In the field of deaf education, a long-standing and still unanswered question is why are the reading levels and academic achievement levels of deaf and hard of hearing children inferior to their hearing peers. Teachers and parents continue to look for reasons to explain the gap and strategies they can use to narrow this gap between the reading achievement of children who are deaf and children who hear. For all children, literacy learning begins at birth. During the early years, children listen to and learn from the language their parents speak to them. The children are affected by the family interactions and experiences of daily life both inside and outside the family. Examination of literacy interactions of deaf children and their parents may provide answers to help us understand the literacy achievement gap deaf children experience. For this research dissertation, my focus was on: (a) How does the communication method of the deaf child affect language learning?; (b) How can the parent-child literacy interactions of deaf children be described?, and (c) How can preschool-age deaf children’s emergent literacy behaviors be described? This naturalistic study looked at the early literacy interactions of preschool deaf children of hearing parents. From an initial group of ten families, three families from an early intervention program were selected. The researcher identified the literacy histories of the deaf children, described the parent-child literacy interactions, and explored emergent literacy behaviors occurring in the home. Data sources included parent questionnaires, parent interviews, literacy logs, and observations of parent-child literacy interactions, including storybook reading. Findings reveal that overall family support, the definitive personality of the parents, and the early diagnosis and amplification of the deaf child defined the difference between the deaf child that excelled as an emergent reader and those who did not. Family support assisted in making each child a successful emergent reader. Parents who made an early decision and commitment to a communication mode, whether manual or oral, allowed their child to progress in areas beyond simple vocabulary. Lastly, the early diagnosis of deafness and early amplification aided the deaf child in emergent literacy achievements.

No description available.

<p>This research study attempted to highlight an in-depth exploration of my own classroom practice as a teacher at a high school in the Western Cape. A key goal of this research study was the quest for professional development and the development of an HIV/AIDS literacy programme for curriculum development.</p>

This thesis focuses on nine children’s use of texts and literacy learning, both inside and outside of school, in a multilingual and multicultural setting in Sweden. The study investigates and maps texts that children encounter and use in their everyday lives, and explores what they do with them. The study also aims to investigate the conditions and possibilities of local literacies, exploring children’s meaning-making, identity-making and literacy learning through texts. By using an ethnographic approach involving participant observations, group and individual interviews, surveys and photographs, extended empirical data have been collected. Theoretically and in analysing empirical material, the study draws on research from New Literacy Studies and critical literacy. Concepts from the Four Resources Model (Luke &amp; Freebody, 1999) as well as literary envisioning (Langer, 1995, 2011) and hermeneutic perspectives (Gadamer, 1975; Ricoeur, 1984, 1982) have inspired the analysis of the empirical material. The outcomes of the study may be used as a basis for the educational development of literacy learning during the middle school years 3–5. The repertoire of texts outside of school can be described as multi-faceted and multimodal and involves a massive amount of information. At the same time, inside school, major emphasis is put on formal training in skills such as spelling and grammar, while the repertoires of coding, functional use, meaning making and the critique of texts are altogether unorchestrated. The overall conclusion of the thesis is that literacy education must create opportunities for children to develop and build on their chronological memories of books, films, computer games and chatting on the Internet, so that they can view themselves as readers, meaning-makers and citizens that are able to critique, question, change and redesign texts.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the correlation between students’ literacy skills in grade three, and their home literacy environment, as well as parents’ socioeconomic and socio-cultural status. I intend to discuss the correlation between literacy skills and students’ home literacy environment, including multimodal text and electronic resources such as tablets and computers. I also intend to discuss students’ literacy skills in relation to their parents’ country of birth, level of education and profession. My method consists of a parent questionnaire and student results from the National Test in Swedish as a Native Language in grade three. Two classes from two different schools participate in the study. I am using Cronbachs alpha to calculate the internal consistency, in other words how well my questions measure the same thing. I utilize the chi-square method to calculate the probability for a certain correlation. To analyze the results, I am using Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and cultural capital. My results show no significant connection between literacy and home literacy environment, socioeconomic background or parents’ country of birth. However, I am able to detect a tendency which argues that children with well educated parents achieve higher scores on the National Test than students with low educated parents. The tendency indicates that children with well educated parents have more developed literacy skills than children with low educated parents.

This self-study examines the role that children’s out-of school lives play in the “schooled literacy practices” of the Morning Meeting, a daily meeting in the teacher-researcher’s classroom. Morning Meeting in this Grade 2/3 classroom became a contestable “third space” where several professional tensions intersected for the teacher-researcher. The study explores questions of what “counts as literacy,” what role “popular culture” plays in school, and whose voices are privileged or marginalized in schooled literacy discussions. Data was collected over a 3-week period in the form of immediate and more distanced teacher reflections. A Bourdieusian theoretical framework, critical sociocultural literacy theory, third space theory, and artifactual critical literacy, offered the teacher-researcher lenses through which to analyze the meanings found in the everyday stories and artifacts young children share in the schooled literacy practice of Morning Meeting. The findings of this study inform and create new thinking about the entanglements of children’s out-of-school everyday culture with schooled literacy practices.

This thesis investigated the literacy practices of a group of Somali refugee women participating in Canada’s federally‐funded ESL program LINC (Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada). Assuming that many Somali women arrive in Canada with limited experience with print literacy, and so encounter novel challenges in their settlement and learning experiences, I interviewed 4 Somali women about their uses and perceptions of the value of literacy in their lives and their experiences of learning to read and write in Canada. A cross‐case analysis revealed how social forces constrain and enable the women’s literacy practices, shaping both how they access and use literacy, as well as the ways in which they understand and value literacy. Implications are outlined for ESL educators, researchers and policy makers.

<p>This research study attempted to highlight an in-depth exploration of my own classroom practice as a teacher at a high school in the Western Cape. A key goal of this research study was the quest for professional development and the development of an HIV/AIDS literacy programme for curriculum development.</p>

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 1989. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Teachers College, Columbia University, 1994. / Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Sponsor: Florence McCarthy. Dissertation Committee: John Black. Includes tables. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 170-180).