Boys Flying High in Early Literacy at Camp Hill Infants State School
In contrast with concerns elsewhere that many boys in the earliest of school experiences lose their way with literacy, those at one school in Queensland, Australia, have consistently performed well. In comparison with Statewide average scores on tests (The Year 2 Diagnostic Net), designed to identify those children with need for additional attention in their early reading, writing or numeracy, boys of Camp Hill State Infants School have been outstanding. In this presentation, educators from the school and a critical friend speak to the phenomenon of gender-different achievement in early phase education, and to their beliefs about what is happening in their school.
Researching Caped Crusaders: The Boys Flying High Project in Early Literacy at Camp Hill
Boys at Camp Hill Infants State School have not yet learned to fail. Their superior performances in reading, writing and numeracy on The Year 2 Diagnostic Net in relation to State averages for Year 2 children generally, and for other boys particularly, are indicative of a sturdy resistance to factors seemingly inflicting their peers across the State and nationally. Newspapers, TV and radio, sensitive to public interest in the phenomenon, have interviewed the school's children, teachers, principal and university associates, all of whom speak positively about this result and the learning environment in which the boys have done so well. In this presentation, the principal, a critical friend and his critical colleague consider recent research of the management practices used at the school, pedagogical adaptations made to better suit boys, how Camp Hill SIS's boys appear to become engaged in the education process, and how school and home sustain boys' interest in learning.
The sound patterns of English nicknames
Abstract The English lexicon has been found to reflect certain recognizable phonological preferences in relation to consonants, vowels, stress patterns and syllabic structure, and these trends have been reflected in sharper terms in analyses of particular subsets of vocabulary: phonaesthetic words (Crystal, 1995, English Today 42 (11/2), 8–12) and first names (Cutler et al. , 1994, Journal of Linguistics 26 , 471–482). Because nicknames are relatively impermanent informal names which allow users considerable linguistic licence in breaking the rules, this study analyses the phonological patterns of English nicknames in order to test the validity of the claims which have been made about English phonological preferences in general and specifically in names and favoured words. The study focuses specifically on nicknames reportedly used with positive social intent, in order to test whether positive nicknames follow more closely the phonological trends in phonaesthetic English words. The study reveals clear evidence of particular consonantal and vocalic preferences in nicknames as well as trends in terms of stress and syllabic structure, which can be argued to be linked to either the social intent of the nickname user or the gender of the bearer, which suggests evidence of some sound-symbolism at work in English nicknames.