Development of a vocabulary screener for young children speaking multiple languages
by Dr Claudine Bowyer-Crane, Dept of Education, University of York
The number of children in UK primary schools learning English as an additional language is growing. A consistent achievement gap is found in national assessments of language and literacy between children learning EAL and their monolingual peers at the early stages of schooling. Support for these pupils is vital. However, in order to provide the right support it is important to identify those children who have a language impairment from those who may simply need more exposure to English. This paper will highlight some of the issues around the assessment children learning English as an Additional Language with a particular focus on vocabulary. Drawing on recent research, the paper will discuss the importance of assessing children in both their first and second languages and the challenge this poses for practitioners. The paper will demonstrate a newly developed task for assessing receptive vocabulary in a child’s home language which is designed to be used by practitioners and researchers working with children learning EAL.
Reading Interdisciplinary Research Network for the Study of Political History & Politics in America
This is a one day conference to mark the launch of the new reading Interdisciplinary research network – The Monroe Group for the study of politics in the Americas.
The Monroe Group, is designed to encourage dialogue between scholars in the arts, humanities, social sciences and sciences working on all aspects of politics in the American continent. It has been developed in response to recent expansion of staff and student recruitment working in the field of US and Latin American politics at the University of Reading.
The Monroe Group will be home to existing UoR researchers and PhD students working in this area and will facilitate new collaborative projects, research grants applications and teaching development across all disciplines, including
- US foreign policy
- Climate Change Diplomacy
- Gender, Diversity and Inclusion
- Representations, Rhetoric and Media
- Policy
Book your place here.
THE INAUGURAL WOLFENDEN LECTURE
LGBT equality: past, present and future
Thursday 4 May – 7.00pm | doors at 6.30pm
Van Emden Theatre, Edith Morley
We are delighted to welcome guest speaker Ruth Hunt, Chief Executive, Stonewall to the University of Reading to deliver our inaugural Wolfenden Lecture. Ruth will be discussing ‘LGBT Equality: Past, Present and Future’.
Ruth Hunt is the Chief Executive of Stonewall. In 2015, Ruth was voted the third most influential LGBT person in Britain in the Independent’s Rainbow List. She continues to be an inspirational figure today.
This special event is named in honour of the report written by The Wolfenden Committee, which was chaired by Lord Wolfenden in 1957, the University’s Vice‑Chancellor between 1950 and 1964. The report became a key milestone in LGBT history in the UK when it recommended that, ‘… homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private should no longer be a criminal offence.’
On the 60th Anniversary of The Report of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution (better known as the Wolfenden Report), we are pleased to celebrate this extraordinary part of our heritage with this special event to reflect on progress, and inspire future generations of the LGBT+ community and their allies to achieve great things.
Admission free. Booking essential. Please click here to register.
We look forward to welcoming you at what promises to be an interesting event.
The School of Politics, Economics and International Relations would like to invite you to the launch of
Under the Shadow
A 54 minute documentary by Fiona Lloyd-Davies
Followed by a discussion panel with:
- Fiona Lloyd-Davies
- Vava Tampa, Congolese political youth activist
- Sarah Blakemore, Director of Keeping Children Safe
- Chaired by Dr Georgina Holmes, University of Reading
One woman leads Congo’s rape survivors to find healing, independence and justice through working together in the field. But can these women escape the shadow cast by this threat of sexual violence and will the spectre of justice bring hope and resolution? We hear extraordinary confessions from soldiers who have raped women and then witness inside the court room as others are tried for this crime, the ultimate weapon of war. This immersive, observational film was made over four years, taking the viewer inside a woman’s ultimate nightmare, to show how the human spirit is impossible to defeat.
