Whole language method--Integration of science and literature--Language centered orientation--Integrated curriculum.

Accompanied by a 3.5-inch floppy disk, kept in Pfau Library Thesis Storage.

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This project begins by looking at kindergarten from a historical perspective. It reviews research relating to all-day kindergarten and half-day kindergarten programs. It demonstrates that increased instructional time is beneficial especially for those low-achieving or disadvantaged students.

This project addresses the problems some second grade students face when reading and writing due to decoding and encoding confusions and difficulties.

The purpose of this project will be to supply teachers, specifically those of second grade students, with a variety of activities that match to appropriate comprehension strategies using California Young Reader Medal nominated books for the year 2000 at the primary level as read-alouds.

This study investigates the effect of multilevelled semanticogrammatical consciousness raising procedures on fossilised verb structures. It is hypothesised that these procedures will reactivate grammaticisation processes leading to the destabilisation of fossilised structures. The study attempts to establish whether fossilised structures can be destabilised, how processes of grammaticisation may be activated, whether adult advanced learners are still able to improve grammatical accuracy levels, what cognitive processes operate in interlanguage change, and how ESL teaching in the primary school classroom may be improved. The subjects are first-year ESL teacher trainees who have been learning English in formal classrooms for eight to ten years. They are subjected to pretests, a ten-week consciousness raising intervention programme, and posttests. The consciousness raising activities are set in a primary school teaching context, thus establishing relevance. The varied strategies used are presented progressively on different levels of consciousness. The theoretical contributions of the study are the insights gained in respect of the psychodynamics of fossilisation and learning theory as it relates to semantico-grammatical consciousness raising within a Cognitive Theory paradigm. According to the findings the total number of verb errors are significantly reduced and self-monitoring and other-monitoring skills significantly improved after the intervention. The semantic value of verb structures evidently acts as a regulator of form: semantically significant structures are destabilised but semantically vacuous structures do not respond to semanticogrammatical consciousness raising strategies. By implication, semantic significance of structures promotes learnabili ty whereas semantic vacuity is conducive to fossilisation. A relatively invariant ability gap between self-monitoring and other-monitoring is also identified. Subjects are significantly better at monitoring structures produced by others than their own. Self-monitoring, which is a necessary prerequisite for interlanguage change, is improved by consciousness raising but is apparently affected negatively by conventional analytical rule-based teaching. This study concludes that multilevelled semantico-grammatical consciousness raising procedures may precipitate defossilisation and that fossilised structures are not necessarily immutable. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / D. Litt. et Phil. (Lunguistics)

The purposes of the study were to design an Arts Based/Language Arts curriculum in one elementary school at the K-3 level, and (1) determine whether this curriculum was effective in improving academic achievement, (2) determine whether teachers would be comfortable teaching such a curriculum, and (3) determine whether parents perceived their children as successful in learning arts and language arts. Samples of K-3 children were selected in one elementary school during 1986 and treated with an exploratory Arts Based/Language Arts curriculum for the 1986-87 school year. Pretest and posttest achievement data were collected with the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills and a Student Achievement Survey instrument constructed especially for the study. Pretest and posttest cognitive and creative skills data were collected with the Silver Test of Cognitive and Creative Skills. Teacher and parent perceptions of the curriculum were measured with instruments constructed especially for the study. Analysis consisted of testing for differences in pretest and posttest measures of cognitive and creative skills, ITBS test scores, and teacher's ratings on the Arts Based/Language Arts Survey. Comparisons were made on pretest to posttest differences with the Wilcoxon T-statistic, and comparisons of the differences for male and female groups were made with the Mann-Whitney U-statistic. Statistics were tested for significance at the 0.05 level. As a result Arts Based/Language Arts curriculum student cognitive and creative skills and student achievement in language arts did not improve, however teachers perceived improvement in motivation, language arts, and the arts. Findings and conclusions support the continuance of the Arts Based/Language Arts curriculum for a longer duration during which the instrument for measuring teacher perceptions could be revised and scores correlated with standardized test scores.

This study aimed at establishing and analysing the literacy practices in the rural and urban communities and their effect on the academic achievements of learners. It also aimed to establish the impact of other factors, such as the exposure to the language of examination, the level of parents formal education and the quality of parental mediation in the their children's academic work, which could be responsible for the imbalance between the rural and urban learners academic achievements. This study endeavours to established that the literacy practices in urban areas prepare learners for schooled and global literacies while the literacies in rural areas are to localised and thus impoverish the learners initial literacy development. This study also seek to determine the extent to which the current language policy in education in Uganda favours the urban learners at the expense of the rural learners as far as the acculturation into and acquisition of the schooled and global literacies are concerned.

This study aimed at establishing and analysing the literacy practices in the rural and urban communities and their effect on the academic achievements of learners. It also aimed to establish the impact of other factors, such as the exposure to the language of examination, the level of parents formal education and the quality of parental mediation in the their children's academic work, which could be responsible for the imbalance between the rural and urban learners academic achievements. This study endeavours to established that the literacy practices in urban areas prepare learners for schooled and global literacies while the literacies in rural areas are to localised and thus impoverish the learners initial literacy development. This study also seek to determine the extent to which the current language policy in education in Uganda favours the urban learners at the expense of the rural learners as far as the acculturation into and acquisition of the schooled and global literacies are concerned.