International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education  

Vol. 3, Issue 3, July, 2011. 
 

 

 
ISSN:1307-9298 

Copyright © IEJEE 

www.iejee.com  
  
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Reader, 

While we are looking forward to publishing the next special issue of 

International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education (IEJEE) which 

will be about reading comprehension by Prof. Karen M. Zabrucky of Georgia 

State University, USA, as the guest editor, we are pleased to present you 

Volume 3, Issue 3 of the journal.  

The first article is a cross-cultural study of Humour among Chinese 

and Greek Preschool Children in Relation to Cognitive Development. 

Researchers Juan GUO, XiangKui ZHANG, Yong WANG and Aphrodite 

XEROMERITOU address an intersting topic: Humour among preschool 

children. In their research they found that Chinese and Greek children’s 

humour recognition were significantly and positively correlated to their 

cognitive development, but there was a different correlation pattern 

between humour response levels and cognitive development. Chinese 

children’s level of humour responses was negatively and moderately 

correlated to their level of cognitive development in contrast to the positive 

correlation between these two variables among the Greek children. They 

conclude that cultural factors play a strong role in determining the 

correlation between humour response and cognitive development among 

young children.  

The second article is about another contemporary global topic in 

elementary education: The self-assessment processes in the elementary 

schools.  Canadian researchers Thomas G. RYAN and Leslie TELFER 

conducted a research review that includes an examination of the 

foundational components of effective schools, the purpose of school self-

assessment, and the successes and challenges of school self-assessment both 

locally and internationally. Ryan and Telfer present informative and 

research based perspectives and practical ideas about school self-assessment 

that the decision makers at any level of the educational system can make 

use of. 



 

International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education Vol.3, Issue 3, July, 2011 

 

vi 
 

 The third article is addressing assessment of bilingual children with 

inattention, overactivity and impulsivity. It’s a well known fact that ADHD 

is one of the widespread neurological disorders among children. Researchers 

Meral R. ÖZERK, Jan Arne HANDORFF and Kamil ÖZERK draw our 

attention to several critical aspects of the assessment practices and medical 

diagnosis of bilingual children with immigrant background based on a 

research project in Norwegian context. In their article, the authors present 

some solutions as an alternative to one-sided intelligence-test based 

approaches. They stress the importance of multidimensional, multisourced 

and bilingual assessment model for identifying the knowledge-related and 

language-related elements of the academic learning gap that these children 

usually experience prior to and during the assessment period.  

The fourth and the last article of this issue is about the effects of using 

flashcards with reading racetrack to teach letter sounds, sight words, and 

math facts to elementary students with learning disabilities. Those who 

work with or interested in reading and math teaching in elementary 

education know that there are several approaches to and arguments about 

how to ensure the development of these important skills among young 

students. At the same time it’s important to present research based ideas, 

programs and methods that can help elementary teachers to teach students 

with learning disabilities letter sounds, sight words and math facts. On the 

bases of their restricted research study, researchers Rachel ERBEY, T. F. 

MCLAUGHLIN, K. Mark DERBY and Mary EVERSON present informative 

pedagogical ideas from their practical study. With their words: “The study 

was practical. The racetrack was effective, and was easy to use in an 

elementary resource classroom. The flashcards and racetracks were simple to 

create, and were easy to use in two subject-matter areas. Reading/math 

racetracks were easy to implement and could be incorporated into the general 

and special education classroom routine.” 

I hope you, as a reader, will enjoy the content of this issue. I want to 

express my gratitude to my closest colleagues and executive editors Dr. 

Turan Temur of University of Dumlupinar and Dr. Gökhan Özsoy of 

Aksaray University for their editorial contributions. I also want to thank to 

all of the peer reviewers for this issue of IEJEE. 

 

  

Sincerely, 

Dr. Kamil Özerk, Editor-In-Chief 

Professor of Education 

University of Oslo