معصومه نجفی پازکی

Dependency Grammar, as one of the prominent linguistic theories in recent decades, examines the relationships among sentence elements, emphasizing their holistic and component-based connections. This theory defines the head and dependent relationship, wherein the verb serves as the head or governing element, dictating the number and types of complements required in a sentence (Herbest, 1988, p. 209). Dependency Grammar theory falls within the domain of structural and Formalist theories, focusing on the investigation of dependency relations among head elements and dependents within syntactic phrases, aiming to describe syntactic structures across diverse languages.Within the framework of Dependency Grammar, every sentence features a central verb. By considering its obligatory and optional complements, one can ascertain the fundamental structure of sentences in which the verb is employed. Tabibzadeh (2012), following Dependency Grammar theory and an analysis of verb valency structures, has identified twenty-four syntactic structures referred to as the basic structure for Persian sentences. These basic structures serve as foundational templates, enabling the generation, definition, combination, or conversion of sentences within a language. They provide the basis for producing all potential and existing sentences in that language. Due to the limited number of governing principles governing their expansion and combination, children can rapidly acquire the syntactic structure of a language.The extraction of these basic structures plays a pivotal and essential role in syntactic analysis. These structured and recurrent configurations constitute the building blocks for all syntactic structures in a language (Tabibzadeh, 1998). Despite ongoing efforts to extract syntactic structures in the Persian language, no prior research has focused on recognizing the syntactic features of children. Thus, this research is pioneering in its attention to the syntactic characteristics of sentences generated by children. The primary objective of this study is to examine the basic structure of sentences within written texts produced by children aged 10 to 12 years, employing the twenty-four basic structures of the Persian language (Tabibzadeh, 2012) within a dependency framework.

The purpose to do the present research is the identification of the type and the number of noun modifiers in Persian students’ texts (students (10-12) in grades four, five and six) in which the number 9 area of Tehran was selected in purposive sampling and also 6 schools were selected by cluster random sampling. Then, the corpus of texts written by students in grades four, five and six was collected in these schools. In total, 9 classes in grade 4, 10 and 9 ones in grade 5 and 6 respectively were involved in this research and there were 889 students. According to Morgan table, 300 texts were randomly selected in which 2203 noun phrases were analyzed according to Dependency Grammar. Based on the findings, students (10-12) have produced noun postmodifiers (6/62%) by far more than noun premodifiers (2/45%) which indicates that the production of postmodifiers is much easier for the students in these grades and they have produced the genitive modifiers in eighth position (4/03%), attributive adjectives in seventh position (1/39%), in particular, numeral and superlative adjectives in third position (1/22%) respectively more than other positions. While the index in the sixth position (0/01%) has had the lowest average percentage. Students in grade 6 have had the highest average (12/44%), showing the older the students become, the more complex noun phrases they produce. The findings of this research along with identifying the amount of  syntactic complexity of the children’s noun phrases shows the view of their language enhancement.

The aim of this research was to evaluate the content elements including textbook, audio book, educational cardboards and teacher's manual in the Quran curriculum of the junior primary school. The research population included students, teachers, classrooms and primary schools of the whole country, and due to the extent of the research population, the purposeful cluster sampling method was used. The research sample consisted of four provinces, 16 schools, 48 ​​classrooms, 353 teachers, 32 educational group leaders and 295 students. The research tools included a quantitative teacher survey questionnaire, a semi-structured teacher interview form, a structured student interview form, and a question form for teachers' focus groups, and to analyze the data, the triangulation model was used. Findings showed that the content of the Quran education is not aligned with some principles and intended objectives of Quran education. In fact, considering that the principles of the curriculum emphasize the attractiveness of the content, this issue has not been taken into account in the compilation of the junior primary school Quran textbooks, which resulted in the non-fulfillment of the objective of developing familiarity and interest in the Quran. The teachers in each of the first to third grades have given below-mean scores to different parts of the content (textbook, audio book, teacher's manual, educational cardboards). In fact, according to the teachers, the presented content is far from the optimal and needs a fundamental revision.

Among the objectives stated in the primary grades’ curriculum, recitation, and fluency in reading Quran loom large. To assess the extent to which these objectives have been achieved, a composite sample of 738 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders from four provinces with varying degrees of privilege and linguistic background was selected and tested. The instrument used was a performance test of acceptable validity and reliability. Data analysis shows a relatively acceptable performance with a modest improvement across grades (means of 11.87, 12.62, & 15.03) in recitation. However, the performances scores on fluency are all below ten (3.06, 5.15, & 9.96). In other words, all participants failed the test, indicating the curriculum’s failure in obtaining its objectives.

The present research deals with the identification of standard of the type and number of cohesion devices used in (10-12 years old) children’s texts. The database includes 400 (10-12 years old) texts written by children in Tehran, 60 stories by child writers, and 60 texts in the fourth, fifth, and sixth grade course books. According to the findings, four types of conjunctive devices (additive, adversative, causal and temporal) are appeared in the texts written by 10-12 year-old children and the ones written for them (i.e., stories by child writers and texts in the course books). Furthermore, the comparison between the usage of conjunctive devices in both types of texts (i.e., productive and perceptive) showed that the standard of the type and number of cohesion devices indicate a kind of growth sequence in which additive devices appeared at first, followed by temporal devices, causal devices appearing next, and finally adversative devices are used. This process shows accumulative sequence of semantic growth; as a result, perception of coordination concept, sequence of occurrences, cause and effect relation, and contrast relation must have taken place for children. This finding is in line with that of Bloom et al. (1980), Kamari (2016), Shapiro and Hudson (1991) and Guna and Ngadiman (2015).

The aim of this research was to determine the relationship between orthography of Persian textbooks and primary school students’ read-aloud skill. The study population consisted of the 1st to 3rd grade primary school students in Tehran in 2015-2016 academic year. In this research, four schools (two girls’ schools and two boys’ schools) were randomly selected from district nine. In each school, a read-aloud test was held in the first, second and third grades. Overall, in the four schools, 12 classes participated in the study and the sample amounted to 399 students. The research tool was the standard read-aloud test of Koromi Nouri (2009). When testing, the tester gave the reading text to the participants, measured the time with a stopwatch and registered the number of read-aloud errors. The error type was identified according to the diagnostic test of Shirazi et al. (2005). The data analysis showed that in Naskh and Tahriri orthographies, there was a difference between read-aloud scores of the primary school students. Students’ performed better in Naskh orthography. The results showed that students’ read-aloud skill in Naskh orthography was stable from first to third grades. Thus, Naskh is the unmarked orthography and is appropriate for teaching. In addition, the comparison of the results showed that read-aloud speed and accuracy was always better in Naskh orthography. Therefore, it was concluded that Naskh orthography is the most appropriate orthography for reading in the first to third grade primary school books.

Extended Abstract:Reading is the ability of decoding written symbols to speech sounds (Gough, 1972). The first system in word decoding is vision analysis system that has two main responsibilities: at first it must recognize what the written letter is and second, where the letter is in a word. Vision analysis process does the analysis in three levels: orthography characteristic level, letter level, word letter. In the orthography characteristic analysis, it is important that in a word like “سرخ” teeth are in the horizontal line or the dot is above of the last letter. In the letter level the reader recognizes that three letters with special characteristic are arranged one after the other. In addition, in the letter level, the reader must know that where the letter is in the word. In the word level, the reader would find out the word consists of three letters and each letter is in the certain place of the word (McClelland & Rumelhart, 1981).
Two kinds of orthography (Naskh & Tahriri) were used in the Persian books of the first to third grade students which differed in the function of vision analysis system. Naskh is a kind of orthography that its main characteristic is exact geometrical symmetry consideration, having equability and clarity, and easiness for reading and writing learning. In four-sixth of this orthography, ballpoint motion is plane and in two-sixth of it, ballpoint motion is circular. Tahriri is a kind of orthography that is educed from Nastalligh orthography. In five-sixth of this orthography ballpoint motion is circular and in one-sixth of it, ballpoint motion is plane.
The aim of this research is to determine the relationship between orthography of Persian textbooks (Naskh & Tahriri) and students reading skill in the first to third grade students. The sample consisted of the first to third grade students in Tehran in 94-95 academic year. In this research four schools (two girls’ schools and two boys’ schools) were randomly selected in region nine. In each school a reading test was held in the first, second and third grades. Totally 12 class of the four schools participated and the whole number of students were 399. The research tool was the reading standard test of Koromi Nouri (1388). When testing, tester gave a reading text to participants, measured the time by stopwatch and registered the number of reading errors. The error type was identified according to the diagnostic test of Shirrazi and Nillipour (1384).
The data analysis shows the difference between reading skill of the first to third grade students in Naskh and Tahriri orthography is meaningful (sig<0. 05) and it is better in Naskh orthography. The results show students reading skill in Naskh orthography is in a stable situation from first till third grade, so it is unmarked and appropriate for teaching. In addition the comparison of results shows students’ reading speed and accuracy is better in Naskh orthography continually, so appropriate orthography for reading in the first to third grade books is Naskh orthography

This study intends to identify and develop the listening and speaking skills of the Persian Language teaching standards for the First - term primary school students of Iran. It is a qualitative research and is conducted in two sections: primarily, the standards of language skills were extracted by studying the international curricula in other countries. Afterwards, the standards of Persian language teaching skills were developed by conducting a focus group. Further, the analyzed contents were a set of curricula provided in developed countries. Three documents were chosen: Language arts standards of Georgia department of education and The Washington State Early Learning and Development Guidelines: Birth through 3rd Grade from the United States and the curriculum for language arts and literacy from the United Kingdom. The results suggested that Listening and speaking skills in Persian Language Teaching can be divided into sub-skills such as Audio Processing, Grammar Awareness, Discourse and Literary Enjoyment according to the three components of structure, content and function introduced by Crystal (1987) and Lahi (1988). It is worthy of note that learning these sub-skills helps the students achieve communicative competence; in other words, according to Hymes (1972), Canale and Swain (1980), acquiring such skills means creating the grammatical, social and strategic competence

The aim of this research was the comparison of the effect of old Persian books (Bekhānim & Benevisim) and new Persian books (Khāndāri & Neveshtāri) on the improvement of productive language skills. The research method was causal-comparative and the sample consisted of 4th grade elementary school students in Tehran in 92-93 (language learned by Bekhānim & Benevisim) and 93-94 academic year (language learned by Khāndāri & Neveshtāri). When sampling, region 9 was selected purposefully; because of its vast area, consisted of three privileged, semi-privileged and unprivileged groups. A girl and a boy school was selected from each group by cluster sampling and from each school, one class was specified as research sample. Language skill evaluation tests were used as research tools. Finding showed that the students, learned by Khāndāri & Neveshtāri are better than the students, learned by Bekhānim & Benevisim in language productive skills. The explanation of the results showed that the clearness of schedule goals facilitate the goal achievement. In other words, clear educational programming on the basis of scientific models and learning step by step in a process-based program led in the improvement of students’ language skills.

The performance of Iranian students on the international reading tests (PIRLS) is indicative of a major problem in reading comprehension. From a constructivist perspective, there are strategies that can be learned and used in order to improve reading comprehension. To this end, a short course was designed and implemented experimentally. Pre-tests and post-tests on reading comprehension, consisting of the latest tests used in PIRLS 2011, were given to both the experimental and control groups, each consisting of 70 female students selected randomly from among all 9-10 year-old girls in two districts in Tehran. Data analyses show that the experimental group's strategies and comprehension improved significantly. Therefore, with the use of such courses a better performance of Iranian students in the international arena can be achieved.

Not knowing syntactic structures is one of the reasons behind weak reading comprehension. Poor readers may not be able to recognize syntactic structures and instead of processing the whole text, prefer word by word reading. Given the semantic and syntactic features of the relative clauses, the issue of syntactic awareness has been widely investigated by many researchers. The purpose of the current study is to investigate the relationship between the syntactic awareness and reading comprehension. In addition, an effort is made to develope an assessment tool for syntactic awareness. This study recruited a cumulative number of 160 male and female primary school grade four students (9-11 years old) through multi-stage cluster sampling, from three region of Tehran. The data collection instruments include reading literacy tests containing literary and informational texts (tests of PIRLS) to assess reading comprehension and researcher-made syntactic test to assess the syntactic awareness. Correlation and regression analyses were done to generate the descriptive report. Regression analyses revealed that the syntactic awareness potentially predicts reading comprehension. Syntactic awareness is one of the factors affecting reading comprehension. It is therefore necessary for educational planners to consider this variable as one of the determinants for students’ reading comprehension.