Abstract Title: “Reading aloud fiction gives students a rich vocabulary”Author: Dilara AkcaySupervisor: Jenny MagnussonThe purpose of this study is to find out how teachers work with students' vocabulary development in reading aloud activities in fiction within the subject of Swedish.Furthermore, the purpose is to find out how teachers’ reason about their work to develop students' vocabulary in fiction reading aloud. The study’s questions are the following: What strategies do teachers use when reading fiction aloud in the Swedish subject to develop the students' vocabulary? How do the teachers reason about their work of developing students' vocabulary in fiction reading aloud?The material was analyzed based on Beck et al.'s (2013) teaching model on strategies for vocabulary development. This study is based on a qualitative method for answering the questions. A qualitative method is relevant to the study because the study examines what strategies teachers use to develop students' vocabulary in fiction reading aloud. To find out this, it is essential to observe and interview teachers. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with three teachers from three different schools.The results of the observations showed that the two teachers, Jessica and Tina used the strategy of asking questions to the students and explaining words using everyday language. Jessica also worked with the strategy that the students are allowed to use the word themselves. In addition, Tina uses visual aids to deepen students' understanding of words and she uses body language and exemplifies the word by changing her voice, so the pupils get a better understanding of the words. Jessica uses visual aids to help students gain a deeper understanding of the word.The third teacher, Katarina, does not explain any words to the students, despite the fact that there were some difficult words in the book that could have been explained. Strategies such as pronouncing words and presenting words in new contexts did not appear in the observations. The teachers say in the interviews that they work on vocabulary development in fiction reading aloud. The strategies teachers use in reading aloud are to ask students questions about the meaning of the word and define the word in everyday language. Tina uses visual support to give students a deeper understanding of the word. Jessica uses a lot of body language to shape some difficult words, and Katarina says that she works with the three-cup method, where students find synonyms for the word. Tina and Jessica talk about how important reading aloud is for students' vocabulary development, and they read aloud for students to learn new words. Katarina believes that reading aloud is more for them to be a cozy moment for the students. Keywords: Vocabulary development, middle school, Swedish teaching, reading aloud. Nyckelord: Ordförrådsutveckling, mellanstadiet, svenskundervisning, högläsning.

Current research supports the effectiveness of embedding explicit vocabulary instruction within the preschool classroom read-aloud. However, much of the book reading research has made use of story books rather than informational text. This study was conducted to understand the outcomes of using informational books to teach targeted vocabulary to preschool children during book reading. A quasi-experimental design was used to investigate the effects of two read-aloud strategies, using informational books, on preschoolers’ acquisition of novel vocabulary words. The results revealed statistically significant differences in the amount of words learned during the read aloud of an informational book in which vocabulary instruction was embedded. As a result of participating in vocabulary instruction embedded within an informational book read-aloud, preschoolers were able to learn the targeted words. Results indicate the effectiveness of teachers using an interactive approach with informational books when planning read-alouds to support vocabulary development. / Teaching & Learning

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the interactions that take place during a reading apprenticeship which facilitate the learning of reading strategies by adolescent students who are at the middle school level and are still at-risk for reading failure and to investigate how a reading apprenticeship affects reading achievement in the areas of fluency, vocabulary development, comprehension, and the self-perception of the reader. The case study was descriptive and interpretive in nature, and examined two students, each of whom was part of a one-to-one reading apprenticeship. The researcher served as participant observer in both cases and was the teacher in each of the one-to-one reading apprenticeships. The primary data set was qualitative in nature, and elements of quantitative data were also considered. Sessions included pretesting and posttesting using the Classroom Assessment of Reading Processes (Swearingen & Allen, 1997), reading from narrative or expository books, working with words, writing, and dialoguing about the reading. Reading strategies were directly taught, modeled, and reinforced by the teacher/researcher with the goal of the students internalizing the strategies and improving their reading in the areas of fluency, vocabulary development, and comprehension, as well as improving their attitudes toward reading and their self-perception about their reading ability. This study described a reading apprenticeship which positively impacted reading achievement for two students in the areas of fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary development, as well as influencing their motivation for reading and their self-perceptions as readers. The environment of the reading apprenticeship, the dialogue that occurred throughout the reading apprenticeship, and strategy instruction, modeling, and reinforcement were found to be factors and interactions which facilitated learning during this intervention.

Thesis (M.A.T.) -- School for International Training, 2006. / Advisor -- Patrick Moran Includes bibliographical references (leaves 45).

xii, 79 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / Results of the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reported the need for improving reading comprehension, especially in the upper elementary and middle school grades. Because the field of vocabulary research evidenced the strong relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension, the National Reading Panel (2000) recommended the inclusion of direct vocabulary instruction as a necessary component in a comprehensive reading program. The field of vocabulary research, however, lacks consensus on which strategies result in the most gains in vocabulary development and reading comprehension. In this study, vocabulary development of students who learned word meanings through socially mediated strategies was contrasted with students who learned word meanings using contextually driven strategies. A total of 14 teachers of fifth grade students were randomly assigned to one of two treatment groups. The intervention group taught the socially mediated strategies of semantic mapping and the Frayer model. The teachers in the comparison group taught contextual and morphemic analysis, both contextually driven strategies. The effects of these two types of vocabulary instruction were measured using three tests, two proximal researcher developed vocabulary assessments and the more distal Gates MacGinitie vocabulary assessment. Results of this study revealed that while students in both groups made significant gains as measured by the more proximal measures, students taught through contextually driven strategies gained the most. On the distal measure only the students taught socially mediated strategies improved their performance. This study adds to the field by confirming three prior findings. Direct vocabulary instruction improved students' vocabulary development. Instruction in contextually driven strategies improved students' vocabulary learning when the dependent measure assessed knowledge of taught words. Instruction in socially mediated strategies improved students' vocabulary development when the dependent measure assessed unknown words. / Adviser: Gerald Tindal

In this investigation, a content analysis was made with eleven lexicographical sources and three basal reading series to determine if art and art-related words were present. The analysis was made with the use of two charts, in which each was divided into eight categories of word context. The Composite Chart contained 6,576 words found in six lexicons, five word lists and forty-two readers, and the Reader Chart contained 407 words found only in the readers. The analysis revealed: dominant categories and percentages, word and cumulative word frequencies, high and low frequency words, and the percentage of words found in the basal readers as compared to the lexicographical sources.

Word frequency seems to be unknown for many teachers’ and possibly deemed not very important for vocabulary development. We set out to investigate the importance of incorporating word frequency in the EFL classroom. The aim of the study was to conclude if teachers incorporate word frequency into their teaching, as well as how this could be done efficiently. In order to collect data for this study, we used a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. Despite a focus on teachers in years 4-6, in an effort to not only expand our potential samplegroup and to take into account the importance of transition between school forms, we reached out to teachers of English in years 4-9. This was accomplished with the help of various teacher forums on Facebook and a convenience sample. The initial results from the questionnaire showed that the majority of teachers were aware of word frequency. However, on closer inspection of the questionnaire, it became clear that several of the teachers did in fact not have sufficient knowledge of word frequency. Previous research has shown the importance of high-frequency words and that the 2,000 most frequent words are a necessary learning goal. Implications of not considering word frequency when teaching vocabulary can have a negative effect on students' progression. Our research has found a discrepancy between steering documents in Sweden, in which word frequency is not explicitly considered, and previous studies analysing the use of word frequency. This could be seen as the explanation for why teachers are not aware of word frequency.

Any activities where English can be encountered in outside of school, have been labeled by Sundqvist (2009) as “extramural English activities”. One of these activities is playing games (both digital and board games), which in accordance to the research by Sundqvist (2009) and Sundqvist and Sylvén (2012) has a great impact on the learner’s English proficiency. In accordance to these prior findings, the focus of this degree project is on the gaming habits of year three students in Swedish elementary school. After presenting a theoretical background and key elements from earlier research, I examine to what extend the students play digital games, what type of games are played and most importantly; do students in year three play digital games in English? Further on, I investigate the student’s vocabulary proficiency and connect the two parts of my research together, searching for correlations between time spent gaming and vocabulary depth. This degree project also includes a gender aspect and compares gaming habits and vocabulary proficiency of girls and boys, along with interviews with four teachers and their perception on students’ participation in extramural activities and English motivation.

As the world and society evolve into a more digitized era, school systems have to follow. Sweden the national board of education has started to include digital tools into the curriculum and to place demands on the digital competence of Swedish teachers. The consequences that follow are that teachers are expected to implement digital tools of varying kinds into their lessons, which is done with varying success. This thesis aims to examine how software tools such as Kahoot and elevspel are perceived by English teachers in Sweden as tools they can use as they teach learners in grades 4-6. More specifically, this thesis will focus on how English teachers in an EFL setting perceive that they can use these tools to facilitate vocabulary development. In this essay, we have conducted quantitative research by using a questionnaire to gather data from English teachers in Sweden. Along with this, we have also examined previous research in this field to review the scientific background and take this into consideration. The results from this questionnaire showed that English teachers in Swedenincorporate software tools in their lessons and perceive software tools as necessary. However, a majority of the participating teachers noted that more support and ideas are needed for them to incorporate these tools to a fuller extent.

Children with communication disorders are often at risk of literacy difficulties, especially students that present with autism and/or speech sound disorders. This quasi-experimental study was designed to examine the effects of a 10-week "hybrid" intervention for preschool students with and without communication disorders in an integrated classroom. The classroom intervention targets both vocabulary and phonological awareness, two critical components of literacy that are strongly correlated with one another. The objectives of this study were (1) to provide empirical evidence that classroom-based pre-literacy intervention can be effective for students with communication disabilities, allowing for more time with their peers in a potentially least-restrictive environment and (2) to demonstrate that typically-developing preschool children also benefit from classroom-based pre-literacy training.