Language and Literacy Education Commons^™

Why Word Problems Are Hard For High School Math Students: Problem Formulation And Disciplinary Literacy, Emily Charlotte Elliott

Senior Theses

This thesis is an extensive literature review designed to better understand the obstacles high school math students encounter when solving word problems (WPs). While many high school students find math difficult in general, students especially struggle with WPs. Often they are unable to provide correct solutions to WPs even when they are successful in solving computational problems using the same mathematical concepts (Cummins, 1988). Data from the 2007 National Survey of Algebra Teachers suggests that solving WPs is one of the skills that students are most unprepared for when entering Algebra 1 (Hoffer et al.). Additionally, many students try to …

Processes: Writing Across Academic Careers, Christoper Iverson, Dan Ehrenfeld

Milne Open Textbooks

Processes: Writing Across Academic Careers is an edited collection showcasing the diversity of writing processes, styles, and formats in academia. Students, faculty, and staff share both published and unpublished work and reflect on their writing process as well as writing in their fields and disciplines. This book shows that, while writing looks and functions differently in different disciplines, college communities center on writing.

The text’s sections feature compositions from nursing, STEM and health sciences, education, and history and culture. The examples include reflections on the role of writing in one’s academic career, examples of professional writing in the sciences, research …

A Research-Based Approach For Teaching Written Apologies To English For Academic Purposes Learners, Lisa Leopold

MITESOL Journal: An Online Publication of MITESOL

This article describes a research-based approach for teaching written personal, corporate, and public apologies to advanced English language learners. Following an explicit-inductive approach, the proposed lessons incorporate authentic input, metapragmatic explanation, noticing activities, corpus-based exercises, and empirically based research findings, all of which have been shown to enhance learners’ sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic competence. Learners apply research findings to analyze authentic apologies, revise them for greater sincerity, and use a corpus to expand the range of expressions for apologizing. The pedagogical activities expand the scope of written pragmatics instruction which has been relatively under-represented in the field of pragmatics.

Using Diverse Genres To Develop Emerging Readers, Jason Owen Hamstra

Andrews University Teaching and Learning Conference

Students at the emerging level are at a critical point in their language development journey. They are learning how the words they say look on paper and how those words can convey meaning. Each genre contains different elements that will help build and strengthen emergent literacy skills. Different genres can be used to teach important literacy skills that emergent learners need to develop. Looking through the lens of emergent literacy we can find out which genres are best suited for developing different skills.

How To Incorporate Reading Strategies In Music And Why That Is Crucial To Student Learning, Daniel Victor Soochkoff-Cerna

Andrews University Teaching and Learning Conference

This poster takes a look at reading strategies in the area of music. It will also describe what music literacy is and why good reading strategies are an important component in creating competent musicians.

The Benefits Of Diverse Literature For Emergent Readers, Bianca Nicole Loss

Andrews University Teaching and Learning Conference

Studies show that students learn better when they see themselves in the classroom. Our classroom demographics are changing; our classrooms are becoming more diverse, with more cultures being represented. Every student should be able to make text-to-self connections while reading. How do we ensure this goal is reached? What are good examples of representative literature? This poster will explore the benefits of diverse literature for emergent readers.

The Importance Of Storytelling, Niang Lun-Ngai Hatlangh

Andrews University Teaching and Learning Conference

The Importance of Storytelling is the topic of my presentation. My presentation topics will be based on my research on the effects that storytelling has on various curricula (in schools), homes, and daily life. This implies that the presentation will go into detail on how storytelling affects reading and writing, how storytelling affects other subjects or how we may utilize storytelling in other subjects, how it affects our emotions, and how it affects the relationship between parents and children.

Strategies For Teaching Reading In High School Music Classes, Megan Case

Andrews University Teaching and Learning Conference

When you think of subjects that benefit from literacy, music may not be the first one that comes to mind. While "reading" music usually refers to interpreting the notes and symbols on the page being able to read texts about music can give students context and background they wouldn't otherwise have. This enables them to connect to the music on a deeper and more meaningful level. This project describes just a few of the ways increasing literacy in the field of music enhances the quality of education students receive

Disciplinary Literacy In History Grade 9-12th, Daseph Jovid Edwards

Andrews University Teaching and Learning Conference

I will be presenting a poster on reading for my EDTE 417/ EDTE 517 Teaching Reading Content Area/Secondary class. As my content area is social, my emphasis will be on how to engage students more in reading about history and social issues such as poverty and inequality.

The Impact Of Supplemental Phonemic Awareness Lessons On Phonological Awareness And Spelling Development Among Kindergarten And First Graders, Crystal Olinger

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Capstones

Reading is a developmental process that builds on complex cognitive processes and starts long before children enter school. This present study investigated the impact of supplemental phonemic awareness lessons on phonological awareness and spelling development among kindergarten and first graders. The Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP-2) measured phonological awareness. The Kindergarten Inventory of Developmental Spelling (KIDS) measured spelling development in kindergarten students. The Developmental Spelling Analysis (DSA) measured spelling development in first grade. Participants in the treatment group received 16 weeks of weekly word study instruction and 10-15 minute daily phonemic awareness instruction. A mixed design full factorial ANOVA …

“I Think Writing Is…” A Multi-State Study Of Teacher Candidates’ Changing Beliefs About Writing, Jenn Raskauskas, Sonia M. Kline, Amanda Wall, Grace Y. Kang, Chinwe H. Ikpeze, Joy Myers, Roya Q. Scales, Linda D. Smetana, Kelly Tracy

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

While writing scholarship framed by sociocultural theory illuminates the complexity of writing, writing in schools is frequently presented in simplistic ways. For this to change, teacher educators must support future teachers to develop complex understandings of writing. The purpose of this multi-state study was to investigate teacher candidates’ changing beliefs about writing and to consider the implications for teacher preparation. Data sources were written responses from 113 teacher candidates to questions about good writing and the purposes of writing that were collected at the beginning and end of semester-long literacy courses in six institutions across the United States. The responses …

Multilingual Zambia - Language Issues In Primary/Secondary Schools Of The Eastern/Southern Provinces, Kenzie Steiner

NUTR/GLST 498b: Global Research Experiences in Nutrition and Health

Introduction: Zambia is a multilingual country that uses 8 different languages for instruction including English and 7 other indigenous languages.

Methods: Survey research conducted between May-June 2022 on 6-7th graders within 9 Zambian schools. Classroom observations made and teachers interviewed.

Results: In Eastern and Southern Provinces, Zambian teachers speak an average of 5 languages while students speak an average of 2. Both teachers and students say English remains the most important language followed by first languages.

Conclusion: Continued research on language-in-education policies and impacts on student performance must be conducted if “One Zambia, One Nation” is meant to promote all …

Understanding The Relationships Between Social-Emotional Competency, Reading Fluency, Reading Comprehension, And Reading Achievement In Adolescent Students, David Phillips

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Capstones

The improvement of social-emotional factors is thought to help increase students’ achievement by 11% (Durlak et al., 2011). This current study is a descriptive study set in a rural setting, and it included 101 seventh and eighth-grade students. The study explored the relationship between social-emotional competency, reading ability, and reading achievement in adolescent students. Correlation results showed statistically positive relationships between reading measures and social-emotional measures except for social awareness and grit. Regression results revealed that social-emotional competencies explained from 7% to 36% of the variance in adolescent reading. Social-emotional competencies and reading ability measures together explained 51% to 53% …

An Exploratory Study Of Elementary School Students’ Reading Performance Scores Before And After Covid-19, Timothy Goodman

Doctor of Education (Ed.D)

The purpose of this study was to explore the reading performance scores of elementary school students in one school district before and after school closures due to COVID-19. This nonexperimental, exploratory study of quantitative, archival data was designed to explore a single cohort (N = 2,006) of third- through fifth-grade students’ i-Ready reading diagnostic scale scores from five different assessment periods: before school closures in spring 2020 and four subsequent assessment periods after face-to-face instruction resumed in fall 2020. The research sample excluded exceptional student education students and English language learners who had been retained. Mean scale scores of …

Including The Literary Arts As The A In Steam, Lindsay E. Cunningham

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

This article examines the integration of literature into secondary STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) classes in British Columbia, Canada. Data were collected through interviews with nine secondary STEM subject teachers and focus on teachers’ perceptions of the effects of including literature, what/how literature has been included, as well as the barriers, both real and perceived, to doing so.

A review of the literature demonstrates that integrating literature into STEM can be appealing to a broad range of students and teachers and can help to engage students with a variety of interests, perspectives, and backgrounds. The arts, including the literary arts, …

Evolving Literacy Practices In The Vocational-Technical High School Classroom: How Critical Literacy Frameworks Enhance Learning And Increase Student Reading Success In Cte, Alice A. Infranco

Theses and Dissertations

This paper provides a qualitative account of how Critical Literacy instruction fosters reading growth in vocational-technical school settings. This study examines how critical literacy enriches learning outcomes within Career and Technical Education (CTE). The findings are that Critical Literacy skills are necessary for all readers because they positively affect student engagement and participation in learning, especially if presented in a way that allows students to have an active role in their learning. Examples of how to integrate Critical Literacy instruction into CTE classrooms are presented and discussed. These instructional practices go beyond traditional reading comprehension skills. The conclusion is that …

Staying “Above The Fray” With Julia B. Lindsey’S Insights On Effective Reading Instruction, Troy Hicks, Emma Chappel, Kirstin Fish, Anne Hosking, Jill Johnston, Jodi Juergens, Georgianna Murray, Lindsay Picarski, Heidi Turchan, Meghan K. Block, Chad Waldron

Michigan Reading Journal

In this crowdsourced, collaborative book review, participants in an online book club share their insights on Julia B. Lindsey's 2022 Scholastic Professional text, Reading Above the Fray.

Pierce’S “Expanding Literacy: Bringing Digital Storytelling Into Your Classroom”, Troy Hicks

Michigan Reading Journal

A book review of Brett Pierce's 2022 Heinemann publication, Expanding Literacy: Bringing Digital Storytelling into Your Classroom.

Centering Community In Disciplinary Literacy Implementation: One District’S Story, Jenelle Williams, Stacie Angel, Jennifer Wilcox, Angela Church

Michigan Reading Journal

In this article, the authors describe the various ways they have centered community while implementing disciplinary literacy in their district. They outline how the work began, the role of professional learning, and the systemic approaches that are effectively moving the work forward. This story offers an alternate approach to implementation--one that honors educators' expertise, differentiates approaches, and develops collective efficacy.

Reading Coaches For A 40 Book Challenge: Creating An Online Reading Community To Support Sixth Graders’ Independent Reading, Amy Carpenter Ford, Kayla Szymanski, Isabel Slate, Rachel Derusha

Michigan Reading Journal

English teacher candidates, or “Reading Coaches,” conducted virtual reading conferences with sixth graders using the digital platforms Zoom and Flip to support students’ independent reading as part of a 40 Book Challenge in an online and blended learning environment during the COVID-19 pandemic. As evidence of students’ participation and engagement, we present survey results and draw from conference records, observation notes, and a content analysis of video transcripts, triangulating across data sets to illuminate important design features. Connecting research with practice, we offer educators tangible resources of a Conference Guide, Flip design, record-keeping system, and training materials, as well as …

Connecting Dots: Using Learner Self-Narratives To Address The Disconnect Between The Texts And English Learners' Prior Experience, Rui Niu-Cooper

Michigan Reading Journal

With the rapid increase of ELs in Michigan and around the United States, scholars have been exploring ways to narrow or close the achievement gap. This pursuit is significant, but hard to achieve due to various challenges that ELs experiencing in their schooling. This situation worsened in relation to ELs from refugee backgrounds due to the traumatic experience that occurred before they were resettled in the U.S. More critically, EL teachers and paraprofessionals are often marginalized from other teachers. The purpose of this article is to introduce and advocates for a Learner Self-Narrative-based (LSN-based) approach to better support EL students. …

Why Not Sign? Classrooms As Sites Of D/Deaf And Multilingual Literacy Development, Dawnavyn James, Brianne R. Pitts

Michigan Reading Journal

While often, “bilingual” literacy instruction has overlooked the potential of incorporating ASL in classrooms (U.S.DPE, 2021), this article engages discussions of practice from a Missouri Kindergarten classroom to argue that teachers can improve student literacy outcomes by leveraging d/Deaf and hard of hearing multilingual learning (DML) strategies as a way of (re)imagining students’ multimodal literacy development. By engaging with a variety of strategies learned from DML students, readers may conceptualize DML inclusive classroom practices. Following a review of the literature and discussion, games, instructional strategies, and text recommendations for educators seeking DML inclusive literacy environments are provided.

A Trauma Responsive Approach To Fostering Resilience, Addressing Equity Issues And Improving Student Wellness And Academic Success, Mark Harrington, Joe Thompson, Kimberly Witeck

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

We’ll start with our school’s motto, “Family, Love, Respect,” which is posted in nearly every hallway, office and gathering place in our school. We attempt to provide each student with a strong sense of each. Although ours is an alternative high school, filled with stories of trauma, neglect and despair, our students are resilient! With that in mind we have created a number of programs to encourage resilience, provide a healthy path forward, decrease student discipline, and foster student success. All of these programs, and the stories we share detailing what our students have overcome show just how resilient young …

Write The Book! How To Share Research And Promising Practices To Support Underserved Students, Douglas Rife

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

The needs of our students have grown exponentially in the last two years. Educators, community services and care givers are at a loss to support all of the academic, physical and emotional challenges our students are facing. Learn tips and processes for writing a book to share your research, experience and solutions to ensure the happiness and success of ALL students.

Envisioning Online English Teaching In Indonesia: A Digital Autoethnographic Account, Muhalim Muhalim

The Qualitative Report

The onset of the global pandemic has become a radical turn of brick-and-mortar schooling to online distance learning. In this respect, continuous dialogue, and evaluation around the issue of online learning should be nurtured, particularly from actual pedagogical practices. Drawing on a digital autoethnographic account of the author, this article explores everyday online English teaching in tertiary education. I collected data using textual, visual, and aural experiences, corroborated by Zoom auto-recorded chats and screenshots as the artefacts of my online learning and teaching activities. The data were analyzed using the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework that focused on social, cognitive, …

Front Matter, Keb Editorial Board

Kentucky English Bulletin

No abstract provided.

Legislating Phonics: Settled Science Or Political Polemics?, David Reinking, George G. Hruby, Victoria J. Risko

Publications

In this commentary, we identify a phonics-first ideology and its polemical distortions of research and science to promote legislation that constrains and diminishes the teaching of reading. We affirm our own, and a majority of reading professionals’, commitment to teaching phonics. However, we argue that phonics instruction is more effective when embedded in a more comprehensive program of literacy instruction that accommodates students’ individual needs and multiple approaches to teaching phonics—a view supported by substantial research. After summarizing the politicization of phonics in the United States, we critique a legislated training course for teachers in Tennessee as representative of how …

Word Analysis: Contemplating The Word La Madre To Develop An Approach For The Instruction Of Cultural Perspectives, Gregory De La Piedra

Dimensions

Word Analysis is an approach to teach second language (L2) students about cultural perspectives which are understood collectively as the ideas, values, beliefs, and experiences many native speakers have regarding cultural domains within their own cultures. Word Analysis is anchored on the relationships between language and communication, and language and culture. The present study researches the history behind the dual value of the term “la madre” [mother] in Mexican Spanish to deliver a practical method that language instructors easily could easily incorporate within their materials to teach L2 culture, or that publishers could integrate within their textbooks. The primary purpose …

Collaboration And Writing Development In L2 Spanish: A Microanalytic Perspective, Brian Olovson

Dimensions

This case study focuses on how two learners position themselves as partners in a collaborative writing activity in a Spanish Writing course. I utilize a micro-discourse analytic approach (Eskildsen & Markee, 2018; van Compernolle, 2015, 2018) to highlight the situated nature of collaboration and the dynamicity of the collaborative writing process as it unfolds turn-by-turn during their interactions. This type of analysis permits researchers to explore how learners orient to their partners and to the language they are producing, and what learners do with their talk (Markee, 2000), so that researchers can observe their competence-in-action (Pekarek Doehler, 2013). The discursive …

Transformative Experiences Of Beginner L2 Learners In The Italian Classroom For Social Justice, Giulia Negretto, Borbala Gaspar

Dimensions

Focusing on two beginner Italian courses, this study demonstrates participants’ perceptions of and engagement with social justice topics and materials in a semesterlong project. A quantitative and qualitative analysis of surveys, triangulated with interviews and artifacts, such as comments by students during lessons and in their video responses, provide us with a better understanding of students’ previous expectations, perceptions and experiences with learning Italian; their background knowledge on social justice; and their reactions to the activities implemented throughout the course. Our findings indicate that learners value classroom activities and learning tools that allow them to share, collaborate, and reflect together. …