Thesis (M.S.)--Georgia Southern University, 2009. / "A thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Georgia Southern University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Science." Directed by Lawrence Locker. ETD. Includes bibliographical references (p. 40-44) and appendices.

Thesis (M.Psych(ClinNeuro&ClinPsych)) - University of Queensland, 2004. / Includes bibliography.

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.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 120-131). Also available in print.

This thesis focusses on whether words are treated like visual objects by the human attentional system. Previous research has shown an attentional phenomenon that is associated specifically with objects: this is known as “object based attention” (e.g. Egly, Driver & Rafal, 1994). This is where drawing a participant’s attention (cuing) to any part of a visual object facilitates target detection at non-cued locations within that object. That is, the cue elevates visual attention across the whole object. The primary objective of this thesis was to demonstrate this effect using words instead of objects. The main finding of this thesis is that this effect can indeed be found within English words – but only when they are presented in their canonical horizontal orientation. The effect is also highly sensitive to the type of cue and target used. Cues which draw attention to the “wholeness” of the word appear to amplify the object based effect. A secondary finding of this thesis is that under certain circumstances participants apply some form of attentional mapping to words which respects the direction of reading. Participants are faster (or experience less cost) when prompted to move their attention in accord with reading direction than against. This effect only occurs when the word stimuli are used repeatedly during the course of the experiment. The final finding of this thesis is that both the object based attentional effect and the reading direction effect described above can be found using either real words or a non-lexical stimulus: specifically symbol strings. This strongly implies that these phenomena are not exclusively associated with word stimuli, but are instead associated with lower level visual processing. Nonetheless, it is considered highly likely that these processes are involved in the day to day process of reading.

<p>Although literacy skills have been associated with critical academic, social, and economic outcomes, most adolescents in the United States lack basic proficiency in reading comprehension. Experts in the field of adolescent literacy have identified affective components of reading (e.g., reading attitudes) as a critical topic in need of further research. Prior research has found a significant correlation between affective components of reading and reading comprehension, even after controlling for cognitive covariates (e.g., vocabulary). However, the bulk of this research has been limited to first language learners and children in the early grades. Therefore, this study extends the reading attitudes literature by examining these relationships among Latino adolescents, including those who speak English as a second language. Furthermore, reading attitudes has predicted reading comprehension growth among certain populations, although the mechanisms behind this relationship are unclear. This study theorizes that reading attitudes promotes reading development by facilitating incidental vocabulary acquisition through increased reader engagement and implicit strategy use. Therefore, this study also extends the literature by determining whether reading attitudes predicts vocabulary growth from September to June of ninth grade. Participants were 128 ninth grade students in a low-income, predominantly Latino high school. 24% spoke English only (EO), 26% were from Spanish-speaking homes but had been determined to be initially fluent-English-proficient (I-FEP) at enrollment, 21% were classified as &ldquo;true&rdquo; English learners (ELs) who had not yet attained proficiency in English, and 29% were former English learners who had been redesignated fluent-English-proficient (R-FEP). Reading attitudes were assessed using an adapted form of the Elementary Reading Attitudes Survey (ERAS), which contains both recreational (ERAS-R) and academic (ERAS-A) reading subscales. In a hierarchical regression analysis (HRA), the ERAS-R independently predicted reading comprehension after controlling for language group, vocabulary, and word reading ability (i.e., decoding, word recognition, and fluency). No language group interactions were detected. In a second HRA, the ERAS-R predicted students&rsquo; vocabulary at the end of ninth grade after controlling for language group, prior vocabulary achievement, and word reading ability. However, reading attitudes only predicted vocabulary development for EO and R-FEP students, while no effect was present for I-FEP children and &ldquo;true&rdquo; ELs. </p>

<p> This study examined the efficacy of peer tutoring, specifically Peer Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS), as supplemental instruction for middle school students with reading difficulties. A multiple baseline across individuals design was used to demonstrate changes in oral reading fluency and reading comprehension. The results of this study suggest that students who participated in PALS did not substantially increase reading fluency or comprehension when analyzed on the basis of non-overlapping data points. Nonetheless, two of the three underperforming students improved their reading skills such that they were no longer in the at-risk range by the end of the study. The third lower-performing student did make important gains over the course of the study. Notably, the lower-performing participants perceived themselves as having made gains in reading and they attributed these gains to working with a partner. The limitations and implications of future research are discussed. </p>

<p> This teacher research study examined the pedagogical practices and conditions for learning that supported the literacy learning of the children in my kindergarten classroom during the 2006-2007 school year. An additional focus was to determine the meaning-making strategies employed by effective young beginning readers in this classroom. </p><p> The participants were 21 children, 12 girls and nine boys, who were students in my kindergarten. They were also representative of the primarily Caucasian population within a school district on eastern Long Island that included a small percentage (less than 5%) of other ethnic groups. </p><p> Data collection included ethnographic observations (kidwatching), along with still and video, digital photography. These data were examined within the literacy events in the classroom that included reading to children, reading with children, and children reading by themselves or to others. Portions of the video collection included the children reading the morning message with me. Video of children reading to me was also transcribed and examined using miscue analysis to determine the meaning-making strategies used by five effective young beginning readers. </p><p> Findings indicate that the tenants of whole language, along with Cambourne's (1988) conditions for learning, were in place and supported the pedagogical practice during the literacy events studied. Miscue analysis of the readings done by the children indicated that the children avoided any reliance on the surface features of text (phonics) and employed complex, meaning-making miscues to produce a reader's text that also maintained a high syntactic and semantic relationship with the author's text. </p><p> The implications are that similar literacy development could be realize for children within other classrooms where this pedagogy and conditions for learning are in place.</p>

<p> Early literacy and reading skills are both important predictors of an individual's future success in school and employment settings (Moats, 1999). Moreover, poor reading performance in elementary school has been associated with future conduct problems and juvenile delinquency by age fifteen (Williams, 1994). Research supports the notion that scientifically-based instruction provides all students with the best opportunity to prevent future academic, behavioral, and vocational problems associated with poor reading skill acquisition. The current study investigated the reliability and validity of a curriculum-based measure developed by the current author named Phonics Curriculum-Based Measurement (P-CBM). Two hundred and twenty five first grade students (117 males, 103 females) from two partnering school districts in rural western New York State were included in the study. The results indicated strong alternate forms reliability, inter-rater reliability, and concurrent validity. Upon further validation, P-CBM could be helpful in making screening, progress monitoring, or instructional planning decisions as well as providing pre-referral data to school psychologists who are conducting special education eligibility evaluations for a specific learning disability in reading.</p>

<p> The focus of this comparative study was to examine the connection between attendance in preschool and kindergarten students' literacy success as measured by the Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA2+). Historical data were obtained from the DRA2+ scores of 1,080 kindergarten students in one Missouri school district for the 2010-2011, 2011-2012, 2012-2013 school years. The study was also used to determine the perceptions of kindergarten educators of the impact of preschool on their students. The following overarching question was: What difference exists when comparing the DRA2+ scores of kindergarten students who had a preschool experience and those who did not? Additionally, the perceptions of teachers working with students who had received an early learning experience and students who had not received an early learning experience were gathered. Using a t-test to examine the difference between the mean scores of participating and non-participating students, there was a statistically significant difference in scores of students who participated in preschool and those who did not for 2010-2011; however, there were not statistically significant differences in the sets of data for 2011-2012 and 2012-2013. Educators surveyed in this research perceived that students who had not received an early learning experience seemed to have more difficulty learning the basics of school life; attending for longer periods of time; taking direction; using manipulatives, such as scissors, pencils, and crayons; and getting along with peers.</p>