Education Commons^™

What Instructional Strategies Are Effective For Increasing Vocabulary For English Language Learners In A Preschool Classroom?, Nicole Carter

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The research question addressed in this project is What Instructional Strategies are Effective for Increasing Vocabulary for English Language Learners in a Preschool Classroom? Teaching students who are limited in their understanding of the English language can be a daunting tasks; since students speak their native languages at home, making it difficult for teachers to communicate with them. This topic is significant because there has been a rapid increase in English language learners in the United States with the gap in achievement between ELLs and their English speaking peers. The purpose of the research is to find ways to increase …

How Can Science And Literacy Be Integrated In A Fifth Grade Cirriculum [Sic]?, Kathryn J. Hellen

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The research question addressed in this capstone was, How can science and literacy be integrated in a fifth grade curriculum? This capstone describes current research in science education, reading motivation and engagement, and the science and literacy connection. The goal of this capstone was to create a unit that would captivate students’ interests in science and use that interest as a catalyst to grow their literacy skills. This unit is designed to be used in a 5th grade Spanish immersion classroom centered on the themes of life science and non-fiction reading. The accompanying curriculum utilizes the Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) …

Best Practices For Co-Teaching Literacy In The Secondary Language Arts Classroom, Anne Robenhorst

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the best practices for co-teaching literacy in the secondary language arts classroom. Participants of the study included 34 tenth grade students in a co-taught English class who completed anonymous questionnaires, and two language arts teachers, one special education teacher and one assistant principal were interviewed. Qualitative data was gathered regarding academic grades and state testing scores in the area of reading. The student survey feedback indicated positive perceptions related to the co-taught environment, primarily increased writing skills. Teacher interviews highlighted the most effective co-teaching models and stressed the importance of strong administrative …

How Anchor Charts Can Engage Students In Interactive Read-Alouds, Christine Simmet

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The research question explored and answered in this project was, can anchor charts make readalouds more interactive and engaging? This project documents the exploration and creation of anchor charts in a read-aloud setting. In conjunction with the Journeys’ (2009) curriculum the researcher created four anchor charts with a goal to create more engagement and increase the interactive quality of read-alouds. The researcher utilizes different types of anchor charts to see student engagement responses. She details the literature surrounding anchor charts as well as giving some background regarding read- alouds and engagement strategies for young learners. The researcher then describes the …

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 …

How Does The Development Of Early Literacy Skills And The Partnership Between A Child’S Home And School Promote Literacy Success?, Teri Greenstein

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The research question addressed in this capstone was, How does the development of early literacy skills and the partnership between a child’s home and school promote literacy success? This capstone describes the foundational early literacy skills necessary for literacy success for students, and discusses ways that school and home can collaborate towards ensuring that students are effectively prepared for literacy learning as they begin their formal schooling. The goal of the capstone project was to provide families with tools and resources that can be used to help them develop more effective literacy learning for their children.

How Vocabulary Word Selection, Instructional Strategies, And Assessments Affect Student Retention Of Newly Learned Words, Amber Rustand

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

Vocabulary word selection and instruction is hard for educators to grasp, with so many methods to choose from. Focusing on the question of How does the selection of vocabulary words, instruction, and assessment affect the retention of newly learned vocabulary? leads us to our answer. The capstone study focusing around this question made it evident that educators need to select words from text, differ instruction throughout a two-week time frame, and assess on between eight and twelve words for every two-week period. Students need to be given time to connect and work with the words that are new to them. …

What Effect Does Full Day Kindergarten Have On Student Achievement In Literacy?, Philip Lee Munkvold

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

Kindergarten has undergone continuous change since its inception in 1837. Minnesota’s kindergarten program experienced a substantial transformation during the 2014-2015 academic year by offering full-day kindergarten at no cost. Students attending full-day kindergarten will receive twice the amount of instruction as years past, prompting a study on what effect this may have on student achievement. This capstone uses a combination of surveys, assessments, and interviews with to help answer the research question, What effect does full day kindergarten have on student achievement in literacy? Research concludes that full-day kindergarten has a positive impact on student achievement in literacy in kindergarten, …

The Effects Of Orton Gillingham Instructional Techniques During Small Group Instruction, Kathleen Tiver

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the study was to examine the effects of leveled literacy through guiding reading and leveled literacy reading in conjunction with supplemental small group instruction utilizing Orton Gillingham techniques. This study was completed in a first grade inclusive classroom. This study was created by results from beginning of the year (September) independent reading assessments. Students who were incorporated into this study as part of the instructional group read at least three grade below excepted level, and were not classified students. Students were monitored and formally assessed at each marking period of the school year to measure successes. Students …

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 Intersection Of Collaboration, Critical Thinking And Technology: Implications For Adult Esl Learners Using An Inquiry Approach, Mary Elizabeth Zamacona

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The primary purpose of this study was to determine the types and critical thinking skills used by adult ESL students as they learned technology skills through an inquiry approach. The results are based on the types of critical thinking skills that were utilized by adult students working collaboratively on an Excel computer project. Critical thinking was measured by coding audio recordings using the Transitions Integration Framework’s critical thinking skills category. Data were quantified by frequency of occurrence for each sub skill of critical thinking. Results show the most prominent critical thinking skills used by students in this study are problem-solving …

Using Literacy Centers To Support A Balanced Literacy Program In A Pre-K Classroom, Jacquelin Ann Rowan

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The question addressed in this research project was, how can using literacy centers support a balanced literacy approach in a Pre-K classroom? The author’s motivation for completeing this capstone was to learn more about balanced literacy and how the use of balanced literacy could support her student’s learning. This capstone describes, in detail, what balanced literacy is, what literacy centers are , and how to use both to create an engaging learning environment for Pre-K students. It also provides guidelines for how to manage literacy centers both in organization of materials and the literacy center time block. Finally, the capstone …

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 Reference With Demonstratives Creates Cohesion In A Physical Science Textbook, Amy Marie Petersen Sagrado

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The research question addressed in this project is How are demonstratives used as reference in a 10th grade physical science textbook? The purpose was to inform the instruction of English learners when using a grade level text through a text analysis by understanding how demonstratives are used, whether as a determiner or pronoun, the direction the demonstrative points, the distance to the referent, whether the referent is a noun phrase, clause or inference and the clarity of the referent. Among the findings, it was concluded that demonstrative determiners are used more frequently in text than demonstrative pronouns and tend to …

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 …

The Impact Of Environmental Education On Environmental Literacy And Motivation In Urban Communities, Amber Huston

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The research question addressed is does environmental education increase environmental literacy and motivation in urban communities in the United States? The motivating factor for this capstone was from evidence that environmental education can not only improve motivation and literacy, but also help improve academic achievement. This capstone details both historical and current data to support full integration of structured environmental education programs into urban academics. The author documents the results of a survey based on observations made by various academic instructors of both their personal experiences, as well as their view of their students’ experiences, both inside and outside the …

Using Evidence-Based Spelling Instruction To Support Elementary Students: A Self-Study, Brigid Ayn Berger

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

Teachers have been slow to adopt research-based best practices for spelling instruction. The purpose of this project was to identify effective spelling practices and reflect on the practical implementation of those practices in a first grade classroom. The research question was, how can teachers use research-based strategies to support elementary students as they develop spelling skills? This paper provides a review of English orthography and developmental spelling instruction before contrasting effective and ineffective instructional strategies. The author, a first grade teacher, conducts a self-study in which she implements formative assessments into her spelling routines and reflects upon the process of …

How Graphic Novels Affect Reading Comprehension And Memory Recall Of Story Elements For Language Learners, Stephen Jerome Meuer

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

English Language Learners can experience a range of issues in regards to reading and comprehending text due to their language interference, and therefore require an arsenal of tools, scaffolds, and differentiation to be employed by EL and content teachers alike. A possible tool includes graphic novels, as both a visual aid and literary text, in terms of reading comprehension and memory recall of the plot elements read. My research attempted to measure differences between scores on student written retells of each chapter of a class novel read, with some chapters being independently read by the student in the traditional novel …

Thematic Learning And English Learners: Integrating Authentic Literacy In An Experience-Based Summer Program For English Learners, Miranda Michelle Gamayunov

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

Research indicates that the most successful summer programs and after school experiences do not simply mimic the school year but rather complement it. The purpose of this capstone was to create a stronger connection between the district’s school year literacy curriculum and its summer program for English Learners while maintaining the experience-based nature of the program. The research question explored: How can I best integrate authentic reading and writing into a hands-on, experience-based summer program for English Learners resulted in a series of six lessons complementing the program’s varied experiences and the district’s units of study thereby allowing for an …

Influence Of Language Arts Instructional Practices On Early Adolescents’ Motivation To Read: Measuring Student And Teacher Perceptions, Sarah E. Pennington

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Early adolescence is a critical time for examining academic motivation, specifically motivation to read (Hervey, 2013). In order to support self-determined motivation to read, students’ needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness must be met within the classroom context (Miller & Faircloth, 2014). Since classroom instructional practices are a key component of adolescents’ daily experiences in the classroom, research which investigates the influence of these practices on students’ self-determined motivation to read is needed. In addition, the perceptions of students and teachers regarding the degree to which classroom instructional practices meet students’ needs as well as the influence of classroom instructional …

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 …

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 …

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 …

The Relationship Between Parental Involvement And Increasing First Grade Fluency Scores, Mckenzie Larson, Kelly Ogren

Masters of Arts in Education Action Research Papers

The purpose of this study was to examine what positive outcomes, if any, does parent involvement in the home have on first grade student’s fluency scores. After permission from parents was given, twelve first grade students, along with their parents, were chosen to participate in the six-week study. Throughout six-weeks, students practiced repeated readings, completed sight word activities, fluency activities, and nonsense word activities. These activities were completed at home with the assistance from parents. Students were also tested two times per week on fluency readings in the classroom. Data collected throughout the study included a parent survey, pre and …

How Can Implementing Oral Language Strategies Support First Grade Struggling Readers?, Alexandra Kraemer Askew

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The research question addressed in this project was, how can implementing oral language strategies support first grade struggling readers? In this project, action research was conducted in an urban first grade classroom with nine student participants. All of the student participants were categorized as first grade struggling readers and came from many different diverse backgrounds. During the research two oral language strategies were implemented during a four-week period with two reading groups. Pre and post assessments were given to monitor student progress and gauge the success of the strategy implementation. At the end of the four-week period, all students made …

An Effective Instructional Model For Teaching English Language Learners Within The Mainstream Classroom, Sofia Viktorova Vladimirova

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine an effective educational model for teaching language to English Language Learners as well as to determine effective instructional methods within the mainstream classroom. The study aimed to assess the effectiveness of the Integrated Services Approach. This approach involved a classroom teacher, an English Language specialist, a Special Education teacher, and a reading interventionist. All four educators taught ten English Language Learners within a mainstream classroom. The ten English Language Learners were periodically assessed to determine academic growth and language acquisition level. Assessment data suggests that the Integrated Services Approach is an effective …

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 …

Subtext Of Decisions: Literacy Practices In The Context Of Coding, Julia Hagge

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation I present findings from a qualitative case study of five early adolescents engaged in an online programming community. As a researcher, I was interested in how early adolescents designed digital media as they learned how to code within an online programming community known as Scratch. My research was guided by two questions: (1) What are the literacy practices and processes embedded in the design and collaboration of products created within an online programming community? (2) In what ways do participants make decisions in the design of their projects created in Scratch? The data collected for …

How Does Explicit Instruction Enhance The Understanding Of Academic Vocabulary For Middle School English Learners?, Katherine Marie Kermes

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

One of the barriers to English Learners finding success at school is proficiency with academic vocabulary. This paper documents the need for explicit instruction of academic vocabulary in addition to effective teaching and assessment strategies to use with students. The author describes an academic vocabulary unit which they implemented with middle school English Learners. The unit was based on the research of Graves and Beck, McKeown and Kucan as well as others. The author reaches the conclusion that explicit instruction positively impacts the ability of English Learners to understand and use academic vocabulary terms.