Lukion tuottamat jatkokoulutusvalmiudet korkeakoulutuksen näkökulmasta

National survey of reading comprehension in Finland

As a part of an extensive project for the evaluation of the Finnish comprehensive school, a recently developed reading comprehension measure; a hierarchy-rating test, and a more conventional multiple-choice task were used to assess reading comprehension skills in population-based samples of 2,891 sixth-graders (12‐13 years old) and 1,953 (15‐16 years old) ninth-graders. The hierarchy-rating task was constructed within the theoretical framework proposed by W. Kintsch and van Dijk (1978). It was designed to examine the cognitively high-level text processing, or macroprocessing, of expository passages. The multiple-choice task and the hierarchy-rating task showed only a moderate intercorrelati…

Early numeracy in low‐performing young children

The aim of this study was to explore the early numeracy of low‐performing young children. The mean age of the children was six years and four months. The 511 participants belonged to three groups: multi‐language children, children with special educational needs and children with average performance. The results showed that there were significant group differences in early numeracy: the children in the reference group had better relational and counting skills than those with a multi‐language background and those with special educational needs. Some differences were found in counting skills between the children with multi‐language background and those with special educational needs. Finally, …

Working memory resources in young children with mathematical difficulties.

Working memory (WM) (Baddeley, 1986, 1997) is argued to be one of the most important cognitive resources underlying mathematical competence (Geary, 2004). Research has established close links between WM deficits and mathematical difficulties. This study investigated the possible deficits in WM, language and fluid intelligence that seem to characterize 4- to 6-year-old children with poor early mathematical skills before formal mathematics education. Children with early mathematical difficulties showed poor performance in both verbal and visuospatial WM tasks as well as on language tests and a fluid intelligence test indicating a thoroughly lower cognitive base. Poor WM performance was not mo…