Education Commons^™

The Effect Of Prosody Instruction On Reading Fluency And Comprehension Among Third-Grade Students, Tammy B. Overstreet

Dissertations

Problem

Many students are failing to become proficient readers with current instructional methods used in American schools. Students frequently make improvements in two of fluency’s dimensions, rate and accuracy, but these improvements have not consistently correlated to improvements in reading comprehension, which is the objective of reading. The automaticity plus prosody (APP) model was developed by this researcher from Topping’s deep processing fluency model to explain why teaching and assessing the multiple dimensions of fluency (rate, accuracy, and prosody) improve comprehension. The purpose of this study was to compare students in a private school in a small town in southwestern …

A Comparison Of The Incremental Rehearsal Method, The Pocket Word Method, And Repeated Reading Instructional-Level Text On The Word Retention, Words Read Per Minute, And Comprehension Of First-Grade Students, Lara Lynne Macquarrie

Dissertations

As partial fulfillment of a doctoral degree in Educational Leadership, a retrospective, multi-element study was performed. The study compared the Incremental Rehearsal method (IR) and the Pocket Word method (PW) to each other and to Repeated Reading (within Instructional Level [RR-IL] by individually teaching words from the Dolch Word List to first-grade students. The effects of IR, PW, and RR-IL on the word retention, reading accuracy, words read per minute, passage retell, and aided comprehension of seven first-grade students were compared. The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (4th edition) and the Dolch Word List were administered prior to intervention. The three …

Teacher Change And A Direct Instruction Reading Approach : A Multiple-Case Study, Shirley Ann Freed

Dissertations

Problem. Using a qualitative research design this study documented the process of change experienced by four elementary teachers as they learned a direct instruction reading approach. The literature reveals that teacher implementation is affected by psychological state, school climate, and conceptual level; however, the goal of this study was to examine the effects of cognition and working conditions.

Method. The author was involved as a participant-observer with 20 volunteer teachers as they attended a three-week intensive training session which involved presentation of theory, demonstrations, practice, and feedback. In the school year immediately following the training, nine teachers implemented the ECRI …

The Relationship Of Hemispheric Performance And Reading Achievement For Black And Caucasian Fourth- And Fifth- Grade Students, Helen Dorothy Byoune

Dissertations

Problem. The relationship between race and hemispheric performance and the resultant effects of this relationship on learning pose a problem for educators. This study sought to determine whether Black students have a style of cerebral processing different from Caucasian students and whether this cognitive style leads to under achievement in certain subject areas.

Method. The Cognitive Laterality Battery (CLB) was used to measure hemisphericity for 111 fourth- and fifth-grade students categorized into four groups: Blacks, Caucasians, males and females. Ninety-seven of these students comprised the population for this study. The results from the CLB were then used to determine whether …

Effects Of Administrator Implemented Homogeneous And Heterogeneous Grouping On Reading Achievement Of Selected Sixth-Grade Students, Jerry L. Thacker

Dissertations

Problem. A Nation at Risk reported that the average achievement score of high-school students on most standardized tests is lower now than it was a quarter of a century ago, and the majority of the brightest students fail to achieve according to their ability. A salient problem in educating pupils is that of attaining reading comprehension achievement scores comparable to their intellectual potential. This study examines the effects of administrator implemented homogeneous and heterogeneous grouping on the reading achievement of selected sixth-grade students.

Method. This was a quasi-experimental study using parametric techniques. The tests for hypotheses were analysis of …