The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the literacy environment at home, at school and in the community and the development of voluntary reading and thus a reading habit. This research is relevant as there is an alarming drop out rate, poor matriculation results and low scores in reading performance tests in South African schools. Many factors and possible causes can contribute to this, but a major problem is the lack of a reading habit, low literacy levels and an environment that is not supportive of literacy. As a result, many children are still leaving school functionally illiterate. In order to develop a reading habit, learners must get maximum support and encouragement from their literacy environment, as children learn from what is going on around them. The major role players in the learner's literacy environment, are the home and family (microstructure), the school and teachers, and his community which includes libraries (macrostructure). A literature study on the foundations, contexts and practices of literacy, voluntary reading and environmental factors that affect reading provides the theoretical basis and a conceptual framework for this study. The research method used is a case study with the focus on a sample of learners from Grade 3 - 7 from schools in the Highveld Ridge and Gauteng East area. Due to budgetary and logistical constraints, rural areas are not included. The empirical survey investigates various aspects of the literacy environment. The survey method, with questionnaires for learners, teachers and headmasters, was used. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are used to generate data. The findings are that many learners experience difficulties which hinder the development of a reading habit, for example: schools and communities do not have libraries, or access to them is limited; appropriate reading materials are not available; or learners do not have access to them; multilingualism is a major problem in a country with eleven official languages, as many learners have to learn and teachers have to teach in a language other than their mother tongue; parents are not literate and cannot help their children; socio-economic conditions are not conductive to reading; there is a lack of support from governmental at various levels. Although findings in a case study cannot be generalised, certain conclusions and suggestions can guide teachers, parents and librarians to create a more supportive literacy environment to encourage voluntary reading. / Information Science / M.A. (Information Science)

This research is concerned with an investigation into the factors relating to the reading habits of Indian secondary school pupils in the Phoenix area. It is important to acknowledge that among our youth there are both avid and reluctant readers during and after the period of formal education. It is the group of reluctant readers that has to be lured by the magic of reading. There is a remarkable variation in the reading habits of pupils from the same school. A self-designed questionnaire was administered to 544 boys and girls from standards 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. The descriptive data available were then analysed and interpreted. The study revealed that the amount of time spent on reading and the number of books read (which together determined reading habits) by pupils was influenced by such factors as home, school, social environment, socioeconomic status, the influence of other media and the personal aspect / Psychology of Education / M. Ed. (Psychology of Education)

The selection of science fiction was researched to determine how science fiction should be evaluated and selected in the context of the public library. The first sub-problem to be researched concerned the cultural, societal and literary origins of this genre, after which its distinct phases of development were studied as well as the characteristic essence of science fiction which would affect its selection per se, specifically whether conventional literary criteria are suitable for the evaluation of items of science fiction during selection. The next sub-problem focused on, was whether theory can explain the process of fiction selection, The succeeding sub-problem was to empirically Study current practice in science fiction selection. Survey research was conducted amongst selected major urban/regional public library services in the USA. Final research results indicated that science fiction is a sophisticated, multi-textured genre which differs significantly from fellow popular genres, Science fiction is viewed by some critics as being on the cusp of post-modernism, a significant body of work in contemporary literature, and a supreme expression of late capitalism. Research further showed that no satisfactory evaluative criteria exist. It was also established that theory of fiction selection is not always capable of explaining or guiding the process of fiction selection. There is no model for the selection of science fiction. Finn guiding principles for science fiction selection could be formulated by the aid of this study. The study concluded with a specially-designed model for the selection of science fiction (including a scorecard with specially-compiled criteria for evaluating items), as well as a suggested core collection. A structured approach should be followed by the science fiction selector. The guiding principles and core collection which were formulated in this study, the set of special criteria as well as the model, together demonstrate that the selection of science fiction can be structured, controlled and guided within established parameters. / Information Science / D. Lit. et Phil. (Information Science)

Linguistics and Modern Languages / M.A. (Linguistics)

Thesis (PhD (General Linguistics))--University of Stellenbosch, 2011. / Bibliography / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The attainment of literacy is crucial for survival in a modern industrialised, knowledge-driven society. Children with poor language skills are at risk for academic failure because of the differences between oral language used in daily interactions and the language skills needed to succeed in a formal school environment. The impact of poorly developed oral language skills on the successful acquisition of reading skills, particularly reading comprehension, is often underestimated in the education of young learners in South Africa. Narrative skills form the bridge between oral language and literacy by providing experience in using the extended and decontextualized discourse units that children will encounter in written language. This study investigated the relationship between narrative skills and reading comprehension skills in young learners who are developing literacy. Specific linguistic markers of literacy in the narratives of a group of Grade 3 learners from communities with low socio-economic status were examined. The main research questions this study attempted to answer were: “How do linguistic deficits of learners with poor reading comprehension and specific reading comprehension deficits manifest in their oral narratives?” and “Are there linguistic markers that decisively distinguish between learners with specific reading comprehension deficits and learners with general poor reading skills as compared to learners with normal reading comprehension?” In a quasi-experimental research design, the Grade 3 participants in this study were assigned to three groups: Readers who are competent at word level and comprehension (good reading comprehension group), readers who are competent at word level but poor at comprehension (specific comprehension disorder group) and readers who are poor at both word level and comprehension (poor reading comprehension group). Measurement protocols were used to assess the linguistic variables of interest, namely vocabulary, narrative micro- and macrostructure structure, cohesion, coherence and other aspects of oral language. The results of this study confirmed the relationships between language skills and reading comprehension. It was found that readers with general poor reading skills performed significantly poorer on a variety of linguistic measures than readers with good reading comprehension. The group identified as readers with specific reading comprehension disorders were, in general, not significantly different from the other two groups. This study therefore did not provide clear evidence that readers with specific reading comprehension disorders presented with linguistic markers that could differentiate them from the other groups. The clinical implications for speech-language therapists and educators with regards to assessment and intervention were highlighted. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die behaling van geletterdheid is noodsaaklik om te oorleef in ‘n moderne, geïndustrialiseerde en kennisgedrewe samelewing. Kinders met swak taalvaardighede loop die risiko om akademies te faal weens die verskille tussen die orale taal wat alledaags gebruik word en die taalvaardighede wat vereis word om sukses in formele skoolomgewings te behaal. Die impak van swak orale taalvaardighede op die suksesvolle aanleer van leesvaardighede, spesifiek leesbegrip, word dikwels onderskat in die onderrig van jong Suid-Afrikaanse leerders. Narratiefvaardighede vorm die oorgang tussen orale taal en geletterdheid omdat narratiewe ondervinding verskaf in die gebruik van uitgebreide en gedekontekstualiseerde diskoerseenhede wat kinders in skryftaal teëkom. Hierdie studie het die verband tussen narratiefvaardighede en leesbegrip in jong kinders wat besig is om gelettedheid te ontwikkel, ondersoek. Spesifieke linguistiese merkers vir geletterdheid in die narratiewe van ‘n groep Graad 3 leerders van lae sosio-ekonomiese status, is ondersoek. Die hoof navorsingsvrae van die studie was: “Hoe manifesteer die linguistiese gebreke van leerders met swak leesbegrip en spesifieke leesbegripsprobleme in hul orale narratiewe?” en “Is daar linguistiese merkers wat afdoende onderskei tussen leerders met spesifieke leesbegripsprobleme en leerders met algemene swak leesvaardighede?” In ‘n kwasieksperimentele ontwerp is die deelnemers aan hierdie studie toegeken aan drie groepe: Lesers wat bevoeg is op woordvlak en begripsvlak (groep met goeie leesbegrip), lesers wat bevoeg is op woordvlak, maar met swak begrip (groep met spesifieke leesbegripsprobleme) en lesers wat onbevoeg is op woordvlak en begripsvlak (groep met algemene swak leesvaardighede). Protokolle is gebruik om die linguistiese veranderlikes, naamlik woordeskat, narratief mikro- en makrostruktuur, kohesie, koherensie en ander aspekte van verbale taal, te meet. Die resultate van hierdie studie het die verband tussen taalvaardighede en leesbegrip bevestig. Daar is gevind dat lesers met algemene swak leesvaardighede, in vergelyking met lesers met goeie leesbegrip, beduidend swakker presteer het op verskeie linguistiese metings. Die groep wat geïdentifiseer is as lesers met spesifieke leesbegripsprobleme het, oor die algemeen, nie beduidend van die ander twee groepe verskil nie. Hierdie studie het dus nie duidelike bewyse gevind dat lesers met spesifieke leesbegripsprobleme linguistiese merkers vertoon het wat hulle van die ander twee groepe kon onderskei nie. Die kliniese implikasies vir spraak-taalterapeute en opvoeders met betrekking tot assessering en intervensie is toegelig.

The subject matter of this thesis is manuscript and scribal culture in the age of print. Its first part explores the flourishing scholarship of post-medieval scribal culture in Europe and beyond over the past 25-30 years, as well as recent trends and turns in the historiography of printing and of literacy. These studies make a strong case for a radical revision of how these fundamental cultural phenomena should be viewed. As a part of the so-called cultural turn and postmodernist revisionism of the 1980s and 1990s, the new trend has been to reject the dichotomies of manuscript versus print and of literacy versus illiteracy in favour of more ambiguous and complex images where multiple media and modes of transmission and reception coexist and interact with each other. The second part of the thesis deals with literary culture in nineteenth-century Iceland: both the general framework of the production, dissemination and consumption of texts, and the individual case of the farmer, fisherman and scribe Sighvatur Grímsson (1840-1930) and his cultural surroundings. Focussing on Sighvatur’s life between 1840 and 1873, the thesis presents an argument about the function of the scribal medium within a poor, rural, and de-institutionalized society. Central to the theoretical framework is a microhistorical approach and the juxtaposition of both narrow and wide scope, zooming from one individual protagonist out to his local surroundings and communities and further out to Icelandic scribal and literary culture as a whole. The scope of the thesis can be described in terms of four concentric circles: the individual, his intimate community, Icelandic society, and the wider European and global context during the ‘post-Gutenbergian era’.

The topic of this thesis is the confrontations between William Gladstone and the Bank of England. These confrontations have remained a mystery to authors who noted them, but have generally been ignored by others. This thesis demonstrates that Gladstone's measures taken against the Bank were reasonable, intelligent, and important for the development of nineteenth-century British government finance. To accomplish this task, this thesis refutes the opinions of three twentieth-century authors who have claimed that many of Gladstone's measures, as well as his reading, were irrational, ridiculous, and impolitic. My primary sources include the Gladstone Diaries, with special attention to a little-used source, Volume 14, the indexes to the Diaries. The day-to-day Diaries and the indexes show how much Gladstone read about financial matters, and suggest that his actions were based to a large extent upon his reading. In addition, I have used Hansard's Parliamentary Debates and nineteenth-century periodicals and books on banking and finance to understand the political and economic debates of the time.

The purpose of this project is to develop a resource of techniques using children's literature which will increase interest in reading for students who have met the minimum standards of reading for their grade level. The completed curriculum is to be used in grades kindergarten through six, with a flexible time limit of thirty to forty-five minutes per day, for fifteen school days.

The problem of this study was to determine which publications available to Texas credit union managers are selected for reading and on what bases these choices are made. The study considered independent publications and those within the credit union industry. Survey respondents were Texas credit union managers. The study found that managers depend heavily on the two publications of the state trade association, two to three publications of the national trade association, and the state regulatory agency newsletter in cases of state-chartered credit unions. Independent publications function as secondary information sources. It was recommended that the Texas Credit Union League combine its two publications and that the Credit Union National Association consider combining publications.

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2017-10-27T12:27:38Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Bruno Pereira dos Santos.pdf: 490426 bytes, checksum: b1cc33abadecf499c09105e191cefaf6 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-10-27T12:27:38Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Bruno Pereira dos Santos.pdf: 490426 bytes, checksum: b1cc33abadecf499c09105e191cefaf6 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-10-19 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / The present research develops a reflection upon the formation of the literary reader, it aims at establishing a set of methodological propositions regarding the teaching of poetry to middle school students in a public-school environment. The book Antologia poética de Carlos Drummond de Andrade, organized in 1962 by the author himself, constitutes the corpus of the research. This book, from which we selected five poems, was distributed to every public school in the state of São Paulo back in 2010. The selected poems were: “Poema de Sete Faces”, “Cidadezinha Qualquer”, “Retrato de família”, “Quadrilha” and “No meio do caminho”. The selection criteria considered the reading experiment I had previously conducted with 9th grade students from a public school in the city of Sorocaba, where I work as a teacher. The experiment brought up the research problem: the idea of establishing new strategies to teach poetry to middle school students, aiming at improving their competencies as literary readers, in a context so adverse that privileges the teaching practices of the Portuguese language, reducing the literary text to a speech genre, amongst many others. The hypothesis we propose is that methodological strategies of literary reading based on the concept of performance – as discussed by the medievalist, writer and researcher of the voice, Paul Zumthor (1915-1995), that is, a present act that strongly engages the voice, the body and the other senses of the student-reader, – could lead to effective results as to perceive the poem as a scene in which the student-reader is an active interpreter, and whose subjectivity will interact with the alterity of the poem, awakening perceptive channels, in the learning process. The hypothesis analysis required two steps: firstly, through critical reading mediation, we selected in each poetic text – multisensory calligraphic body that connects word-sound-image-meaning – the vocal potentialities that make it art, that is, the vivid performance of the interpreter’s voice and body happening here and now, in the context of the classroom. Advancing into step two, we established three core methodological propositions – the vocalization, the reading-writing of the poem interpretation, and the fictional alterity interpretation. Proposing strategies to improve the literary reader competencies is the contribution of this research to the teaching of literature in the middle school environment / Esta pesquisa desenvolve uma reflexão sobre a formação do leitor literário, com o objetivo de elaborar um conjunto de proposições metodológicas para o ensino da poesia no contexto do ensino fundamental de uma escola pública. O corpus é a Antologia poética de Carlos Drummond de Andrade, organizada pelo próprio autor em 1962. O livro foi distribuído em toda a Rede Pública de Ensino do Estado de São Paulo, em 2010, e dele selecionamos cinco poemas: “Poema de Sete Faces”, “Cidadezinha Qualquer”, “Retrato de família”, “Quadrilha” e “No meio do caminho”. O critério de seleção considerou o experimento de leitura que realizei, anteriormente, com alunos do 9º ano de uma escola pública de Sorocaba, na qual sou docente. Desse experimento, surgiu a problemática desta pesquisa: a de elaborar novas estratégias de ensino de poesia, no ensino fundamental, que levem à formação do leitor literário num contexto adverso, que privilegia as práticas de ensino da língua portuguesa, reduzindo a literatura a um gênero de discurso dentre tantos outros. A hipótese que projetamos é a de que estratégias metodológicas de leitura literária sob a ótica da performance – segundo a concepção do medievalista, escritor e pesquisador da voz, Paul Zumthor (1915-1995) –, isto é, um ato presencial de forte empenho da voz, do corpo e de todos os sentidos do aluno-leitor, poderiam levar a resultados eficazes para a percepção do poema. Como em uma cena, o aluno-leitor é um intérprete ativo, cuja subjetividade interage com a alteridade do poema, e, nesse processo de aprendizagem, desperta canais perceptivos adormecidos. A análise da hipótese nos conduziu a duas etapas: na primeira, por meio de nossa mediação de leitura crítica, retiramos de cada texto poético – corpo caligráfico multissensorial entre palavra-som-imagem-sentido – as potencialidades vocais, que farão dele obra, isto é, performance viva no aqui e agora da voz e do corpo do intérprete, no contexto da sala de aula. A partir daí, estabelecemos três núcleos de proposições metodológicas: o de vocalização, o de ler-escrever a leitura e o de interpretar a alteridade ficcional. Este lance propositivo de estratégias para a formação do leitor literário é a contribuição desta dissertação para o ensino da literatura no ensino fundamental