Curriculum and Instruction Commons^™

Effective Language Arts Teachers Of Urban African American Middle School Students In The Greater Detroit Area, Lanissa Laura Freeman

Wayne State University Dissertations

Teaching in a large urban district has been historically described as a complex task and with the growing number of diverse students, the challenge continues to grow. The challenge is now coupled with major budget shortfalls. Across the nation public schools are struggling to keep the doors open, and provide basic supplies for students and teachers. Despite looming layoffs, closing schools, consolidations, and increased academic demands, there is a group of teachers in every urban district that consistently get results. The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify the beliefs, backgrounds, and classroom practices effective language arts teachers used …

A Qualitative Study On African American Males' Perceptions Of Reading, Phyllis Marie Stallings

Wayne State University Dissertations

African American male students begin experiencing failure when they enter fourth grade. At this grade, the curriculum becomes more focused, students are expected to complete high-stakes standardized tests, teachers become more distant, and students are expected to become independent learners. Many African American male students are not ready for this transformation. They may not have developed the reading skills needed to understand text books for social studies and science, and are deficient in regard to the math skills needed for problem solving. Understanding which factors are contributing to African American male student failure is important, especially in determining if these …

The Effects Of Story Performance On Fourth And Fifth Grade Students' Comprehension And Oral Reading Fluency Of Narrative And Expository Texts, Shawn Kevin Wightman

Wayne State University Dissertations

This study was undertaken as an attempt to assess the effects of storytelling and reading aloud on fourth and fifth grade children's comprehension and oral reading fluency of both narrative and expository texts. The independent variable involved two strategies for introducing stories to children (storytelling and story reading) and a comparison strategy (silent reading). Each treatment (or strategy) was used, in part, to differentiate literacy instruction over a period of seven weeks.

Treatment 1 consisted of twenty-eight teacher-storytelling performances (fourteen narrative and fourteen expository). Likewise, Treatment 2 consisted of twenty-eight teacher-story reading aloud performances of narrative and expository texts (the …