In recent years there has been increasing attention to the field of family literacy. A number of qualitative and ethnographic studies (Taylor, 1982; Taylor & Dorsey-Gaines, 1988, Paratore, 1999, 2001 Auerbach E. R., 1989, 1995; Rogers, 2002) have documented the importance of the family in the acquisition of literacy within the context of the home. These two case studies of Denise and Shrieffe address the question of whether and how parents who are introduced to reading strategies in a family literacy program use these strategies in their own home when they read with their children. The use of a qualitative paradigm (Teale, 1986) enabled me, as a family literacy teacher-researcher, to document the home teaching by these two parents and to generate broad questions that would help describe these reading interactions. This study suggests several conclusions. First, a reading intervention designed by a family literacy teacher for parents who are enrolled in a family literacy program needs to take into consideration a parent's personal literacy needs as well as any fabricated literacy support strategies a parent displays when interacting with his/her children while reading. Second, parents not only adopted the reading strategies to use as they read with children at home, but also adapted the strategies, changing them to better meet their own child's literacy needs and stage of literacy development. Third, parents transformed themselves from silent observers of their children's literacy learning to active participants in it, reading with their children and offering them reading support. Fourth, school-based literacy instruction transferred from the school to the homes of the families by the family literacy teacher-researcher, added new understandings to the home literacy environments of both families. Lastly, the role of teacher-researcher required me to attempt to understand complex questions about the intersections of reading and families' lives by using rich qualitative methods of analysis. This study contributes to a further understanding of family literacy reading as a way to help shape parent/child literacy interactions and ultimately, the parent and child's literacy learning. This study also has implications for curriculum design in family literacy programs in the United States. That is, to advocate for a family literacy teacher expanding her role to include responsibilities of modeling literacy strategies and skills in the homes of the parents and children as well as introducing children's literature and other learning materials.

Current policy statements concerning adult literacy in Guatemala state that Mayan women need literacy skills in order to better themselves and their families socially and economically and need to possess these tools and skills in order to participate in the emerging civil society. Responding to this rhetoric, and a chance to win funding, organizations that design and develop literacy programming have responded with adult literacy “classes” that focus on a single model of literacy learning for women that tends to be equated to a school model of basic education. Central to this single model for literacy learning, is a single conception of literacy, as a unified, quantifiable easily attainable goal. This reductionist tendency in Guatemala has led to focusing on a single literacy as the solution to the problem of indigenous women's illiteracy. Assumptions about the needs and desires of beneficiaries are made by literacy experts and planners without taking the time to understand the literacy practices that Mayan women and communities are already engaged in. Examining and analyzing the literacy and numeracy practices women are already engaged in is a very different approach to program planning than the hegemonic centralism of the more traditional autonomous model. By using ethnographic methods to conduct literacy research, a potentially empowering model for literacy programming can emerge that is sensitive to local context and needs. The following guidelines resulted from this study: It cannot be assumed (1) that programs designed for literacy acquisition are in the best educational or social interests of the target audience; (2) that “best practices” of teaching and learning developed and advocated by Western educators and planners are the most effective and successful in all contexts. Whole language approaches or learner-generated materials may work in some contexts and not in others and we cannot simply impose “state of the art” approaches in all contexts and expect them to work well. Any sustainable, meaningful literacy intervention in Guatemala would best be conceptualized as a long-term process that helps to establish an intergenerational network of communicative relationships that focus on the social, cultural, economic and linguistic processes of communities.

Children with communication disorders are often at risk of literacy difficulties, especially students that present with autism and/or speech sound disorders. This quasi-experimental study was designed to examine the effects of a 10-week "hybrid" intervention for preschool students with and without communication disorders in an integrated classroom. The classroom intervention targets both vocabulary and phonological awareness, two critical components of literacy that are strongly correlated with one another. The objectives of this study were (1) to provide empirical evidence that classroom-based pre-literacy intervention can be effective for students with communication disabilities, allowing for more time with their peers in a potentially least-restrictive environment and (2) to demonstrate that typically-developing preschool children also benefit from classroom-based pre-literacy training.

Based on the constructionist theory, reading is viewed as a meaning-constructing process where the reader interacts with the text by simultaneously using information from a variety of sources to construct a multi-level representation of the text. These sources include the text, one's background knowledge of the content and about the world, and the pragmatic context of the message such as the author, reader, setting, and the purpose of the exchange. The resulting representations have become known as situation models. To construct a coherent situation model, the reader needs to develop a strong textbase, as well as to integrate the information he/she reads with information stored in his/her memory while monitoring the comprehension process closely so as to achieve comprehension. This study is designed to investigate how readers of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) construct situation models under four conditions: topic familiar/language easy, topic familiar/language difficult, topic unfamiliar/language easy, topic unfamiliar/language difficult. Forty CFL readers at the third-year level served as the subjects of this study. They were randomly assigned to read in one of the conditions. They read one passage in Chinese, stopped periodically during reading to report their thoughts, and afterwards wrote down everything they remembered without referring back to the passage. The reading sessions were tape recorded, transcribed, and coded for analysis. Recall protocols were also scored as measurements of their reading performance. Results showed that while the on-line reading activities were mostly restricted to local level processing, a characteristic predicted by the linguistic threshold theory, the recall protocols showed a facilitative effect of topic familiarity, corroborating with earlier findings from both first (L1) and second (L2) language reading research studies adopting the schema theory. Based on the findings, future research is identified and teaching implications are also recommended.

This study examined the effects of a parent-delivered direct instruction reading program, on the early literacy skills of first graders at risk for reading problems. Participants were children from low SES backgrounds in a rural school district and were considered at risk for reading problems. The children's parents were taught to use the reading curriculum and asked to deliver 100 twenty-minute daily lessons. A time series multiple baseline across participants design, using fluency measures of phonemic awareness and reading as dependent measures, showed that the children who completed the program made strong gains in their reading skills. Parents indicated that they were well able to implement the program, and found it to be acceptable for use with their children.

Four experiments investigated how verb-specific lexical information is used in resolving the noun phrase complement/tensed sentence complement ambiguity, extending prior research (Ferreira & Henderson, 1990; Holmes, Stowe, & Cupples, 1989; Trueswell, Tannenhaus, & Kello, 1993). Predictions from the Constraint Satisfaction Approach (MacDonald, 1994; MacDonald, Pearlmutter, & Seidenberg, 1994a; 1994b; Tannenhaus & Trueswell, 1994; Trueswell, Tannenhaus, & Kello, 1993) and the Lexical Filtering Proposal (Clifton, Speer, & Abney, 1991; Ferreira & Henderson, 1990; 1991; Frazier, 1987; Frazier & Clifton, 1989) were contrasted. The former approach assumes that lexical information is used to guide the analysis of syntactically ambiguous phrases, predicting that comparable effects of verb bias should be observed for ambiguous versus unambiguous tensed sentence complements as for sentences containing temporarily ambiguous noun phrase complements and for sentences containing unambiguous tensed sentence complements. The latter proposal, an extension of the Garden Path Model (Frazier, 1978; Frazier & Fodor, 1978; Frazier, & Rayner, 1982), assumes that lexical information may be used when it becomes available; however, the analysis of syntactically ambiguous phrases is not delayed until lexical information becomes available, but instead is made in accordance with the syntactic parsing principles Minimal Attachment and Late Closure. Therefore, larger effects of verb bias are predicted for ambiguous versus unambiguous tensed sentence complements than for sentences containing temporarily ambiguous noun phrase complements or for sentences containing unambiguous tensed sentence complements. In Experiments 1-3, two self-paced reading methods (phrase by phrase and word by word presentation) and eye tracking were used to compare reading time on sentences containing ambiguous and unambiguous tensed sentence complements, containing either short or long ambiguous noun phrases, preceded by either NP-biased verbs, i.e., verbs generally occurring most frequently with noun phrase complements, or S-biased verbs, i.e., verbs generally occurring most frequently with tensed sentence complements. In Experiment 4, eye tracking was used to compare reading time on sentences containing temporarily ambiguous tensed sentence complements, temporarily ambiguous noun phrase complements, and unambiguous tensed sentence complements, containing either short or long ambiguous noun phrases, preceded by either NP-biased or S-biased verbs. Results from these four experiments are most compatible with the Lexical Filtering Proposal. Implications for models of human sentence processing are discussed.

Many adult literacy and adult basic education learners struggle with various forms of negative emotions. Self-doubts are often a result of resistance to earlier schooling experiences and how they processed those experiences. Adults need to shed emotions that interfere with progress and develop the self-confidence needed to persist with academic work. There is a need for a strategy to help learners become more self-confident, persistent, and self-directed. The purpose of this study was to develop, pre-test, field-test, post-test, and refine a training program designed to help students move closer to self-directed learning. The data was collected through formative and summative evaluation strategies that revolved around a series of critical dialogues with learners. Findings related to the unlearning process revealed movement by the participants towards several enabling outcomes. These outcomes included unlearning the "blaming-the-victim" mentality; working through the shame issue of returning to school as an adult; resisting the self-fulfilling prophecy that they are incapable of academic work; giving themselves credit for overcoming barriers; and moving towards developing a stronger sense of critical awareness. This study also found that: (1) learners can benefit from reflecting on their earlier schooling experiences and surrounding circumstances; (2) learners want their critical voices heard; and (3) critical reflection and critical pedagogy are important processes in helping learners overcome negative emotions and getting at those voices. In conducting the evaluation, several problems in the design were easily rectified, but others were left unsolved. Empowerment and participatory practices are not easy, and program staff may find some of the results too critical, difficult to deal with, and unpleasant. What characteristics make for a good facilitator? Should a practitioner from the learning center be present during the critical dialogues? The participants not only endorsed the program, but had recommendations for practitioners who might consider participating in a similar program designed specifically for them.

Adult literacy has become more important today. Nearly half of the millions who lack a high school education are non-English speaking adults in urban communities. Understanding the problems these adults confront in learning English is crucial to providing quality literacy services. Adult learners come to the learning tasks with fully developed cognitive capacity and life experiences. Learners' perception of the learning task affects the teaching and learning process. Despite many studies in L2 acquisition, very little is known about how adult L2 learners think about the process, particularly learners at the low literacy levels. In an attempt to find some commonality among Chinese adult ESOL learners, a survey was conducted in an urban community school. The study examined the perceptions of Chinese adult learners on the key issue in L2 learning, namely, L1 influence in learning L2 literacy skills. The study found that adult Chinese learners perceived L1 influence in learning English. Learners indicated positive L1 influence in some categories, but perceived significant negative L1 influence in more categories. Learners explained their perceptions in terms of similarities and differences between Chinese and English, the existence and non-existence of certain features in Chinese, their L1 learning experience and their learning philosophy. Their explanations also show different learner strategies and reflect the form of L1 education learners received. Learners also indicated preferred instructional approaches in their responses to the open-ended question. It is also indicated that learners perceive more L1 influence in superasegmental structures than in the segmental elements of the L2, even in places where L1 clearly affects the learning of the L2 segments. Among the four basic literacy skills, learning to speak English is the most difficult task as perceived by the Chinese adult learners. Listening is very difficult for most of the respondents. Writing is difficult for a significant number of learners while reading is perceived the least difficult by all learners. Areas for future research were pointed out. It is hoped that data from this study will serve as baseline information for future practitioner research in the adult literacy field.

This dissertation, based on an ethnographic study, seeks to identify and understand the gendered subject positionings of six working class girls enrolled in the Computer Shop of a rural vocational high school in the Northeastern United States. Since local law and Federal law clearly state that no person can be discriminated against in either schooling or employment, a continued lack of gender balance within the trades is puzzling to parents, educators, and researchers. This study contributes to a paucity of research focused upon gender and vocational education. Theoretical perspectives of feminist poststructuralism informed the collection, analysis, and reporting of data for this study. Data for this study included structured ethnographic interviews, feminist poststructuralist analysis of salient texts, and four school terms of participant observation. Analysis of the interrelatedness of these discrete strands of data yielded multiple, often contradictory, layers of gendered subject positionings. Discourses related to gendered positionings in personal relationships and schooling/career were fundamental. Feminine discourses related to nurturing were primary in analyzed texts. In the girls' lives, caring for others competed with schooling. Most of the girls worked long hours in minimum wage jobs and skipped school to meet the needs of boyfriends and children. For some of the girls, pervasive discourses of beauty meant a battle with anorexia. Discourses of heterosexual romance imbued the girls' textual preferences. In ways befitting characters in the soap operas, books, and films they loved, the girls commonly jeopardized their safety to find and keep boyfriends. At school, the girls navigated an environment that privileged boys and men through gendered shop selections, sexist texts, and male authority. Excessive regulatory practices contributed to three of the girls not graduating with her class. Understanding the multiple subjectivities of adolescent girls challenges educators and researchers to move beyond simplistic solutions in equity issues. Through multi-layered research, the impacts and synergy of gendered discourses become visible, and thus subject to interruption.

Many people believe folk and fairy tales convey a set of universal truths and beliefs; however, scholars, researchers, and folklorists have questioned or challenged this supposition. There are many versions of traditional tales and reworked tales that provide different points of view. Tale Type 500: The Name of the Helper, classified by Aarne-Thompson, is one tale that has a number of counter perspectives. While there are many variations of this tale, the Grimms' Rumpelstiltskin is the most well known. There is a lack of scholarly investigation of both the original tale and its manifestations and reconstructions. Reconstructed versions of Tale Type 500 provide more information about characters' motives with the intent of providing a different ideology. The methodology of this dissertation applies a critical multicultural analysis (Rudman & Botelho, forthcoming) to examine power in adaptations of Tale Type 500 written for children and young adults. Critical multicultural analysis is an approach that helps readers identify and analyze power relations in literature. Specifically, this study examines the fluidity of the power that characters exercise on a continuum: domination, collusion, resistance, and agency. First, this study examines characters' actions regarding how power is exercised by identifying the power on a continuum of domination through agency. Second, this study examines which characters benefit from the power exercised, and how they benefit. Third, this study identifies which characters are disadvantaged from power and how. Following each analysis is a discussion about the implications for children in America's society today. The findings of this study, indicate that power relationships are a prominent theme in the reconstructed versions of Tale Type 500. Three general themes emerged in this study: (1) readers can look at power relations in children's literature and see how the texts reflect critical theory about power relations, (2) some authors of children's literature consciously apply critical literacy practices, and (3) few texts portray characters exercising the power of agency. By identifying social implications of text ideologies and questioning the issues of power in children's literature, critical readers can consider how texts counteract, maintain, or promote alternative systemic power structures.