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Full-Text Articles in Education

The Role Of Discourse And Its Effects On Reading Comprehension In The Ela Classroom, Laurie Coville Apr 2018

The Role Of Discourse And Its Effects On Reading Comprehension In The Ela Classroom, Laurie Coville

Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS) in Literacy

Researchers have consistently found a link between quality classroom discourse and the increase in student reading comprehension. Classroom discussions help students make sense of fiction and nonfiction texts while deepening their understanding. Incorporating the principles of Vygotsky’s social constructivism as the theoretical framework, the aim of this study was to examine the relationship between the use of accountable talk sentence stems and the quality of discussion using the fishbowl discussion strategy as a means of increasing student comprehension of a text. Observation of the effects of student discourse of 18 students over the duration of six weeks yielded measurable differences …


Engaging The Disengaged: Using Every Trick In The Book, Brooke Prusaczyk Apr 2018

Engaging The Disengaged: Using Every Trick In The Book, Brooke Prusaczyk

Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS) in Literacy

Researchers have affirmed a connection between students’ engagement in reading to their academic achievement. Struggling readers in particular are generally not engaged or motivated to read. While the construct of reading engagement is difficult to measure, a student’s motivation seems to be the driving force behind reading development. Additionally, today’s students are involved in and more motivated by the many different activities outside of school, which poses challenges for both teachers and parents. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of instructional techniques on student engagement in reading. To measure the academic progress of 21 fifth grade …


Meaningful Vocabulary Instruction: Bridging The Way To Comprehension, Joanne Riback Apr 2018

Meaningful Vocabulary Instruction: Bridging The Way To Comprehension, Joanne Riback

Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS) in Literacy

Beginning with Hart and Risley’s study that brought to the forefront a significant gap in word knowledge in students from a lower socioeconomic status, the importance of vocabulary instruction has been emphasized. Extensive research has long acknowledged that vocabulary knowledge plays a crucial role in reading comprehension. With the rigorous expectations of the CCSS, vocabulary has become an essential component of instruction. Consequently, this study, utilizing social constructivism as the theoretical framework, focused on determining the most effective strategies to enhance vocabulary instruction in order to bridge the gap between students who struggle with vocabulary learning and those who do …


Fluency: What Does It Really Mean?, Jacquelyn E. Depierro Apr 2018

Fluency: What Does It Really Mean?, Jacquelyn E. Depierro

Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS) in Literacy

Shared and repeated readings are assumed to reflect influence on increasing oral reading fluency abilities through accuracy, rate, expression, and phrasing. The purpose of the study was to examine how repeated reading increased students’ oral reading scores across the six-dimensions of fluency transferring phonics instruction to oral reading. Specifically, we tested the repeated reading process that focused on improving early fluency skills on 6-7-year-old students in a first grade classroom who were reading at or below grade level expectations and received a score of 2 or below in terms of their oral reading fluency as measured by the Fountas and …


The Mania Of Morphemic Analysis: Multisyllabic, Meaningful, Magical, Jennifer Fritz Apr 2018

The Mania Of Morphemic Analysis: Multisyllabic, Meaningful, Magical, Jennifer Fritz

Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS) in Literacy

As academic expectations have increased in recent years due to the rigors of the Common Core State Standards, students are encountering a greater rate of multisyllabic words earlier in their schooling. Proficiency in reading has not paralleled this upward trend. Students are not receiving sufficient instruction to enable them to successfully decode and derive meaning from the multisyllabic words in their texts. To ascertain the effects of multisyllabic instruction on student performance in upper elementary students, we formulated an instructional model to teach syllabication and word morphology to determine if explicit instruction in syllabication and structural analysis had an effect …


Vocabulary Acquisition For Els, Sarah Johnson Apr 2018

Vocabulary Acquisition For Els, Sarah Johnson

Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS) in Literacy

Researchers have shown a gap in the vocabulary development of children based on socioeconomic status, as well as an increase in the number of students in American public schools that qualify as English Learners (ELs). Based on previous studies showing that vocabulary acquisition is related to increased reading comprehension and academic success, the aim of the present study was to determine for the most effective strategies for vocabulary acquisition using an interactive read aloud routine. Using Vygotsky’s social constructivism as the theoretical framework, we examined the effectiveness of these strategies in an action research project with seven second grade ELs, …


Reading Strategies In Content Area Math, Jennifer Bachman O’Brien Apr 2018

Reading Strategies In Content Area Math, Jennifer Bachman O’Brien

Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS) in Literacy

Since the introduction of the CCSS, expectations in math have placed greater responsibility for problem-solving on students. No longer is computation the primary focus of elementary math instruction; instead the goal has shifted to student understanding of the mathematical contexts. The aim of this action research study, guided by Vygotsky’s theory of social constructivism, was to determine the effectiveness of integrating reading and content area math, while deepening students’ skills in vocabulary, journaling, and visualizing. Nine fifth-grade students receiving Tier 2 math intervention were selected to participate in the study. Data collection consisted of pre and post measures including criterion-referenced …


Discourse In The Elementary Classroom, Kathryn Hardy Apr 2018

Discourse In The Elementary Classroom, Kathryn Hardy

Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS) in Literacy

As literacy standards across the country grow more rigorous, literacy practices need to follow suit. With the implementation of the Common Core Speaking and Listening Standards in 2010, classroom instruction in the facilitation of student discourse has become not only beneficial, but required. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of an instructional framework for student discourse called Statement Stem Discourse/Accountable Talk (SSD/AT). This instructional frame included discussion stems, teacher prompts, and guidelines for student responses. This study observed the impacts of discourse on 19 students over the course of six weeks. With a focus on questions …


Employing Engagement To Enhance Literacy Learning, Kerry Zrenda Apr 2018

Employing Engagement To Enhance Literacy Learning, Kerry Zrenda

Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS) in Literacy

Numerous studies have identified a symbiotic relationship between student engagement and academic achievement. However, over the last three years, nearly half of Connecticut’s students have failed to meet the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts. Social constructivism and metacognitive theories frame this study, which aimed to examine instructional techniques that positively impacted student engagement. Specifically, we used engagement inventories to record student behaviors before, during, and after a six-week instructional period, throughout which we implemented several different engagement techniques. We coded student behaviors in order to analyze the effects that heightened student choice, structured peer discourse tools, and …


Abc: It’S As Easy As 1, 2, 3 – The Importance Of A Multisensory Approach In Phonological Awareness Instruction, Chelsey Marsh Apr 2018

Abc: It’S As Easy As 1, 2, 3 – The Importance Of A Multisensory Approach In Phonological Awareness Instruction, Chelsey Marsh

Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS) in Literacy

Currently, more than 20% of kindergarten and first grade students struggle with an aspect of phonological awareness. Further, 80% of struggling readers exhibit weaknesses in phonological processing, which is the basis for grappling with unfamiliar words. Students whose reading achievement is not at grade level by third grade are at risk for not catching up to their more-capable peers. Using social constructivism as the theoretical framework in this action research study, we examined the effect of a multisensory, explicit, and systematic approach in phonological awareness for students in the primary grades. From the larger school population, this study focused on …