For years the quality of Ethiopian education has been lamented over and some have warned of the crises of running an inefficient educational system and its detrimental effects on nation building (Tekeste 1990:84). One of the factors in the students’ inability to benefit from their lessons is their lack of reading skills. The Ethiopian Education Sector Development Program (ESDP) is calling for the introduction of supplementary readers to reinforce the learning of English at primary level. In response, many organisations such as The British Council, CODE, Emmanuel Home and PLAN International are providing primary schools with readers. A case in point is the Primary Readers Scheme of the British Council. This thesis examines if there is any tangible effect on the students’ reading skills by conducting a comparative study between two government schools that received a donation of primary readers and two schools that did not. To begin with a short review of the suitability of the readers selected by the teachers after an initial pilot scheme is made. Then 454 students were tested in this evaluation to check if there had been a significant improvement in the reading skills of the students in the school that received donations of supplementary readers. It was found that there has been no significant increase in the students’ reading abilities. This is not because there is a weakness in modern theories that preach the usefulness of supplementary readers but because government schools lack the capacity to utilise supplementary readers. Most of the librarians are not qualified, while the teachers, though qualified, lack training in how to use supplementary readers and also tend to be demotivated. Moreover, the administration and running of most of the schools libraries do not allow first cycle students (Grade 1-4) to use the libraries and prohibit second cycle students (Grades 5-8) from borrowing books, thereby limiting the books’ accessibility. It is also very likely that the country’s socio-economic situation in general and the children’s backgrounds do not encourage the habit of reading for pleasure. Consequently, the Education Sector Development Program will have to make some modifications to maximise the benefits of extensive reading in the future, such as training teachers and librarians as well as encouraging supplementary reading amongst the students. The study concludes that though extensive reading schemes produce impressive results in experimental situations, care should be taken in actual implementation of such schemes in real life. Efforts must be made to ensure the actual delivery of appropriate supplementary readers selected by the students themselves to the schools. Moreover, other important and related aspects including good school administration of libraries, training of teachers, a sustainable supply of books and most of all project monitoring and evaluation should be given due consideration. / Thesis (DLitt (English))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / English / unrestricted

Grief is the reaction to the loss of anything valuable, and therefore both the widowed and the divorced experience the grief process. Research shows that learning about the cyclic stages and symptoms of grief and knowing that others have successfully recovered can be helpful to the griever. The purpose of this thesis has been to develop and produce a compiled Readers Theatre script containing factual material about the stages and symptoms of the grief process as it relates to the widowed and divorced, and also personal testimonies of people who have successfully worked through their grief. In addition to the script, the thesis includes a discussion on pathological grief and on the similarities and differences in widowed and divorced grief.

No description available.

The primary purpose of this study is to make an investigation of the adopted readers for the second grade in the public schools of Texas over a period of fifty years to determine the extent that the readers reflect changes in concepts of learning and methods of teaching. A secondary purpose is to present the changes in concepts of learning over this period and the implications these changes have for the teaching of reading.

This oral interpretation thesis studies the use of oral interpretation in social contexts. The context chosen was the Hospice movement, which deals with assisting terminally ill persons and their families through the stages of death and bereavement. A readers theatre script was compiled for "Ann's Haven: Hospice of Denton County," which was selected for the locus of this thesis. The script was presented to various civic groups for the purpose of informing the public and eliciting support for Ann's Haven. It was found that oral interpretation is a viable rhetorical tool and is well liked by audiences as a means of public enlightenment.

No description available.

published_or_final_version / Applied English Studies / Master / Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics

Contemporary Spanish basal readers, published for use in elementary bilingual Spanish/English classrooms in the United States, reflect a technological view of curriculum, a behavioristic view of learning, and a part to whole view of reading. Although teacher's guides and promotional materials for the basal series make reference to recent reading theory and research, the basal materials themselves, when examined from a theoretical perspective, demonstrate little understanding of the reading process. Six basal reading programs, published since 1980, were studied: Addison Wesley's Hagamos Caminos; Scott Foresman's Focus: Leer para triunfar; Houghton Mifflin's Programa de lectura en espanol de Houghton Mifflin; Macmillan's Mil Maravillas; Economy's Economy Spanish Reading Program; and Santillana's Lectura en dos idiomas. Each series was surveyed using the Program Profile Continuum Survey and then analyzed in depth with the Spanish Program Profile Instrument. Both evaluation instruments focus on reading, language, learning, and teaching theory. The results of the study of the six series suggest the programs are more alike than different. These similarities can be summarized as follows: (1) Despite the fact that the series approach print differently, the ultimate goal of skill exercises in all the series is word identification. (2) Recent comprehension theory is discussed in the teacher's guides, but comprehension questions reflect the idea that comprehension is a product rather than a process. (3) Student text is carefully controlled and often repetitious because the assumption is that language is habit. (4) The language of the majority of the student text in all of the series is adapted. (5) The materials reflect the view that the teacher is a technician leading the passive learner. (6) The scope and sequence of the programs sets many students up for failure because each step is dependent upon mastery of the previous steps. The materials of the Spanish basal reading programs studied do not reflect the current state of knowledge about the reading process in Spanish. Alternate programs using a whole language approach to learning would allow Hispanic students to choose their own reading, write their own stories, and become literate in their first language.

This research is a content analysis of six recently published basal reader series, each of which begins with a readiness/priming sequence that starts with letters, words, connected strings of words, and a few pages of activities which might be considered general readiness. While this concept of readiness for reading reflects a word recognition view of reading, marketing promotions include eclectic statements regarding philosophy, materials, and methods which reflect an early childhood view of child development and meaning construction. Publishers imply that reading is a process of constructing meaning, but they supply materials for both students and teachers which neither encourage nor allow for meaningfulness. While descriptions of the series studied promise special and unique approaches to readiness, they are very similar to one another in every aspect of readiness. Each provides an overwhelming proportion of activities and workbook pages with the major instructional focus on letters and words. There are minor differences in connected text among the various series, but those differences are primarily in regard to the specific type of vowel control used. Considerations about the syntactic and semantic language systems follow the same formulae throughout the industry. Publishers of basal readers hire professional educators to quote research and lend credibility to their "scientifically" designed programs, but the published materials often contradict statements made by these professionals. While there is some indication in the manuals and promotional materials that suggest knowledge on the part of editors and authors concerning research in the areas of emergent literacy and psycholinguistic theory, there is little within the materials and methods that reflects this knowledge.

Over the years there have been many criticisms of the contents of basal reading series. This study sought to describe the contents of basal readers by analyzing the student reading materials contained in the books for grades one, three, and five of three current basal readers, published by D. C. Heath, Houghton Mifflin, and Silver, Burdett, and Ginn. It determined the amount of material written for the basals and the amount of material originating in other literature sources. It also described the amount and types of adaptation to the text and visual displays in material that originated elsewhere. Further, it calculated the amount of material that was classified into each of seven literature genres and six writing types using number of selections, pages, and words as units of analysis. While other researchers have each investigated some of the points examined here, none has explored all and none has used all three units of analysis to describe the contents of basal readers. Each of the student reading selections was analyzed as to the number of pages and words and then classified into the following categories: written for the basal or taken from other literature sources, one of seven literature genres or an added reading instruction category, and one of six writing types. Material that had its origins outside the basal reader was located and compared to the basal version with notations for each adaptation to text or visual display. The adaptations were classified into twenty two different types of text adaptation or six different types of visual display adaptation. While less than half of the reading material was created expressly for the basal readers examined, most of the material from other literature sources was adapted in some way. The largest category of adaptation was deletions. Overall, while there were selections in each of the categories for literature genre and writing type, the distribution was uneven. For almost all of the points examined, individual differences were found among the three reading series and the grade levels in all of the means of analysis.