Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2007.

The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a difference in the level of reading comprehension of young readers when one group of students read an interactive CD-ROM storybook and another group of students read the same story from a conventionally printed book. The participants were 39 second-grade students from two intact classrooms in an urban elementary school in the Midwest.Students from one classroom read the story from an interactive CD-ROM storybook; students in the other classroom read the same story from a conventionally printed book. Students reading the CD-ROM storybook could ask the computer for pronunciation of unknown words. Students reading the conventionally printed book could ask the researcher to pronounce words they did not know. Words for which pronunciation was requested were recorded automatically by the computer; the researcher recorded the words requested by the book group. Students reading the CD-ROM storybooks requested the pronunciation of more words than those students reading the conventionally printed books.The following hypotheses were tested at the .05 level of significance:Hypothesis I: There will be no significant difference between the mean scores of reading comprehension on oral retellings for students reading a traditionally printed storybook and students reading the same text from an interactive CD-ROM storybook.Hypothesis II: There will be no significant difference between the mean scores of reading comprehension on a comprehension test for students reading a traditionally printed storybook and students reading the same text from an interactive CD-ROM storybook.An univariate analysis of variance was used to test the hypotheses. There was no significant difference in mean scores on the retellings between the two groups, therefore hypothesis I failed to be rejected.There was a significant difference in mean scores on the comprehension test between the two groups, therefore hypothesis II was rejected. When comprehension was measured through the use of comprehension questions, students reading the CD-ROM storybook scored higher. Although results were mixed on comprehension measures, observations from this study indicate that the use of CDROM storybooks may be beneficial for young children, particularly those who are reading below grade level. / Department of Elementary Education

More and more news organizations are publishing on-line news via the World Wide Web. The objective of this study was to examine the effect of hypermedia and graphics in online news upon immediate recall and longer-term retention.Ninety-eight subjects read one of four versions of a news story presented through a World Wide Web browser. The four versions tested the story with and without the use of graphics and with and without the use of hypermedia in a 2x2 design. Subjects were tested with a 15-question fill-inthe-blank quiz immediately and after one week.Analysis of variance found no significant effectsthe use of graphics or hypermedia or the interaction of the two upon immediate recall. However, a significant effect for the use of graphics was found for retention after one week. / Department of Journalism

This quantitative study explored the effect of intervention lessons on online reading skills in fifth grade classrooms. First, it sought to examine the relationships among demographic variables including gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status and self-reported Internet use and Internet ability. Second, this study was designed to investigate which variables best predict performance on a measure of online reading. Third, the effect of lessons designed to improve online reading comprehension was explored to determine the efficacy of targeted classroom-based instruction on learned skills. Three theoretical frameworks underpinned this study: 1) a new literacies framework (Leu, Kinzer, Coiro, & Cammack, 2004), 2) transactional model (Rosenblatt, 1978), and 3) socioconitive model (Ruddell & Unrau, 2004a). The study was conducted in a Midwestern, suburban school over a 12-week time period with 443 fifth grade students. The repeated measures quasi-experimental research design allowed a quantitative investigation of online reading comprehension instruction to provide a reliable and valid assessment of the impact of online reading comprehension instruction on changes in student performance on an established measure of online reading comprehension. Additional attention to common variables known to influence outcomes in reading and technology performance (e.g., demographic variables, prior reading achievement scores) strengthened the design by allowing a more refined analysis of the isolated impact from the instructional activities. A regression analysis revealed prior achievement on norm-referenced measures of English/Language Arts as well as reported Internet use accounted for a significant amount of variance on online reading comprehension performance. Statistical analyses revealed significant differences between the experimental and control groups in online reading performance growth. Results from the subskill analysis show students in the experimental group demonstrated significant improvement over the control group on two of the three subskills (locating and synthesizing). No significant differences in group growth were observed for the Web evaluation task. Findings from this study indicate teachers varying in experience and Internet familiarity can effectively teach online reading in a classroom setting, and that students who received this instruction developed these skills at a greater rate. This work can inform future efforts as to how to best teach the skills and strategies of online reading. / Department of Educational Psychology

The primary objective of this study was to investigate the reading difficulties (problems) of Freshman EFL students attending the Department of Foreign Language Education at Middle East Technical University. The study attempted to integrate notions of strategic, linguistic, discourse and sociolinguistic competence into the construct of reading: a first approximation at integrating and applying a model of reading ability to a model of communicative language ability. To examine the reading difficulties and factors related to EFL reading, the researcher investigated the sub-competencies of reading comprehension in the following areas of Communicative Competence: linguistic, strategic, socio-linguistic and discourse competence. For this purpose, 6 reading quizzes were administered to 29 EFL readers and the results were analyzed by three different reading instructors to explore, from a Communicative Competence perspective, where the difficulties in L2 reading were experienced. The results showed that students&amp / #8217 / difficulties frequently originated from discourse competence, followed by sociolinguistic, strategic and linguistic competences, respectively.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 284-301). / Also available by subscription via World Wide Web / xxiv, 301 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

Oral narrative ability has received increasing attention over the past three decades, and the importance of children's oral narrative skills to academic achievement has been well established. Children with reading disabilities are known to demonstrate difficulties in the ability to produce and comprehend oral narratives (Roth & Spekman, 1986; Snyder & Downey, 1991). However, the nature of the relationship between oral narrative ability and reading comprehension performance in children with reading disability is not clear. The experiments reported in this thesis aim to address this issue. The following questions are asked: 1) Do deficits in oral narrative ability contribute to reading comprehension difficulties? and 2) What is the likely direction of the relationship between aspects of oral narrative ability and reading comprehension performance in children with reading disabilities? Fourteen children (aged between 6;4 and 7;8 at the initial assessment) with mixed reading disability (MRD: i.e., children who demonstrate both word recognition and listening comprehension deficits) participated in the study. Their oral narrative skills were compared to those of their chronological age-matched peers with typical development (TD) and their reading-age-matched peers with typical development (RMTD). The study consisted of three phases: 1) A longitudinal phase in which the children's oral narrative performance was assessed on three occasions over a two-year period; 2) An intervention phase (using a nonequivalent pretest-posttest control group design) in which 10 children participated in an oral narrative intervention program that focused on enhancing children's story structure knowledge; and 3) A follow-up assessment phase conducted eight months post-intervention. Oral narratives were elicited in a personal narrative context and in a story retelling context. Oral narrative production ability was analysed at macrostructure (story quality) and microstructure (morpho-syntax and vocabulary) levels. Oral narrative comprehension was assessed in a fictional story context through questions relating to story structure elements. Reading comprehension performance was assessed using a standardised test of reading ability. The results from the longitudinal study showed that the children with MRD demonstrated inferior oral narrative production and oral narrative comprehension performance compared to their peers with typical reading development at each assessment occasion. When comparing the poor readers' performance to the RMTD group at the third assessment trial, the results suggested that the children with MRD demonstrated a specific deficit in oral narrative comprehension. In contrast, a pattern of delay was observed on the microstructure measures of oral narrative performance. The results from the intervention indicated significant treatment effects with large effect sizes for oral narrative comprehension performance. Despite this improvement in oral narrative comprehension, there was little change in oral narrative production ability, and transfer to reading comprehension was not evident. Although the follow-up assessment indicated sustained improvement in oral narrative comprehension for the children with MRD, accelerated reading comprehension progress was not evident. The findings from the longitudinal case study highlighted the benefits of oral narrative intervention for a child considered at high risk of continuing academic difficulties. This thesis provides evidence of the persistent oral narrative difficulties in children with MRD. The findings also provide support for the importance of narrative structure knowledge to these poor readers' oral narrative comprehension performance. The results demonstrate that oral narrative comprehension ability explains only a small amount of the variance in reading comprehension performance. Rather, the persistent word recognition difficulties of the children with MRD exert the biggest influence on their reading comprehension performance. These results are discussed in terms of current models of reading and language development. Implications for clinical practice are also addressed.

Thesis (ED. D.)--University of Toronto, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-06, Section: A, page: 2054. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 206-222).

Diss. (sammanfattning)--Göteborg : Göteborgs universitet, 2005. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Murdoch University, 2002. / Thesis submitted to the Division of Social Sciences, Humanities and Education. Bibliography: leaves 451-483.