Research paper (M.A.) -- Cardinal Stritch College -- Milwaukee, 1971. / A research paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Education (Reading Specialist). Includes bibliographical references (p. 64-70).

The topic of this study was to determine the factors affecting the reading readiness of Grade R learners in selected preschools in Gauteng Province. The purpose of this study was to explore factors that affect the reading readiness of Grade R learners as understood by teachers and mothers. The aim of the study was to establish what factors affect the reading readiness of Grade R learners. The primary research question asked what factors Grade R teachers and mothers find affect reading readiness. The secondary research questions asked how Grade R teachers address these factors in the classroom; who the people involved in the learners’ reading readiness are; and how they contribute to reading readiness. This study employed a multiple case study approach. Data was collected in six preschools in Johannesburg through semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with five Grade R teachers and five mothers of Grade R learners. A focus group discussion with four Grade R teachers was also conducted. The main findings of the study were eight factors affecting the reading readiness of Grade R learners: the learner’s individual developmental level; the learner’s maturity; the learner’s desire to learn to read; the learner’s phonological awareness; the learner’s need for play and kinaesthetics; the learner’s parents’ contributions; the learner’s socioeconomic living conditions; and reading stories to the learner. The implication is that these findings may improve teaching practice and Grade R curriculum development. / Psychology of Education / M. Ed. (Psychology of Education)

The purpose of this study was to discover the print awareness knowledge of 25 four- and five-year-old Spanish-English bilingual children and to see if differences among the children are related to home environmental factors. The specific questions to be answered were: (1) How does the use of language varieties in the home affect print awareness? (2) How does the language of written materials in the home (whether in Spanish or English) affect print awareness? (3) In what language do children respond to print awareness tasks? (4) How does the literacy environment in the home affect print awareness? (5) How does the language of the literacy environment (whether English or Spanish) affect print awareness? (6) How does the parental attitude toward reading affect print awareness? This naturalistic study presents data collected and analyzed with the following instruments: Signs of the Environment, Level I and Level II; Pre-Schooler's Book Handling Knowledge; and a Parent Interview which was conducted in the home. The data indicate that the children whose parents said that both languages were spoken in the home had the highest percentage of appropriate responses on all three tasks. Three main factors appear to influence the language in which the child responded to the tasks. These are contextual setting, experience with the item, and television. This study was not organized in such a way as to discover whether amount of literacy in the home and its degree of use makes a difference to children's print awareness. However, it is evident from the responses given by the children that the literacy environment of the home and its surroundings does influence print awareness. This study provides ample evidence that some bilingual economically poor children have a strong support base in literacy development which schools can expand upon: (1) Bilingual children are print aware and have knowledge of books. (2) Bilingual parents care and are anxious for the children to learn. (3) Bilingual parents read to their children and provide them with opportunities to read and write in the home. (4) Bilingual homes have a variety of opportunities for literacy.

This study was undertaken to investigate the predictive value of certain tests in relationship to first grade reading success. The following predictor tests were administered to seventy first grade students during the first two weeks of school: Metropolitan Readiness Test, Naming Letters Test, Light Response Test and Matching Symbol Test. The Teacher's Reading Readiness Rating Scale was filled out by each of the seven teachers at the end of the sixth week. The Wechsler Intelignce Scale for Children was administered to each child during the fall. The seventh predictor test was computed by finding the difference in individual scores of the Light Response Test and the Matching Symbol Test.

While there is general agreement among researchers in the field of language and learning disabilities upon the language hypothesis for reading failure, little research has been explored concerning the relationship between the phonological production skills of preschool children and the same children's prereading abilities in kindergarten. This study examined two aspects of phonological skill (a) the relationship of early phonological production errors and later success on phonological awareness and general prereading skill, and (b) determining if prereading deficits in a group of children with a history of lanquage delay reside specifically in the phonological awareness items or the prereading score in general. The subjects used for this study included 29 "normal" talkers and 30 "late talkers", as determined by the Language Development survey (Rescorla, 1989) when the subjects were between 20-34 months. When the subjects were three years old, a language sample was obtained and later phonemically transcribed from audio tape and entered into the PEPPER computer program to compute the percentage consonants correct (PCC) for each child. The subjects were later evaluated during their kindergarten year for reading readiness, using the Developmental Skills Checklist. This study found that Late Talkers have significantly lower PCCs than there normal talking peers at age three, but their PCCs do not predict their prereading or phonological awareness skills at kindergarten. Phonological awareness was further investigated in terms of supraseqmental and segmental levels of phonological awareness, there was no significant difference between the groups on either level of phonological awareness. However, there was a nonsignificant trend (p

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2000. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 176-182). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2003. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 106-111). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Phonemic awareness is the ability to attend to the formal, phonetic or phonemic, aspects of spoken language. Skill in analysis of speech sounds and synthesis of phonetic segments into real words has often been found to correlate with success in reading acquisition. The nature of this relationship was investigated by postulating a causal model for the effect of phonemic awareness in kindergarten on reading and spelling skill in the first school years. The quantitative implications of this model were estimated with path-analysis in a kindergarten - grade 3 passive observational study. In order to experimentally test the effect of phonemic awareness a 8 week training program in kindergarten was evaluated using a quasi- experimental design in field settings. The effects of this program were evaluated in kindergarten, in grade 1 and in grade 2. Methodological problems in evaluation research were discussed. The results from the quasi- experimental study was further elucidated applying structural equation modeling with latent variables (LISREL). Clear effects of the training program were found on phonemic awareness tasks in grade 1 and on spelling in grade 2. More subtle effects were found on reading and spelling of simple words in grade 1. No effect was found on rapid silent word decoding. The LISREL analysis was interpreted in favour of a model with phonemic awareness effecting phonological processing which in turn is essential for the early reading development. The results were interpreted as supporting an interactive-compensatory limited capacity model of reading. Phonemic awareness helps the child to understand the alphabetical principle and ensures the development of an effective system for representing written language. Trained children find it easier to learn spelling-sound relations. / <p>Diss. (sammanfattning) Umeå : Univ., härtill 5 uppsatser.</p> / digitalisering@umu

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of North Carolina Wilmington, 2009. / Title from PDF title page (January 19, 2010) Includes bibliographical references (p. 59-60)

Thesis (M. Ed.), Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1998. / Bibliography: leaves 110-126.