WORD READING STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT OF DEAF AND HARD-OF-HEARING PRESCHOOLERS by Victoria Burke Siegler’s (1996) overlapping waves model of strategy development applied to reading posits that children use multiple strategies to read words from the earliest stage of reading development, that these strategies coexist over a long period of time, and that experience results in gradual change in the strategies children use and the effectiveness with which they are executed. Phonological recoding is one of the most effective early developing reading strategies and is predictive of future reading success for hearing children (Ehri, 2005; Juel & Mindencupp, 2000; Share & Gur, 1999). However, less is known regarding the extent to which young children who are deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) develop and use phonological strategies to read words. Due to technological advances such as cochlear implants and digital hearing aids, many DHH children have sufficient functional hearing to be able to perceive and represent spoken language. For these children, beginning reading strategies may resemble those of hearing children (Geers, Tobey, Moog, & Brenner, 2008; Lederberg, Schick, & Spencer, in press). The purpose of this study was to describe changes in the word reading strategies of 15 DHH preschoolers with functional hearing. These children received explicit instruction in alphabetic knowledge, phonological awareness, and early reading strategies in a year-long intervention. Instruction was videotaped and children’s overt behavior while independently reading words was coded for reading strategy and accuracy. The preschoolers used multiple reading strategies at all times including two phonological recoding strategies (segmenting phonemes only, segmenting and blending phonemes) and retrieval. Gradual change was observed in strategy choice, execution, and accuracy. Children’s use of segmenting only decreased while segmenting and blending phonemes increased between the beginning and middle of the year. Retrieval use increased between the middle and end of the year. Execution of phonological strategies gradually improved over the year. These results suggest young DHH children who have functional hearing develop and use strategies in a manner similar to hearing children and benefit from explicit instruction in the alphabetic principle.

Children with complex communication needs (CCN) routinely have difficulty attaining appropriate literacy skills. Two indicators of literacy development are the alphabetic principle and phonemic awareness (Byrne & Fielding-Barnsley, 1989). The acquisition of minimal literacy skills such as letter sound knowledge can give children with CCN the opportunity to communicate and generate their own messages, instead of being reliant on vocabulary provided by others. In order to identify appropriate intervention approaches, nonverbal assessments of phonological and phonemic awareness for individuals with CCN are needed. The purpose of this study was to determine the reliability of the Dynamic Assessment of the Alphabetic Principle, as well as determine to what extent the performance of DAAP was associated with other measures of phonological and phonemic awareness and emergent reading skills. The DAAP was administered over the course of one to five session to seven participants with an assortment of developmental and language disorders. In addition to the DAAP, participants were administered a letter-sound knowledge task, a sound matching task that evaluated awareness of first sounds of words and separately evaluated awareness of the last sounds of words (i.e., either sound matching from the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing – 2nd edition [CTOPP-2; Wagner, Torgesen, Reshotte, & Pearson, 2013] or initial sound matching and final sound matching from the Phonological and Print Awareness Scale [PPA; Williams, 2014]). The reliability of the DAAP was calculated in two different ways. First, Cronbach alphas were calculated to estimate the reliability of items within subscales and between the subscales. Reliability of the items within each subscale ranged from .96 to .99 and the reliability of the items between each subscale ranged from .87 to .99. Overall the alpha between all four of the subscales was .96. Next, bivariate correlations were calculated between each subscale score. Values ranged from .82 to .99, and all were significant according to bootstrapped 95% confidence intervals that did not contain 0. This information indicated that there was a high degree of internal consistency for the items and the subtests for the DAAP. To evaluate the extent to which performance on the DAAP was associated with other measures of phonemic awareness, Bivariate Pearson correlations with standard significance values and bootstrapped 95% confidence intervals were calculated. The scores on the onset, rime, coda, and vowel subtests of the DAAP were correlated with sound matching first (SM-First), sound matching last (SM-Last) and sound matching chance (SM-chance) variables. The rime subtest of the DAAP was found to be significantly correlated with SM-First variable. Furthermore, the rime and vowel subscales of the DAAP were found to be significantly correlated with SM-Last variable. All four subtests of DAAP were significantly correlated to SM-chance variable. Lastly, to evaluate the performance on the DAAP in association to other measures of emergent reading skills, bivariate Pearson correlations were calculated between the subtests of the DAAP and letter sound knowledge (LSK). Scores on LSK was significantly related to rime, coda, and vowel. The data suggest that the DAAP is a reliable assessment. Furthermore, many conventional measures of phonological awareness and emergent reading skills were significantly correlated with subtests of DAAP. The pattern of the results suggests that the DAAP may be a reliable tool for measuring acquisition of the alphabetic principle in children with CCN.

xviii, 193 p. / Learning to read and successfully decode words is complex, requiring the integration of critical component skills such as phonological awareness, alphabetic understanding, and phonological recoding. As foundational skills required for reading with automaticity, researchers recommend that explicit instruction of these skills begin early, particularly for students at risk. One commonly used measure to examine students' alphabetic understanding and phonological recoding skills is DIBELS Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF), a pseudo-word reading measure composed of vowel-consonant and consonant-vowel-consonant words. One purpose of this study was to examine the effects of school-level and individual student-level predictors on students' overall performance on NWF in the spring of grade 1 as evidenced by their total Correct Letter Sounds (CLS) and Words Read as Whole Units Correctly (WRWUC) scores. A series of hierarchical linear models were estimated to investigate the contributions of three student-level predictors (English Learner status, fall of grade 1 Phoneme Segmentation Fluency raw scores, and fall of grade 1 NWF scores) and two school-level predictors (percentage of students eligible for free and reduced lunch and percentage of incoming at-risk kindergarteners) in explaining the variance observed in NWF scores A second purpose was to estimate the item difficulties of the first 20 pseudo-words for comparability of difficulty, controlling for student-level covariates. A series of hierarchical generalized linear models were estimated to investigate the contribution of student-level predictors while controlling for school effects. Participants were 1,111 first grade students enrolled in 14 elementary schools participating in the Oregon Reading First initiative. Results indicated that fall of grade 1 NWF raw and quadratic scores were the only statistically significant student-level predictors of CLS and WRWUC scores in the fully specified Level 1 model. The relation between school-level predictors and spring of grade 1 NWF performance complicated interpretation, but both school-level predictors were also significant. Additionally, results of the item difficulty estimates reveal significant student-level effects on item difficulties, providing evidence that item parameters are not equal for the first 20 pseudo-words on DIBELS NWF. The effects were particularly strong for English Learners. Implications for practice and directions for future research are discussed. / Committee in charge: Dr. Paul Yovanoff, Chair; Dr. Gerald Tindal, Member; Dr. Akihito Kamata, Member; Dr. Elizabeth Harn, Outside Member

Submitted by Ricardo Cedraz Duque Moliterno (ricardo.moliterno@uefs.br) on 2017-02-20T21:07:27Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Disserta??o vers?o definitiva.pdf: 3241390 bytes, checksum: ff59d669fa1bb403bb8bada5f77098f0 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-02-20T21:07:27Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Disserta??o vers?o definitiva.pdf: 3241390 bytes, checksum: ff59d669fa1bb403bb8bada5f77098f0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-08-17 / This dissertation is the result of a research carried out in the Post-Graduate Education in Research Line 2: Culture, Formation and Pedagogical Practices, in the Universidade Estadual de Feira de Santana, which aims to analyze the results of a program intervention consists of phonological awareness activities and educational activities of the letter-sound relationships for understanding the alphabetic principle in students of the 3rd grade of elementary school who failed to ensure the reading and writing learning at the right time. At the end of the literacy cycle, many children don?t even guaranteed basic skills of reading and writing, presenting difficulties in understanding the alphabetic principle. Many researches show that there is influence of phonological awareness on children's performance in the written language appropriation. Other studies suggest that intervention programs in phonological awareness are positive for learning of children with difficulties in reading and writing. Researches have suggested that the development of phonological awareness skills linked to the explicit teaching of letter-sound relationships favors a more effective way, the discovery of the alphabetic principle by the child. Thus, to achieve the established objective, we conducted an experimental nature of research carried out in five phases: pre-test, application of the First Phase of the intervention program, post-test 1, implementation of Second Phase of the intervention program and post-test 2. The data found in the reading and writing tests the children were analyzed in qualitative and quantitative approach. The results revealed that the participation of students in the research group in phonological awareness program, and teaching of letter-sound relationships provided an opportunity a breakthrough in the understanding of the alphabetic principle, highlighting the importance of investing in metalinguistic skills and systematic teaching of grapheme-phoneme correspondences in the literacy process. The data presented in this study suggest important educational implications with regard to teacher formation and the use of metalinguistic skills development activities, such as phonological awareness, in addition to systematic and orderly teaching of grapheme-phoneme correspondences. / Esta disserta??o ? o resultado de uma pesquisa desenvolvida no Programa de P?s-Gradua??o em Educa??o, na Linha de Pesquisa 2: Culturas, Forma??o e Pr?ticas Pedag?gicas, da Universidade Estadual de Feira de Santana, que tem por objetivo analisar os resultados de um programa de interven??o composto por atividades de consci?ncia fonol?gica e atividades de ensino das rela??es letra-som para a compreens?o do princ?pio alfab?tico com alunos do 3? ano do Ensino Fundamental que n?o conseguiram garantir a aprendizagem da leitura e da escrita no momento adequado. Ao final do ciclo de alfabetiza??o, muitas crian?as ainda n?o garantiram compet?ncias b?sicas de leitura e escrita, apresentando dificuldades na compreens?o do princ?pio alfab?tico. In?meras pesquisas realizadas mostram que h? influ?ncia da consci?ncia fonol?gica no desempenho das crian?as na apropria??o da linguagem escrita. Outros estudos sugerem que programas de interven??o em consci?ncia fonol?gica apresentam resultados positivos na aprendizagem de crian?as com dificuldades na leitura e na escrita. Pesquisas t?m sugerido que o desenvolvimento de habilidades de consci?ncia fonol?gica atrelado ao ensino expl?cito das rela??es letra-som favorece, de uma forma mais efetiva, a descoberta do princ?pio alfab?tico pela crian?a. Dessa forma, para alcan?armos o objetivo tra?ado, realizamos uma investiga??o de natureza experimental realizada com um grupo controle (GC) e um grupo de pesquisa (GP), em cinco fases: pr?-teste, aplica??o da I fase do programa de interven??o, p?s-teste 1, aplica??o da II fase do programa de interven??o e p?s-teste 2. Os dados encontrados nos testes de leitura e escrita das crian?as foram analisados nas abordagens qualitativa e quantitativa. Os resultados revelaram que a participa??o dos alunos do grupo de pesquisa no programa de consci?ncia fonol?gica e ensino das rela??es letra-som oportunizou um avan?o na compreens?o do princ?pio alfab?tico, evidenciando a import?ncia do investimento nas habilidades metalingu?sticas e no ensino sistem?tico das correspond?ncias grafema-fonema no processo de alfabetiza??o. Os dados apresentados nesta pesquisa sugerem importantes implica??es educacionais, no que diz respeito ? forma??o de professores e ? utiliza??o de atividades de desenvolvimento de habilidades metalingu?sticas, tais como a consci?ncia fonol?gica, al?m do ensino l?dico, sistem?tico e ordenado das correspond?ncias grafema-fonema.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T20:56:42Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Joseane Terto de Souza.pdf: 4851744 bytes, checksum: 2ef39ae67e48c5e284cc7e5931ab67f3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-02-24 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Learning how to read and write in alphabetical writing systems constitutes a complex task that demands many skills, among them the knowledge of letters and their relation to the sounds of the language. Hence, guaranteeing the teaching and learning of the alphabetic principle, i.e., that the letters represent the sounds in children s education, allows learners to become proficient readers and writers in the following schooling years. Research shows that the knowledge of the name of the letters relates with the initial progress in the learning process of reading and writing. Literature in this domain still shows the contributions of the development of the alphabetical principle to the practices in literacy. An educational application aimed at the teaching and learning of the alphabetic principle can help the learner understand that the letters represent the sounds. This research had two goals: to develop an educational application - Mundo das Letras ( World of Letters ), aimed at teaching the alphabetic principle, supported by the contributions from cognitive psychology of reading, and to test its usage with a group of children aged between five and six. Two thirty-student groups from the second degree of preschool at a Municipal Children Education School (EMEI) located in the city of São Paulo were formed in order to test the application s usage: the application group (GA) and the control group (GC). A three-step outline was used: initial evaluation, application and final evaluation. The application of Mundo das Letras application was carried out in the EMEI s computer lab for thirty days, three times a week, with the duration of thirty minutes per session. The results demonstrated that the children from the application group obtained a great advancement in the recognition and naming of the letters of the alphabet, when compared to children from the control group. The application group s children s utterances as well as the observation of their behavior during the application sessions showed that the application aroused their interest and motivation, retaining their attention and their expressed willingness to continue using the application. Some considerations were made regarding the implication of these results to the initial teaching of the written language to preschool children / Aprender a ler e a escrever, em sistemas alfabéticos de escrita, é uma tarefa complexa que exige várias habilidades, entre elas, o conhecimento das letras e sua correspondência com os sons da linguagem. Assim, garantir o ensino e a aprendizagem do princípio alfabético, isto é, que as letras representam os sons, na educação infantil permite aos aprendizes que se tornem leitores e escritores proficientes nos anos seguintes de escolarização. Pesquisas indicam que o conhecimento do nome das letras relaciona-se com o progresso inicial na aprendizagem da leitura e da escrita. A literatura da área ainda demonstra as contribuições do desenvolvimento do princípio alfabético às práticas de alfabetização. Um aplicativo educativo direcionado ao ensino e aprendizagem do princípio alfabético pode contribuir para que o aprendiz entenda que as letras representam os sons. Esta pesquisa teve como objetivos desenvolver um aplicativo educativo Mundo das Letras , voltado para o ensino do princípio alfabético fundamentado nas contribuições da psicologia cognitiva da leitura, e testar seu uso com um grupo de crianças entre 5 e 6 anos. Para testar o uso do aplicativo, foram constituídos dois grupos de 30 crianças do segundo estágio da educação infantil, de uma EMEI localizada na cidade de São Paulo: um Grupo de Aplicação (GA) e um Grupo Controle (GC). Foi utilizado um delineamento em três etapas: avaliação inicial, aplicação e avaliação final. A aplicação do Mundo das Letras foi realizada no laboratório de informática da EMEI durante 30 dias, três sessões por semana e com duração de 30 minutos cada sessão. Os resultados obtidos demonstraram que as crianças do grupo de aplicação obtiveram um grande avanço no reconhecimento e nomeação das letras do alfabeto, quando comparadas às crianças do grupo controle. As falas das crianças do GA, bem como a observação de seu comportamento durante as sessões de aplicação, mostraram que o aplicativo despertou o seu interesse e motivação, mantendo sua atenção e o desejo expresso de continuar a utilizar o aplicativo. Foram feitas, ao final, considerações sobre as implicações desses resultados para o ensino inicial da linguagem escrita a crianças da educação infantil

The purpose of the study was to investigate the influence of THRASS (Teaching Handwriting, Reading and Spelling Skills) on the word level accuracy skills of a group of grade 2 learners. Word level accuracy is one sub skill in learning to read and is an indicator of the word recognition abilities of the child. THRASS is a program that has been designed to systematically teach phonics and, thus, teaches the basic building blocks of word sounds and structure so as to improve the child’s decoding ability and word recognition ability. The research took place within the positivist paradigm and the methodology is quantitative in nature. The data collection method took the form of a one group pretest-posttest design, where a standardised reading test was administered prior to exposing the participants to the THRASS Program and then readministered one year later on the same group of learners. Data analysis took the form of statistical analysis to investigate any statistical significant difference in the word level accuracy skills of those Grade 2 learners. The result showed that over the period of a year the average reading accuracy age for the target population increased by four months. However, after statistical analysis the difference was not statistically significant. The Null Hypothesis that; exposing a group of Grade 2 learners to the THRASS Program for a period of one year will have no statistically significant influence on their word level accuracy skills cannot be rejected . However, the changes both in average reading accuracy as well as error patterns have inspired recommendations for further research. Copyright / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Educational Psychology / unrestricted

xiii, 137 p. : ill. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / Research suggests that development of the alphabetic principle is a critical factor in learning to recognize words and becoming a successful reader. The alphabetic principle encompasses both the understanding that relationships exist between letters and sounds and the application of these relationships to reading words. This study investigated the degree to which different measures of the alphabetic principle were predictive of later reading development. These measures were examined in the context of Ehri's phase theory of sight word development to investigate how different behaviors associated with the alphabetic principle fit within a developmental framework. Two cohorts of students (109 kindergarteners, 212 first graders) participated in this study from spring of 2007 until late fall of 2008 (58 second graders, 121 third graders). The predictive powers of single and combined measures of the alphabetic principle were analyzed using sequential regression. Results indicated that each measure explained significant between-student variation in performance on measures of word reading fluency, oral reading fluency (ORF), vocabulary, and reading comprehension. A measure of letter-sounds embedded in nonsense words appeared to have more utility for the prediction of reading outcomes than a measure of letter-sounds presented in isolation. Additionally, including a measure of nonsense words with a measure of letter-sounds embedded in nonsense words increased the predictive power of the model over and above the predictive power of letter sounds alone. Growth on ORF served as an additional criterion for the purpose of investigating the methodology of measuring growth. Two conceptualizations of growth were explored: raw score change over time and individual rates of growth over time (slope). Correlations and sequential regression were used to evaluate the relationship between raw score change and measures of the alphabetic principle. Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) was used to model individual slopes on Lexile measures of ORF (LORF). In general, raw score change appeared largely unrelated to measures of the alphabetic principle. HLM analyses revealed that individual differences in slope on LORF were minimal and not very reliable, making the prediction of these differences difficult. Recommendations for future research and implications for practice are discussed. / Committee in charge: Roland Good, Chairperson, Special Education and Clinical Sciences; Kenneth Merrell, Member, Special Education and Clinical Sciences; Leanne Ketterlin Geller, Member, Educational Methodology, Policy, and Leadership; Jean Stockard, Outside Member, Planning Public Policy and Management

The rationale for this study was to investigate the implementation of the THRASS literacy programme on a deaf learner who uses the spoken language approach. Particular emphasis was given to the role played by the Phoneme Machine together with Cued Speech. THRASS focuses on phoneme-grapheme correspondence by explicit phonics instruction to develop word analysis and recognition skills. Cued Speech is used as an instructional tool to facilitate visual access to auditory-based phonology. The research was framed within the Interpretivist paradigm and a qualitative case study design predominated, although the launch and landing of the study was quantitative in nature. The findings indicated that the auditory-based phonology of the English language may be accessed by a deaf learner, when supported by a visual instructional tool such as Cued Speech in synchronicity with speech-reading, to develop print literacy skills. This study opens the gateway to further enquiry on enhancing deaf literacy levels. / Inclusive Education / M. Ed. (Inclusive Education)

The rationale for this study was to investigate the implementation of the THRASS literacy programme on a deaf learner who uses the spoken language approach. Particular emphasis was given to the role played by the Phoneme Machine together with Cued Speech. THRASS focuses on phoneme-grapheme correspondence by explicit phonics instruction to develop word analysis and recognition skills. Cued Speech is used as an instructional tool to facilitate visual access to auditory-based phonology. The research was framed within the Interpretivist paradigm and a qualitative case study design predominated, although the launch and landing of the study was quantitative in nature. The findings indicated that the auditory-based phonology of the English language may be accessed by a deaf learner, when supported by a visual instructional tool such as Cued Speech in synchronicity with speech-reading, to develop print literacy skills. This study opens the gateway to further enquiry on enhancing deaf literacy levels. / Inclusive Education / M. Ed. (Inclusive Education)