The purpose of the current study was to examine the effects of a multi-tiered oral narrative language intervention on kindergarteners’ oral and written narrative and oral expository skills. The participants included 686 kindergarten students from four school districts in the upper Midwest. They were randomly assigned at the classroom level to a treatment or control condition. The treatment group received large group (tier-1) oral narrative language instruction led by classroom teachers and followed the Story Champs procedures. Students whose oral narrative retell skills did not improve after one month of large group instruction were placed in small groups and received more intense oral narrative language instruction in addition to Tier 1 instruction. Tier 2 instruction followed the Story Champs small groups producers and was administered by speech-language pathologists. At posttest, students’ narrative retell, personal story generation, narrative writing, and expository retell scores were analyzed. The treatment and control groups were compared across all measures. The Tier 2 treatment group was also compared across all measures to matched samples of at-risk, average, and advanced students in the control group. The results indicate that the treatment group made significant improvements across all measures when compared to the control group. Tier 2 students consistently performed similarly to or significantly outperformed their at-risk, average, and advanced peers across all measures with the exception of expository retell. This study demonstrates the effectiveness of a multi-tiered oral narrative language intervention in improving the narrative and expository language skills of kindergarten students. Future research is needed to determine the effects of implementing an explicit expository oral language intervention on kindergarten students’ language skills.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

<p>Education has become increasingly important in today’s society. In the three essays of this dissertation, I analyze the impacts of government education policies on elementary and high school students in Ontario.</p> <p>The first two essays measure the costs and benefits of programs that allow students to choose from a wider range of high schools. Theoretically, increased choice could benefit students since schools might compete for students by improving their productivity. The third essay of this dissertation, coauthored with Jean Eid and Christine Neill, examines the impacts on students of a switch from half-day to full-day kindergarten.</p> <p>In the first essay (Chapter 2), I document that students living in areas with more choice are more likely to apply to university. These outcomes seem to be due to competition between Public and Catholic school boards. I find that students attending public schools are more likely to apply to university when they are surrounded by more Catholic schools (and vice versa).</p> <p>In Chapter 3, I examine a potentially negative outcome of increased choice. I find that it is the brightest students (as measured by their standardized test scores) who are the most likely to take up the choice and opt in to a different school. These bright students move to what are perceived to be the better schools, leaving behind weaker students at poorer schools. If peer effects are important, this has the potential to be harmful for weaker students.</p> <p>In Chapter 4, my coauthors and I measure the impact of full-day kindergarten on standardized test scores once the students are in grades 3 and 6. We find that this universal program had no effect on the overall likelihood that a student passes these standard tests; however, we do observe some small improvements for students living in low-income and low-education neighbourhoods.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)