Education Commons^™

Physical To Cyber: A Case Study Of The Print And Digital Literacy Of Burgeoning Older Adult Learners, Laura Elizabeth Williams

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This intrinsic single case study explored the ways in which two older adult burgeoning literacy learners in a capital city in the U.S. Gulf South utilized the skills of print literacy and digital literacy both together and apart. This study was an investigation of print and digital literacy, individually and combined, in order to examine the way older adult burgeoning literacy learners used one kind of literacy (print) to develop the other (digital). Using semi-structured interviews, observations, and literacy journals, participants’ perceptions were explored. Findings included that fully literate older adults used their literacy to enact and maintain social connections, …

Responsible Classrooms: Unfinalizability, Responsibility, And Participatory Literacy In Secondary English Language Arts, Emma Jamilah Gist

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study examines participatory literacy practice in secondary English language arts classrooms. While literacy achievement in this context is often measured according to a student’s ability to receive and repeat predetermined information within the scope of mandated curricula and standardized tests, this study attends specifically to classroom literacy practice that centers authentic, unanticipated, dialogic student response. Within its consideration of literacy practice, this study applies the Bakhtinian notion of unfinalizability to consider those conditions that allow for learning experiences that are not predetermined but are rather uniquely, unpredictably, and unrepeatably co-constructed by individual students, student groups, and teachers. These unfinalizable …

Efficiency Of Teaching Sight Words In Similar Vs Dissimilar Sets, Jensen Chotto

LSU Master's Theses

Early reading intervention can decrease the likelihood that children who struggle with reading develop long-term reading problems. Due to the prevalence of words that cannot be read phonetically in the English language, sight word instruction is required to supplement phonics instruction. In this study, we compared the effects of creating sets of sight words with the same starting letter (3 words per set, 3 total sets) versus distributing words with the same starting letter across sets when assessing acquisition of the combined set (9 words) in five 4-to-6-year-old children using a combined adapted alternating treatments design and pre-posttest design. All …

Impact Of An Emergent Reading Skills Intervention On Letter Recognition And Phoneme Identification In Pre-Kindergarten Children, Laura K. Simmons

LSU Master's Theses

Research in the field of early literacy has demonstrated that letter recognition and phoneme identification are two necessary components of emergent reading skills (Casbergue & Strickland, 2016). Emergent literacy refers to the reading and writing skills that young children develop prior to learning traditional literacy skills and has been linked to increased literacy achievement (Justice & Pullen, 2003). This study focused solely on emergent reading skills. The purpose of the present study was to determine the effects of a targeted multi-sensory intervention on the emergent reading skills of letter recognition and phoneme identification using a multiple baseline design (Kazdin, 2011). …

Valuing Voices: Construction Of Meaning Through Discursive Interactions During A Critical Service-Learning Partnership, Jane Helen Noble

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

As teacher educators strive to prepare preservice teachers for careers as literacy instructors and advocates of social justice in education, critical service-learning pedagogy has been considered as an approach for teacher education programs. Tenets of academic study, reflective practice, social change, and the development of authentic relationships between universities and communities outline the structure for critical-based field experiences. What are preservice teachers learning in these spaces? How do they grow as part of critical service- learning courses? How do community organizations and members interpret experiences in the partnership, and how do they describe their roles?

This study highlights the voices …

Teachers As Change Agents: An Investigation Into The Literary Practices Of Effective Tier 2 Charter School Teachers In South Louisiana, Earlisha Jenkins Whitfield

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

A Southern Louisiana charter school is in the initial phases of a Response To Intervention (RTI). General education classroom teachers are responsible for all Tier 1 and 2 instruction that included interventions in Tier 2. However, many teachers were unsure about the implementation, of RTI and had negative experiences with RTI, describing the process as frustrating and overwhelming. This case study examines teachers that have been effective in the process as evidenced by an increase in in reading levels and student interest. The research explores the teachers’ perceptions, experience, and knowledge of the current implementation of RTI. This qualitative research …

Exploring Teaching Approaches And Sociocultural Dynamics In The Middle And High School English Second Language Teaching Environment From The Perspective Of The Multicultural Educator, Nancy Laguna Luque

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

ABSTRACT The act of teaching in the middle and high school involves highly complex sociocultural dynamics in challenging environments. English second language specialists are the type of educators that closely work with the most at risk students in that context. This study explored middle and high school multicultural ESL instructors’ literacy delivery approaches, the understanding they have of difficulties in their field of action, and their particular awareness, interpretation of otherness and attitudes regarding the specific characteristics of their working milieu. This qualitative study utilized participant observation and Developmental Research Sequence (Spradley, 1980) as the systematic approach to gather and …

Insights From Complexity: A Study Of The Implementation Of A District-Wide Literacy Initiative Through The Lens Of Complex Systems Theory, Mary Kathryn Hudson

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Complexity Theory provides unique insights into the implementation and operations of a district literacy initiative. The successful and unsuccessful structures of the literacy initiative are examined through a complexity lens in order to gain insight into the relationships between elements of a complex system and its processes operating within a “top-down” educational directive and the resulting “bottom-up” resistance. This qualitative study uses a phenomenological approach to advance complex systems theory. This allows a multi-dimensional exploration of the fundamental attributes of the district initiative, its processes and the relationships within those processes. The literacy initiative in a large urban school district …

Voices From The Coolest Corner Of Hell: A Content Analysis Of Slave Narratives In The Study Of Creolization In The Education Of 19th Century African American Slaves, Gina M. Rizzuto

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The general argument made by Southern historian, Ulrich Bonnell Phillips in 1918, is that the plantation functioned as a type of school for the slave. Similarly, in 1976, Anthony Gerald Albanese examined the plantation system as an institution that conditioned the behaviors of both slaves and slave owners. I maintain that the plantation system was not only an educative agency that conditioned behaviors, but also a conduit for the creolization process. The focus of this study is creolization in the education of African American slaves in the nineteenth century. This is a mixed methods content analysis of African American slave …

Digital Storytelling As A Literacy-Based Intervention For A Sixth Grade Student With Autism Spectrum Disorder: An Exploratory Case Study, Brent A. Daigle

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study investigates the use of Digital Storytelling as an intervention to improve the academic performance and social interactions of a sixth grade student with High-Functioning Autism. Qualitative methodology, using an inductive approach informed by grounded theory, was employed throughout this exploratory case study. Three separate data sources, consisting of document analysis, interviews, and participant observation, contributed to the findings of this study. Triangulation of inquiry methods enhanced the validity and rigor of this investigation. The findings from this inquiry indicate that Digital Storytelling was beneficial to the participant in this exploratory case study. Engaged student processes and critical analysis …

A Study Examining The Impact Of Scaffolding Young Children's Acquisition Of Literacy In Primary Grades, Judith Rollins Burch

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This case study explores the implementation of scaffolding in literacy learning in a first grade classroom setting. The complexities and nuisances of scaffolding present in the elementary school classroom context during reading and writing instruction are examined. Ten first graders, five from a pilot study an five from the case study, are followed in reading and writing in a public school classroom. Themes indicate that students in lower elementary grades benefit from reading and writing instruction that include the following strategic elements: 1) leveled predictable texts; 2) small group guided reading and writing instruction; 3) systematic, strategic instruction based upon …

Literacy As A Performing Art: A Phenomenological Study Of Oral Dramatic Reading, Neva Virginia Cramer

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Based on semiotic, aesthetic response, reader response, and drama in education theories, this phenomenological study seeks to describe the literary experience of text through oral interpretation for middle to high SES, fourth and eighth grade students as compared to Low SES fourth and eighth grade students. Using the research methodology of Moustakas (1994) and data analysis of Teddlie (2000), this study proposes to describe and understand the relation of literary understanding and oral dramatic expression implicit in the descriptive paralinguistic and chronemic patternizations of the oral rendition of text and describe the act of reading as phenomenology. Descriptions of the …