This review examines the effectiveness of digital media on emergent literacy skills, specifically alphabet knowledge, print awareness, and phonological awareness, on children birth to four. A systematic search of the literature identified 13 studies that met the pre-determined inclusion criteria. Two independent raters evaluated each study for methodological quality and assigned appropriate levels of evidence based on ASHA levels of evidence. Results found that specific features of digital media can lead to positive effects on emergent literacy skills. A checklist with the highlighted features was created to guide clinicians, parents, and others in making decisions about the true educational quality of various screen media.

Book Summary: This seminal text provides a scholarly overview of current evidence-based approaches to emergent literacy intervention as a component of clinical practice in speech-language pathology. The book's focus is primarily the emergent literacy period of development, transcending toddlerhood to the kindergarten year and corresponding to the years preceding formal literacy and reading instruction. By providing an accessible and usable integration of theory and research, it encourages readers to think about building early foundations in literacy to promote healthy early development and to ease children's transitions to later academic contexts. The book answers the question, "what can speech-language pathologists do today to include literacy as a target in childhood intervention?"

No description available.

In the United States, early childhood educators are expected to follow the trend to enforce academic curriculum for preschoolers. This effort diminishes the value of play in the young developmental years of children. The purpose of this study was to explore the type of activities and strategies that promote development of language and literacy skills of preschool children while playing in a dramatic play center. Vygotsky's sociocultural theory teaches that children acquire skills through play and discovery in a developmentally appropriate environment. The study was conducted within a qualitative framework using a case study approach. How parents and teachers encourage and support the development of literacy skills in preschoolers during play were explored. The participants in this single site case study were 10 young children attending a university campus preschool, their parents, and their teacher. Data were collected through observations of the children and interviews with the parents and the preschool teacher. Video transcripts and field notes were analyzed to understand the data collected. Coding was implemented to understand the patterns and themes that emerged from the collected data. Modeling, asking questions, props, and books were identified activities and strategies that supported oral language development and literacy skills in young children during dramatic play. The parents and the preschool teacher encouraged and supported the development of oral language and literacy skills through providing opportunities through play for children to build vocabulary by expressing themselves and understanding others. Varied experiences with an assortment of props and books were identified as supporting children's development. This study recommends and extends the understanding that play in dramatic play centers in preschools can support the development of oral language and literacy skills which could create positive social change in early childhood education programs.

This thesis consists of three separate papers broadly examining how different environmental and child variables affect language and literacy acquisition in two or more orthographies. The first paper is a quantitative meta-analysis of studies that have examined the effects of shared book reading on language, emergent literacy skills, and reading achievement with preschool children. The results suggest that shared book reading explained approximately 7% of variance in all the language and literacy measures combined. The mean effect size of shared book reading was slightly larger for the combined language measures (d = 0.77) than for the combined emergent literacy measures (d = 0.57), or the combined reading achievement measures (d = 0.63). An examination of the effects of shared book reading on specific language, emergent literacy, and reading skills revealed that shared book reading is more related to some skills than others. The second paper examines the effects of home literacy (shared book reading, teaching activities, and number of books), children’s task-focused behaviour, and parents’ beliefs and expectations about their child’s reading and academic ability on Kindergarten children’s (N = 61) phonological sensitivity and letter knowledge and on Grade 1 word reading. The results showed that after controlling for nonverbal IQ and vocabulary, parent teaching activities prior to Kindergarten predicted significantly letter knowledge; parents’ beliefs about their children’s reading ability predicted significantly phonological sensitivity and Kindergarten word reading; and children’s task-focused behaviour predicted significantly letter knowledge and Kindergarten and Grade 1 word reading The third paper reports on a cross-linguistic longitudinal study that examines the environmental, behavioural, and cognitive predictors of Grade 3 word reading fluency, passage comprehension, and spelling in children learning to read in an orthographically inconsistent language (English) and in an orthographically consistent language (Greek). Results indicated that home literacy factors did not directly predict Grade 3 reading or spelling skills for either the English- or Greek-speaking samples. Task-focused behaviour directly predicted spelling for the Greek-speaking sample. Vocabulary was more important for reading and spelling in English than in Greek. Letter knowledge was more important for spelling in Greek and for passage comprehension in English. / Special Education

Down syndrome (DS) is the most common genetic cause of mental challenge in individuals and is associated with many ocular disorders. One of these anomalies which is frequently present in this population is reduced accommodation and many studies have reported this. Accommodation is the ability of the crystalline lens in the eye to focus for objects at different distances. Prescribing bifocals could potentially help in correcting the resultant inaccurate focus, although this modality of treatment is not very commonly practiced. The impact of bifocals on reading and literacy skills (academic skills) as well as visual-perceptual skills in individuals with DS has not been studied previously. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of bifocals on the educational attainment of children and young adults with DS who have reduced accommodation and monitor their performance longitudinally. This is the first time that the impact of bifocal provision on the functional performance of children and young adults with DS has been studied. Also for the first time in children with DS, frequent measures of performance have been used to control for progression with time before and after bifocal prescription. A battery of tests comprising early literacy and visual-perceptual skills was administered before and after bifocal prescription. Accommodation and printing skills were also measured periodically. It was expected that the prescription of bifocals would help to improve near visual acuity and that the improved near acuity would result in educational achievements at school. Compliance with spectacle wear and school reports were also considered. A longitudinal observational study design was utilized with each child acting as his/her own control. Fourteen children and teenagers aged 8-18 with DS were recruited and underwent a basic optometric exam including measurement of their accommodative ability and a cycloplegic refraction. Seventy nine percent required a change in their spectacle prescription and were prescribed single vision (SV) lenses. One hundred percent had reduced accommodation both before and after new SV glasses were prescribed. Distance visual acuity did not significantly improve with SV lenses (p>0.05) but near visual acuity showed a significant improvement (p-=0.015) from 0.64±0.25 logMAR to 0.54±0.20 logMAR. A high prevalence of high refractive errors, including both hyperopia and myopia, was observed t andnear visual acuity even with a habitual correctionwas reduced compared to distance VA. A full battery of reading and visual-perceptual tests was administered with SV lenses. Thereafter the participants were followed for 6 months and monthly subtests (probes) of literacy skills and printing tasks were administered. These “probes” acted as immediate indicators of the child’s performance with his/her correction and change in performance over this time period was monitored. Over the 6 months the participants showed no noteworthy progression in their literacy skills. The group of participants performed at an age-equivalent between 3-10 years. The quality of printing formation in this population has been studied for the first time and showed no significant change over time. It was observed that some aspects of visual-perceptual and early literacy skills could be measured in all the participants. Chronological age and receptive vocabulary were significantly correlated with visual motor integration and Word Identification. Eighty five percent of the participants were prescribed bifocals with additions ranging from +1.00D to +3.50D at the 6th month after the provision of SV lenses. Post-bifocal measures of visual acuity, accommodation, visual-perceptual and early literacy skills were taken 1-2 weeks, and finally 5 months, after bifocal correction. Throughout the pre- and post-bifocal period, verbal compliance with spectacle wear was assessed through school and parental reports. The mean near logMAR VA improved with bifocals (p=0.007) compared to SV lenses. Accommodative accuracy improved with bifocals (less accommodative lag) compared to SV lenses (p=0.002) but there was no change in the accommodation exerted through the distance portion of the lens compared to SV lenses (p=0.423). There was a main effect of bifocals on sight words (p=0.013), Word Identification (p=0.047), and 2 out of 3 tests of visual perception (p<0.05). It was observed that bifocals have a positive impact on the children’s visual and school performance and this was supported by reports of improved performance in school for nine out of eleven individuals who were prescribed bifocals. The children adapted to bifocals more readily than the SV glasses, wearing them for the majority of their waking time. All the sessions of early literacy and visual-perceptual skills administered throughout the duration of the study were videotaped and were then analyzed by a naïve examiner. The time taken to perform each task was calculated and compared between the main single vision and bifocal visits. There was a significant decrease in the completion times on the test battery with bifocals for Word Identification (p=0.0015) and the Dolch sight words (p=0.048). All participants who completed the monthly probes took less time to complete the Dolch sight words (p= 0.025) and the number writing task (p=0.001) with bifocals. Similar results were not observed for the visual-perceptual tests. Performance in the monthly probes was compared before and after bifocal prescription in terms of the average raw scores and time taken. The rate of improvement in performance with bifocals was calculated by plotting the test scores against time and determing the regression lines. There was an overall significant improvement in the monthly probe scores of Word Identification (p=0.050), Dolch sight words (p=0.025) and the number test (p=0.023) with bifocals. The rate of progression in scores increased with bifocals for the Word Identification (p=0.008). Evidence of improved and faster performance with bifocals on some literacy skills was seen. It was concluded that bifocals, which result in improved near focusing, help individuals with DS to maximize their educational potential. It is suggested that more children and teenagers with DS will benefit from bifocal prescription, as they were observed to improve near visual acuity and enable better focusing for near. This thesis has provided a comprehensive analysis of the some tests of literacy, visual- perceptual and early printing skills before and after a bifocal prescription in a group of children and teenagers with Down syndrome. This is the first study to longitudinally monitor the educational impact of bifocals in a population with Down syndrome. Furthermore, the quality of printing formation in this population is a previously unstudied area and was studied longitudinally prior to and after bifocal intervention. The impact of bifocals on printing skills is also discussed. Another novel approach was that all the literacy, writing and visual-perceptual tasks sessions were videotaped to calculate the time taken to complete each task pre- and post-bifocals. This thesis is an addition to the existing literature on bifocal prescription in Down syndrome populations. From the findings in this thesis, the following recommendations are made in order to improve the standard of clinical eye care in this population. Measurement of accommodation should be considered a routine test in the clinical ocular examination for young individuals with DS, now that it is known that many of them present with accommodative deficits. When accommodation is found to be reduced, prescription of bifocals is indicated and should also become the standard of care in this population.

Previous research has shown that African American children are prone to score lower on vocabulary tests when compared to their white peers (Champion et al., 2003; Qi et al., 2006; Restrepo et al., 2006; Thomas-Tate et al., 2006; Washington & Craig, 1992). The dialect spoken by these children may be affecting their performance. However, little is known about how dialect use interacts with word learning abilities. The current study continues a project initiated by Wyatt, Bahr, and Silliman (2007) which examined dialectal influences on the fast mapping of novel stimuli in preschool children. The participants in the current study were 19 typically developing school-age children, who were recruited from a local elementary school in West Central Florida. Prior to the experiment, the children completed a dialectal variation assessment (DELV) and a receptive vocabulary assessment (PPVT-4). The fast mapping task utilized a modified version of the blank-comparison technique (Costa, Wilkinson, McIlvane, & de Souza, 2001). For this task, twelve non-words were developed to include three AAE phonetic features: final consonant cluster reduction, backing in /str/ clusters, and final consonant devoicing. The non-words were presented in five tasks (training, recognition, comprehension, dialect, and production). Participant responses were analyzed qualitatively and described by dialect group and AAE feature. It was anticipated that fast mapping would be influenced by dialect use; however, this was not the case. Dialect played a small role in the comprehension task -- children who spoke AAE experienced more difficulty with /skr/ non-words. Otherwise, results indicated that responses, especially during the dialect and productions tasks, were similar with numerous errors noted in both dialect groups. A notable difference was in the production of final consonant clusters, where children who spoke AAE evidenced a slight advantage. The lack of a dialect group effect was not surprising since these tasks required the participant to respond to subtle phonetic differences in the target stimuli. As a whole, dialectal influences seemed to be task and feature related. These results will be compared to the previous investigation with preschoolers (Wyatt et al., 2007) and implications for future research will be presented.

Down syndrome (DS) is the most common genetic cause of mental challenge in individuals and is associated with many ocular disorders. One of these anomalies which is frequently present in this population is reduced accommodation and many studies have reported this. Accommodation is the ability of the crystalline lens in the eye to focus for objects at different distances. Prescribing bifocals could potentially help in correcting the resultant inaccurate focus, although this modality of treatment is not very commonly practiced. The impact of bifocals on reading and literacy skills (academic skills) as well as visual-perceptual skills in individuals with DS has not been studied previously. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of bifocals on the educational attainment of children and young adults with DS who have reduced accommodation and monitor their performance longitudinally. This is the first time that the impact of bifocal provision on the functional performance of children and young adults with DS has been studied. Also for the first time in children with DS, frequent measures of performance have been used to control for progression with time before and after bifocal prescription. A battery of tests comprising early literacy and visual-perceptual skills was administered before and after bifocal prescription. Accommodation and printing skills were also measured periodically. It was expected that the prescription of bifocals would help to improve near visual acuity and that the improved near acuity would result in educational achievements at school. Compliance with spectacle wear and school reports were also considered. A longitudinal observational study design was utilized with each child acting as his/her own control. Fourteen children and teenagers aged 8-18 with DS were recruited and underwent a basic optometric exam including measurement of their accommodative ability and a cycloplegic refraction. Seventy nine percent required a change in their spectacle prescription and were prescribed single vision (SV) lenses. One hundred percent had reduced accommodation both before and after new SV glasses were prescribed. Distance visual acuity did not significantly improve with SV lenses (p>0.05) but near visual acuity showed a significant improvement (p-=0.015) from 0.64±0.25 logMAR to 0.54±0.20 logMAR. A high prevalence of high refractive errors, including both hyperopia and myopia, was observed t andnear visual acuity even with a habitual correctionwas reduced compared to distance VA. A full battery of reading and visual-perceptual tests was administered with SV lenses. Thereafter the participants were followed for 6 months and monthly subtests (probes) of literacy skills and printing tasks were administered. These “probes” acted as immediate indicators of the child’s performance with his/her correction and change in performance over this time period was monitored. Over the 6 months the participants showed no noteworthy progression in their literacy skills. The group of participants performed at an age-equivalent between 3-10 years. The quality of printing formation in this population has been studied for the first time and showed no significant change over time. It was observed that some aspects of visual-perceptual and early literacy skills could be measured in all the participants. Chronological age and receptive vocabulary were significantly correlated with visual motor integration and Word Identification. Eighty five percent of the participants were prescribed bifocals with additions ranging from +1.00D to +3.50D at the 6th month after the provision of SV lenses. Post-bifocal measures of visual acuity, accommodation, visual-perceptual and early literacy skills were taken 1-2 weeks, and finally 5 months, after bifocal correction. Throughout the pre- and post-bifocal period, verbal compliance with spectacle wear was assessed through school and parental reports. The mean near logMAR VA improved with bifocals (p=0.007) compared to SV lenses. Accommodative accuracy improved with bifocals (less accommodative lag) compared to SV lenses (p=0.002) but there was no change in the accommodation exerted through the distance portion of the lens compared to SV lenses (p=0.423). There was a main effect of bifocals on sight words (p=0.013), Word Identification (p=0.047), and 2 out of 3 tests of visual perception (p<0.05). It was observed that bifocals have a positive impact on the children’s visual and school performance and this was supported by reports of improved performance in school for nine out of eleven individuals who were prescribed bifocals. The children adapted to bifocals more readily than the SV glasses, wearing them for the majority of their waking time. All the sessions of early literacy and visual-perceptual skills administered throughout the duration of the study were videotaped and were then analyzed by a naïve examiner. The time taken to perform each task was calculated and compared between the main single vision and bifocal visits. There was a significant decrease in the completion times on the test battery with bifocals for Word Identification (p=0.0015) and the Dolch sight words (p=0.048). All participants who completed the monthly probes took less time to complete the Dolch sight words (p= 0.025) and the number writing task (p=0.001) with bifocals. Similar results were not observed for the visual-perceptual tests. Performance in the monthly probes was compared before and after bifocal prescription in terms of the average raw scores and time taken. The rate of improvement in performance with bifocals was calculated by plotting the test scores against time and determing the regression lines. There was an overall significant improvement in the monthly probe scores of Word Identification (p=0.050), Dolch sight words (p=0.025) and the number test (p=0.023) with bifocals. The rate of progression in scores increased with bifocals for the Word Identification (p=0.008). Evidence of improved and faster performance with bifocals on some literacy skills was seen. It was concluded that bifocals, which result in improved near focusing, help individuals with DS to maximize their educational potential. It is suggested that more children and teenagers with DS will benefit from bifocal prescription, as they were observed to improve near visual acuity and enable better focusing for near. This thesis has provided a comprehensive analysis of the some tests of literacy, visual- perceptual and early printing skills before and after a bifocal prescription in a group of children and teenagers with Down syndrome. This is the first study to longitudinally monitor the educational impact of bifocals in a population with Down syndrome. Furthermore, the quality of printing formation in this population is a previously unstudied area and was studied longitudinally prior to and after bifocal intervention. The impact of bifocals on printing skills is also discussed. Another novel approach was that all the literacy, writing and visual-perceptual tasks sessions were videotaped to calculate the time taken to complete each task pre- and post-bifocals. This thesis is an addition to the existing literature on bifocal prescription in Down syndrome populations. From the findings in this thesis, the following recommendations are made in order to improve the standard of clinical eye care in this population. Measurement of accommodation should be considered a routine test in the clinical ocular examination for young individuals with DS, now that it is known that many of them present with accommodative deficits. When accommodation is found to be reduced, prescription of bifocals is indicated and should also become the standard of care in this population.

No description available.

Submitted by Geandra Rodrigues (geandrar@gmail.com) on 2018-06-26T14:21:59Z No. of bitstreams: 1 gilcimarcordeirodasilvanolasco.pdf: 5864892 bytes, checksum: 74e00a0ae0a40883f708a0a9c40f000e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2018-06-26T14:28:11Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 gilcimarcordeirodasilvanolasco.pdf: 5864892 bytes, checksum: 74e00a0ae0a40883f708a0a9c40f000e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-06-26T14:28:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 gilcimarcordeirodasilvanolasco.pdf: 5864892 bytes, checksum: 74e00a0ae0a40883f708a0a9c40f000e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-12-20 / A presente dissertação foi desenvolvida no âmbito do Mestrado Profissional em Gestão e Avaliação da Educação Pública (PPGP) do Centro de Políticas Públicas e Avaliação da Educação da Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora (CAEd/UFJF). Tem como principal objetivo mapear as defasagens de leitura e escrita dos alunos oriundos do 5º ano do Ensino Fundamental que chegam ao 6º ano em uma escola estadual do Estado de Minas Gerais e propor ações que possam minimizar essas dificuldades, para que esses alunos possam prosseguir seus estudos com êxito. O referencial teórico trouxe autores que discutem sobre alfabetização e letramento e também sobre leitura e gêneros textuais tais como: Tfouni (2010), Soares (2003), Kleimam (1995), Leffa (1999), Marcuschi (2007), Lerner (2002), dentre outros. Apresentou também um breve relato das políticas públicas implementadas pelos governos federal e estadual visando à alfabetização no tempo certo. Foi realizada avaliação diagnóstica com os alunos do 6º ano e aplicado questionário aos professores do referido ano e à supervisora pedagógica, no intuito de identificar as principais dificuldades apresentadas pelos alunos e o que os professores têm feito para saná-las. A partir das análises dos dados obtidos, pôde-se perceber que muito pouco se tem feito para minimizar os problemas de defasagens em leitura e escrita, pois não foi constatado um trabalho eficaz de leitura e escrita com os diversos suportes de texto. Diante dessa constatação, propõe-se uma Plano de Ação Educacional, apresentando diversas ações buscando um trabalho diferenciado de leitura e escrita, supervisionado pela equipe pedagógica, que deve ser trabalhado por todos os professores do 6º ano. / This dissertation was developed under the Professional Masters Program in School Management and Evaluation of Public Education (PPGP) from the Center of Public Policies and Education Evaluation of the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (CAEd /UFJF). . Its main objective is to map these lags the reading and writing lags from the students of the 5th grade of elementary school who reach the 6th grade at a State School in the State of Minas Gerais and propose actions to reduce these difficulties in a way such as these students can successfully continue their studies. The theoretical reference has brought authors who discuss literacy skills as well as reading and text genres such as: Tfouni (2010), Soares (2003), Kleimam (1995), Leffa (1999), Marcuschi (2007), Lerner , among others. It also presented a brief report of the public policies implemented by the federal and state governments aiming at literacy in the right time. A diagnostic evaluation was carried out with the 6th grade students and a questionnaire was applied to the teachers of that year and to the Educational Supervisor in order to identify the main difficulties presented by the students and what teachers have done to solve them. Through data analysis we noticed that very little has been done to minimize the problems of lags in reading and writing as it was not verified an effective work of reading and writing with the various text genres. Faced with this observation an Educational Action Plan is proposed, presenting several actions seeking a differentiated work of reading and writing, supervised by the pedagogical team that must be worked by all the 6th grade teachers