Language and Literacy Education Commons^™

A Pedagogical Approach To Learning, Jonathan Davis

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

This portfolio is a collection of four projects that represent a collective study in multiple modes and methods of pedagogical approaches relevant to the modern paradigm of the field of education. Though not originally written with the intention of being unified under a single theme, as the portfolio was being assembled a cohesion emerged among the four projects stemming from their shared emphasis on pedagogical applications. Each of the four projects is an effort to explore a unique perspective regarding a particular concept or aspect of the field of education, or to address an issue in a unique way organic …

Preservice Teacher Perceptions Of Coding In Literacy Instruction, Denise Frazier, Anastasia M. Trekles

Journal of Computer Science Integration

Coding is a language with many similarities to what is traditionally thought of as literacy. Preservice teachers are familiar with literacy instruction, but were not exposed to computer science during their K-12 education nor in their teacher education course work. Yet, they are responsible for preparing children for future careers, including the growing field of computer science, which should be integrated as early as possible into the general education curriculum to build awareness, interest, and ultimately, skills. In this study, preservice teachers in a K-6 reading interventions class were trained in Scratch and provided a template to use with children …

The Case For Mandatory Literacy Training For Elementary Education Principals, Catherine Mcgeehan, Meganlyn Norris

Journal of Organizational & Educational Leadership

The focus of this study was to examine how well Educational Leadership programs prepare principals to serve as literacy leaders. The role of a school leader is complex and multifaceted involving managerial duties and resource allocation (Jenkins, 2009). Yet, the primary role of the school leader is “…to promote the learning and success for all students” (Lunenburg, 2010, p. 1). In a 2017 report commissioned by the Learning Policy Institute, Sutcher, Podolsky and Espinoza noted a strong positive correlation between instructional leadership and student achievement. This raises questions and concerns regarding the extent to which leadership preparation programs are preparing …

Writing That Counts: Grounding A Critique Of The Common Core English Language Arts Standards In Classroom Memories, Katie Nagrotsky, Anaisbely Franjul Grullon

Democracy & Education

The authors of this article call upon classroom memories to demonstrate the harm of the standardized testing apparatus in the English Language Arts (ELA) classroom. Goal setting under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) has led to targeted school intervention based on metrics, and many states have chosen to double down on standardized ELA and math test data to determine the quality of a school, student learning, and teacher effectiveness. The authors argue that the assessments associated with the ELA Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are harmful to all students, and particularly students from marginalized communities whose literacies are not …

Aspects Of Literacy In Vision And Mission Of University Libraries In Indonesia, Kundharu Saddhono, Puji Lestari, Yuliana Sari

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Literacy is closely related to libraries. Aspects of literacy existing in visions and missions become the main points and characteristics of a library. This study aimed to describe and explain aspects of literacy of libraries in top universities in Indonesia in terms of text and social context. It employed content analysis with descriptive qualitative approach. It also used critical discourse analysis model as proposed by van Dijk. It was textually related to micro analysis and socially connected to activities supporting the textual analysis. The result shows that aspects of literacy in top universities in Indonesia are textually and socially dominated …

Infographic: Student Word Choice During A Pandemic, Dominique Russell

Teacher infographics

Children aged 8-14 in Australia recently submitted a 100 word story responding to the prompt ‘A different world – living in lockdown’ for a story-writing event. Their word choices were analysed and in this infographic, we see how their word choices compare to previous instalments of the event.

A Teacher’S Reflection On Catholic Social Teachings And Hopeful Curriculum During Covid-19, Kierstin Giunco

COVID-19 and Catholic Schools

This reflection details the online adaptation of a robust advocacy unit that was grounded in Catholic Social Teachings. As this unit asked students to unravel single narratives and persuade others to take action, there was a seamless link between the original design and a “hopeful curriculum,” which is supportive during a time of crisis as the goal is social-justice through solidarity and active participation (Renner, 2009) Through intentionally redesigning the unit guided by student curiosity, the classroom was simultaneously engaged with faith and social justice. Students became active advocates, especially through the intertwined nature of their topics and current events. …

A Teacher's Reflection On Catholic Social Teachings And Hopeful Curriculum During Covid-19, Kierstin Giunco

Journal of Catholic Education

This reflection details the online adaptation of a robust advocacy unit that was grounded in Catholic Social Teachings. As this unit asked students to unravel single narratives and persuade others to take action, there was a seamless link between the original design and a “hopeful curriculum,” which is supportive during a time of crisis as the goal is social-justice through solidarity and active participation (Renner, 2009) Through intentionally redesigning the unit guided by student curiosity, the classroom was simultaneously engaged with faith and social justice. Students became active advocates, especially through the intertwined nature of their topics and current events. …

Differentiating Literacy Instruction Through Guided Reading, Emily Clare Ringquist

Masters Projects

Research reiterates how instilling a strong reading foundation in young students is vital to their growth in the future. Today, students need more support and individualized education to meet the diverse needs students enter school with. Whole group reading instruction does not benefit students in comparison to differentiated instruction. In order to differentiate instruction to meet the needs of the students as well as provide scaffolds to enhance literacy, teachers must incorporate small group instruction such as guided reading groups.

Guided reading are groups of students around the same developmental level that showcase similar learning needs exploring books. Teachers work …

Within, Without, And Amidst: A Review Of Literacy Educators’ Perceptions Of Participatory Media Technologies, William T. Wright

Journal of Media Literacy Education

With strict no-cell phone policies in classrooms becoming commonplace, national and international electioneering campaigns eroding trust in social media platforms, and content posted years prior affecting students’ acceptance into the colleges of their choice, it is little wonder that educators often think twice about bringing participatory technologies into their instruction. This literature review seeks to address how literacy educators reckon with the risks and potentials of these participatory technologies in the midst of our current sociopolitical climate, through an examination of an array of factors and influences that shape and give rise to educators’ understandings of participatory technologies’ place in …

Engaging Middle School Emergent Bilinguals In Language Awareness: A Practitioner Researcher Study, Carol Lickenbrock

Dissertations

This practitioner research study (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009) traced the journey toward critical literacy of a group of seven emergent bilinguals and me, their teacher, over the course of a four-month unit on argument as part of our English for Speakers of Other Languages 3 (ESOL3) class. Many of these students, like many emergent bilinguals in the United States, had been disempowered because they had not had access to the academic texts of school. As part of this research, students worked with tools of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) to analyze the interpersonal, ideational and textual metafunctions of argumentation in lessons …

The Importance Of Utilizing Play To Promote Emergent Literacy In Early Childhood Environment, Terisa Scrabeck

Innovations and Critical Issues in Teaching and Learning

There is no question that play is important in the lives of children at home and at school. Unfortunately, the amount of play in early childhood classrooms continues to diminish. Teachers are under pressure to meet high academic expectations so they are spending more time on instruction and testing instead of play. Children enjoy play and it improves many different skills, like literacy. Children develop knowledge of literacy as they engage with print. Therefore, literacy can be developed through different types of play, including well-defined enriched literacy play settings and adult role models. The importance of utilizing play to promote …

Innovations And Critical Issues In Teaching And Learning Volume 1, Issue 1, 2020

Innovations and Critical Issues in Teaching and Learning

Complete text of Innovations and Critical Issues In Teaching and Learning Volume 1, Issue 1, 2020.

Review Of The Vulnerable Heart Of Literacy: Centering Trauma As Powerful Pedagogy., Zipporah Galimore

The Language and Literacy Spectrum

In The Vulnerable Heart of Literacy: Centering Trauma as Powerful Pedagogy (2019), Elizabeth Dutro provides educators with heart-felt, inquiry-based strategies for using trauma as pedagogy in literacy classrooms. This book describes how to situate both educators and children to provide testimony and be critical witnesses in an effort to allow life knowledge, empathy, and wisdom be brought to classroom learning experiences. Dutro uses classroom vignettes and student work samples to illustrate how the concept of trauma as pedagogy can be applied across genres. Experiences and examples of literacy instruction in children's work from several elementary classrooms, from second grade through …

Valuing Voices: Construction Of Meaning Through Discursive Interactions During A Critical Service-Learning Partnership, Jane Helen Noble

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

As teacher educators strive to prepare preservice teachers for careers as literacy instructors and advocates of social justice in education, critical service-learning pedagogy has been considered as an approach for teacher education programs. Tenets of academic study, reflective practice, social change, and the development of authentic relationships between universities and communities outline the structure for critical-based field experiences. What are preservice teachers learning in these spaces? How do they grow as part of critical service- learning courses? How do community organizations and members interpret experiences in the partnership, and how do they describe their roles?

This study highlights the voices …

Dialectic Of Empathy. A Book Review Of Educating For Empathy: Literacy Learning And Civic Engagement, Dan Deweese

Democracy & Education

In Educating for Empathy: Literacy Learning and Civic Engagement, Mirra describes the value of teaching “critical civic empathy” in K–12 literacy classrooms. Distinguished from standard curricular uses of empathy that stress politeness at the level of the individual, critical civic empathy challenges students to take active steps toward questioning how imbalances of power and privilege arise and what assumptions should be questioned in order to address those imbalances. Mirra examines various teachers who center social issues in their literacy classrooms through the use of literature, the techniques of high school debate, research methodologies that see students as knowledge producers, …

Progress In International Reading Literacy Study: Measuring And Making International Comparisons Of Student Achievement In Reading, Australian Council For Educational Research

Assessment GEMS

Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) is an ongoing, cyclical international study of student achievement in reading. It is directed by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). PIRLS measures the reading comprehension performance of students and collects a wide array of contextual information about students, schools, curricula and educational policies and systems. PIRLS is designed to inform educational practice and policy by providing an international perspective of teaching and learning in reading literacy.

The Early Grade Reading Assessment: Assessing Children’S Acquisition Of Basic Literacy Skills In Developing Countries, Australian Council For Educational Research

Assessment GEMS

The Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA), administered individually in about 15 minutes, measures the most basic foundation skills for literacy acquisition in the early grades. The assessment was developed by the Research Triangle Institute (RTI) through funding provided by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the World Bank, in addition to resources provided by RTI. In the context of this emerging focus on measuring basic literacy skills, EGRA was developed to provide a battery of assessments of basic reading skills for developing countries to monitor the status of early reading in primary schools. The assessment tool was …

Teacher Expectations, Self-Efficacy, And Collective Efficacy In Three Tennessee Literacy Networks, Amanda Tinker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine if there was a significant difference in the dependent variables- teacher expectations, self-efficacy, and collective efficacy among the three levels of the independent variable- membership in one three literacy networks in Tennessee- Leading Innovation for Tennessee (LIFT), Read to Be Ready Coaching Network (RTBR), and Tennessee Early Literacy Network (TELN)- and if significant correlations existed between the dependent variables for each network. The population consisted of 161 K-3 Tennessee teachers who had been involved in the work of one of the three networks. Participants responded to an online survey via Google …

“My Heart Was Like, Write About This. There's No Other Way.”: Strengthening And Deepening Literacy Skills Of Adults In A High School Equivalency Program Through Creative Writing, Elizabeth Santiago

Educational Studies Dissertations

This qualitative study investigates how creative writing plays a role in strengthening and deepening literacy skills of adults in community-based high school equivalency diploma programs, which are operated under the publicly funded, adult basic education umbrella. Specifically, the study explores two sub-questions: How can creative writing processes support adult high school equivalency students’ achievement of personal and/or academic goals? How does a curricular focus on individual storytelling build students’ literacy confidence and/or their sense of student agency? Data sources includes pre- and post-surveys, pre- and post-interviews, field notes, and student work based on a curriculum designed using best practices in …

I Don’T Have The Answers, Sway! Teaching Secondary Literacy Methods Course Using An Inquiry Model Of Instruction, Kisha Porcher

New Jersey English Journal

In the era of high stakes testing, students have become conditioned to find the “right answer”and earn an “A” as opposed to engaging in critical thinking and productive struggle. In an effort to break this cycle, I restructured the literacy methods course to an inquiry model; Launch-Explore-Discuss.

The Enemy Of Digital Literacy Is Digital Marketing, Erika Hurth

New Jersey English Journal

This article considers the role that targeted advertising might play in reading comprehension. It is concerned with how the addictive design of online platforms may influence adolescent learning and well-being.

Leading Change: Microplanning To Customize Student Learning, Kara B. Douma, Kathleen Adler

New Jersey English Journal

No abstract provided.

Read, Write, Rhyme: Increasing Reading Performance With Hip-Hop Texts, Crystal Monique Lavoulle

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

This presentation describes the Harlem Renaissance to Hip Hop Movement, a literacy program that uses best practices in literacy instruction to improve reading comprehension, critical thinking, and writing. Moving beyond educational hip-hop songs and videos, this presentation offers insight into effective ways to increase Georgia Milestone Assessment scores in both English language arts and social studies using a variety of hip-hop texts.

Disruptive Teaching: Centering Equity And Diversity In Literacy Pedagogical Practices, Anne Swenson Ticknor, Mikkaka Overstreet, Christy M. Howard

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Teacher educators must prepare preservice teachers (PSTs) to become equitable practitioners who honor the voices and experiences of their future students. In this article, we advocate for centering equitable teaching in literacy education courses and making explicit how to disrupt traditional perspectives of teaching diverse students. This qualitative study investigated PSTs’ perceptions and attitudes about teaching diverse students after a series of modeled lessons. Analysis revealed that over the course of the semester PSTs either continued to focus on barriers related to equitable teaching, began to discuss new possibilities for teaching, or were ready to enact the practices they had …

Incarcerated Fathers’ Experiences In The Read To Your Child/Grandchild Program: Supporting Children’S Literacy, Learning, And Education, Esther Prins, Tabitha Stickel, Anna Kaiper-Marquez

Journal of Prison Education and Reentry (2014-2023)

In response to rising parental incarceration, some correctional facilities and outside organizations offer family literacy programs for parents in prison. However, research on these correctional education initiatives is scant. This paper uses qualitative data to analyze how 11 fathers in a rural Pennsylvania prison were involved in their children’s literacy, learning, and education before and during incarceration and through the Read to Your Child/Grandchild (RYCG) program. Before RYCG, most fathers had taken steps such as reading to children, teaching reading and math, attending parent-teacher conferences, helping with homework, and singing and rhyming—and then sought to continue supporting their children’s learning …

Do You Get The Picture?: A Meta-Analysis Of The Effect Of Graphics On Reading Comprehension, Daibao Guo, Shuai Zhang, Katherine Landau Wright, Erin M. Mctigue

Literacy, Language and Culture Faculty Publications and Presentations

Although convergent research demonstrates that well-designed graphics can facilitate readers’ understanding of text, there are select situations where graphics have been shown to have no effect on learners’ overall text comprehension. Therefore, the current meta-analytic study examined 39 experimental studies published between 1985 and 2018 measuring graphics’ effects on readers’ comprehension. We first quantified the overall effect on reading comprehension. Then, we considered interactions with learners’ characteristics, graphic types, and assessment formats. Our analysis revealed that the inclusion of graphics had a moderate overall positive effect (Hedges’s g = 0.39) on students’ reading comprehension, regardless of grade level. Regarding graphic …

Content Area Literacy: The Effects Of Focusing On Preservice Teachers’ Literacy Identities, Heather Pule

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

While secondary preservice content area teachers are passionate about their content areas, many are still resistant to learning about and using literacy in their future classrooms (Moje, 2010; O’Brien & Stewart, 1990, Spitler, 2011). This could be due to a struggle with high level literacy skills (American Institute for Research, 2006; NAEP, 2015) or a lack of literacy in their personal lives. This study examines a university content area literacy course that focused on preservice teachers’ literacy identities and on providing a community that offered positive interactions with literacy through authentic and purposeful reading experiences. A study of survey data …

Supporting And Sustaining Specialized Literacy Professionals In Teacher Leadership Positions, Thea Yurkewecz

The Language and Literacy Spectrum

Specialized literacy professionals (specialists/coaches/coordinators) are enacting leadership roles that influence how school communities interact and collaborate to change instructional practices. These positions involve multiple responsibilities highlighted in the standards for the Preparation of Literacy Professionals (International Literacy Association, 2017). This manuscript extends from the investigation of three specialized literacy professionals from one school community identified by their administrators as teacher leaders. After three years in these positions, each identify the structures, resources, and types of support that were critical to the sustainment of their leadership positions within their school district. This study informs the literacy community on the specific and …

Family Literacy Engagement: Parents’ Perceptions Of Their Home Learning Practices, Nichole L. Smith

The Language and Literacy Spectrum

The researcher in this study examined parents’ perceptions of the engagement activities in their homes. Parents of elementary school students in one southeastern United States school district were asked to participate in this study. Findings related to literacy, academic, and family engagement. Parents’ preparedness to assist their children with reading and their related needs were also examined. Relationships between race and gender showed significance when considering children’s access to academic and literacy materials as well as family engagement in educational practices including literacy. Literacy program providers, including those that educate parents, may consider this information when providing literacy support to …