Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University

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This paper is an attempt to investigate the significance of the phonological component for the successful reading process at the elementary stage of learning a foreign language. Phonological awareness, the ability to segment language into smaller components and consciously manipulate them, together with the phonemic awareness, i.e. the ability to discriminate the individual phonemes within words, have been extensively studied since the 1980’s. Their causal role in reading acquisition is considered to be the single most powerful advance in the science and pedagogy of reading this century. However, this phonological component of reading skills formation has not yet been extensively examined in Lithuanian schools, while a number of scholars have proved the inter-relationship of the above mentioned skills by different experiments, conducted in foreign countries. The paper comprises three parts. In the first part Reading as a Cognitive Process the views about the cognitive process of reading of such scholars as G. V. Rogova, J. Harmer, F. Davies and many others are discussed. The second part of the paper, The Taxonomy of Phonological Awareness, deals with the phonological as well as phonemic awareness and their role in reading acquisition. The scholars K. Hempenstall, P.E. Bryant, R. Sensenbaugh, and some others are analysed here. In The Experimental Part of the paper, the hypothesis, that the presence of phonological awareness stimulates reading skills and vice versa, the... [to full text]

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University / The purpose of this study is to build a vocabulary for supplementary reading in a second grade which is using the Ginn and Gates Readers as basic textbooks. This vocabulary will be built from fifteen story books not used as school texts.

Differences were investigated between two methods of teaching English in a community college setting-~one method emphasizing reading/writing skills and one emphasizing writing skills. A pre-test/post~test design was used for the study. The criterion evaluated were reading skills (vocabulary and comprehension) and writing skills. The multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) was the Statistical treatment applied to the data. The null hypothesis that there were no differences between the two methods of teaching English was not rejected. There were significant differences, however, among the three participating teachers and group/teacher interaction. While there were those who indicated the English class as the appropriate place to integrate the skills of reading and writing, the study did not support this idea. However, it was recommended that the study be made in other community colleges with modification of the design to include a longer period of time between pre- and post-testing. / Ed. D.

There is high comorbidity between reading disabilities and mathematical learning difficulties, yet the reasons behind this comorbidity has not been determined. Research, however, have suggested some correlates including linguistic abilities and executive functioning skills that influence mathematical skills. A comprehensive examination of how these factors relate to mathematical ability has not been determined. This study aims to investigates the possible influence of cognitive functioning, verbal skills, and reading skills, on the arithmetic competency of second and third graders with reading disabilities between the ages of 78 and 102 months. The data utilized in this study were from a longitudinal project which evaluated the effectiveness of various reading intervention programs. The first objective of this present study was to explore how performance on basic and advanced mathematical concepts related to verbal skills and reading skills. The results generally did not illustrate any differences in the way these constructs related to the mathematical concepts. The second objective of the study was to analyze the influence of verbal skills, reading skills, and cognitive functioning skills, on the mathematical ability in children, and to develop a parsimonious model of mathematical ability for children with reading disabilities. Various models were assessed using path analyses. The two-construct model of verbal skills and mathematical skills was determined to be the best model describing the mathematical skills of children with reading disabilities. Supplementary analyses were conducted which clarified the various constructs’ relationship to specific mathematical concepts. These analyses provided understanding to the impact of verbal skills, as well as other constructs’, influence on specific mathematical concepts. The findings of this study have important educational implications and provide insight on more effective methods for developing the mathematical skills of children with reading disabilities. Finally, these findings foster future research in determining more effective interventions methodologies for children with reading disabilities.

Reading has always received a great deal of attention at both junior and senior high schools in Taiwan. However, reading ability of English after six years' learning is not satisfactory. The main problem is that students do not read for the main idea nor for the relationships between sentences. In addition, English reading skills, even at the college level, are limited to referring to the dictionary and analyzing sentence structures. The purpose of the present study is to explore this area; in particular, to determine the causes of and to provide solutions to the problem of reading difficulty by conducting a content analysis. This study focuses on a content analysis in four areas:(1) Analysis of reading comprehension questions, (2) analysis of gradation of readability, (3) analysis of gradation of structures, and (4) comparison of cohesive ties between Chinese and English written texts using similar topics. The text samples to be examined included two areas: (1) Book Six of The Standard English Textbook. This is the final volume of the series currently prescribed for senior high schools in Taiwan, and (2) three texts written in Chinese and English, with similar topics. It is hoped that some implications will be drawn from this study for improving the effectiveness of teaching reading in English at the secondary level in Taiwan.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Liberty University School of Education, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

The problem with which this study dealt was an identification of the positive or negative factors affecting the creation, implementation, and retention or rejection of curriculum change efforts. As examples, the Fountain Valley, PEGASUS-PACE, and Wisconsin Design skills management systems (SMS) for reading were studied as each was an example of successful curriculum change efforts, in two different settings,

High correlations exist for students who struggle with reading and math, and as a consequence, students who are poor readers tend to do poorly in mathematics. A few studies have investigated the longitudinal growth of the correlation between reading and mathematics. This dissertation outlines the investigation of the relation between reading foundational skills and growth in mathematics achievement for students at risk for reading difficulty and not at risk. This study used extant data from a second grade interim-benchmark reading assessment and a mathematics interim-benchmark for students in third through fifth grade. This study employed a staged approach for the latent growth curve model and discovered estimated differences of students with and without reading difficulties in relation to mathematics achievement. In addition, specific foundational skills were predictive of growth in mathematics for students with and without reading difficulties. The dissertation study developed a theory based on empirical research that early reading skills may lay the foundation for later mathematics achievement.