Language and Literacy Education Commons^™

Using Kinesthetic Motions And Visuals To Help Promote Sight Word Recognition Through Snap Words, Lisa Charbonneaux

Master's Theses & Capstone Projects

This action research project studied the impact kinesthetic motions and visuals had on sight word recognition in kindergarten students. Over the course of seven weeks, 28 students from two kindergarten classrooms were given sight word instruction. The experimental group included kinesthetic motions and visuals through the use of Snap Word cards with their sight word instruction. The control group received sight word instruction by presenting the sight word without added kinesthetic motions or visuals. The experimental group included 15 students and the control group consisted of 13 students. Students from both the control and experimental groups were given identical pre …

Handwriting Without Tears And Its Affect On Lowercase Writing, Cynthia Ungs

Master's Theses & Capstone Projects

The researcher hypothesizes that students with no prior Handwriting Without Tears instruction can transition to lowercase name writing easier than students that have had that instruction. The researcher has studied the handwriting samples based on common handwriting assessment qualities. Writing samples were taken monthly, one from each student. There were 9 students that the researcher received handwriting samples, all of white race. There were 7 boys and 2 girls in the test set. The students that received Handwriting Without Tears used this mixed upper and lowercase writing for some time and had a harder time transitioning to first uppercase and …

Global Language Variation In Online Writing Instructional Spaces: English As A Lingua Franca Among Global Participants In A Massive Open Online Course, Angela May Dadak

English Theses & Dissertations

Two vectors of the internationalization of US higher education—online courses and student diversity—intersect at a point where a broad mix of culturally and linguistically diverse students enroll in online courses, including writing courses. This study applies an English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) lens to examine language in an online writing environment in order to understand how the participants use their linguistic resources to communicate in English across varieties and around the world. This study employs discourse analysis to two discussion forums from a US-based composition MOOC (Massive Open Online Course). More than three quarters of the MOOC participants came …

Are You A Boy Or A Girl?: Representations Of Transgender Children In Picture Books, Joshua Hill

Theses and Dissertations

This research was a critical content analysis of picture books that contained transgender children utilizing Butler’s (2004, 2006) performativity of gender and recognizability of gender alongside Engdahls’s (2014) wrong-body discourse. The question was, how do picture books about transgender represent various versions of queerness in children? This analysis was done by examining 20 total picture books which included 10 books about trans girls, six books about trans boys, and four books about nonbinary children. These 20 books were then broken down into eight books for a deeper analysis of the ways that queerness was represented. The findings included the ways …

Impact Of Phonics Instruction For Readers At Risk, Erin Driesen

Master's Theses & Capstone Projects

This action research study investigated the impact of phonics instruction for readers who are considered to be at risk in their reading performance. For six weeks, the researcher implemented phonics instruction to two 2nd grade students. This instruction was completed in a small-group setting in the resource room. At the beginning of the week, the students were given assessments to see which phonics skills they were missing, then they received instruction based on those skills. Quantitative data was collected at the beginning, middle, and end of the six weeks. This information was collected by using a Diagnostic Decoding Survey and …

The Equity And Engagement Challenges Of Teaching Reading In Middle School, Edmund T. Hamann, Stephanie Malone

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

The point is to look at midlevel and high school students—those often encapsulated by the term ‘adolescent literacy’—and to ask what it is that makes those students less likely to engage in productive reading practice. That may at first look like a psychological question about motivation, which makes the challenge seem like it is something inside the student that needs attention or ‘fixing’. But the orientation here is instead more sociological. If we talk about instruction, in this case reading instruction, it is intrinsically interactive, between teacher and student most obviously, but also interactive between students and their peers (e.g. …

Mocca College: An Assessment Of Inferential Narrative And Expository Comprehension, Mark L. Davison, Ben Seipel, Virginia Clinton-Lisell, Sarah E. Carlson, Patrick C. Kennedy

Education, Health & Behavior Studies Faculty Publications

MOCCA-C is an assessment of adult reading ability designed for early diagnosis of reading problems, for formative assessment in reading intervention planning, for assessment of reading improvement over time, and for assessment of reading intervention outcomes. It uses both narrative and expository reading passages and it currently has four forms. Two goals of this research were to compare narrative and expository passages on (a) their difficulty and (b) their ability to discriminate between good and poor readers. An additional goal was to assess whether narrative and expository passages measure the same or different comprehension dimensions. A final goal was to …

Exploring The Literacy Leadership Practices Of Literacy Teacher Educators, Laurie A. Sharp, Roberta D. Raymond, Rebekah E. Piper

Reading Faculty Publications (Archived)

Literacy teacher educators must actively engage as literacy leaders who are advocates for literacy, continuous professional learners, and responsive leaders. However, the literature base for literacy leadership is narrow and does not specifically address literacy teacher educators. To address this research gap, the current study explored current literacy leadership practices of literacy teacher educators and challenges they encounter during their literacy leadership pursuits. Using a survey research design, quantitative and qualitative data were collected among 65 experienced literacy teacher educators affiliated with university-based teacher preparation programs located in the South Central United States. Quantitative data were tabulated and reported as …

Using The Question-Answer Relationship Strategy To Improve Listening Comprehension In Young Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Lisa A. Phalen

Communication Disorders & Special Education Theses & Dissertations

A well-established research base indicates that many children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience deficits in reading comprehension skills. There is currently limited research which examines the relation between the communication and language impairments in ASD and emergent literacy skills in early childhood. Listening comprehension has been identified as one emergent literacy skill closely linked to reading comprehension development. The purpose of the study is to examine the effects of the question-answer relationship strategy (QAR) and QAR cue cards as a shared book reading intervention package on the listening comprehension skills of children with ASD. A single-subject concurrent multiple-baseline …

Translanguaging In The Multilingual Classroom Of A National-Type (Chinese) Primary School In Malaysia, Yi Ning Tracy Lee

Student Works (2020-2029)

In the multiracial and multilingual classroom of a Malaysian National-Type (Chinese) Primary School (SJKC), students as well as the teacher often make use of their wide linguistic repertoire to interact with each other more effectively. Although the Ministry of Education Malaysia has stressed that English should be used as the sole medium of instruction (EMI) and communication during English lessons in school, the use of translation and switching between languages undeniably still occur to help students make sense of what they are learning. This paper aims to explore how translanguaging is used among students during English lessons and how a …

Impact Of I-Think Maps On The Flow Of Ideas And Writing Performance Of Year Five Pupils, S Thuraisingam T. Gewa

Student Works (2020-2029)

The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of i-think Maps on the flow of ideas and writing performance of Year Five pupils. The use of i-think Maps as a cognitive tool enables pupils to activate and illustrate their flow of ideas in the i-think Maps templates during the planning and editing stages of the recursive process of writing. A total of 28 pupils participated in this pre experimental: one group pretest post-test study where treatment lessons using four i-think Maps were carried out for 10 weeks. The qualitative aspect of this study focused on structured interviews, classroom …

Mentoring Secondary Novice Teachers To Develop Academic Language Of English Language Learners, Susan O'Hara, Joanne Bookmyer, Robert Pritchard, Robin Martin

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

This exploratory, qualitative study examines the foundational knowledge and instructional methods needed for academic language teaching of English language learners (ELLs). It also examines how mentoring practices can build secondary content-based novice teachers’ instructional capacity in this area. The study uses synthesized data from two independent studies to contextualize findings on essential instructional practices within the process of mentoring new teachers. Three themes emerged: novices need the foundational, theoretical and practical knowledge underlying essential practices for academic language development; essential practices must be articulated in detail for enactment by teachers; and balancing explicit and immersive academic language instruction is a …

The Cognitive And Psychological Effects Of Youtube Video Captions And Subtitles On Higher-Level German Language Learners, Peter Yang

Faculty Scholarship

This study reviews the psychological and cognitive role of using videos, YouTube videos and modes of text support in foreign language learning, with a focus on the effect that captioning and subtitling YouTube videos have on intermediate-high and advanced German language learners. The results of the study found that enhanced captioning plays a more positive role on the intermediate-high and advanced German learners’ motivation likely due to more efficient language processing; more specifically the videos are able to provide linguistic integrity, which allows the language learners to focus their incidental attention effectively. The findings provide useful insights into and enthusiasm …

The Impact Of Multicultural Books In A First Grade Classroom, Lindsay Fox

Theses and Dissertations

The goal of the study was to examine how first grade students build on their understanding of culture through the use of multicultural literature. Students were engaged in read alouds of quality multicultural texts that included texts that represented the Native American, transgender, African American, Mexican, Chinese and Indian cultures. Data collection consisted of questionnaires, reading responses during interactive read aloud, anecdotal records, and a teacher note-taking journal. An analysis of the data revealed that students were able to learn about cultures different from their own and see their own culture reflected in multicultural literature they were exposed to.

Book Groups And The Relational Engagement Of Sixth-Grade Readers, Kathryn Contini

Educational Studies Dissertations

The purpose of this mini-ethnographic case study is to determine the factors that impact the relational engagement of middle-school readers in a student-facilitated book group. This is achieved by considering how students relationally engaged with texts, peers, and a teacher while participating in a student-facilitated book group for three months. As the understanding of academic engagement has broadened to include relational engagement, it is necessary to examine how this theoretical construct impacts reading instruction. While educators have long known learning is social, classroom success is most often measured by independent achievement rather than by social engagement. For these reasons, it …

The Hate You Give In Mississippi, Shimikqua Ellis

Graduate Student Council Research Grants

Overview: My name is Shimikqua Ellis. I am in my 4th year of the English Education PhD program at the University of Mississippi. I work as a Graduate Assistant in the School of Education and was advanced to Doctoral Candidacy after I passed comps in December 2019. For my dissertation, I will explore Mississippi educators’ perceptions of using Young Adult Literature to promote social justice in classrooms. I will observe and interview teachers using the novel The Hate You Give to discuss racial injustice in classrooms across the state.

Intellectual Merit: Ta Nehisi Coates (2015) states, “English teachers should be …

The Influence And Predictability Of Socioeconomic Factors On The 2018 Parcc Middle School Ela Scores In New Jersey, Charlene Jones

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

This quantitative study is nonexperimental, utilizing socioeconomic, community, and district data to determine what influence and level of accuracy of prediction is made on standardized testing in New Jersey. This study focuses on middle school students in Grades 6, 7, and 8 in New Jersey's traditional public schools. The study design is a quantitative correlational predictive study design. SES factors for each district were identified using both U.S. Census data and NJDOE district data. Independent variables include percentage of poverty, percentage of single-parent families, education level of parents, percentage of free and reduced price lunch. The dependent variables include: 2018 …

Books And Bagels 2020 Bibliography, Emma Gisclair

Handouts and Brochures

The Curriculum Materials Center’s Books and Bagels event is an annual book talk of some of the best books of the previous year. This bibliography is a list of the staff’s favorite and notable books of 2019, with a brief description of each book. It includes titles for grades PreK-12—picture books, young adult and middle grade fiction, graphic novels, and nonfiction. Original event held on March 5, 2020.

Story Squad: Connecting Books, Standards, And Literature Circles, Leslie Cowell

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

Story Squad was developed after experiencing the use of Literature Circles in a fourth grade classroom. Students enjoyed the idea, but the jobs themselves and process were not engaging. Story Squad presents roles for connecting to literature after giving students “a mission” to solve. Roles expand past the traditional Literature Circle roles and directly connect to state standards. Can be used and adapted for 3-8^th grade.

Teaching Language For Proficiency: Learning Descriptions In Spanish 1, Anna Helzer

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

For this creative project, I have designed a 15-day unit plan for a Spanish 1 (novice level) language class, teaching the vocabulary and skills needed to understand and produce descriptions of people in students’ second language (L2) of Spanish. Throughout the creation of this unit plan, I have combined my own experience in practicums and student teaching with the most cited research in the fields of language acquisition and pedagogy in order to create lessons which will best facilitate novice language learners’ acquisition of the Spanish language and culture.

The unit plan includes overall content and language objectives as well …