Digital Commons Network^™

Motivating Readers Through Policies And Classroom Practices, Christi Lynn Worthington

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this project examined the role of motivation on literacy, through a specific method of teaching called Concept Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI). The CORI program is designed to encourage reading motivation and comprehension through thematic teaching strategies designed around science concepts.

Research Digest Edition 2007/1 : Writing To Learn, Marion Meiers, Pat Knight

Research Digest

This edition of the Research Digest summarises key research studies that provide evidence of the potential of writing-to-learn approaches in improving student learning in a range of subject areas. The research tells us that writing-to-learn strategies can be used by any teacher, in all subject areas, and at all levels of schooling. Throughout the digest there are descriptions of a range of writing-to-learn strategies that demonstrate possibilities for classroom practice. This research digest is based on searches of a number of databases and bibliographic resources, including the Australian Education Index, ERIC, Education Research Complete, British Education Index and Scopus. The …

Engendering Agency: Literacies, Social Action, And Wangari Maathai S Green Belt Movement, Cassandra Marie Allen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the life and work of Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai, one of the foremost African woman rhetors of our time. Wangari Maathai--founder of Kenya's Green Belt Movement (GBM), Member of Parliament, and activist for democracy, sustainable development, and human rights--has cultivated a multidimensional literacy that has allowed her to truly understand and address the problems that post-colonial Kenyans face. Her strong solution-oriented approach has allowed her to develop and refine operation of the GBM, which began simply planting trees, to produce a worldwide organization that works for sustainable development, human rights, and environmental conservation/restoration (among many others) …

"Khmer Pride": Being And Becoming Khmer-American In An Urban Migrant Education Program, Theresa Ann Mcginnis

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

This article focuses on the ways an urban migrant education program becomes a space where middle school Khmer students can explore who they are as Khmer youth living in an urban American context. I discuss how the youth are able to take a transformative, interactional stance to the literacy and sign-making practices within the program. I argue that the Khmer youth's identities are reflected within these literacy and expressive practices. Further, I suggest the experiences of these Khmer middle school children of agricultural workers provide rich examples of how immigrant youth draw on a variety of cultural resources (from urban …

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 …

Adolescent Literacy: What Is It And How Might You Support Its Development?, Jill A. Jones, Zhihui Fang, Joyce Fine, Linda Ray, Vicky Zygouris-Coe

Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Using Literature Circles To Improve Literacy Skills Of English Language Learners, Shannon Montoya Clower

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

The increasing number of English language learners in mainstream classrooms continues to be one of the greatest challenges for educators. English language learners not only must learn the literacy skills necessary to be successful in American society, but they must also learn social and cultural skills. Literature circles are a successful way to improve comprehension skills while also providing English language learners with authentic social interactions. Many educators find literature circles to be an effective way to improve literacy, social, and cultural skills, yet they fail to implement them in their classroom. This research project will consist of a literature …

Found In Transition: Orality-Literacy Cues Discovered In A Rhetorical Examination Of Platonic Dialogues, Barbara Jane Clopton-Blackwell

English Theses & Dissertations

The shift from an oral society to a literate one occurred in Ancient Greece with the advent of the alphabet (Ong, Orality 90). The Greek culture is generally considered to be a unique example of a culture which developed literacy internally (Havelock Muse 1), Details of the cultural transformation remain unclear, just as the history of the development of the Greek alphabet is rife with rumors of foreign influence and predecessors. The shift was, nevertheless, a strongly internal process, an evolution of culture as much as of technology.

The transition from orality to literacy brought many conflicts. As a philosopher …

Phonological Awareness Instruction: Opinions And Practices Of Educators And Speech-Language Pathologists In West Virginia, Melinda J. Daniel

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Research has shown phonological awareness to be a strong predictor of literacy. To support literacy development, a phonological awareness project was piloted in several West Virginia schools in 2001. This study compared WV educators based on employment setting (schools participating and those not participating in the phonological awareness project) and professional category (classroom teacher, reading specialist, speech-language pathologist) on answers to survey questions related to phonological awareness. Results showed no significant relationships between employment setting and responses. However, reading specialists reported spending more minutes per week providing phonological awareness instruction to children at risk for reading difficulty than did speech-language …

Multimodality And English Education In Ugandan Schools, Maureen Kendrick, Shelley Jones, Harriet Mutonyi, Bonny Norton

Institute for Educational Development, East Africa

In this article, we have made the case that multimodal pedagogies that include drawing, photography and drama have significant potential for enhancing teachers’ understanding of the way English is incorporated into students’ lives and how students can improve their understanding and use of the English language. In many ways, multimodal pedagogies represent a hybridization of indigenous and contemporary forms of communication. Drawings, as Vygotsky (1 12-1 13) notes, are children’s earliest representations of experience and stimulate their narrative impulse to create stories. By complementing such drawings with written narratives, teachers might encourage younger children to experiment not only with diverse …

Tackling Talk Through Action Learning, Rhonda Oliver, Yvonne Haig, Samantha Vanderford

Research outputs pre 2011

Tackling Talk Through Action Learning was a collaborative project involving teachers in both metropolitan and rural independent schools in Western Australia and a team of researchers from Edith Cowan University. The research was sponsored by the Association of Independent Schools of WA (AISWA) through its literacy funding. The teachers who volunteered to be involved in the project were guided in their investigation of the teaching and assessment of oral language based on an understanding of their students' oral language needs in the broader community. The teachers investigated how language is IJSed in their local area and what communication skills their …

Disrupting Preconceptions: Postcolonialism And Education, Ed. By Anne Hickling-Hudson, Julie Matthews, And Annette Woods, James C. Carl

Education Faculty Publications

Book review by Jim Carl:

Hickling-Hudson, Anne, Julie Matthews, and Annette Woods, eds. Disrupting Preconceptions: Postcolonialism and Education. Brisbane: Post Pressed, 2004.

ISBN 1-876682-56-6

The book grew out of a conference held in August 2001 at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. It is composed of a collection of thirteen essays that address postcolonialism in education. The presenters examine the postcolonial in educational structures and practices in Asia, Africa, North America, and Australia, but the colonial legacy remains—the language of the conference is English, the publisher is Australian, and the book is printed in Great Britain.

Overall, this …

An Examination Of The Interaction Between Exemplary Teachers And Struggling Writers, Betty Ruth Sylvester

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the interactions between teachers of writing and struggling writers. There were two main research questions: (1) What is the nature of the interaction between exemplary teachers of writing and struggling writers? (2) What arethe responses of struggling writers to exemplary teachers' scaffolding? To answer these questions, qualitative analysis was conducted on data. Two struggling writers were selected for the study based on their responses to the Writers Self-Perception Scale,writing samples, and teacher recommendation. Data collection included observation in two separate fourth grade classrooms during the writing block for 30 days. Data sources included audio-recording of writing instruction …

Teaching Reading: Literature Review: A Review Of The Evidence-Based Research Literature On Approaches To The Teaching Of Literacy, Particularly Those That Are Effective In Assisting Students With Reading Difficulties, Ken Rowe, National Inquiry Into The Teaching Of Literacy (Australia)

School and system improvement

Underlying a key purpose of the present review is the conviction that claims about what constitute effective literacy teaching, and of reading in particular, should be grounded in findings from rigorous evidence-based research. To this end, the present review of the research literature on teaching practices for students, with and without reading difficulties, relies largely, though not exclusively, on well-designed meta analytic syntheses that: (a) partial out methodological artefacts from the effect sizes; and (b) base their analyses on the actual procedures and components of instruction used in the studies reviewed. Following a brief outline of the background and purposes …

Teaching Reading: Report And Recommendations, Ken Rowe, National Inquiry Into The Teaching Of Literacy (Australia)

School and system improvement

The objectives of the Inquiry were to review and analyse recent national and international research about literacy teaching approaches; identify the extent to which prospective teachers are provided with reading teaching approaches and skills that are effective in the classroom and have the opportunities to develop and practise the skills required to implement effective classroom reading programs; identify the ways in which research evidence on literacy teaching and policies in Australian schools can best inform classroom teaching practice and support teacher professional learning; examine the effectiveness of assessment methods being used to monitor the progress of students' early reading learning; …

The Importance Of Fathers In The Promotion Of Children's Literacy, Michael D. Barbera

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

The purpose of this research project is to provide absentee fathers of prekindergarten and first grade children with a familiar reading and writing tool, the postcard, to stay connected with one another regardless of the physical distance between them. This project's collection of postcards featuring authentic children's artwork and research based information for fathers, has been inspired by the research-based principles of Best Practice (Zemelman, S., Daniels, H., & Hyde, A., 1998). Each postcard includes valuable information for fathers, written in English and Spanish in order to address a demographically wide group (Green, 2002). Because gender bias, divorce, poverty, and …

Educating For Democracy: Reviving Rhetoric In The General Education Curriculum, David M. Stock

Theses and Dissertations

This study is, in part, a response to arguments that claim higher education fails to prepare students with fundamental communication skills necessary for everyday life and indicative of "educated" persons. Though the validity of such arguments is contestable, they nonetheless reflect fundamental inadequacies in current educational theories and practices that have evolved over centuries of curricular, cultural, and socioeconomic change. Current theories and practices in higher education, specifically general education, reflect a misunderstanding of both the purpose of education in a democracy and the role of the liberal arts, specifically rhetoric, in accomplishing that purpose. The consequences of rhetorically-impoverished general …

The Relationships Among Literacy, Church Activity And Religious Orientation: A Study Of Adult Members Of The Lds Church In Utah County, Bruce R. Brewer

Theses and Dissertations

The study assessed the interplay among literacy, church activity, and religious orientation and examined the extent to which literacy predicts church activity in the presence of private religious behavior. One hundred fifty-seven subjects were administered measures of intrinsic religiousness, extrinsic religiousness, literacy levels and measures of church activity. The findings from this study suggest that literacy is related to activity, but in a way that is more complex than many investigators have considered. The results of the multiple regression analysis helped clarify the ability of literacy to predict church activity in the presence of religious orientation. Results further indicated that …

A Study Of The Importance And Implementation Of National Pre-Kindergarten Standards For Language And Literacy As Perceived By West Virginia Directors Of Early Childhood Centers, Judaea Hodge

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This study examined the difference between levels of importance and implementation for the National Pre-Kindergarten Standards for Language and Literacy (NPKSLL) in four-year-old programs as perceived by West Virginia licensed pre- kindergarten programs directors and the differences based on director’s education level, years of experience, years in present position, program type and size, and the number of four year olds in the program. To examine this relationship, The Early Childhood Language and Literacy Survey (ECELLS) was designed based on the NPKSLL five goals: listening (Goal 1), complex speech (Goal 2), print awareness (Goal 3), story structure (Goal 4) and beginning …

Toolkit For Assistance With The Emergent Reader, Theresa Joanne Phelps

All Graduate Projects

Following the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Initiative in 2002, educators were faced with new obstacles never before experienced. Reading levels were at an all time low with nearly 70% of inner city fourth graders unable to read at a basic level on national reading tests. Because reading is the backbone of all academic areas, struggling readers need much more consideration and attention than they have needed before. The five main components of an effective reading program that are focused on in this project are vocabulary, phonics, phonemic awareness, comprehension and fluency. This toolkit contains assessments and strategies …

Extroversion And Introversion As Factors Affecting Adult English-As-A-Second-Language Learners, David Augustine Baptiste

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this research is to investigate if there is a significant difference in literacy skills between Level-Two extroverts and introverts after three years of English instruction at the community-college level.

Empowering Pre-Adolescent Second-Language Learners In The Middle School Years, Robert Charles Quintana

Theses Digitization Project

The thesis explores sociolinguistic issues facing pre-adolescent English-as-second-language learners. Topics covered include literacy issues, communicative competence issues at the intermediate and advanced English language development (ELD) levels, language and power relationships that affect pre-adolescent English language learners, politeness as a sociolinguistic tool, and the benefits of students acquiring the language of cooperative learning. The implications of these topics culminate in the development of a social studies curriculum unit designed for the middle-school classroom.

Becoming A Teacher Of Literacy: The Struggle Between Authoritative Discourses, Mindy Legard Larson, Donna Kalmbach Phillips

Faculty Publications

This study describes and analyzes the influence of an ideological conflict between a teacher education program and a school district upon one pre-service teacher’s emerging identity as a teacher of literacy. Using poststructural feminism as the theoretical framework and a single case study analysis, the study illustrates how the discourse of the school district’s scripted reading program and the discourse of the university’s comprehensive literacy positions Claire, the pre-service teacher. The data analysis demonstrates how being positioned between these two competing and authoritative discourses conflicts with her understanding of reading and reading instruction. Reflecting upon the data, the research becomes …

Nf95-641 Car — A Strategy For Learning, Janet S. Hanna, Kayla M. Hinrichs, Carla J. Mahar, John Defrain

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension: Historical Materials

Language and literacy development starts at the very beginning of a child's life and is one of the main developmental events of early childhood. This process if facilitated by early adult-child interactions in which the adult guides and supports the child's learning by building on what the child already knows. Following the child's lead, a key strategy presented in Language Is the Key is one of the defining aspects of developmentally appropriate practice. It has been shown to successfuly facilitate early language development for children with and without disabilities.

Meaningful, Motivating Library Lessons That Matter To Students In Grade Four, Karen Louise-Bjorling Felch

All Graduate Projects

The purpose of this project was to develop a meaningful, motivating library curriculum to increase student learning in literacy for students in grade four. Current literature and research on the roles of the teacher-librarian, information literacy instruction, reading advocacy, specifically literature guidance and appreciation, and motivation were explored. A yearlong library curriculum map was created addressing topics and methods found to be effective in the review of current research. The library curriculum was aligned with the Marysville School District Elementary Library Curriculum Guide for Grade Four, the Washington State Grade Level Expectations in Reading, the Washington State Essential Learnings in …

The Effects Of L1 Literacy And Education On Point-Gain In An Adult Esl Course, Heidi Ekstrom Elhalta

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

This study examined factors affecting learners' progress as measured by positive point gains between pre- and posttest reading proficiency scores for an intermediate/advanced adult ESL course. Background and self-assessment information, gathered through individual student interviews, was analyzed with reference to point gains to determine the influence of individual factors on students' progress. Due to limitations of the study, no correlation was found between education and L1 literacy and student's progress. However, the statistical results indicate slight positive correlations between students' point gains and their length of residence in the U.S. as well as the total number of instructional hours attended. …

Tackling Talk : Teaching And Assessing Oral Language, Rhonda Oliver, Yvonne Haig, Judith Rochecouste

Research outputs pre 2011

Tackling Talk was a collaborative research project sponsored by several bodies: the English Teachers Association (ETA), the Australian Literacy Educators' Association (ALEA) through Quality Teacher Program funding and the Association of Independent Schools of WA (AISWA). A team of researchers from the Centre for Applied Language and Literacy Research (CALLR), Edith Cowan University, guided teachers from the public and independent sectors through an action research program involving online/ electronic materials, professional development sessions and personal mentoring. Some 49 teachers from 28 schools from both metropolitan and regional districts of Western Australia were involved in the project.

Assessing Student Reading Progress: A Comparison Of Generic And Basal Curriculum-Based Reading Probes, Kelli S. Henson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to clarify and extend previous research on the comparibility of curriculum-based measurement oral reading fluency results using reading materials from outside of the students’ curriculum for repeated measurement over time. Specifically, this study evaluated the use of generic measurement materials for monitoring student reading growth and expected gains in words read correctly per minute over time at different grade levels. Sixty-four first through third grade students were assessed twice weekly using both AimsWeb and Open Court reading probes. The dependent variables in this study were the level, which is defined as the mean of …

Perceptions From The Principals’ Desks: African American Elementary Principals And Reading Curriculum And Instruction In A Central Florida County, Keva Latrice Mitchell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This was a collective case study of African American elementary principals in a central Florida county. The study intended to discover through qualitative means, African American elementary principals perceptions of reading curriculum and instruction. More specifically, the study was concerned with discovering and presenting the attitudes, experiences,and beliefs of this specific population of leaders. The African American principal has the unique perception of one who has grown-up and been educated in the midst of the European American dominated system of education, thus making their perceptions of reading curriculum and instruction relevant to gaining additional knowledge in the area of literacy …

Music As A Bridge To Literacy For Young Deaf Children In Classrooms, Fara Wilson

Undergraduate University Honors Capstones

This thesis examines the relationship of music to literacy development for young deaf learners through the use of a theoretical conceptual study. Theories from six different areas of research literature (music and learning, musical intelligence, music and literacy, music and school learning, and music and deaf education) were compared to the experiences of deaf people through an autobiography and interviews. The connection of all three sources of data encourages further research on the potential impact that music may have on a deaf child’s literacy development.