Education Commons^™

Effects Of Toyota Family Literacy Program On Reading Achievement Of Kindergarten, First, Second, And Third Grade Students By Gender And Grade Level, Regina Renae Stewman

Dissertations

For the last 15 years, federal legislation has required that public schools involve parents in their child‘s education. Yet, there has been no solid definition for parent involvement (also known as family literacy) and limited research on family literacy. This mixed study examined the influence of Toyota Family Literacy, which focuses on Hispanic immigrant families, on the literacy achievement of students in kindergarten through third grade, as well as parental efficacy in helping their child succeed in school, in three Northwest Arkansas Schools. The study examined student literacy achievement by gender and grade level using the Developmental Reading Assessment 2 …

Effects Of Single-Sex Classrooms Versus Coeducational Classrooms On Math And Literacy Achievement, Constance Matchell

Dissertations

This research project was designed to add to the limited available research concerning the effectiveness of single-sex education within a public elementary school setting. Following the first year of implementation of a single-sex classroom pilot program, the effects by gender of classroom grouping (single-sex education versus coeducation) on reading and math achievement were investigated for three consecutive grade levels from second grade through fourth grade.

This research project was designed to add to the limited available research concerning the effectiveness of single-sex education within a public elementary school setting. Following the first year of implementation of a single-sex classroom pilot …

Pisa In Brief : Highlights From The Full Australian Report : Challenges For Australian Education : Results From Pisa 2009 : The Pisa 2009 Assessment Of Students' Reading, Mathematical And Scientific Literacy, Sue Thomson, Lisa De Bortoli, Marina Nicholas, Kylie Hillman, Sarah Buckley

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

PISA in Brief summarises the results from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2009 assessment of students’ reading, mathematical and scientific literacy skills. It tells us about how students performed in the assessment and describes some wider findings about what lies behind their results. PISA 2009 assessed students’ capacities to apply knowledge and skills in reading, mathematical and scientific literacy. More assessment time was given to reading literacy, as this was the main focus for this cycle.

Does Introductory Writing Instruction Help Students To Succeed At Montclair State University?, Sean Molloy

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This study examines whether Montclair State University (MSU) students who were placed into an introductory writing course between 2005 and 2009 later succeeded as measured by retention rates, academic advancement and available grade data. While available data was limited, retention rates and grade data suggest that most of these students have succeeded so far at MSU. The study also submitted an online survey to former introductory writing course students which asked whether they believe that their experience in that course was an actual contributing cause to their academic success. Survey responses of 68 students confirm that most believe the course …

The Effects Of Coauthoring On Student Writing, Stacey E. Spector

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Teaching student writing can be a very frustrating yet rewarding experience. Because there are so many ways to approach writing instruction and the writing process, there is often a disconnect between teachers’ expectations and students’ performances. A plethora of research has been done on teaching the writing process: peer editing, revising, and other areas of writing instruction. However, not much has been explored in terms of how writing can improve if we ask students to write together.

The goal of having students write together, or coauthor, is to allow them the chance to learn from each other and explore the …

Fairway Community College’S English Basic Skills Departmental Exam : Mastery Test Madness, Kelly Alanna Keane

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The developmental English departmental mastery exam that all students who were placed into remedial English must pass before they can move to College English is problematic because of questionable reliability and validity. Additionally, it has unintended consequences for the courses that comprise the developmental English program at Fairway Community College. These consequences include though are not limited to: decreasing pass rates from developmental English to College English, curriculum that is negatively impacted by this assessment, and a complete disconnect between practice and theory in the classroom. After working through current assessment theories combined with best practices in basic writing, I …

Preparing Low-Income Middle And Secondary Students To Participate Effectively In Academic Discourse Through Writing, Franc Lacinski

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Students from low-income families often perform poorly on formal assessments in language arts. Examining data using the 2008-2009 State of New Jersey Department of Education School Report Cards, a comparison was made between low-income districts and affluent districts in three areas: High School Proficiency Assessment Language Arts Literacy Scores, SAT Verbal Scores and SAT Essay Scores. Students from low-income districts performed significantly lower in these areas than students from the higher income districts and from the average performance rates for the State of New Jersey. This lag in performance affects students’ choices for higher education, for job opportunities, as well …

Mississippi Kids Count: Literacy, Alice Abrokwa, Eliza Presson, Eleanor Simon, Sandra Ullman

Delta Directions: Publications

It is indisputable that having literate and well-educated children is crucial to the future of both Mississippi and the nation as a whole. The National Institute for Literacy defines literacy as “all the activities involved in speaking, listening, reading, writing, and appreciating both spoken and written language.” It involves the ability of a person to interact with others, succeed in school, understand and solve problems presented to them, perform on the job and as a part of society, and achieve one’s goals for the future. Lack of basic literacy skills is associated with “academic failure, substance abuse, teen pregnancy, delinquency, …

Exploring The Strategies Students Use When Reading, Evelyn Gilles

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Research in the field of reading has shown that oral reading fluency is important because it is correlated to successful reading comprehension. Although some students acquire fluency skills, others struggle to use strategies to develop fluency. My concerns about reading fluency came about because my students were not reading texts smoothly and accurately. This action research project was designed to discover what strategies first grade students use to read unfamiliar words. Specifically, I focused on whether or not blending would be a good strategy to improve reading fluency. In order to address the issue of reading fluency, I gathered information …

Discovering The Connections Students Make During Reading, Suzanne Nepomuceno

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Research shows that reading comprehension is enhanced if the reader constructs meaning by making connections to the text. Connections may be made between readers and their background knowledge and/or between readers and other texts they have read. The purpose of this action research project was to determine if teaching students how to make these two kinds of connections would enhance their comprehension. To this end, a metacognitive strategy called Making Connections was implemented and taught to the students during their normal reading lessons. Data were collected through interviews with the students about this strategy, observation charts that recorded their connections, …

Hispanic Students' Voices In Writing, Regine Pellicer

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This study focuses on the voices expressed by Hispanic students enrolled in first-year composition classes at a Hispanic Serving Institution in South Texas. The present research highlights similarities with a study conducted in Tucson, Arizona among Hispanic households. Both studies emphasize the importance of women as active agents in the transmission of literacy practices and language ideologies, which also reflect the dilemma of families caught between tradition and modernity. Moreover, this study reveals that Hispanics tend to look for new frameworks for their lives in evangelical Christianity. This work also focuses on students' dissonances regarding the use of oral code-switching …

Implementing Professional Development To Promote Literacy Practices, Carol M. Trivette

Carol M. Trivette

No abstract provided.

Strategies To Support Children's Reading Progress At Home: Tools For Parents Of Bilingual Children, Esperanza Gomez-Gribben

Graduate Student Independent Studies

The idea of gathering tools for parents of bilingual children to utilize at home to support their children's reading progress emerged from the combination of different factors. My placements during my studies at Bank Street College of Education provided me with the opportunity to learn reading strategies and utilize them with young children in the classroom.

As a parent of bilingual children, these strategies had been valuable in furthering my children's reading skills in both English and Spanish. While talking to other parents of bilingual children, I have learned about their frustrations of not knowing how to support their children's …

Gjr Volume 33 Number 1 Spring 2010, Elizabeth Pendergraft, Sheryl Dasinger

The Georgia Journal of Reading Archive

The Georgia Journal of Reading's Spring 2010 issue includes:

Message From the Editors by Elizabeth Pendergraft (pg.5)

President’s Page by Sallie Averitt Miller (pg. 6)

Using Children’s Literature as a Resource Within Middle Grades Social Studies Curriculum by Christine A. Draper (pg. 7)

Critical Literacy: From Theory to Practice by Katie Simon Kurumada (pg. 12)

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!: Tapping Students’ Popular Culture Interest Through An Elementary School Newspaper by Andrew Huddleston (pg. 16)

Can Digital Storytelling Improve Literacy Outcomes for Students with Autism? by Brent Daigle and Margaret-Mary Sulentic Dowell (pg. 25)

Project Pen Pal: A Win-Win …

Elementary Principals' Literacy Practices And Their Relationship To Student Achievement In Reading, Sandra Carper Cox

Teaching & Learning Theses & Dissertations

Principal behavior is under intense scrutiny, particularly in light of increased demands for higher and higher levels of student achievement. Reading achievement is the measure by which schools as well as principal leadership are judged. This study examined principals' literacy practices and their relationship to student achievement in reading. Measures used for analyses included a researcher-developed survey instrument, the Principal Quality Literacy Practices Survey, and results from the grade five Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL) English: Reading test.

Survey data from 109 principals and 160 reading specialists from Southeastern Virginia were utilized. Principals and reading specialists reported that overall principals' …

Academic Achievement And Course Taking Among Language Minority Youth In U.S. Schools: Effects Of Esl Placement, Rebecca Callahan, Lindsey Wilkinson, Chandra Muller

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The 1974 Lau decision requires that U.S. public schools ensure a meaningful education for students learning English. English as a Second Language (ESL) placement is an institutional response to the linguistic needs of these students; however, its academic implications remain largely unexplored. Using nationally representative data from the Educational Longitudinal Study (ELS), the effects of ESL placement on college preparatory course enrollment and academic achievement of language minority students are estimated, first with fixed effects regression models and then with multi-level propensity score matching techniques. While numerous school and individual level factors beyond language proficiency predict ESL placement, a significant …

The Academic Word List Reorganized For Spanish-Speaking English Language Learners, Robert W. Bushong Ii

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Published in TESOL Quarterly a decade ago, the Academic Word List (AWL) (Coxhead, 2000) has become increasingly influential in the field of TESOL. With more than 82% of the AWL comprised of words of Latin and Greek, much of this important list logically consists of English-Spanish cognates because Spanish originated from Latin. In order to serve Spanishspeaking English language learners (SSELLs) better, their teachers need to know which AWL words are cognates. Using published sources and linguistic analysis of the 570 items in the AWL, the research in this thesis has resulted in a newly reorganized AWL divided into four …

Correct Me If I Am Wrong: Investigating The Preferences In Error Correction Among Adult English Language Learners, Hillary Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the existence the educational backgrounds of adult English Language Learners and their preferences in error correction. Fifty participants completed surveys of their educational and demographic backgrounds and beliefs about error correction, and then ranked video clips of different types of error correction in terms of perceived usefulness. The survey examined the affective impact of oral error correction and students' preferences regarding which errors merited correction and when and how these errors should be corrected. Participants with differing educational backgrounds expressed similar beliefs concerning the error correction and similar perceptions of the affective …

Multi-Modal Reading For Low Level Readers, Jamie O'Neal

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The value of this research hinges on the idea that exchanging illustrations for descriptive text can provide appropriate schemas for students with reading difficulties and thereby improve their comprehension and vocabulary acquisition. The research in this dissertation is based on theories and earlier research in the fields of psychology, education, reading, and narratology. A review of these fields offers a variety of perspectives on the processes involved in reading and comprehension. These processes range from the physical systems involved in reading (e.g., early childhood development, eye movement) to the psychological systems, which include cognitive load theory as well as image …

L2 Anxiety In Spanish-Speaking Adult Esl Populations: Possible Causes And Cultural Influences, Scott Freiberger

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Anxiety has been identified as a plausible factor affecting second language (L2) acquisition. However, more research is needed on how anxiety may influence Spanish-speaking adult English as a Second Language (ESL) populations. Determining precisely what causes anxiety in Spanish-speaking adult ESL populations should be of interest not only to L2 researchers but also to ESL instructors who may have adult Spanish-speaking English language learners (ELLs) in their classes. This study researched L2 anxiety in Spanish-speaking adult ESL learners. Specifically, it considered possible causes and cultural influences of L2 anxiety in 10 Spanish-speaking adult ESL students at a university English language …

Writing Instruction : A New Approach, Sunni M. Hart

Graduate Research Papers

The teaching and learning of reading and math are high priorities in the Waterloo Community School District. The Waterloo Community School District committed many teacher hours and much money to develop curriculum and revise reading and math, provide professional development in best practice for it, and purchase new reading and math materials. Teachers have learned the new strategies, along with the language, and are teaching it to their students. They have worked their way through the new reading and math curriculum for five years now and are starting to become more effective teachers in the areas of math and reading. …

Methods For Encouraging Economic Diversity In Academically Rigorous Courses, Karen Patricia Kraabel

All Graduate Projects

In International Baccalaureate (IB) classes at Thomas Jefferson High School, the economic status of students in honors classes does not reflect that of the school as a whole. The author sought ways to bring more students from impoverished backgrounds into rigorous courses. In this school, there is a strong coincidence between etlmic minority status and socioeconomic status. The author believed that in addressing the economic issue the ethnicity issue would also be addressed. This is a practical issue as well as a pedagogical one, because the school's scores on state-wide standardized tests are lower for economically disadvantaged students than for …

A Handbook For Developing And Implementing A High School At-Risk Reading Program, Tamara A. Deford

All Graduate Projects

This project is intended to serve as a guide and resource for the development of a reading intervention program for at-risk secondary students. The project consisted of the following three foci: 1) an initial review of the literature in the areas of adolescent literacy, the Washington State Three-Tier Reading Model, the reading intervention program Literacy First, and school environmental and cultural traits that foster success among adolescent students-specifically struggling adolescent readers, 2) a discussion of Othello High School's process of the selection of a secondary reading intervention program, and 3) a resource handbook, which included methods and processes that supported …

Pursuing Regional Opportunities For Mentoring, Innovation, And Success For English Learners (Promise) Initiative: A Three-Year Pilot Study Research Monograph, Laurie Olsen Ph.D., Kathryn Lindholm-Leary, Ph.D. Ph.D., Magaly Lavadenz Ph.D., Elvira G. Armas Ed.D., Franca Dell'olio Ed.D.

Reports

The Pursuing Regional Opportunities for Mentoring, Innovation, and Success for English Learners (PROMISE) Initiative Research Monograph is comprised of four sub-studies that took place between 2006 and 2009 to examine the effectiveness of the PROMISE Initiative across six implementing counties.

Beginning in 2002, the superintendents of the six Southern California County Offices of Education collaborated to examine the pattern of the alarmingly low academic performance of English learners (EL) across Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, San Diego, Riverside, and Ventura. Together, these six counties serve over one million EL students, more than 66% of the total EL population in the …

Enhancing Reading Achievement Through Readers’ Theater And Art, Victoria Cunningham, Marcia Dosser, Edward J. Dwyer

ETSU Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Case 2: Books In Homes, Michelle Anderson

Tender Bridge

Books in Homes provides new books of choice to disadvantaged kids who typically grow up in “bookless” homes. The Programme results in improving literacy and attendance rates in participating schools. Kim Kingston is the Manager of Books in Homes, and this is her story of growing and resourcing a ‘great idea’.

Pragmatic Language Skills Underlying Social Competence Of Reading Disability In Middle School Students, Ali Adibi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this investigation was to examine pragmatic language engagement and social competence in middle school children with and without reading disability during dyadic interaction. Engagement was defined in terms of degree of information and responsiveness provided by each partner. Analyses indicated reading disabled students differ from non-reading disabled students in terms of pragmatic language engagement. However, this was true only in terms of degree of responsiveness. Students with reading disability employed similar degrees of pragmatic language engagement in terms of information to those of their nondisabled peers. Further, no relationships were found between social competence and either type …

The Master's Written Thesis, Anne West, Graduate Studies, Center For Arts & Language

Thesis Writing

91 pages : illus. ; 26 cm; 2nd Edition. "This guide to thesis development is best used in discussion and negotiation with your Graduate Program Director and other thesis advisors. It may also be used as part of a workshop structure to explore in conversation with others the ideas and possibilities most appropriate to your own work." – Anne West, from the Introduction. "This remarkable handbook is a navigational instrument offered to assist each graduate student through the development of an independent, distinctive process of writing about—and with—one’s work." – Patricia C. Phillips, from the introduction. "The first edition of …

Fay B. Kaigler Children's Book Festival, Karen Rowell, The University Of Southern Mississippi, The University Of Southern Mississippi's School Of Library And Information Science

Fay B. Kaigler Children's Book Festival Programs

The program for the forty-third annual Fay B. Kaigler Children's Book Festival held on the campus of The University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, Mississippi in 2010.

Planteamientos Colaborativos En La Didáctica De La Composición Desde Modelos Procesuales, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

El presente artículo parte de una revisión del modelo tradicional de la enseñanza de la escritura en la clase de LE entendida como producto. Desde este punto de partida, se evidencian las ventajas de adoptar una escritura colaborativa basada en la consideración del texto como un proceso en construcción que pasa por diferentes fases creativas y en un modelo pedagógico que centra su atención en el alumno dentro de la práctica escrita.

SUMMARY: In the initial part of this article, we begin with a review of the traditional model of teaching composition in a foreign language class in which writing …