Language and Literacy Education Commons^™

Using Music As A Classroom Tool, Gail Foreman

All Graduate Projects

The main focus of the project was to develop resources that will use music as a tool to improve literacy and support learning in third grade self contained classrooms. Research provides strong data connecting the relationship of music to academic achievement, language arts and improved test scores. This project provides prototype lesson plans that support grade level expectations and uses t4e Washington State Essential Academic Learning Requirements as a basis for the concepts being taught. A unit of lesson plans was developed that integrates music into the language arts. Worksheets, graphic organizers and a music book list were developed as …

Improving Teacher Quality Through An On-Line Professional Development Course: A Research Study, Ekaterina Koubek, Aleidine Kramer Moeller

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

This study investigated how in-service teachers of foreign languages constructed knowledge, and how this knowledge transformed their teaching, their beliefs, and their sense of themselves as professionals in an on-line professional development course based on a constructivist approach. This article provides an overview of research on distance education, constructivism, and teacher education with findings from a multiple case study of an on-line graduate course on Instructional Planning offered through GOLDEN (German On-line Distance Education Network; http://manila.unl.edu/amoeller/golden), a collaborative professional development project of the AATG (American Association of Teachers of German; http://aatg.org/member_services/lists/aatg-l.html ), the Goethe Institut of Washington DC ( …

English Language Learner Program At Irving Elementary : Finding A Life Preserver For Sink Or Swim Education, Pamela Argotsinger

Graduate Research Papers

Each year the United States becomes more ethnically and linguistically diverse and as a result, so do our schools. Students from non-English speaking backgrounds represent the fastest growing subset of the K-12 student population. In the 2003-2004 school year, 5.5 million school-age children were English language learners (Leos, 2004). As school districts across the country are faced with initiating and implementing programs for these learners, they must factor in the high stakes of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act and the possible impact of a new group of test scores on their adequate yearly progress.

The purpose of this …

Effective Strategies For Reading Improvement, Susan Pelleymounter

Graduate Research Papers

Longfellow Elementary has had a history of poor results on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. To address the problem, many innovations have been implemented such as Small Group Reading Instruction, vocabulary building, phonemic awareness, and sight word instruction.

This study was completed in an effort to determine if what teachers did on a daily basis to teach reading had an impact on students. This is important because teachers need their teaching to be efficient and effective. Test scores must increase at our school and we need data to prove that what we are doing is worthwhile. The question for …

How Can Teachers Motivate Secondary Language Arts Students? : 5 Prototypes, Kylee Schmitt Pusteoska

Graduate Research Papers

This research project began as a stream of unmotivated students walked through the door of a classroom. The author began to understand that while the current focus in American education is on standards and curriculum issues, the motivation of secondary students is often a lost and unrepresented topic in today's rhetoric. After being in the classroom for over seven years, the author was able to discern five prototypes of students. All five had different motivational styles and worked for different reasons. Using firsthand observations and scouring the current literature, the author was able to come up with some specific and …

In Teachers' Hands: Effective Literacy Teaching Practices In The Early Years Of Schooling, William Louden, Mary Rohl, Caroline Barratt Pugh, Claire Brown, Trevor Cairney, Jess Elderfield, Helen House, Marion Meiers, Judith Rivalland, Ken Rowe

Monitoring Learning

This project investigated the link between children’s growth in English literacy in the early years of schooling and their teachers’ classroom teaching practices. Using the LLANS literacy assessment tasks, 2000 children from every state and territory were assessed at the beginning and end of their first or second year at school. The teaching practices used by teachers whose students made most progress were explored. The effective teachers used a wide repertoire and demonstrated key teaching practices with greater consistency, skill and subtlety.

Developing Technical Communication Pedagogy For Nonnative Technical Graduate Students, David Sepulveda

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis seeks to develop a pedagogy for teaching academic writing to nonnative graduate students of technical disciplines in order to give them the skills they need to write papers that they can submit to academic journals and conferences, thereby advancing their careers and gaining recognition for their academic institutions. The work draws on research from the fields of technical communication and second-language acquisition in order to develop pedagogical principles for a class in which nonnative technical graduate students write an academic paper that they can submit for publication. The thesis proposes an approach that incorporates content-based instruction, certain plain …

Second Language Learners' Recognition Of Unknown Words, Chai-Wei Lin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recent research has underscored the important role of second language (L2) vocabulary acquisition in the reading process. The present study examined how accurately eighteen learners of English as a Second Language (ESL) were able to identify unknown words within a reading passage. It is assumed that "noticing" unfamiliar words in a text plays an important role in being able to extract meaning from context, which may ultimately result in word learning; thus, whether or not learners are able to recognize unknown words as unknown is a key step in vocabulary learning. The design of this study was based on previous …

Study Of Reciprocal Teaching And Peer Coaching At Central Middle School, Rebecca Mohorne

Graduate Research Papers

The purpose of Reciprocal Teaching is to improve reading comprehension through the use of cognitive strategies. The strategies teach students to think about what they are reading and learning. It also promotes collaboration between the student and teacher in the learning process.

This study was designed to evaluate the implementation of Reciprocal Teaching at Central Middle School. If the initiative is to be successful, implementation should result in higher test scores in reading comprehension. The data from this study will tell us what we are doing well and what we can prove regarding the implementation of Reciprocal Teaching. As other …

Strategies To Improve Reading Fluency In The Elementary Classroom, Jill Marie Vorwald Sampson

Graduate Research Papers

This paper examines the importance of instructing students in strategies to improve reading fluency. Research shows that very little class time is currently spent on teaching reading fluency and this paper provides instructional strategies that teachers can employ in their classrooms. The strategies discussed are Reader's Theater, paired reading, buddy reading, modeling, repeated reading, and Read Naturally.

Research has proven all of these strategies to be effective, and this literature review describes the usefulness of these strategies. The importance of reading fluency instruction and technology integration has also become a key issue as new technologies are regularly introduced. The use …

Reading Motivation In The Elementary Classroom, Maria E. Youngblut

Graduate Research Papers

This literature review offers suggestions on how to increase reading motivation in the elementary classroom. This review will look at ways to influence students to read. Reading motivation can affect a students' ability to learn how to read. Also, it will examine different aspects and techniques, and discuss how these components affect reading motivation in the elementary classroom setting. Overall, examples of ways to increase reading motivation will be investigated.

Dealing With Illiteracy, Helen Ann Myers

All Capstone Projects

This research project is to investigate illiteracy and join the battle to help alleviate this widespread disease, and its related problems. Illiteracy has been a very hotly debated issue in the United States for years. The number of illiterate adults is extremely high and the related challenges on this population are overwhelming. Because of this controversy, there is much debate over the best method of educating our young children to be good readers as well as how to address those who have difficulty reading.

Language Use And The Oral Tradition In Aaya (African American Young Adult) Literature, Kaavonia Hinton-Johnson

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

(First paragraph) In elementary school my favorite teachers taught me that the language used in my home was incorrect, incoherent, and inappropriate. My second grade teacher Ms. Hull, a tall, thin, dark-skinned woman, stands out among the others. I can still see her hovering over us. “Was!” Ms. Hull shouted, “not wuz. Your tongue is lazy.” “You be what?” she’d ask in disgust with one hand on her hip. When this happened, I was sure to get yelled at and lectured. To avoid such humiliation, I quickly learned to, as we said in my neighborhood, “talk proper.” Shame nagged at …