Reading and Language Commons^™

Floodables, Kayann Short

Mad River Review

No abstract provided.

Looking Beyond Test Scores: An Approach To Reading Assessment, Claudia Grose

Thought and Practice: (1987-1991) the Journal of the Graduate School of Bank Street College of Education

The following article grew out of four workshops presented in 1988 to educational evaluators, psychologists, and social workers at the New York City Board of Education. The workshops responded to requests to place the conventional assessment tools regularly used by these professionals into the context of recent research. Beyond the familiar tools and the themes developed here, a number of alternative assessment procedures are beginning to gain currency, opening avenues for new and creative ways to evaluate reading and writing. Until those new procedures gain wider acceptance, it is useful to consider how existing tools can be used more humanely …

Using Reading Cbm To Predict Performance On Smarter Balanced Assessment, Jonathan Wesley Shank

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This study examined the relationship between AIMSweb oral reading fluency (R-CBM) and reading comprehension (MAZE) curriculum-based measures and performance on the English language arts/literacy (ELA/L) component of the Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBA) using a sample of students in third through fifth grade (N = 499). Pearson correlations between R-CBM, MAZE, and SBA were moderate to high, with R-CBM generally demonstrating the strongest relationships with coefficients ranging from .73 to .75. Results from hierarchical multiple regression models indicated that R-CBM provided strong predictive validity for SBA performance among third grade students (63.4% variance explained, p<.001), while the addition of MAZE to the equation was negligible (1.4% additional variance explained, p<.001). Similar findings resulted from the fourth and fifth grade multiple regression models. The predictive value of R-CBM and MAZE each decreased as grade level increased. Results support continued use of CBM to predict success on the Smarter Balanced Assessment, although CBM using cloze passages explained little variance in high-stakes test scores beyond that of oral reading fluency alone.

The Origin And Development Of Tigrinya Language Publications (1886 - 1991) Volume One, Abraham Negash

Staff publications, research, and presentations

Tigrinya is a Semitic language spoken in Eritrea and in the Tigray Region of Northern Ethiopia. Tigrinya is one of the nine languages in Eritrea. It was one of Eritrea's official languages (along with Arabic) during the short-lived federation with Ethiopia (1952-1962). When Ethiopia officially annexed Eritrea in 1962, Amharic also formally replaced Tigrinya and Arabic; and was established as an official language by the imperial government of Ethiopia. In 1993, when Eritrea officially declared its independence through referendum. Tigrinya regained its status as a working language.

Tigrinya has its own alphabet of 32 letters adopted from Ge'ez, a language …

Artificially Intelligent Computer Assisted Language Learning System With Ai Student Component, Denee M. Mcclain

Capstone Research Projects

Intelligent Computer Assisted Language Learning (ICALL) systems follow an accepted format, which utilizes an artificially intelligent tutor. The systems allow the user to input a sentence in the target language and the AI tutor analyzes the sentence and provides error correction. This approach can be expensive, impractical, and inflexible. Inflexibility can result in a lower quality of learning for the users of these systems. Here I present an alternative format for ICALL systems that utilizes an artificially intelligent student. This alternative is cost effective and practical because it does not require extra development time to make the artificial intelligence an …

Carmita Cerda Aprende A Cocinar, Alexandra Christian Burkley

Open Access Books

Carmita Cerda aprende a cocinar was written and illustrated in 2016 by Alexandra Christian Burkley. The original text was edited and translated by Mackensy Asbell and Madeline Strelec. New, original illustrations were created by Rina Sato.

Biopolitical Education: The Edukators And The Politics Of The Immanent Outside, Roland K. Vegso, Marco Abel

Department of English: Faculty Publications

The article examines the relationship of biopower and cinema through the analysis of a specific film, Hans Weingartner’s The Edukators (2004). It argues that in the age of biopower, resistance to power cannot be conceived of in terms of a radical outside to power. Rather, biopolitical resistance must take place on the terrain of this power itself, that is, within the field of life. Therefore, what we call the “viral” politics of The Edukators must be interpreted precisely in this context. The film argues that the exhaustion of political paradigms inherited from the past century forces us to take the …

Spanish For Heritage Speakers: Instructional Module #3, Gabriela C. Zapata

Activities and Assignments Collection

This is the third instructional module for the teaching of Spanish to heritage speakers at the intermediate level. The outcomes for this module are as follows:

1. Students will be able to understand the way in which a descriptive essay is organized and written;

2. Students will be able to continue applying the rules for the accentuation of palabras esdrújulas and agudas to improve their spelling;

3. Students will be able to understand the rules that govern the use of adjectives in Spanish, including the exceptions that break these rules;

4. Students will review the rules that govern the accentuation …

Improving Reading Fluency Of Elementary Students With Learning Disabilities Through Reader's Theater, Tami S. Schoen-Dowgiewicz

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Elementary teachers in a school district in a western state expressed concerns about the reading achievement of students with disabilities (SWDs). SWDs were not developing decoding, comprehension, and fluency skills to become proficient readers. Without mastering these skills, SWDs will experience diminished academic attainment in their school career. To address this problem, teachers in elementary learning centers (LCs) within the district implemented Reader's Theater (RT), an evidenced-based reading approach that incorporates repeated readings using drama-based activities. The purpose of this qualitative bounded case study was to explore elementary LC teachers' use and implementation of RT to improve reading performance with …

High School Science Teachers' Perceptions Of Teaching Content-Related Reading Comprehension Instruction, Theresa D. Williams

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In order to achieve academic success, students must be able to comprehend written material in content-area textbooks. However, a large number of high school students struggle to comprehend science content. Research findings have demonstrated that students make measurable gains in comprehending content-area textbooks when provided quality reading comprehension instruction. The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of how high school science teachers perceived their responsibility to provide content-related comprehension instruction and 10 high school science teachers were interviewed for this study. Data analysis consisted of open, axial, and selective coding. The findings revealed that 8 out of …

Teachers' Perceptions Of English Language Learners And Reading Instruction, P. Pualani Jackson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The growing population of English language learners (ELLs) in an urban school district in the southwest United States has maintained low achievement scores in the K-5 grades. Students who do not attain reading proficiency at least by the end of 3rd grade are at risk of continued academic failure through high school. Research shows that teachers' knowledge and preparedness to teach reading has an influence on student performance. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the readiness of mainstream classroom teachers to teach reading to ELLs. Guided by the sociocultural frameworks of Bruner and Vygotsky, this study explored …

Stakeholders' Perceptions Of English Language Learners Meeting Adequate Yearly Progress In Reading, Susan Calibo Loney

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

English language learners (ELLs) in a Midwestern urban elementary school have not been meeting the local school's adequate yearly progress (AYP) in reading in 3 consecutive years on statewide test scores. Meeting school standards is important because failing to meet AYP for 6 consecutive years can result in the restructuring or closing of any public school in the nation. The rationale for this qualitative case study was to examine the perceptions of stakeholders, 7 parents, teachers, and school administrators, all of whom have demonstrated knowledge of and proximity to the school's AYP decisions, to develop vocabulary strategies that may increase …

Exploring Literacy Coaching As A Form Of Staff Development, Kate Matthews Welborn

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Following a 2011 audit a school district in the south central United States clarified the role of the literacy coach. However, there were still differences among the literacy coaches as to how they were performing their duties. As a result, the purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of the role of the literacy coach in the participating school district. The theoretical foundation of this study addressed adult learning and was based upon Kegan's constructive development theory and Knowles's theory of androgogy. A case study design was used to explore how 5 literacy coaches implemented literacy staff development …

Facilitating Lexical Acquisition In Beginner Learners Of Italian Through Task-Induced Involvement Load, Vanessa J. Natale Rukholm

The Coastal Review

This empirical study explores the facilitation of lexical acquisition and retention through an incidental experiment examining the effect of Involvement Load on Italian vocabulary growth among beginner learners. The experiment, with a pre-test/post-test design investigates the facilitative effects of elaborate processing on L2 lexical acquisition and retention. Participants in sections of the same first-year Italian course were divided into one of five groups consisting of a Control Group and four Treatment groups. Treatment groups were divided based on level of Involvement (Laufer & Hulstijn, 2001) such that some groups processed target words elaborately (Craik, 2002; Lockhart, 2002) through vocabulary exercises …

George Henry Lewes, The Real Man Of Science Behind George Eliot’S Fictional Pedants, Beverley Rilett

Department of English: Faculty Publications

This paper demonstrates that George Eliot drew on George Henry Lewes’s actual experience as an emerging scientist in her depiction of two fictional scholars, Edward Casaubon of Middlemarch and Proteus Merman, a lesser-known character from the chapter entitled “How We Encourage Research” in her final work, Impressions of Theophrastus Such. After Thomas Huxley published a devastating review of Lewes’s first book of science, Comte’s Philosophy of the Sciences, the evidence suggests that Lewes became highly focused on disproving his critics and earning lasting recognition as a scientist, a feat he expected to achieve with his five-volume series, Problems …

Buried In Plain Sight: Unearthing Willa Cather’S Allusion To Thomas William Parsons’S “The Sculptor’S Funeral”, Melissa J. Homestead

Department of English: Faculty Publications

In January 1905, Willa Cather’s story “The Sculptor’s Funeral” appeared in McClure’s Magazine and shortly thereafter in her first book of fiction, The Troll Garden, a collection of stories about art and artists. In the story, the body of sculptor Harvey Merrick arrives in his hometown of Sand City, Kansas, on a train from Boston, accompanied by his friend and former student, Henry Steavens. Cather criticism has long been concerned with identifying real-world prototypes for characters and situations in her fiction, and two such prototypes have been unearthed for “The Sculptor’s Funeral.” First, the return by train of the …

The Transatlantic Village: The Rise And Fall Of The Epistolary Friendship Of Catharine Maria Sedgwick And Mary Russell Mitford, Melissa J. Homestead

Department of English: Faculty Publications

In June 1830, the American novelist and short-story writer Catharine Maria Sedgwick used the imminent London publication of her novel Clarence as a pretext for initiating a correspondence with the British author Mary Russell Mitford. In her first letter to Mitford, Sedgwick addressed her as “My dear Miss Mitford,” a violation of epistolary decorum in a letter to someone to whom she had not been introduced (FOMRM, 155).¹ As Sedgwick protested, however, “I cannot employ the formal address of a stranger towards one who has inspired the vivid feeling of intimate acquaintance, a deep and affectionate interest in …

Courtly Connections: Anthony Sherley’S Relation Of His Travels (1613) In A Global Context, Kaya Sahin, Julia Schleck

Department of English: Faculty Publications

This article revisits Anthony Sherley’s Relation of his travels into Persia (1613), reading the text within the larger context of early modern Eurasia. It highlights the ways in which at least one European traveler sought and found not alterity, but commensurable structures, social roles, political ideologies, and personal motivations in the Islamic polities to the east and emphasized these connections to his European readers. Furthermore, in making the case that Sherley’s narrative is informed by local actors in Safavid Persia, it maintains that a certain level of Eastern knowledge is present within Western texts from this period and awaits scholarly …

Networking With Middleton And Jonson: Theater, Law, And Social Documents, Kelly Stage

Department of English: Faculty Publications

In the lines above, the lawyer Tangle seems to be listing the tools of his trade, various legal documents he uses regularly. However, the list names more than just documents; it also labels the stream of blood trickling out of Tangle’s arm as he is forced into a purgative healing. Quieto, a lawyer-cum-healer, prescribes a bloodletting because Tangle’s long association with ink has infected him and the only way to cure him of poisonous legal practice is to drain him. Quieto confirms his diagnosis with the protagonist, Phoenix, who looks into the basin catching the blood and exclaims “This, why …

Courtly Connections: Anthony Sherley’S Relation Of His Trauels (1613) In A Global Context, Julia Schleck, Kaya Sahin

Department of English: Faculty Publications

Despite various attempts by literary theorists and historians to find more integrative ways of studying early modern societies and cultures, fairly essentialist notions of the difference between Europe and the rest of the world continue to persist in scholarship. The assumption of fundamental differences then leads to a search for sundry misperceptions, misunderstandings, mischaracterizations, and other skewed representations in early modern texts, particularly in those produced by European travelers. Similarly, studies on cultural, ideological, religious, and intellectual exchanges have not always been able to transcend approaches that solely focus on encounters, a word that sometimes implies haphazard meetings and difficult …