Digital Commons Network^™

Examining The Effects Of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's Read 180 Program On Reading Achievement And Self-Efficacy In Middle Schools, Amanda Michelle Cox

Education Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this study was to determine if improving reading achievement through Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s (HMH) READ 180 program impacted a student’s reading self-efficacy. Of the students participating in this study, particular attention was placed on the factors of gender, ethnicity, and the length of time students were exposed to HMH’s READ 180 program.

The setting for this research was three middle schools in upstate South Carolina. The schools sampled were from a combination of urban, suburban, and rural populations. The study’s methodology was quantitative and correlational.

When reviewing the results of the study, the research indicated that there …

The Effects Of Implementing Close Reading In A Third, Fourth, And Fifth Grade Public School Setting To Improve Student Achievement, Cory Valentine

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this ex-post facto, causal-comparative study is to determine the effects of close reading on student achievement. Close reading is a strategy developed through literary criticism and the influences of I. A. Richards and the New Critics. This study analyzes close reading to determine the most efficient practice to help students develop critical reading, thinking, and written communication skills. The researcher examined 2013 to 2015 New York State English Language Arts Exam data from 10 school districts located in the Broome-Tioga BOCES Region. For the study, 6,040 student exams in Grades 3, 4, and 5 were analyzed. Using …

Accessing Academe, Disabling The Curriculum: Institutional Locations Of Dis/Ability In Public Higher Education, Andrew J. Lucchesi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The field of Disability Studies has long committed itself to the project of making American colleges and universities more accessible places for disabled faculty, staff, and students. Indeed, many of the field of early ideological roots of the discipline of Disability Studies (DS) emerged from campus-based activist movements. This influence has impacted the ways DS scholars continue to frame their intellectual labor as a progressive public good. In recent years, composition/rhetoric scholars have begun applying DS approaches to questions of pedagogical and professional access as well. These critiques have drawn attention the ways teaching practice, administrative policy, and other aspects …

A Quantitative And Qualitative Investigation Of Content-Area Literacy Instruction Integrated Into Social Studies Content For Kindergarten - 4th Grade Students, Jennifer E. Lee

Master of Education Research Theses

The objective of this study was to research the impact of short term intensive instruction of content-area literacy strategies on students’ academic success, students’ reading attitudes, and teachers’ perceptions of literacy integration into content-area learning of social studies with Kindergarten through 4th grade students at a private, Christian school. The experimental group of students did not show any statistically significant improvement over the control group of students. However, there was a trend in the experimental Kindergarten and 1st grade groups in which their content-area knowledge post-test scores slightly increased (5% and 10% increase in post-test scores, respectively) with additional literacy …

The Story In The Standards: Creating Counter-Narratives In The Common Core State Standards, Jarret Alexander Smith

Dissertations

The research question guiding this study is: How might educators create counter-narratives, particularly related to the diversity of texts, experiences and knowledge bases represented in the CCSS? The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy on the engagement in literacy acquisition of African American students in middle and high school. The basic framework for this study is situated within and informed by Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP). The study focuses on creating counter-narratives for African American students in spite of the silence of the Common Core State Standards on cultural …

How Does Culturally Responsive Curriculum Impact African American Student’S Literacy Development In The Primary Grades?, Kaylan Louise Carlson

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The research question addressed in this capstone was: How does culturally responsive curriculum impact African American student’s literacy development in the primary grades? The work explores common classroom practice, culturally responsive teaching, multicultural education and the implications for a literacy curriculum that is culturally responsive. It documents an educator’s creation of a unit using the tenets of Understanding by Design (Wiggins & McTighe, 1998) and involving elements of culturally responsive teaching through multicultural education, in addition to resources and text sets. The lesson plans and resources were created for use in the primary level but may be altered for use …

Assessing The Impact Of Picture Books In Primary Grades Mathematics Instruction, Jessica Stone

Doctoral Dissertations

This study documents an educational field experiment evaluating the effects of picture books on primary students’ mathematical achievement and their dispositions towards mathematics. The study involved 136 primary grade students from one elementary school in the southeastern region of the United States. The student population had an overrepresentation of students from minority backgrounds (91%), low socioeconomic status (93%) and English Language Learners (47%). During the 18-week treatment period, teacher participants from the treatment group received bi-weekly collaborative professional development regarding the use of picture books in mathematics instruction. The teachers in the control group followed their district’s mathematics curriculum.

To …

The Reading Intervention Program Making Connections Intervention And Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program Scores In One East Tennessee School District, Jami H. Corwin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationship between the reading intervention program Making Connections Intervention (MCI) and pre-intervention and post- intervention Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) reading scaled scores in one East Tennessee school district. Participants included 99 Tennessee students in grade levels six through nine who received reading intervention instruction through MCI and were frequently monitored following the requirements stipulated in the Tennessee Response to Instruction and Intervention (RTI2) Framework. This study assessed pre- and post-intervention data specific to gender, special education classification, Title I classification, and instructor classification through a series of t-tests. Findings …

Ireach Blended Learning Model And Reading Lexile Growth Of Freshmen In Maryville City Schools, Whitney Ann Schmidt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Maryville City School system has implemented the first year of the iReach blended learning model for which all students in the school district have access to either a laptop or an iPad to support their learning every day. The availability of research on the impact of iReach is limited because the blended learning instructional model is relatively new and has not yet been subjected to numerous research studies. The purpose of this ex post facto quasi-experimental quantitative study was to compare student reading Lexile growth data collected through the use of the Reading Comprehension Assessment before and after iReach …

How Can Text-­Based Debates Increase Empathy In Upper Elementary Students, Melissa M. Ogden

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The research question addressed in this project was, how can text­based debates increase empathy in upper elementary students? It explores research around critical literacy, social­emotional learning, and debates with a specific focus on alternative perspectives and empathy development. The researcher combines research around different forms of debate, argumentation and collaborative reasoning, to create a text­based debate protocol. The action research studies the impact on students’ empathy development for characters found in read aloud texts through participation in weekly text­based debates and written reflections. Students debated two opposing perspectives regarding a character’s personality and wrote reflections in which they explained both …

Efficacy And Implementation Of Automated Essay Scoring Software In Instruction Of Literacies To High Level Ells, Aaron J. Alvero

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explored the integration of automated essay scoring (AES) software into the writing curriculum for high level ESOL students (levels 3, 4, and 5 on a 1-5 scale) at a high school in Miami, Fl. Issues for Haitian Creole speaking students were also explored. The Spanish and Haitian Creole speaking students were given the option to write notes, outlines, and planning sheets in their L1.

After using AES in the middle of the writing process as a revision assistant tool, 24 students responded to a Likert Scale questionnaire. The students responded positively to the AES based on the results …

A Study Of The Academic And Personal Impacts Of A Literacy Intervention Course: Stories From Stakeholders, Jeremy Ray Logsdon

Dissertations

This study aims to illuminate, via the qualitative method of portraiture, the academic and personal impacts of both faculty and student stakeholders of a literacy intervention course, offered as an alternative to the traditional developmental reading model, taught at a regional southeastern United States four-year public university. Students who enrolled in the course from the semesters of fall 2012 to fall 2015 were given the opportunity to complete a survey about their experiences with the literacy intervention course. Faculty stakeholders were interviewed for their perspective on course creation, implementation, and delivery, focusing on the six curricular core competencies of reading …

Enhancing Teacher Learning From Guided Video Analysis Of Literacy Instruction: An Interdisciplinary And Collaborative Approach, Carrie Eunyoung Hong, Irene Van Riper

Journal of Inquiry and Action in Education

The technological infrastructure for the use of instructional and professional videos is common in today’s educational venues. However, there has been a dearth of awareness and training to help teachers critically analyze and effectively utilize video recordings of authentic classroom instruction for their professional development. This self-study examined the teaching and learning process, particularly knowledge and lessons that we, as teacher educators, learned from commentary regarding video analysis and pre- and post- surveys completed by the candidates in a graduate level special education course. The investigation explored the extent to which the guided video analysis process facilitated the candidates’ learning …

The Impact Of Reading Fluency Instruction On Reading Fluency, Abdul Wright

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The research question addressed in this capstone was, how does reading fluency instruction impact reading fluency? The inspiration for this capstone sparked from the first year-end summative assessment that one teacher proctored, and the struggles those students faced on that assessment. Moreover, the author of this research study looks to examine the impact that reading fluency instruction has on students’ ability to read fluently. The majority of students at this charter school in Minneapolis are students who come from low income families. This study documents the impact that fluency instruction had on reading fluency and determines the following: 1) Reading …

Form And Function Focused Language Activities And Their Effects On Student Writing In A Spanish Immersion Classroom, Brian John Rice

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The research question addressed in this project was, how does implementing (Spanish) form and function focused language activities during independent reading time affect subject-verb agreement and opinion formation in third grade students’ writing? The study was grounded in the idea of cross-curricular transfer (Meyer & Schendel, 2014; Zwiers, 2006). Students utilized scaffolded form and function focused Spanish language frames in a peer-to-peer reciprocal teaching setting during reading, with the intent that the linguistic learning would transfer to students’ writing. Using Brown's (1973) Obligatory Occasion Analysis method as outlined by Ellis and Barkhuizen (2005) the researcher found substantial improvement in subject-verb …

Stories Of Single Mothers : Narrating The Sociomaterial Mechanisms Of Community Literacy., Kathryn Elizabeth Perry

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In light of the increasing significance of community activist scholarship in Rhetoric and Composition and given the overwhelming nature of institutional educational inequity, this dissertation takes a close look at specific literacy practices and the corresponding networks that shape these literacy practices at a community literacy organization. Based on interviews with participants and staff at a local nonprofit called Family Scholar House (FSH), this project paints a complex picture of each stakeholder’s perspective on successful literacy. First, I employ Actor-Network Theory (ANT) to analyze three specific literacy moments at FSH: an application for government assistance, a financial aid appeal letter, …

Facilitating Literacy Acquisition In At-Risk Second-Grade Students Using A Rhythmic Intervention: A Case Study, Deborah Jones-Gensel

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this intrinsic, holistic case study was to describe and analyze the impact of a rhythmic intervention designed to support literacy skills in second-grade students at-risk of failure of state mandated reading assessment. The theories used to guide this study were Finkelstein (2001) and Hunt’s (1966) disability theory, and critical realism posited by Bhaskar and Danemark (2006). Critical realism, as applied to disability theory, reflects a unique combination of needs a person with disability faces: socio-economic, physical, biological, psycho-social and emotional, psychological, cultural, and normative. Research suggested musical instruction could be used to teach literacy skills as a …

Media Literacy Curriculum For The Adolescent Young Adult Classroom, Leah Oliver

Honors Projects

The American public education system has been lagging behind other developed nations in its implementation of media literacy curricula throughout all grade levels. As mass media outlets (including television, film, magazines, advertisements, and video games) become more prevalent in our society, the accompanying job market and the everyday use of electronic media platforms require high school and college graduates to have at least a basic understanding of how media can be used to disseminate information and to buy and sell products. Moreover, research studies in the field suggest that exposure to popular culture mass media can greatly influence teens’ self-esteem, …

Creating The Capable Public: A Call For Liberal Arts Education In Public Schools, Olivia R. Keithley

Educational Studies Honors Papers

I argue that liberal arts education is critically important to the creation of a capable public in a democratic society. I draw on David Labaree and Henry Giroux to assert that education is a public good and must serve the purpose of promoting democratic equality. By promoting democratic equality, public education is capable of creating publicly minded citizens. Publicly minded citizens of a democracy must also be free-thinking. Liberal arts education has at its core the aim of creating individuals who are able to think freely and autonomously. In a democratic society where freethinking citizens are necessary in order to …

Literacy Across Disciplines: An Investigation Of Text Used In Content-Specific Classrooms, Pam Mcdonald

Honors Scholar Theses

This pilot study focused on literacy in secondary settings, where classes are content-specific and organized into varying levels. Teacher views on literacy instruction as well as the types of texts used across the disciplines and course levels were explored. The following research questions guided the study: 1) Do early high school teachers view their class’ reading tasks as more discipline- or content-focused? 2) Does the complexity of the texts assigned in early high school vary across the various course levels? 3) Does the complexity of the texts assigned in early high school vary across the disciplines? 4) Does the authenticity …

How Can Embedding Critical Literacy Practices Through The Use Of Text Sets Foster A Growth Mindset In A First Grade Classroom?, Rachel Ann Johnson

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The research question addressed in this capstone was, How can embedding critical literacy practices through the use of text sets foster a growth mindset in a first grade classroom? It documents one teacher’s creation of a text set with read aloud lessons to introduce first graders to critical literacy practices to address gender stereotypes and reinforce the importance of growth mindset development. The curriculum is grounded in research surrounding critical literacy, text sets, growth mindset, and backward design. The author describes the details of the curriculum and provides the lessons and resources used to introduce critical literacy and growth mindset …

How Does Young Adult Literature Foster Reading Growth In The Striving Secondary Reader?, Elizabeth Catherine Jensen

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The research question addressed in this curriculum development projects was, how does young adult literature foster reading growth in the striving secondary reader? The author researched issues surrounding current literacy intervention practices, motivation and engagement of secondary readers, and the issues surrounding striving secondary readers. The author focuses on the research of Gallagher, Ivey, and Guthrie as a basis for the curriculum developed. The curriculum project also focuses on the use of Young Adult Literature as a means of intervention for striving secondary readers. The author created an annotated text set of Young Adult Literature that focuses on texts from …

Researching And Reshaping Literacy Learning: Three Urban K-6 Teachers’ Ongoing Transformations Through Everyday Action Research, Kristin N. Rainville, Grace Enriquez

Education Faculty Publications

Given the vast range of diversity among children’s backgrounds and needs, literacy educators must consider multiple ways in which children learn and interact with texts. Moreover, policies that increasingly require frequent assessments of children’s literacy achievement place pressure on educators to find immediate ways to impact children’s learning. This qualitative inquiry explores three graduate students’ yearlong engagement in literacy-related action research within ethnically and socioeconomically diverse, urban K-6 classrooms. Grounded in a social practice perspective on literacy and a sociocultural perspective on literacy learning, we examined participants’ constructions of action research as they developed research questions, entered various research sites, …

The Effect Of A District-Wide Literacy Initiative On English/ Language Arts Standardized Test Scores, Sheri R. Robken

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of a District-Wide Literacy initiative that implemented the 18 literacy strategies and Silent Sustained Reading activities incorporated in the 2008 Revised Louisiana Comprehensive Curriculum on English/Language Arts standardized test scores. Standardized test scores were obtained for seventh and eighth grade students from a control group (n=204, 2006-2008 tests administrations) and an experimental group (n=185, 2008-2010 test administrations). An Analysis of Variance was used to determine significance (p

Creating A Lifeline Back To Books For Adolescent Boys Through Multimedia Enhanced Read-Alouds, Jana Wilkening Mcnally

Dissertations

Due to a growing concern regarding the reading motivation levels of adolescent males, educators have been encouraged to broaden their definition of literacy beyond the traditional fiction novel. This study sought to target the reading motivation levels of unmotivated adolescent boys through the use of a multimedia-enhanced read aloud (MERA). Research questions included: (a) How does the implementation of the MERA impact the reading motivation of adolescent male students? (b) How does the implementation of the MERA impact the reading motivation of unmotivated adolescent male students? (c) How does the implementation of the MERA impact the reading motivation of adolescent …

Information And Communication Technology (Ict) Literacy: Refining A Construct For Assessment, Louis Michael Verdusco

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This research effort conceptualized, developed, implemented, and examined the psychometric properties of an Information & Communication Technology (ICT) literacy assessment instrument designed for students entering college. This process began with the development of a working definition of the ICT literacy based on the literature and the input of a panel of experts regarding the proposed literacy sub-constructs and the individual test items. A pilot test was conducted to identify areas for improvement. Once these improvements were incorporated, the final assessment instrument was administered to the freshmen class at a private Midwestern comprehensive university with religious affiliation.

The psychometric aspects of …

Reframing Venerable Standpoints About Language And Learning Differences: The Need For Research On The Literate Lives Of Latina/O Language Minority Students, Taucia González, Alfredo J. Artiles

Journal of Multilingual Education Research

Despite the empirical attention that has been devoted to Latinas/os, language minority (LM) students, and students with learning disabilities (LD) as three separate subgroups, limited attention has been given to Latina/o students that fall into both LM and LD student categories. The literacy experiences of students living at the intersection of ethnic, language, and ability differences have been under-examined. This article calls for new insights into the literate lives of Latina/o LMs with LD, and posits that reframing cognitive models of literacy, sociocultural approaches, and resource pedagogies can offer a more comprehensive view of literacy and population complexity.

Technical Problem Based E-Language Instruction For Vocational Students, Eleni Papantoniou, Thanasis Hadzilacos

Eleni Papantoniou

We discuss an intervention in mother language instruction in a Greek Vocational Lyceum combining Web 2.0 tools with electronic writing pedagogy. During a full school year (2012-13), forty six 11th grade students with typically low literacy skills participated, randomly separated in control and experimental group. The latter systematically dealt with Technical Problem Solving and completed online (Edmodo) increasingly complex writing tasks. Encouraged to reflect on and solve technical problems, they activated language skills for communicating their solutions through the synthesis of technical text-genres. Meanwhile the control group followed the conventional teaching method using the usual literary texts. Pre and post-test …

Literacy Choice In A First Grade Classroom, Lisa Marie Maletta

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to observe and note student performance on choice literacy activities. Students were given choice pertaining to writing assignments and publishing preferences as well as guided reading material. Students completed an interest inventory at the start of the research to better understand the types of literacy activities that may interest them. The students were allowed to exercise choice in their literacy activities when choosing a guided reading book from appropriately leveled choices and choosing their writing topic as well as publishing option such as a big book, a little book, or a step book. Student …

Examining Student Writing Proficiencies Across Genres: Results Of An Intervention Study, Hannah M. Dostal, Kimberly A. Wolbers

Theory and Practice in Teacher Education Publications and Other Works

This study examines the patterns of growth across both taught and untaught genres of writing for deaf and hard of hearing students in grades 4-6. 23 students were exposed to Strategic and Interactive Writing Instruction (SIWI) for five weeks, during which time they received guided, interactive instruction focused on how writers address particular purposes and audiences with their writing. By examining student writing samples before and after both regular writing instruction and SIWI using genre-specific rubrics, we investigated whether students transfer and generalize writing strategies and processes learned in one genre to writing in a genre for which they did …