to 1.29% in the woodlands. The carcass and antler weight of roebucks taken in the Cracow Region was higher than that of roebucks harvested in western Poland, similar to the Kielce Region, and lower than that for the Lublin and Krosno Regions, which is in keeping with Bergmann's ecogeographical rule. Analysis of carcass weight throughout the hunting season showed that the most pronounced rutting activity was observed for individuals 6 years of age and older, which lost as much as 6% of their weight. Over the ten-year period of study, the roebucks harvested using a uniform set of selection criteria revealed an increase in mean carcass weight as well as antler weight and form, which indicates appropriate management of the roe deer population in the examined hunting region.

Gender equality and information and communication technology are important in the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in policy, planning, and practice. The 2000 Millennium Declaration of the United Nations (UN) formed an international agreement among member states to work toward the reduction of poverty and its effects by 2015 through eight Millennium Development Goals: 1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger 2. Achieve universal primary education 3. Promote gender equality and the empowerment of women 4. Reduce child and maternal mortality 5. Improve maternal health care 6. Combat HIV and AIDS, malaria, and other major diseases 7. Ensure environmental sustainability 8. Develop global partnership for development Progress toward gender equality and the empowerment of women is one goal that is important to achieving the others. Poverty, hunger, illiteracy, environmental threats, HIV and AIDS, and other health threats disproportionately affect the lives of women and their dependent children. Gender-sensitive ICT applications to education, health care, and local economies have helped communities progress toward the MDGs. ICT applications facilitate rural health-care workers’ access to medical expertise through phones and the Internet. Teachers expand learning resources through the Internet and satellite services, providing a greater knowledge base for learners. Small entrepreneurs with ICT access and training move their local business into world markets. ICT diffusion into world communication systems has been pervasive. Even some of the poorest economies in Africa show the fastest cell-phone growth, though Internet access and landline numbers are still low (International Telecommunications Union [ITU], 2003b). ICT access or a lack of it impacts participation, voice, and decision making in local, regional, and international communities. ICTs impact the systems that move or inhibit MDG progress. UN secretary general Kofi Annan explained the role of the MDGs in global affairs: Millennium Development Goals are too important to fail. For the international political system, they are the fulcrum on which development policy is based. For the billion-plus people living in extreme poverty, they represent the means to a productive life. For everyone on Earth, they are a linchpin to the quest for a more secure and peaceful world. (UN, 2005, p. 28) Annan also stressed the critical need for partnerships to facilitate technology training to enable information exchange and analysis (UN, 2005). ICT facilitates sharing lessons of success and failure, and progress evaluation of work in all the MDG target areas. Targets and indicators measuring progress were selected for all the MDGs. Gender equality and women’s empowerment are critical to the achievement of each other goal. Inadequate access to the basic human needs of clean water, food, education, health services, and environmental sustainability and the support of global partnership impacts great numbers of women. Therefore, the targets and indicators for Goal 3 address females in education, employment, and political participation. Progress toward the Goal 3 target to eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015, will be measured by the following indicators. • Ratio of girls to boys in primary, secondary, and tertiary education • Ratio of literate females to males who are 15- to 24-year-olds • Share of women in wage employment in the nonagricultural sector • Proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments (World Bank, 2003) Education is positively related to improved maternal and infant health, economic empowerment, and political participation (United Nations Development Program [UNDP], 2004; World Bank, 2003). Education systems in developing countries are beginning to offer or seek ways to provide ICT training as a basic skill and knowledge base. Proactive policy for gender equality in ICT access has not always accompanied the unprecedented ICT growth trend. Many civil-society representatives to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) argue for ICT access to be considered a basic human right (Girard & Ó Soichrú, 2004; UN, 1948). ICT capability is considered a basic skill for education curriculum at tertiary, secondary, and even primary levels in developed regions. In developing regions, ICT access and capability are more limited but are still tightly woven into economic communication systems. ICTs minimize time and geography barriers. Two thirds of the world’s poor and illiterate are women (World Bank, 2003). Infant and maternal health are in chronic crisis for poor women. Where poverty is highest, HIV and AIDS are the largest and fastest growing health threat. Ninety-five percent of people living with HIV and AIDS are in developing countries, partly because of poor dissemination of information and medical treatment. Women are more vulnerable to infection than men. Culturally reinforced sexual practices have led to higher rates of HIV infection for women. Gender equality and the empowerment of women, starting with education, can help fight the spread of HIV, AIDS, and other major diseases. ICT can enhance health education through schools (World Bank). Some ICT developers, practitioners, and distributors have identified ways to incorporate gender inclusiveness into their policies and practice for problem-solving ICT applications toward each MDG target area. Yet ICT research, development, education, training, applications, and businesses remain male-dominated fields, with only the lesser skilled and salaried ICT labor force approaching gender equality. Successful integration of gender equality and ICT development policy has contributed to MDG progress through several projects in the developing regions. Notable examples are the South-African-based SchoolNet Africa and Bangladesh-based Grameen Bank Village Pay Phone. Both projects benefit from international public-private partnerships. These and similar models suggest the value and importance of linking gender equality and empowerment with global partnership for development, particularly in ICT. This article reports on developing efforts to coordinate the achievement of the MDGs with policy, plans, and practice for gender equality beyond the universal educational target, and with the expansion of ICT access and participation for women and men. The article examines the background and trends of MDG 3, to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women, with particular consideration of MDG 8, to develop global partnership for development, in ICT access and participation.