Middle ear disease in infancy had a significant adverse effect on reading comprehension as late as 9 years of age, even among children whose acute episodes were effectively treated.

This paper contributes to the pedagogical discussion on how to promote critical thinking among adolescents in modern media environments. It argues that teachers play an essential role in guiding students' assessment of and decision between credible information sources.The study was carried out among eighth-grade health education teachers and students in a secondary school in Finland. Nexus analysis was used as a theoretical lens with which to analyze lesson observation data and teacher interviews. The findings indicate that teachers moved fluently between the informational authority roles of a cognitive authority and a trustee. Moments of perplexity in which teachers were not able to act in these informational authority roles created tension in the classroom; however, they also promoted diversified learning.

In 2004 the Finnish National Board of Education launched a new curriculum framework that includes principles, instructional aims, and a brief list of content by subject areas. The intent of this framework is that teachers should interpret the core curriculum at the local level and apply it in their own schools and classrooms. This approach encourages teachers to use their professional knowledge and take into account their students and the learning environment in applying and implementing the curriculum. This case study sought to understand how this core curriculum has been implemented by way of observations of language and literacy lessons in 8 grade 1 and grade 2 classrooms during a 2-month period. The observations and the analysis were guided by earlier research conducted in classroom identified as 'excellent' in the US. The resulting data, in turn, were compared with the core curriculum. The findings show that, although some of the principles and the content of the core curriculum were reflected in practice, there were inconsistencies between the instructional methods used in the classrooms and the principles set in the core curriculum. Although some areas of the core curriculum were well represented in classroom language and literacy practices, others were covered only in part or not at all during the observation period.

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This chapter reports on a study conducted in seven countries in which young children's (aged under 8) digital practices in the home were examined. The study explored family practices with regard to access to and use of technologies, tracing the ways in which families managed risks and opportunities. Seventy families participated in the study and interviews were undertaken with both parents and children, separately and together, in order to address the research aims. This chapter focuses on the data relating to parental mediation of young children's digital practices. Findings indicate that parents used a narrow range of strategies in comparison to parents of older children, primarily because they considered their children too young to be at risk when using technologies. However, children's own reports suggested that some were able to access online sites independently from a young age and would have benefitted from more support and intervention. The implications of the study for future research and practice are considered.