Although scholars have long advocated the use of informational texts in the primary grades, gaps and inconsistencies in research have produced conflicting reports on how teachers used these texts in the primary curriculum, and how primary students dealt with them during instruction and on their own (e.g., Saul & Dieckman, 2005). Thus, to add to research on informational texts in the primary grades, the purpose of this study was to examine: (a) a first-grade teacher's use of science informational trade books (SITBs) in her classroom, (b) the ways students responded to her instruction, and (c) how students interacted with these texts. My study was guided by a sociocultural perspective (e.g., Bakhtin, 1981; Vygotsky, 1978), providing me a lens to examine participants during naturally occurring social practices in the classroom, mediated by language and other symbolic tools. Data were collected by means of 28 observations, 6 semi-structured interviews, 21 unstructured interviews, and 26 documents over the course of 10 weeks. Three themes generated from the data to provide insight into the teacher's and students' practices and interactions with SITBs. First, the first-grade teacher used SITBs as teaching tools during guided conversations around the text to scaffold students' understanding of specialized vocabulary, science concepts, and text features. Her instruction with SITBs included shared reading lessons, interactive read-alouds and learning activities during two literacy/science units. However, there was limited use of SITBs during the rest of her reading program, in which she demonstrated a preference for narrative. Second, students responded to instruction by participating in guided conversations around the text, in which they used prior knowledge, shared ideas, and visual representations (e.g., illustrations, diagrams, labels, and captions) to actively make meaning of the text. Third, students interacted with SITBs on their own to make sense of science, in which they demonstrated their interest in reading the texts, formed connections to science, used reading strategies, and adjusted to the text type and variations of text complexity. The findings indicate the teacher's practices with SITBs were supportive of literacy and science learning for students at various levels of reading development. However, her inexperience with informational books and her preference for narrative demonstrates a need for training to assist her in providing guided and individualized reading instruction with SITBs, as well as provide students with full access to these texts in the classroom. Further, the teacher's overgeneralizations for science during instruction with SITBs indicates the need for training to strengthen her knowledge of science that would better prepare her to convey information and critically read information presented in these texts. Finally, the students' engagement with SITBs and their use of strategies to make sense of these texts on their own, indicates the first graders were motivated and capable readers of informational books.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the teachers’ described experiences of advantages as well as disadvantages of Arne Trageton’s write to read-method (“ASL”) in contrast to the code-oriented traditional way of teaching. The aim of this study is furthermore to depict the teachers’ opinions on whether they experience that the ASL-method is unfavourable for students in general. This study will also investigate the teachers’ standpoint regarding choice of reading and writing method. The following questions form the basis of this study: Which advantages or disadvantages do the teachers experience with the ASL-method relative to using the code-oriented traditional way of teaching? Do the teachers experience that the ASL-method is unfavourable for some students? Do the teachers only use the ASL-method or do they combine many different reading and writing methods in their teaching? How do the teachers explain their decision in that matter? This study is based on a qualitative method and interviews were performed to acquire knowledge of the teachers’ experiences. The major theoretical approaches of this study are Arne Trageton’s, the founder of the ASL-method, theories concerning the ASL-method and the socio-cultural perspective on learning. The result of the study demonstrates that the ASL-method is described as advantageous because the students’ interests, creativity, motivation and self-confidence increased when using the ASL-method, in contrast to using the traditional way of teaching. The ASL-method was also described as easier to individualize in comparison with the traditional letter-based teaching. The disadvantage with the ASL-method, in contrast to using the traditional teaching, was mainly the fact that the computers and tablets sometimes did not work properly. Overall the ASL-method was described as a good method because all students could participate in the teaching despite their capacity. Speech technology and word editing programs on the tablets were described as descent support for students with slower motor development, difficulties in reading or writing and second language students. Even though the ASL-method was considered a superior method, the method was not described to be sufficient by itself.

The purpose of my examination is contributing with knowledge about the relation between language- stimulation in preschool and read- and writes developing and teachers thought about that. In order to meet the purpose I read literature that deals with my matter and is based previous research. I also made qualitative interviews with three elementary school teachers and three preschool teachers who work within preschools that concentrate on development of language in a town in the middle of Sweden.  In this way I find out about their thoughts about what they think is important to work with about language in preschool and how the preschool teachers can work with the development of language to make it easier for the children in their read- and writes developing. The result shows that it is important to work with children’s development of language in preschool. Children need some part of language awareness when they start at the public school. The result also shows that it is not just one way that’s good for training children’s language development. You need to work with de language in many different ways with the children so that they can learn about all the parts of the language.  I can not see any big difference between the teachers that I interviewed concerning their thoughts in my result. / Syftet med mitt examensarbete är att bidra med kunskap om relationen mellan språkstimulering i förskolan och läs- och skrivutveckling och lärares tankar kring det. För att uppfylla mitt syfte har jag läst litteratur och tidigare forskning som behandlar mitt ämne. Jag har även genomfört kvalitativa intervjuer med tre grundskollärare och tre förskollärare på förskolor med språkinriktning i en stad i Mellansverige. Jag tog på så sätt reda på deras tankar kring vad som är viktigt att arbeta med språkmässigt i förskolan och hur förskolan kan arbeta med barns språkutveckling för att underlätta barnens läs- och skrivinlärning. Resultatet visar att det är viktigt att arbeta med barnens språkutveckling i förskolan. Barnen behöver en viss språklig medvetenhet när de senare börjar grundskolan. Resultatet visar även att det inte bara finns ett sätt som är bra att arbeta på för att språkstimulera barnen utan att man behöver arbeta med språket på flera olika sätt för att barnet ska lära språkets alla delar. Jag ser ingen större skillnad mellan förskollärarnas och grundskollärarnas tankar i mitt resultat.

The genetic structure of an intra-host viral population has an effect on many clinically important phenotypic traits such as escape from vaccine induced immunity, virulence, and response to antiviral therapies. Next-generation sequencing provides read-coverage sufficient for genomic reconstruction of a heterogeneous, yet highly similar, viral population; and more specifically, for the detection of rare variants. Admittedly, while depth is less of an issue for modern sequencers, the short length of generated reads complicates viral population assembly. This task is worsened by the presence of both random and systematic sequencing errors in huge amounts of data. In this dissertation I present completed work for reconstructing a viral population given next-generation sequencing data. Several algorithms are described for solving this problem under the error-free amplicon (or sliding-window) model. In order for these methods to handle actual real-world data, an error-correction method is proposed. A formal derivation of its likelihood model along with optimization steps for an EM algorithm are presented. Although these methods perform well, they cannot take into account paired-end sequencing data. In order to address this, a new method is detailed that works under the error-free paired-end case along with maximum a-posteriori estimation of the model parameters.

The purpose with this study has been to get a previous knowledge about how pre-school teachers look at the impact of the picture book for children and their language development and participation at the age of three to five years. The study was carried through inquiries at a pre-school in a west Swedish urban district. The study proceed from the sociocultural theory which means that children learn by teamwork with other more experienced individuals. The result shows that the pre-school teachers consciously let the interest of the children guide the choice of books. At the same time they push for the meaning of conversation with the children. The pre-school teachers prefers to work with a smaller group in picture book readings to stimulate language weak children and make them participant more. The children can look for and count things in the pictures, and the adults got a bigger focus on the talking child. Picture books are also meaningful in a theme at the pre-school. In the literature language is power and the children dare to take place, and that makes them participate in the pedagogical activity which takes place at the pre-school.

Thesis (Ph.D.(Curriculum studies))--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis--Auburn University, 2006. / Abstract. Includes bibliographic references (p.78-80).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1972. / Vita. Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Studenternas kan eftersom de tror att de kan. - En studie om sambandet mellan 50 barns självförtroende och resultat i läsning. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka sambandet mellan 50 barns självförtroende och prestationer i läsning med fokus på följande frågor: • Finns det något samband mellan de 50 elevernas självförtroende och deras prestationer i LUS? • Vilka slutsatser kan dras av jämförelsen mellan flickors och pojkars resultat i LUS och deras självförtroende? Undersökningen är baserad på 50 barns svar på enkäter om självförtroende och deras läs- och utvecklingsscheman. Den teoretiska ram bygger på de centrala föreställningar om självförtroende, prestationer och läsning, särskilt Taube (2007), McClelland, Abrahamsson & Andersen (2005), Liberg (2006) och Bråten (2008).   Undersökningen visar bland annat att det finns ett samband mellan elevens självkänsla och deras prestanda i LUS. Korrelationen är högre för pojkar än för flickor i denna undersökning. / The aim of this study is to investigate the correlation between 50 children’s self-confidence and achievements in reading with a focus on following questions:  Is there any connection between the 50 students' self-esteem and their performance in LUS? What conclusions can be drawn from the comparison between girls' and boys' results in LUS and their confidence? The investigation is based on the answers on surveys of 50 children and their reading and development schedules (in Swedish they are called läsutvecklingsscheman). The theoretical frame is founded on the central notions about self-confidence, achievements and reading, particularly Taube (2007), McClelland (Abrahamsson & Andersen 2005), Liberg (2006) and Bråten (2008). The investigation shows, among other things, that there is a correlation between the student’s self-esteem and their performance in the LUS. The correlation is higher for boys than for girls in this investigation.

This thesis focuses on literacy in children aged 11-12. The overriding purpose is to describe the specific competencies that children employ in their daily use of writing. What do they do with writing and how do they do it? The theoretical framework is primarily the strand of literacy research that belongs to the field of New Literacy Studies, where literacy is understood as socially and contextually related. The study also draws on ethnomethodology in the sense that the object of study is the daily actions through which we construct our lives and negotiate identities. Two children, a boy and a girl, with different socio-economic backgrounds and family situations were observed at home, in school and during freetime activities for more than a year through an ethnographic research approach. The thesis identifies the different competencies that the children activate. In one case competencies involving oral skills are primarily used as resources in problem solving, while writing and reading are used to solve similar problems as a matter of course in the other case. The thesis also shows that a common use of writing is to regulate and organise everyday and special activities such as planning Christmas gifts and to write reminders that school tasks need to be completed andreported. In terms of materiality, writing is available in more or less conventionalised formats. Common formats for everyday written products are sheets of paper in different sizes (A4 to post-it notes), or digital screens (computer, TV, mobile phone). The school whiteboard has a special materiality and is the material source of a great many of the everydaywritten products.