The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of the two instructional strategies for six phonic word-attack skills objectives and to focus on the following specific questions: (a) When student teachers use a basal-reader-oriented strategy (Treatment I) for teaching phonic word-attack skills, what will be the effects on elementary pupil achievement of these skills? (b) When student teachers use a systematic instructional strategy (Treatment II) for teaching phonic word-attack skills, what will be the effects on elementary pupil achievement of these skills? (c) How will the effects of these strategies compare? Written criterion-referenced phonic word-attack skills pre-tests were administered to approximately 110 third and fourth grade pupils. The validity of the criterion-referenced tests was judged by a team of reading specialists from North Texas State University. The reliability coefficients of the tests ranged from .57 to .93 and all were significant at the .01 level. This report concludes that when elementary pupil achievement of phonic word-attack skills is used as the criterion for student teacher effectiveness then training in the conscientious application of systematic instructional procedures incorporating research validated learning principles is a more effective procedure than requiring student teachers to follow the recommended procedures in basal readers. It also concludes that the ability of student teachers to affect the learning of phonic word attack skills by elementary students increases with practice; however, this ability appears to increase at a greater rate for those trained in systematic instructional procedures than for those who are trained to use the basal reader.

The purpose of the study was to determine the relationships among Piagetian levels of cognitive development, linguistic skills, and reading achievement in elementary pupils. The subjects were 212 pupils in grades K-3 at a school in Sullivan County, Tennessee. The subjects were administered conservation tests of number, quantity of matter, and length and linguistic tests of syllabication, synthesis of phonemes into words, and analysis of words into phonemes by the researcher. Scores on pre-reading skills from the reading subtests of the Metropolitan Readiness Tests and scores on meaning vocabulary, reading comprehension, and word study skills from the Stanford Achievement Test were used for reading variables. Significant correlation coefficients for the relationships among each pair of variables were moderate to high for the total group, for girls, and for boys. There tended to be high correlations of pairs of reading variables, pairs of linguistic variables, and pairs of cognitive variables. Pre-reading skills correlated well with all linguistic variables, conservation of number, and conservation of quantity of matter. The ANOVA and Newman-Keuls procedures were used to determine differences among levels. There were significant differences between each pair of age levels on reading variables for boys, for girls, and for the total group. For the linguistic variables, there were significant differences between the means of Level 1 (age 5 1/2 to 6 1/2) and Level 2 (age 6 1/2 to 7 1/2) for boys, for girls, and for the total group, but only 6 of 48 significant differences among Levels 2, 3 (age 7 1/2 to 8 1/2), and 4 (age 8 1/2 to 9 1/2). For the conservation variables, there was one significant difference between Level 3 and Level 4, but 28 of 36 significant differences among the other levels, showing much change below Level 4 on conservation skills. Girls performed significantly better than boys on reading comprehension, word study skills, and composite reading skills. Reading comprehension was significantly better for girls than for boys on Level 4. There were no significant differences on other reading subtests. There were no significant differences between boys and girls on linguistic and Piagetian tasks. The t-test was used to measure differences.

Research about preservice teachers' beliefs indicates that the educational beliefs they have developed over time will have an impact on not only how they respond to the various experiences they have while enrolled in a teacher education program, but also their receptiveness to future professional development opportunities. I investigated the developing and emerging beliefs regarding reading and its instruction of four preservice elementary teachers during their participation in two university reading methods courses and the accompanying field-based experiences in the elementary teacher education program that was the site of my study. Two purposes framed the qualitative, longitudinal design of my study. One purpose was to examine the participants' prior, university-, and field-based experiences with reading and its instruction and the meaning they attached to these experiences. The second purpose was to learn how the participants incorporated into their developing belief systems as teachers of reading the various conceptions regarding reading development and its instruction they brought to and encountered during their university coursework and field experiences. Data sources included interviews, archival documents from the courses (reading philosophies, belief survey and autobiographical reading histories), reading expert surveys, reflexive philosophies and personal pedagogies. Results, presented in portraits for each participant, indicated that the participants created fictive images of the teachers they wanted to be that served as the lenses through which they interpreted both their university- and field-based experiences that were the focus of my study. When discussing their action agendas for teaching reading in the future, each participant relied on the fictive image she had created of herself as a teacher of reading. Consistent with existing research in this area, prior and field-based experiences with reading and its instruction seemed more influential in the development of these preservice teachers' beliefs than were the reading "methods of teaching" courses or instructors. A key implication, consistent with the National Commission on Excellence in Elementary Teacher Preparation for Reading Instruction (2003, 2007) recommendations, is for teacher educators to operate from and enact a clear vision of what reading instruction consists of across the elementary grade levels and content areas.

<p>I den här uppsatsen behandlas lärares arbete vid läs- och skrivinlärning i år 1. I dagens samhälle är det av stor vikt att varje individ utvecklar en god läs- och skrivförmåga. Forskning visar på att lärarens kompetens kan vara avgörande för att alla elever ska utvecklas till goda läsare och skrivare. Därför har jag intresserat mig för hur lärare arbetar. Jag har, genom kvalitativa intervjuer med fem verksamma lärare, undersökt hur deras arbetssätt ser ut samt tittat på vad som förenar dem och skiljer dem åt i detta arbete. Det visade sig att lärarna aktivt väljer olika arbetssätt utifrån flera förebilder, kompetensutveckling och erfarenheter. Likaså är deras undervisningssätt influerat av flera metoder. De individanpassar undervisningen utifrån hur klassen ser ut och vad eleverna däri behöver. Lärarna samarbetar med speciallärare för att bedöma och utveckla elevernas läsande och skrivande. Lärarna arbetar varierat med både form (tränar på bokstäver och avkodning) och innehåll (förståelse för hur texter kan läsas och skrivas). Utöver samarbetet med speciallärare, visade de sig vara öppna för arbete med andra berörda, till exempel bibliotekarier, föräldrar och andra lärare.</p><p>In the community of today, it is important for every individual to be able to write and read properly. Research indicates that teachers’ competences are related to how well every child responds to reading and writing instruction. Therefore I was interested in how teachers´ do, when they teach children to read and write the first year of school. Through qualitative interviews with five teachers in work, I found out that their teaching varied and focused on both formal instructions like letter knowledge and comprehension. The teachers seemed to cooperate with people around them a lot and based their teaching on reading and writing textbooks. They also adjusted their teaching to fit and develop the individuals within the group. They were critical and reflective when inspired of new ways of teaching and they picked thoughts from several directions and mixed them.</p>

This dissertation is an effort to contribute to the knowledge base concerning reading instruction for adolescent students who speak African American Vernacular English (AAVE), as well as their acquisition of Standard English (SE), by focusing on language structure during a modified approach to guided reading (MGR). Emphasis was placed on teaching the eight inflectional morphemes in SE, as well as other literacy strategies to AAVE speaking students. This intervention hypothesized that the teaching and learning of inflectional morphemes, in particular, would increase SE literacy acquisition. The intervention utilized formative experiment methodology and a quasi-experimental time series design. Data sources and collection took several forms: a) KTEA II - reading (letter and word recognition and reading comprehension) and written language (written expression) (Kaufman & Kaufman, 2004); b) field reflections; c) student surveys; and d) video-taped MGR lessons. Informal assessments such as the Ekwall/Shanker Reading Inventory, 4th Edition (Shanker & Ekwall, 2000) were used to guide instruction for MGR lessons. The findings supported the hypothesis that instruction of inflectional morphemes in SE has a positive impact on reading, writing, and overall acquisition of SE among AAVE speaking students.

I den här uppsatsen behandlas lärares arbete vid läs- och skrivinlärning i år 1. I dagens samhälle är det av stor vikt att varje individ utvecklar en god läs- och skrivförmåga. Forskning visar på att lärarens kompetens kan vara avgörande för att alla elever ska utvecklas till goda läsare och skrivare. Därför har jag intresserat mig för hur lärare arbetar. Jag har, genom kvalitativa intervjuer med fem verksamma lärare, undersökt hur deras arbetssätt ser ut samt tittat på vad som förenar dem och skiljer dem åt i detta arbete. Det visade sig att lärarna aktivt väljer olika arbetssätt utifrån flera förebilder, kompetensutveckling och erfarenheter. Likaså är deras undervisningssätt influerat av flera metoder. De individanpassar undervisningen utifrån hur klassen ser ut och vad eleverna däri behöver. Lärarna samarbetar med speciallärare för att bedöma och utveckla elevernas läsande och skrivande. Lärarna arbetar varierat med både form (tränar på bokstäver och avkodning) och innehåll (förståelse för hur texter kan läsas och skrivas). Utöver samarbetet med speciallärare, visade de sig vara öppna för arbete med andra berörda, till exempel bibliotekarier, föräldrar och andra lärare. In the community of today, it is important for every individual to be able to write and read properly. Research indicates that teachers’ competences are related to how well every child responds to reading and writing instruction. Therefore I was interested in how teachers´ do, when they teach children to read and write the first year of school. Through qualitative interviews with five teachers in work, I found out that their teaching varied and focused on both formal instructions like letter knowledge and comprehension. The teachers seemed to cooperate with people around them a lot and based their teaching on reading and writing textbooks. They also adjusted their teaching to fit and develop the individuals within the group. They were critical and reflective when inspired of new ways of teaching and they picked thoughts from several directions and mixed them.

The purpose of this study was to investigate methods for improving reading comprehension among struggling adolescent readers. More specifically, this study was concerned with: the effectiveness of pull-out intervention for reading outcomes in this population; the most effective type of intervention; and the contributions of instructional method to reading comprehension after decoding has been removed. These questions were answered with the help of 29 students from a rural school division in Saskatchewan who volunteered to participate in testing and various forms of reading intervention for a period of four to five weeks. Students were placed into one of three groups: the MSI group practiced decoding and learned six comprehension strategies; the FSI group practiced decoding and learned just two comprehension strategies; and the control group who participated in their typical education program. In sum, the analysis produced the following results:<p> 1.Pull-out intervention (pre-test M = 6.00; post-test M = 7.33) did not offer a statistically significant advantage over the typical classroom setting (pre-test M = 7.00; post-test M = 7.05) when attempting to remediate reading comprehension;<p> 2.Participants in the MSI group demonstrated significant improvement on measures of decoding (p = .001; ©¯p2 = .75);<p> 3.Although statistical testing did not reveal significant results, effect sizes were large for: participants in the MSI group on measures of fluency (©¯p2 = .39); participants in the FSI group on measures of fluency (©¯p2 = .53) and the Oral Reading Quotient (©¯p2 = .37); participants in the control group on measures of decoding (©¯p2 = .21), comprehension (©¯p2 = .38), fluency (©¯p2 = .32), and the Oral Reading Quotient (©¯p2 = .50); and<p> 4.Decoding accounted for a statistically significant 15.4% of the unique variance in post-test comprehension scores (p = .03), but differences in grouping contributed a negligible amount (p = .1; R2 change = .004).

The purpose of this study was to investigate methods for improving reading comprehension among struggling adolescent readers. More specifically, this study was concerned with: the effectiveness of pull-out intervention for reading outcomes in this population; the most effective type of intervention; and the contributions of instructional method to reading comprehension after decoding has been removed. These questions were answered with the help of 29 students from a rural school division in Saskatchewan who volunteered to participate in testing and various forms of reading intervention for a period of four to five weeks. Students were placed into one of three groups: the MSI group practiced decoding and learned six comprehension strategies; the FSI group practiced decoding and learned just two comprehension strategies; and the control group who participated in their typical education program. In sum, the analysis produced the following results:<p> 1.Pull-out intervention (pre-test M = 6.00; post-test M = 7.33) did not offer a statistically significant advantage over the typical classroom setting (pre-test M = 7.00; post-test M = 7.05) when attempting to remediate reading comprehension;<p> 2.Participants in the MSI group demonstrated significant improvement on measures of decoding (p = .001; ©¯p2 = .75);<p> 3.Although statistical testing did not reveal significant results, effect sizes were large for: participants in the MSI group on measures of fluency (©¯p2 = .39); participants in the FSI group on measures of fluency (©¯p2 = .53) and the Oral Reading Quotient (©¯p2 = .37); participants in the control group on measures of decoding (©¯p2 = .21), comprehension (©¯p2 = .38), fluency (©¯p2 = .32), and the Oral Reading Quotient (©¯p2 = .50); and<p> 4.Decoding accounted for a statistically significant 15.4% of the unique variance in post-test comprehension scores (p = .03), but differences in grouping contributed a negligible amount (p = .1; R2 change = .004).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 204-225). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Auburn University, 2009. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 76-84).