The purpose of this study was to examine the pre and post scores of literacy surveys to determine if there is a differential improvement in the literacy achievement of kindergarten students who attend one of three kindergarten programs: full-day, alternate-day, and half-day. The sample of this study consisted of 1530 kindergarten students enrolled in a centralized kindergarten program during the 2000-2001 and the 2001-2002 school years. Only the scores of the 1530 students who had both pre and post scores were included in the study. The hypothesis was studied at the .05 level of significance.The scores of 1530 students were studied at the pre and post level in two literacy skill areas, letter identification and concepts about print. The findings of the study were:1. There was a significant difference in the increase in student achievement of letter identification between alternate-day and half-day programs, with students in half-day making more gains.2. There was no significant difference in the increase in student achievement of letter identification between alternate-day and full-day programs.3. There was a significant difference in the increase in student achievement of concepts about print (CAP) between alternate-day and full-day, with students in full-day making more gains.4. There was no significant difference in the increase in student achievement of concepts about print between alternate-day and half-day programs.Overall, the findings indicate that students in the alternate-day program achieved the lowest gains in Letter Identification and concepts about print of the three kindergarten programs. / Department of Elementary Education

The purpose of the study was to determine the effectiveness of bibliotherapy in reducing the fears of kindergarten children.The experimental design of the study compared three groups using pretest/posttest measures: 1) The Experimental group was an intact class of kindergarten students. The treatment for the group involved reading books on fear related subjects to the students and then having follow-up discussions concerning the book and the children's feelings. The treatment was conducted on a biweekly basis for eight weeks. 2) Control group I was an intact class of kindergarten students. The treatment for the group involved reading books of non-fear related subjects to the students and then having follow-up discussions concerning the book and the children's feelings. The treatment was conducted on a biweekly basis for eight weeks. 3) Control group II represented students from two intact classes of kindergarten students who had the same teacher and had received parental permission to participate in the study. There was no treatment for Control group II. The Experimental group and Control group I were randomly assigned treatment.The Link Children's Fear Scale was administered as a pretest and posttest. The instrument was developed from fifty items which purport to measure children's fears. Factor analysis was employed utilizing principal axes components to estimate the number of factors needed to best explain the total variation in the items. Using squared multiple correlations as initial communality estimates, the principal axes. analysis suggested a two factor solution. An Oblimin rotation was used. Those items which loaded above .30 were selected and retained in the revised instrument. The instrument in its final form consisted of twenty-four items. An example of an item: "Do you like to sleep with a light on?" The response mode was the child's indication yes or no.The factor analysis described above attests to the construct validity of the instrument. Face validity and sampling validity had previously been determined. The test-retest reliability of the instrument was calculated from kindergarten students who did not receive treatment. A reliability coefficient of .70 was obtained.The design for the study attempted to control for all variables other than treatment received. The Experimental group and Control group I were supervised by the same kindergarten teacher. A Reader/Discussion Leader, certificated as an elementary teacher, read the selected books and led the follow-up discussions for the Experimental group and Control group I. The Experimental group and Control group I followed the same procedure of hearing a book read by the Reader/Discussion Leader and then participated in a follow-up discussion of the book, as a part of each treatment session.The hypothesis was stated in the study as follows: There is no difference between the mean adjusted posttest scores of kindergarten students who received bibliotherapy to reduce childhood fears and the mean adjusted posttest scores of kindergarten students who did not receive bibliotherapy, where the means have been adjusted on the basis of the pretest scores.To test the hypothesis an analysis of covariance was used. The pretest served as the covariate and the posttest was the criterion.The analysis showed that the pretests for all groups differed significantly (.001) from the posttests. However, the group effects were not significant at the .05 level, thus indicating no difference between the experimental and control groups. The hypothesis was not rejected.

Children enter kindergarten with many experiences and thoughts. The primary purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of preschool children concerning their entrance into kindergarten. A comparison of what children perceived and what parents and teachers have done to facilitate the children’s perception of kindergarten was completed. A treatment group of 31 students from a Head Start which provided a visit to the kindergarten classroom that their preschool children would be attending was compared to 29 students from a Title 1 early education program, the control group. The parents and teachers of these students were compared to determine what they had done to prepare these students for kindergarten. The quantitative aspect of the study compared the treatment student pre- and post- responses on the ‘What I Think about Kindergarten –R’ questionnaire to the control group, a Title 1 early education program. This questionnaire was adapted from the ‘What I Think about School’ (1998) used by Ramey, Lanzi, Phillips, & Ramey for the Head Start Public School Early Transition Demonstration Project in 1998. This study was not able to determine any difference in what the students perceived about kindergarten between and within groups. While there was no significant difference in what teachers had done to prepare their students for kindergarten, three individual questions had some difference in what the teachers from Head Start had done when compared to the Title 1 early education program. There was no significant difference in what parents did to prepare their children but differences within three questions on the parent surveys were found. A qualitative methodology was used to investigate what the students’ perceptions of kindergarten were. These perceptions included findings that most children were excited about attending kindergarten but a few anticipated kindergarten with negative feelings. Children also anticipated needing a backpack or lunchbox to attend kindergarten and looked forward to playing in the new school. Because this study was only done between Head Start and a Title 1 early education program, future research is needed to further understand what children think about going to kindergarten. / Department of Elementary Education

No description available.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--University of Tulsa, 1969. / Bibliography: leaves 74-75.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--University of Tulsa, 1978. / Bibliography: l. 48-50.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1992. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [100]-105).

Thesis (M.A.)--California State University Channel Islands, 2008. / Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts in Education. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed September 2, 2008).

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Teachers College, Columbia University, 1987. / Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Sponsor: Jeannette E. Fleischner. Dissertation Committee: Linda Hickson Bilsky. Bibliography: leaves 141-157.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Teachers College, Columbia University, 1993. / Includes tables. Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Sponsor: Celia Genishi. Dissertation Committee: Craig E. Richards. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 164-171).