Thesis (M.A. (English)) -- University of Limpopo, 2015 / This study seeks to determine the support of reading–literacy provided by homes of grade six learners in some Limpopo primary schools, which assists them in learning to read, and particularly to read with understanding. This study adopted a qualitative approach. The case study design was used. Twelve learners and twelve parents of the chosen learners served as participants to this study. Three data collection instruments were used. As the researcher wanted to first determine good and poor readers a comprehension test was designed by the researcher in order to select the learners. After learners had written the test an interview guide was given to the learners to establish different kinds of reading related activities which learners engage in with their parents. Lastly a check list was issued to learners and parents to assess parental involvement in learners’ reading literacy development. Findings of the current study are that some learners do not receive the parental support they need in order to develop reading literacy. As a result, many learners fail in school because they are illiterate. It is suggested that in order for learners to improve in their reading literacy parental support must be encouraged in South African schools. School programmes must be designed in a way that it inculcates parental support. And most importantly parents need to be made aware of the crucial role they play in their children’s reading literacy development. Key words: Reading literacy, multiple literacy, parental support and home literacy.

The gendered features of children's development in early literacy, particularly those that contribute to the generally poorer performance of boys, were explored in a dual-phase questionnaire study, conducted across schools in South East Queensland. The potential influences of school type (private and state) and gender-composition of a class (mixed-gender and single-gender schools) on performances of boys were tested on two state-wide tests (The Year 2 Diagnostic Net for Reading; The Reading Development Continuum) and a standardised measure (The St Lucia Reading Comprehension Test). Children and parents were surveyed to determine the locus of significant differences between girls and boys in relation to attitudes to reading, being read to and to constructs of self and others as readers. Girls presented as more positive across these measures. They indicated greater interest in reading and being read to. They reported reading across a wider range of genres for both school and recreational purposes and selected reading as a preferred activity in comparison with others. Boys were more reluctant readers. They displayed poorer attitudes generally and reported reading less in quantity and frequency in both school and home settings. The notion of girls and boys maintaining a positive or negative "image" emerged from a small but influential subset. This derivation was consistent with perceptions of gender-bias in gender-preferences. The profile of achievement across the three measures yielded a story of difference. Boys in private school settings were significantly less likely than girls to obtain higher Continuum scores and boys in state school settings were less likely than girls to be rated as proficient in the Year Two Net Test. Boys from private schools and in single-gender situations outperformed all other subgroups on the Net. Yet, they obtained the worst result on the Continuum, and were in the middle rank on the standardised test. Whether in private or state schools, boys were likely to obtain lower average Continuum scores than females. This was a statistically significant difference in the private school sector. While boys in Private Schools were slightly more likely than girls to be rated as proficient in the Year Two Net test, boys in state schools were far less likely than girls to be rated as proficient on the Year Two Net test, a statistically significant difference. Children attending single-gender, private schools attained higher aggregate scores on the attitude subtests of the Continuum than their state school counterparts. However, children in comparable, mixed-gender, private schools performed neither better nor worse than their peers in single-gender private schools. This comparison does not support contentions that single-gender schooling is superior in relation to the literacy achievements of emergent readers. When comparisons were made at the most general level (male vs. female, private vs. state school) gender did not predict scores in the externally administered St. Lucia Reading Comprehension Test scores. The significant relationship for girls at state schools on the Net test and for girls at private schools on the Continuum (both internally-based measures), coupled with the non-significant differences in relation to the St. Lucia Reading Comprehension Test points to the possibility that internally-based ratings are to some extent driven by teacher perceptions of literacy competence, and such perceptions may at times be unreliable. The corollary observation that not only was the measurement of attitude provided by the Continuum Attitude score significantly correlated with the St. Lucia reading test but also that the latter was not directly influenced by gender affirmed the notion that a school culture of gendered literacy is influencing teacher attitudes related to the achievement of literacy. What analyses of home background capture is the surprisingly lack of any connection between these tacitly understood underpinnings of literacy and the achievement thereof. The lack particularly of any connection between the teacher reading to students and the achievement of literacy was also surprising. In relation to literacy practice, the three most highly identified male activities (kicking a ball, computer games, playing outside) grouped to form a distinct factor (subscale) and this factor score was positively associated at a statistically significant level with scores on the St Lucia Reading test. Not only did private school children obtain better scores on the St. Lucia test, it was private school students whose identification of this highly stereotypically set of male activities linked significantly with an external measure of the achievement of literacy. This linkage seems indicative of an enhanced ability to read social codes more generally and is probably reflective of the social space occupied by private school students. In sum, while students, parents, and teachers fairly consistently displayed a heavily gendered culture with regard to literacy, actual achievement levels, attitudes, home background, and literacy practice disconnected from that gendered culture. That is, there appears to be a subtle but important distinction between perception and reality in relation to the achievement of literacy.

The influence of reading ability on cross-language transfer in Mandarin-speaking ninth graders was explored. Each participant's native language (L1-Mandarin Chinese) and second language (L2-English) were assessed. Although the relationship between L1 and L2 reading ability has been discussed in many previous studies, few studies have examined this relationship among L2 readers whose L1 is sharply different from their L2, who are at the junior-high-school age range, and who are learning English in a setting where English is not used in daily communication (e.g., English as a foreign language). To investigate the role of L1 reading competence in the language reading ability transfer, a reformed public examination, called the Basic Competency Test (BCT), was applied in this study. The 30,000 Taiwanese ninth grade participants, randomly selected from the pool of the national examination involved in a consecutive six-year period, were considered as a whole and then disaggregated into six groups based on the year they took the BCT. A preliminary analysis was about reliability coefficients of twelve examinations (six in Mandarin Chinese reading, and six in English reading) used in the present study. Scores from both Mandarin Chinese and English reading comprehension tests were subjected to descriptive, correlational, and regressional analyses. Both correlation and regression analyses revealed congruent results that provided support for the positive influence of Mandarin Chinese reading competence on English reading ability, that is, L2 reading ability is dependent on L1 reading competence. The finding supported the Linguistic Interdependence Hypothesis. In addition, participants' gender and school district also played statistically significant roles to affect the cross-language transfer of reading ability, whereas the length of time in English exposure had no statistically significant effect on the language reading ability transfer. Thus, cross-language transfer in reading ability was influenced by learners' L1 reading competence, gender, and school district. This suggested educational policy makers in Taiwan that boost native-Chinese speaking students' Mandarin knowledge help support the development of English reading ability. Apparently, if students' L1 reading abilities can be built up more soundly, their L2 reading ability should be easier to acquire.

The purpose of this non-experimental, causal-comparative study was to examine how gender, reading ability, and mathematics ability differentially moderated students' mathematical problem-solving processes, linguistic explanations of those solution processes, achievement on a mathematical problem-solving test, self-efficacy on a self-reported rating scale, and self-assessment on a self-reported rating scale. The investigation addressed five research questions. First, to what extent are students' mathematical problem-solving processes related to gender? Second, to what extent is children's performance in mathematical problem solving related to gender, reading ability, and mathematics ability? Third, to what extent is the quality of students' linguistic explanations of their problem-solving processes related to gender, reading ability and mathematics ability? Fourth, to what extent is the relationship between students' feelings of self-efficacy when commencing work on a mathematical problem and their actual performance related to gender, reading ability and mathematics ability? Finally, to what extent is students' ability to assess their own performance on mathematical problem-solving tasks related to gender, reading ability, and mathematics ability? After being briefed in the use of the self-efficacy and self-assessment reporting scales, the students from 16 fifth-grade classrooms were tested with a 12-item mathematical problem-solving test. The final sample consisted of 237 students, 129 boys and 108 girls. All student responses were scored for performance and linguistic explanation using holistic rubrics, and were coded according to the solution process employed. The results indicate that gender does not play a significant role in students' choice of problem-solving processes. As expected, mathematics ability was significantly related to performance as was reading ability. Gender was not found to be a significant predictor of performance. Reading ability and mathematics ability were both strongly related to the quality of students' linguistic explanations of their problem-solving processes, but gender was not. Boys consistently exhibited higher levels of self-efficacy, but girls were more accurate in their self-efficacy feelings. Reading ability was also found to be a significant predictor of the accuracy of students' self-efficacy feelings, but mathematics ability was not. Reading ability was found to be the strongest predictor of the accuracy of students' self-assessment, with gender also showing a significant relationship.

Syftet med examensarbetet var att mot pedagogers praktiska erfarenheter och professionella praktik pröva olika teorier kring risk- och skyddsfaktorer vid utagerande och internaliserande beteendeproblem hos barn och unga samt beteendeproblemens koppling till läsförmåga för att se hur teorierna fungerar i relation till praktiken. Studien är kvalitativ och datainsamlingsmetoder har varit semistrukturerade intervjuer och kompletterande enkäter med sammanlagt tio informanter. Dataanalysen har inspirerats av en fenomenografisk metodansats i de första analysstegen. Resultatet visar bland annat att informanterna har erfarenheter och uppfattningar av att barns/elevers beteendeproblem dels kan handla om förmågor och färdigheter hos individen själv, exempelvis bristande kommunikativ förmåga eller svag självkänsla, dels att faktorer i hemmiljön och/eller förskolan/skolan verkar hindrande för barnets/elevens utveckling och lärande. Framför allt visar materialet att lärarens relation till barnet/eleven och föräldrarna har stor betydelse för utgången av beteendet. Denna studie bidrar bland annat till forskningen på så sätt att slutsatser dras att det bland informanterna finns en osäkerhet i bemötandet och hanterandet av framför allt barn och unga med internaliserande beteende samt att förskolan/skolan har behov av dels mer kunskap om beteendeproblem, dels bättre tid och forum för reflektionsarbete och relationsskapande. Insatser bör vidare sättas in tidigt och gärna fokusera på att lära barnen läsa. Sammantaget finns det på flera punkter en överensstämmelse mellan denna studies resultat och med den empiriska forskning som tidigare gjorts i ämnet beteendeproblem hos barn och unga.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 107-124). / Also available by subscription via World Wide Web / x, 124 leaves, bound 29 cm

The problem of this study was to examine the effect of reading preference on reading comprehension of low socioeconomic high school students. Subjects were 61 participants in the Upward Bound program at a major southwestern university; they represented urban high schools with high proportions of students of low socioeconomic status. Subjects completed cloze procedure reading passages in four categories: high preference independent level, high preference frustration level, non-expressed preference independent level, and non-expressed preference frustration level. From the results gathered, it was recommended (1) that reading ability assessments include measuring performance with high preference materials, (2) that instructional personnel ascertain and utilize student preferences as foundations for reading instruction, (3) that reading material not be withheld from students on the basis of difficulty, (4) that high preference reading materials be used in reading instruction by secondary reading and content area teachers, and (5) that school patrons be made aware of the value of free preference reading in reading skill development.

The No Child Left Behind Act and National Council of Teachers of Mathematics' Principles and Standards both had a significant impact on the format and content of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) math test. Content analysis of the 2004 TAKS eighth grade math test identified the prevalence of linguistic complexity, mathematical rigor, and visual presentation factors and explored their relationship to student success on individual test items. Variables to be studied were identified through a review of literature in the area of reading comprehension of math word problems. Sixteen variables of linguistic complexity that have been significantly correlated with student math test performance were selected. Four variables of visual presentation were identified and ten variables of mathematical rigor. An additional five variables of mathematical rigor emerged from preliminary study of the 2003 TAKS math test. Of the 35 individual variables, only four reached a significant level of correlation with the percent of students correctly answering a given test item. The number of digits presented in the problem statement and number of known quantities both exhibited a significant positive correlation with the dependent variable. The number of times a student had to perform a multiplication operation had a significant negative correlation with the percent of correct responses, as did the total number of operations required. Stepwise regression of these four variables revealed total number of operations and known quantities to be the best combination of predictors of correct responses. When grouped in categories by problem type and compared, items involving mathematical reasoning but no mathematical operations had a significantly higher percentage of correct responses than those requiring at least one operation. Further categorization revealed problems involving applications only (without computation) associated with the highest levels of correct responses, followed by those involving only computation. Items requiring both applications and computations had a significantly lower percent of correct responses.

This paper will examine what research has revealed about reading and learning in the areas of word recognition, scaffolding to develop understanding, metacognition and application of new knowledge in real world situations. The study then will go on to link what is known about learning to strategies that have already been developed by secondary teachers to increase critical reading skills.

This thesis focused on the use of a computerized reading assessment program called Star Reading. Reading has been one of the most difficult areas across the curriculum to assess. Reading asssessment differs widely from teacher to teacher, and has traditionally been very subjective.