Mienke Droop

Radboud University | RU · Behavioural Science Institute

Differentiated instruction is a key indicator of effective teaching, but difficult to implement. Thus, educators have called for professional development (PD) programs on the topic. Based on 27 selected studies, this meta-analysis examined the overall effectiveness of PD programs in terms of teacher and student outcomes, and assessed theoretically...

Secondary school students are increasingly exposed to texts containing morphologically complex words. Morphological knowledge may help with understanding those words. Appropriate educational materials to teach morphological awareness (MA) are scarce. A design‐based approach was used to develop an MA‐intervention for Dutch secondary school students....

When learners acquire new words in a second language (L2), their lexical representations and links are initially imprecise. As new, similar words are learned, these representations must become more specific to avoid errors. This study investigated whether contrasting similar words triggers this sharpening process and facilitates learning. In a mult...

This study considers one of the cognitive mechanisms underlying the development of second language (L2) vocabulary in children: The differentiation and sharpening of lexical representations. We propose that sharpening is triggered by an implicit comparison of similar representations, a process we call contrasting. We investigate whether integrating...

This study investigated the role of lexical skills and executive functioning on L1 Dutch and L2 English phonological awareness in children enrolled in bilingual Dutch/English kindergarten in The Netherlands (n = 95) and monolingual Dutch kindergarten (n = 83). Participants had an average age of 5 years and 10 months and completed tasks on phonologi...

Cognitive neuroscience has gained significant insight into the mechanisms underlying the mental lexicon and their impact on second language vocabulary learning. However, relatively little effort has been put into understanding how these mechanisms may impact instructional practices. We attempt to bridge this gap. Towards that end, we first describe...

School leaders and teachers are two important agents within the school organisation to promote parental involvement. The aim of the study was to investigate how school leaders and teachers foster parents' involvement in their children's education. It was hypothesised that both transformational school leadership for the support of parental involveme...

Teachers are the key agents in the promotion of parental involvement in education. In this study, we examined the concept of transformational leadership for parental involvement (TLPI). The Transformational Leadership for Parental Involvement Questionnaire (TLPIQ) was developed to assess teachers’ perceptions of support from school leaders in invit...

Despite a growing body of research on parental involvement and its effects on students' academic achievement, our knowledge about the mechanism of parental involvement in non-Western contexts remains scarce. Our study addresses this gap by exploring the factors that motivate parents from different socioeconomic status and educational levels to be i...

Despite a growing body of research on parental involvement and its effects on students' academic achievement, our knowledge about the mechanism of parental involvement in non-Western contexts remains scarce. Our study addresses this gap by exploring the factors that motivate parents from different socioeconomic status and educational levels to be i...

The Indonesian government through the Ministry of Education has begun to emphasize the importance of parental involvement and community participation in children's education. However, there is a lack of research on parental involvement in Indonesia. The aim of the study is to provide insights into parental involvement in children's education in urb...

Previous studies have shown that instruction of reading strategies is an effective method for enhancing reading comprehension. However, many of the interventions in these studies focused on small groups of (poor) comprehenders and were provided by research assistants, making it time-consuming and relatively expensive. The authors implemented a stra...

In a longitudinal study, we investigated how cognitive precursors (short-term memory, working memory, and nonverbal reasoning) influence the developmental relation between lexical quality (decoding and vocabulary) and reading comprehension skill in 282 Dutch students in the intermediate elementary grades (mean age at start Grade 4 was 9; 7 years) a...

The mental lexicon plays a central role in reading comprehension (Perfetti & Stafura, 2014). It encompasses the number of lexical entries in spoken and written language (vocabulary breadth), the semantic quality of these entries (vocabulary depth), and the connection strength between lexical representations (semantic relatedness); as such, it serve...

We examined the developmental relations between knowledge of reading strategies and reading comprehension in a longitudinal study of 312 Dutch children from the beginning of fourth grade to the end of fifth grade. Measures for reading comprehension, reading strategies, reading fluency, vocabulary, and working memory were administered. A structural...

Benefits of being bilingual? The relationship between pupils’ perceptions of teachers’ appreciation of their home language and executive functioning We aimed to investigate whether bilingual pupils’ perceptions of their teachers’ appreciation of their Home Language (HL) were of influence on bilingual cognitive advantages. We examined whether Dutch...

Many recent studies have aimed to demonstrate that specific types of reading comprehension depend on different underlying cognitive abilities. In these studies, it is often implicitly assumed that reading comprehension is a multidimensional construct. The general aim of this study was to examine the dimensionality of a large pool of reading compreh...

The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of a program that offered sustained strategic reading instruction on reading abilities of third and fourth graders. The study was conducted among 1469 children from 40 schools in the Netherlands. Schools were randomly assigned to either the experimental or control group. Multilevel analyse...

Aims We aimed to investigate whether bilingual pupil’s perceptions of teachers’ appreciation of their home language were of influence on bilingual cognitive advantages. Design We examined whether Dutch bilingual primary school pupils who speak either German or Turkish at home differed in perceptions of their teacher’s appreciation of their HL, and...

In this article we briefly sketch the Dutch Association for Applied Linguistics, Anéla, by describing its partnerships, the field of applied linguistics in the Netherlands, and the main activities and publications of Anéla.

This study examined how linguistic and sociocultural diversity have an impact on the reading literacy outcomes of a representative sample of 3,549 first-language (L1) and 208 second-language (L2) fourth-grade students in the Netherlands. A multilevel modelling analysis was conducted using Progress in International Reading Literacy Study 2006 data t...

This study examined sociocultural and educational factors in explaining the reading literacy achievement of fourth-grade children (about 10 years of age) in the Netherlands during the past decade. Using 2001, 2006 and 2011 PIRLS data, a multilevel modeling analysis was conducted to examine levels and changes in reading literacy achievement over the...

Aim: In this study an attempt was made to give insight in the way reading comprehension is taught in Sierra Leone. Attention was paid to the didactical strategies and the materials used during reading comprehension instruction. Methodology: Primary school teachers in Sierra Leone (N=43) were observed while teaching reading comprehension. The teache...

PIRLS Hoe goed zijn onze groep 6 leerlingen in lezen in internationaal perspectief? Zijn de leesprestaties sinds 2001 er op voor- of achteruit gegaan? Waarin wijkt het Nederlandse leesonderwijs af van dat in andere landen? Deze en andere vragen over leesvaardigheid worden in dit rapport beantwoord. In het voorjaar van 2011 zijn namelijk wereldwijd...

In this study an attempt was made to construct a multi-factor model predicting the development of reading literacy in the upper grades of primary school in the Netherlands for subgroups of 729 first language (L1) learners and 93 second language (L2) learners. Following a longitudinal design, it was explored to what extent the variation in reading l...

The present study investigated the differences in learning gain when performing a WebQuest with a well-defined versus an ill-defined assignment. Twenty boys and twenty girls (mean age 11; 10), attending a special primary education school, performed two WebQuests. In each WebQuest, they performed either a well-defined or an ill-defined assignment. K...

Het expertisecentrum Nederlands en de Radboud universiteit ontwikkelen een digitale leeromgeving voor leerkrachten en pabostudenten op het gebied van wetenschap en techniekonderwijs in opdracht van het platform VTB (Verbreding Techniek Basisonderwijs). De leeromgeving biedt uitgewerkte lessenseries voor verschillende jaargroepen. De lessen bestaan...

In dit artikel beschrijven we een recent verschenen cd-rom ‘Taal & zaakvakken met webquests’ . Deze cd-rom is ontwikkeld voor leerkrachten en laat zien hoe taal en zaakvakken geïntegreerd kunnen worden en op welke manier webquests daarin verweven kunnen. In dit artikel beschrijven we de de cd-rom en gaan we in op de achtergronden.

Samenvatting In dit artikel worden de resultaten beschreven van twee experimentele studies naar de effec-ten van een interventieprogramma voor het stimuleren van beginnende geletterdheid in groep 2 van de basisschool. De eerste studie (N = 263) vond plaats gedurende 16 weken in de tweede helft van het schooljaar, de tweede studie (N = 442) gedurend...

ABSTRACTSThe purpose of the present study was to investigate the development of and interrelations between the language proficiencies and reading abilities of children learning to read in either a first language or a second language. The authors compared the reading-comprehension, word-decoding, and oral-language skills of both high and low SES Dut...

This article describes the basic principles of interactive language teaching, as currently developed by the National Centre for Language Education (Expertisecentrum Nederlands). Based on a social constructivist view on learning and development, we argue that language education in the primary grades should aim at social, authentic, and strategic lea...

In the present study, the role of cultural background knowledge on the reading comprehension of third graders acquiring literacy in Dutch as a first and second language is examined while the children read noncontrived texts from the reading curricula. Children were given three types of texts: texts referring to Dutch culture, texts referring to the...

The state of affairs concerning acquisition processes in reading in a second language (L2) is far from clear-cut. It is unclear what effect the linguistic and sociocultural characteristics of L2 learners have on the course of reading processes. From a linguistic point of view, two types of learning problems can be observed: interlingual and intra-l...

Based on a literature review, a means for integrating WebQuests in day-to-day school activities is introduced using principles of Anchored Instruction. Following these ideas in an effect study, including 109 children in 4th, 5th and 6th grade, significant learning gains were found, with a large effect size. Differences in learning gain were found b...