Education Commons^™

The Effects Of A Computer-Based Phrase Reading Intervention On Word Reading In Postsecondary Students With Disabilities, Chelsea Sabrina Wilson

Doctoral Dissertations

Post-secondary students with intellectual and developmental disability have an increased presence on college and university campuses nationwide. Given the academic rigor required to succeed in college courses, students with Intellectual and Developmental Disability need support and explicit instruction to target specific skill deficits. This dissertation includes four-chapters. Chapter One is an overview of post-secondary education programs, reading challenges experienced by post-secondary students with disabilities, and whole-word reading interventions. Chapter Two describes a study in which a computer-based phrase reading intervention was used to increase course related vocabulary acquisition. Chapter Three describes a study in which a computer-based phrase reading intervention …

English Teachers’ Perceptions Of Media And Identity In A Post-Truth World: An Arts-Based Qualitative Study Using Comic Making As Method, Jared Benjamin Huisingh

Doctoral Dissertations

This study sought to learn from English teachers in Tennessee who worked through the pandemic. This study asked teachers to explain how they teach about media in their English classrooms, and it asked them to show how media affected their identities through art. This study found that though varied approaches exist, their comfort in teaching CML was dependent on personal safety, political influence, and administrative support. Participants showcase the media’s myriad effects in artwork while their stories are depicted in comic form. Implications for teacher practice and research are also discussed.

Instigators And Partners: Young Adult Literature’S Role In Readers’ Identity Formation, Cammie Jo Lawton

Doctoral Dissertations

This instrumental case study explored self-identified YA readers’ formative experiences with YAL and how their reading experiences contributed to their holistic identity. Using reader response theory, conceptualizations and varying layers of social imagination, and identity as theoretical foundations, the purpose of this dissertation is to inquire into YA readers’ experiences and determine how they describe YAL’s role in their sense of self over the course of their lives. The study was guided by the following research questions:

1. What types of transactions with YA texts have occurred with self-identified YA readers? Why have these transactions proved meaningful for the reader?
2. In …

Pre-Service Teachers’ Planned Accommodations For English Learners: An Assessment Approach For Systematic Improvement, John C. Mooneyham

Doctoral Dissertations

As the dramatic increase in ELs in mainstream classrooms over the last decade continues to impact multiple facets of the educational system, teachers must respond and adapt to the complex and diverse needs of their students. To provide equitable instruction for ELs in the classroom teachers must understand the varied demands of EL instruction and plan appropriate accommodations to help these students grasp grade-level content. The present study investigated how intentionally pre-service teachers (PSTs) plan appropriate accommodations for English learners (ELs) to ensure comprehensibility of the content they are planning to teach. By examining lesson plans developed by PSTs using …

World Language Teachers' Perceptions Of Efficacy In The Modern, Communicative Classroom, Valerie M. Schmidt-Gardner

Doctoral Dissertations

Approaches to second language pedagogy have evolved from their earlier iterations. Methods that once focused purely on the translation of a document from its original language into the student’s own have been replaced by communicative approaches that require students to produce the language (ACTFL, 2014b). To that end, world language teachers must create an environment in which the second language is used as much as possible (ACTFL, 2014b). Creating the environments necessary for the acquisition of language (Aljohani, 2017) depends on teachers’ beliefs about themselves (Cooke & Faez, 2019) and the pedagogical approaches they find valuable (Brown, 2009).

Through the …

Effects Of Repeated Reading With A Reader's Theater Approach On First Graders' Reading Fluency, Comprehension, And Prosody, Allison M. Murray

Masters Theses

Reading fluency is a critical skill to acquire to advance reading achievement in elementary grades and beyond. The purpose of this study was to determine how a reading fluency intervention using repeated reading methods influences first graders’ oral reading fluency, prosody, and comprehension. Participants were 21 students from a first-grade classroom (n = 9 male, 12 female) in a suburban school. The study was based on action research with the teacher engaging in educational practices and reflection. Students took part in a fluency intervention using Reader’s Theater scripts from the adopted curriculum at the school. Assessments examined accuracy, prosody, …

Student Choice-Of-Text In An Upper Secondary Independent Reading Program: A Quasi-Experimental Study, Brian M. Deloach

Doctoral Dissertations

This study examined the effects of student choice-of-text and reading comprehension outcomes in a 12-week independent reading program in an upper-secondary school. Students aged 17-18 (N = 52) were divided into two groups with one receiving an assigned text of age-appropriate Lexile estimate and genre; the other group was given free choice-of-text from an appropriate Lexile level from a classroom library. This quasi-experimental study followed a pretest-posttest, one-way ANCOVA model with both groups receiving the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test series before and after the intervention. Both groups made modest gains; however, the ANCOVA results revealed no statistically significant difference between the …

Specificity Of Infant Statistical Word Segmentation, Sara Parvanezadeh Esfahani

Doctoral Dissertations

By their first birthday, infants develop sensitivity to language-general (e.g., transitional probability (TP) between syllables) and language-specific (e.g., lexical stress pattern) cues to identify word boundaries. Across 5 experiments, I investigated two questions: 1) how do English learning 8-month-old infants segment high TP (TP=1; HTP) words in non-native languages that have a different rhythm and prosody? 2) how do English learning 8-month-old infants represent nascent word representations across indexical (i.e., talker’s voice), segmental (i.e., onset consonant) and suprasegmental (i.e., stress pattern) information? To that end, in each experiment, using HTPP, I familiarized infants with a familiarization corpus with two embedded …

Latinidad In Summer Reading: A Collaborative Approach To Multicultural Literacy For Latino/A English Learners’ Self-Efficacy In Transitioning To Middle School, Elizabeth Fincher

Doctoral Dissertations

This qualitative interpretive case study unites literacy education and the field of second language acquisition with quantitative surveys and questionnaires to explore self-efficacy beliefs and literacy learning during transitional experiences of rising fourth through ninth Latino/a/a English Language Learners (LELLs) in a summer reading program. Community Engaged Scholarship in a co-developed summer program with community partner Centro Hispano de East Tennessee frames this research to offer diverse perspectives in curriculum and instructional improvement efforts towards equitable literacy education. How schools and youth-serving organizations support LELLs’ transitional processes in second language acquisition and literacy is shaped by how well teachers and …

“Putting Coyolxauhqui Together”: An Autoethnographic Exploration Of Identifying And Healing Fragmentation Through Decolonial Feminist Creative Writing Practices, Elizabeth Parker Garcia

Doctoral Dissertations

There has been a chronic need for more high-quality children’s books by minoritized authors, yet few scholars have examined the historic contexts and formative processes impacting such authors’ success. This critical autoethnographic study employs a decolonial feminist lens and creative practices to help one children’s book writer examine the formative sources impacting both her fragmentation and her inner strength. The Vietnamese American author specifically examines historic sources of Anti-Asian racism in the United States including those that influenced her directly during her childhood. On a personal level, she explores artifacts from her K-12 and college experiences that help her understand …

"I Can't Say That I Hate It": Reading And Ela Teachers' Experiences With A Scripted Curriculum, Amanda Rigell

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to understand how teachers implemented, modified, or resisted the implementation of a scripted English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum. This critical case study used qualitative interviews to investigate reading and ELA teachers’ experiences with implementing a scripted ELA curriculum in a single school district. Findings include teachers’ observations about the role of the curriculum in their teaching, the role of their self-efficacy as teachers, the role of reciprocal trust between administrators and teachers, and the role of power in the adoption and implementation of the curriculum. These findings may be of interest to school and …

The Policy Feedback Loop: Exploring English Learner (El) Policy, Policy Implementation, And The Relationship Between Policy, Research, And Practice, Nathan D. Koerber

Doctoral Dissertations

This study will explore the EL policy implementation process and offer evaluative feedback by systematically reviewing the history of US federal educational language policy and its impact on schools and classrooms, as well as the role research, has played in the development of EL policy. Additionally, this study will explore how current language policy implementation impacts programming and practices in both the UK and the US through two separate case studies, as a means of providing evaluative feedback on the policies.

The purpose of this study is to elucidate the complicated history of EL policy and its impact, as well …

Developing A Hands-On Food Science Curriculum With Bilingual Elementary-Aged Hispanic Heritage Students, Jaime Leia Ragos

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

The Use Of Ell Specific Assessment Accommodations: A Comparative Case Study Of Classroom Practices, Natalia Yeremina Ward

Doctoral Dissertations

Access and equity of instructional and assessment practices used with English Language Learners (ELLs) have been in the forefront of educational research. In recent years, the developments in computerized assessment design and the prevalence of Universal Design for Learning have complicated the already complex terrain of literacy and language instruction and assessment of ELLs. Within this context, the present study focuses on the daily experiences of two third-grade ELLs in a small city school system in the southeast United States. Through classroom observations, interviews with teachers and administrators, and document analysis, this comparative ethnographic case study aims to explore systematic …

Investigating The Existence Of Word Callers, Rhonda Rae Dejournett

Doctoral Dissertations

Numerous investigations of reading ability have identified students who demonstrate adequate oral reading fluency rates but fail to reflect understanding on measures of reading comprehension (Buly & Valencia, 2002; Catts, Compton, Tomblin, & Bridges, 2012; Hamilton & Shinn, 2003; Jenkins, Hudson, & Johnson, 2007; Jorm, 1983; Meisinger, Bradley, Schwanenflugel, Kuhn, & Morris, 2009; Morris, 1998; Torppa et al., 2007). This group of struggling readers is sometimes referred to as word callers; however, there has been debate among scholars (Hamilton & Shinn, 2003; Stanovich, 1993) regarding whether such a group exists, if the term is a misnomer (Spencer, Quinn, & Wagner, …

Secondary Teachers’ Perspectives On Response To Intervention: A National Study, Rachelle Sarah Savitz

Doctoral Dissertations

Response to Intervention is a policy that has been implemented across the country to reduce the number of students incorrectly identified Specific Learning Disabled (SLD), and to enhance the educational outcomes for all students. While most states provide guidelines or frameworks for implementation, there generally is not much provided for individual states and districts regarding how to implement RTI in their schools. With implementation happening at the secondary level and most secondary educators not having a literacy background, there is a need to find out more regarding teachers’ perceptions. This mixed-methods sequential design exploration study first used a national survey …

Immersion Schools And Language Learning: A Review Of Cherokee Lanugage Revitalization Efforts Among The Eastern Band Of Cherokee Indians, Elizabeth Albee

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.