Education Commons^™

Rhyme And Reason In Language Acquisition: Incorporating Poetry Into The Esl Classroom, Kimberly Call Gleason

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Utah is seeing a rapid increase in K-12 students whose native language is not English. With this increase, teachers face the challenge of finding new and effective teaching methods to reach their ESL (English as a Second Language) students. This research explores the study of poetry as an instrument to improve ESL students' pronunciation of English. When read out loud, poetry can be an exercise in pronouncing consonant sounds (from alliteration), decoding vowel sounds (from rhyme), and acquiring the natural speech rhythm of the English language (from meter). Poetry was selected not only because of its exaggerated sound elements (alliteration, …

Why Sex Education, Elizabeth Marie Davis

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Both sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned/unwanted pregnancy are very serious problems faced by our society today. The United States ranks highest in teen pregnancy over other developed country. In order to combat these very serious societal problems it is important to educate our adolescents. Information concerning safer sexual practices and how/where to get protection and contraception are both important. This thesis is a rational for developmentally appropriate content inclusion and a description of curriculum implementation for adolescents in the United States.

What Do Families Want? Utah Families Respond To Current Early Intervention Practices, Amy Poole-Zisette

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

This study surveyed Utah families who are currently enrolled in six different early intervention programs for their children 0-3 years of age with special needs. The purpose of this study was to examine how skills and qualities families felt were important in their early interventionists changed in order to determine what skills and qualities were most important to different demographics of families. Participating families filled out a questionnaire which rated the degree to which they found various skills and qualities important for an early intervention practitioner to possess, as well as the perceived frequency with which early interventionists used said …

Differentiated Spelling Instruction: A Theoretical Approach To Instruction, Amanda Gibson

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Research has been conducted to determine the best method of teaching spelling instruction. Several studies have concluded that differentiated spelling instruction is the best method to teach spelling. In this type of instruction, the teacher determines the students' spelling level and then delivers spelling instruction based on their spelling level. To test this theory of instruction I conducted my own study using fourth grade students. I determined that differentiated instruction improves students' spelling by providing instruction that is specific to students' ability level and needs while offering high-quality instruction.

I compared two groups of students in my study. With the …