Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1972. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

The primary focus of this research is to establish whether there is improvement in the reading, writing and spelling skills of learning disabled children, where high imagery teaching techniques are used for remediation. The results of seventeen small-scale studies were combined using aggregative case survey methodology to form a sample of 93 children (63 treatment and 30 control). Analysis indicated that children in both conditions made similar gains in phonic skills. However a significant difference in scholastic skills for children who received high imagery instruction was noted in comparison to those who received structured phonics. Overall, the results would suggest that high imagery teaching techniques may be an alternative remediation strategy to structured phonic techniques; especially where children are not making progress in the latter. The results also indicate that progress is made regardless of gender, age, grade at school, extent of the child’s learning deficit / developmental lag or level of visualisation ability.

Teaching reading and writing skills and the acquisition of those skills is a challenge for teachers and learners respectively. Teachers encounter challenges in teaching and learners likewise encounter challenges of acquisition. The ability of learners to have the skills of reading and writing is undoubtedly one of the most important skills they need to possess. Likewise, teachers need to possess the ability to facilitate the acquisition of those skills by learners. The study was aimed at determining from teachers what challenges they encounter in facilitating the acquisition of reading and writing skills by Foundation Phase learners, and what the learners' challenges are in acquiring those skills. A brief questionnaire with one rating scale question, a dichotomous scale and two open-ended questions was designed and administered to a convenience sample of fifty teachers from ten randomly selected primary schools in the Montshioa Stadt Cluster. ln addition, a test of reading and writing literacy was administered to Grade R - 3 learners in selected schools in the cluster. The findings from the study revealed that teachers are playing a positive role in identifying the causes of the learners' lack of acquiring reading and writing skills and managing that problem constructively. Teachers however. feel that they need further training on some aspects of reading and writing skills. In view of the findings of the study. it is recommended that parents whose children have reading and writing problems be visited to investigate the source of the learners' problems. Parents should be requested to visit the school at the end of each tem1 to check on children's work. Learners should be given intervention forms to fill to show that they deserve to remain in the same class. / Thesis (M.Ed) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2011

Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 320-333). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

There is a wide gap between current understandings of how readers read and how reading is taught in school, particularly to "at-risk" readers. Contemporary reading research and reader-response theories suggest that struggling readers should not be subjected to remedial programs involving "drills and skills," simplified "decodable" reading material, and most of all, low expectations of their teachers. Reading problems are not solved by filling gaps in a child's knowledge or skills. Instead, reluctant readers must be treated as readers, encouraged to develop their personal interests and enthusiasms through reading, and, most importantly, to make their own sense of their reading. By helping my students to read and respond to texts rich in content and appropriate to their interests and ages, I observed significant improvement in their confidence and competence as readers. / This teacher-research study describes the growth of four readers in grade-seven with long histories of failure in school. Their stories are told in case studies that contain descriptions of the classroom activities and events that influenced their progress, observations of their interactions with their peers and with me, their teacher, and finally, analyses of their work samples. This work is also about my role in my students' development and, thus, includes my reflections on how I transformed both reading and reader-response theory into practice and on relevant features of my classroom management. In the case study of each student, I have tried to capture their different learning styles and problems and also my thinking processes that arose from the beliefs, questions, observations, reflections, hunches, and flashes of insight that I, like most teachers, used daily and that formed the substance of my reader-based pedagogy. In addition, I discuss in detail the ideas in the research literature, such as reader-response theory and the whole language/phonics debate, that help to explain my students' progress. / As a teacher-researcher, I describe my teaching, as well as its effects on my students. Through understanding struggling readers, I came to understand reading. This is an account of my learning that delineates the nature of the interactions between teacher and students which is, in fact, the real curriculum of any classroom. An essential part of teaching is evaluating its effectiveness; this dissertation is a sustained evaluation of my reading program through four of my students' responses to it during one and, in two cases, two school years.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.