In this longitudinal study, we established the effect of additional activities used by professionals in two preschool groups to systematically achieve goals related to early literacy within the framework of preschool curriculum on children's achievements in several aspects of early literacy. Children's early literacy was also analysed in relation to parental education, children's age at entry into preschool and several factors of family literacy. The study included 46 children aged 5.1 to 6 years. Using the selected instruments, various aspects of children's early literacy - their graphomotor skills, storytelling and metalinguistic awareness - were analysed twice within a three-month period and assessed by the preschool teachers. The obtained results showed that, between the first and second assessment, children from both preschool groups significantly progressed in all areas of early literacy. Factors related to family literacy were not significantly related to children's early literacy, nor was children's age at entry into preschool. However, the children of parents with a lower level of education, who attended preschool for a longer period of time, narrated developmentally more complex stories compared to children who entered preschool at a higher age, indicating the compensatory role of preschool.
COBISS.SI-ID: 66564962
The aim of study was to determine whether summarizing skills could be developed in 4th grade primary school students. We designed a 5-month intervention programme as an experimental study, in which teachers trained students in the experimental group in their ability to summarize, which is one of the important strategies that enhance reading comprehension. 190 students in 4th grade from 8 primary schools in Slovenia participated in the study. We evaluated students' general reading competency, their metacognitive knowledge about reading and their ability to make summaries of two short and one longer expository text (pretest, posttest and follow-up test). The general reading competency explained the most variance in summarizing at pretest and posttest by experimental and control group of students. In the follow-up test, the summarizing from posttest was the strongest predictor in both groups and in the experimental group also the metacognitive knowledge about reading. The results showed that teachers can develop summarizing skills in students by systematically training them to use these skills, but the training effects decrease if the learning environment does not encourage students to use these skills.
COBISS.SI-ID: 67477858
The article presents the partial results of research on the development of two reading strategies among fourth-grade primary school students: identifying the main ideas and summarising non-fiction texts. The results reveal that most fourth-grade students fail to master, or poorly master, these two strategies: 45% of the students surveyed found less than a third of the main ideas of the texts, 20% did not know how to summarise a text, and 65% made an incomplete summary. This indicates a need to systematically develop these abilities not only in Slovenian language, but in other subjects as well. The research also demonstrates which reading characteristics of students at this stage significantly predict the mastering of these two strategies.
COBISS.SI-ID: 66829410
After delineating the results of Slovenian students in the international PISA survey, the article presents a case study of the excellent reading literacy achievements of Estonian students. The Estonian education system takes into consideration other successful education systems: it emphasises a culture of work and high achievements, active teaching and learning methods, the responsibility of all stakeholders (especially teachers), and international benchmarking. In the final part of the article, several recommendations are proposed for Slovenia: it should strengthen school discipline and the authority of the teacher as a reading model, advocating high expectations, equity and quality based on accountability and responsibility (internal and external evaluation related to external assessment); there should also be more pronounced individualisation and differentiation of teaching (especially with more attention devoted to the gifted) and the development of ambitious reading strategies within all subjects, interlaced with diverse reading motivation factors.
COBISS.SI-ID: 11498825