This dissertation study, which comprises a series of three articles, addresses the following overarching research questions: 1. How have reading motivation and engagement been conceptualized in the research literature? 2. How do educators, particularly teachers of the primary grades, conceptualize reading motivation and engagement? What sources of information do they draw upon to construct their understandings? 3. How do educators, particularly teachers of the primary grades, enact literacy instruction in support of student motivation and engagement? In the first article, I explore different theoretical approaches to the study of reading motivation and engagement through the creation of a continuum model of the extant literature. I advance an approach to the study of reading engagement that is primarily sociocultural, while also drawing on insights from research that is more cognitive in orientation. To accompany that approach, I present a new definition of reading engagement that draws on insights from various theoretical traditions. In the second article, I consider how 31 first-grade teachers at public schools in the Midwest and Northeast who were involved in focus groups to imagine what it might be like to implement project-based learning in their settings conceptualized students’ motivation for and engagement in literacy under the imagined curriculum. The analysis balances an approach in which the concepts from the extant literature are applied directly to participants’ comments with an actor-oriented approach (Penuel, Phillips, & Harris, 2014) that privileges practitioners’ perspectives and considers what participating practitioners were attending to in articulating their understandings. I explore in depth the complexities around the social and cultural dimensions of engagement experienced by participating teachers, and how they made sense of those complexities. Finally, in the third article I offer a case study of how two third grade teachers at an urban, public charter school conceptualized reading motivation and engagement, including what sources of information they drew upon to construct those conceptualizations, as well as what those teachers actually did in their instruction to support and promote students’ engagement in reading. Findings indicated that, while both teachers conceptualized engagement as social, the ways in which they enacted that understanding varied based on the principles around which they organized their literacy instruction. At the conclusion of each article and at the end of the dissertation as a whole, I discuss implications for research and for practice, including teacher education and professional development.

Even though English is a subject where Swedish pupils do well compared to pupils in other countries, research indicates that pupils are not always motivated to learn in the English classroom. Therefore, the aim of this study is to find research relating to the use of the target language in classrooms for pupils at the upper elementary level, particularly language learners in Sweden. The focus of this thesis is to find out what benefits and challenges accompany the use of the target language during English lessons, as well as what pupils’ opinions are on the consistent use of the target language in the classroom. This literature review of five research articles shows that it is beneficial for pupils’ language development to have lessons where mainly the target language is used. It is for example beneficial for pupils’ ability to speak, their pronunciation, vocabulary and ability to use language strategies. The results show that there are challenges as well, especially for the teachers, since use of the target language presumes that the teacher has good language skills and is capable of scaffolding each pupil at their individual level and in their zone of proximal development. Furthermore, there are challenges like differences in pupils’ skill level, creating tasks that both motivate and stimulate, and creating a safe learning environment. Even though the results in this thesis are limited, it is still obvious that it is an important area, where more research is necessary in order to assist teachers in how to teach English as effectively as possible. / <p>Engelska</p>

This study compared cohesive devices in texts written by Japanese second-year junior high school learners with those in texts that appeared in the textbook they were studying. The purpose of the study was to determine which cohesive devices were being used in the textbook and which were used in the learners’ writing. The study used both quantitative and qualitative analysis. The quantitative analysis began by determining whether there was any significant difference between the textbook readings and the learners’ writing in terms of the frequency of cohesive devices. It then examined the kinds of devices that were used by both groups of texts. The qualitative analysis compared the patterns of reiteration in two textbook readings with those in a sample of six student texts of different levels of success. The results showed no significant differences between the student texts and the textbooks in terms of the overall frequency of cohesive devices. Among the individual devices, however, there was a significantly higher frequency of ellipsis and synonyms in the textbook readings than in the student texts. There was also a significantly higher frequency of conjunction and reference in the student texts relative to the textbook readings. In all other devices, there was no significant difference between the textbook readings and the student texts. The qualitative study revealed the importance of strong opening sentences, reinforcement of the main topic through repetition, as well as of linking new topics with the main topic in the textbook readings. However, the presence of these features varied in the selected student texts. Accordingly, stronger texts contained all these features, average texts contained some of them, and weaker texts contained few or none. This study consequently supports other studies that have shown that the way in which cohesive devices are used is far more important in determining text quality than the number of devices used. The findings of this study showed the strengths and weaknesses in the students’ writing, and highlighted the need for a greater awareness of cohesion by focusing more on sentence building, and the use of a greater variety of cohesive devices / English Studies

A consistent use of the target language during English lessons is beneficial for pupils’ linguistic development, but also challenging for both teachers and pupils. The main purpose for pupils to learn English is to be able to use it in communication, which requires that they develop the ability to comprehend input, produce output and use language strategies. Several researchers claim that a consistent use of the target language is necessary in order to develop these abilities. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine the target language use during English lessons in Swedish grades 4-6, and what pupils’ opinions regarding target language use are. The methods used to collect data consisted of a pupil questionnaire with 42 respondents and an observation of two teachers’ English lessons during a week’s time. The results from the observations show that the teachers use plenty of target language during lessons, but the first language as well to explain things that pupils might experience difficult to understand otherwise. The results from the questionnaire mainly show that the pupils seem to enjoy English and like to both speak and hear the target language during lessons. The main input comes from listening to a CD with dialogues and exercises in the textbook and the workbook, and from the teacher speaking. The results also show that a majority of the pupils use the target language in their spare time. A conclusion that can be drawn from this study is that the TL should be used to a large extent in order to support pupils’ linguistic development. However, teachers may sometimes need to use L1 in order to facilitate understanding of the things that many pupils find difficult, for example grammar. Suggestions for further research in this area include similar studies conducted on a larger scale. / <p>Engelska</p>

The aim of this research is to study changes resulting from parents attending a study group designed by class teacher that include reading a chosen book and engaging in teacher¡¦s designated activities relating to grade 1 elementary school mathematics contents; and trying ideas at home with school children. By referring to literature she decided on a study group format and adopted equal interaction and co-operative discussion setting. The math contents are: Number (1-10); Knowing about Geometric Shapes, Classifications (Color, Shapes). Data collection included questionnaire about study group meetings, children¡¦s interviews, parents¡¦ interviews, teacher¡¦s diaries, video tapes of in-class activities. Analyzes of interviews is by Goldin (2000). The findings are four: through the above mentioned study group (1) parents upgraded themselves in math ability and in confidence and set goals relating to different age of children; (2) children were given the opportunities to learn in a variety of ways; (3) promoted parent-child interaction, especially at home; and, (4) enhanced parent-teacher relationships and stimulated creativity in teacher¡¦s instruction.

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No description available.

A synthesis of the research literature was conducted from 2004 to 2014 on interventions designed to build oral reading fluency for elementary students with learning disabilities (LD). An extensive search yielded a total of 12 intervention studies. Among the 12 studies, the majority (n D 9) implemented repeated reading with or without a model. Findings from this synthesis indicate that there may be no differential effects between repeated reading with or without a model for improving oral reading fluency of elementary students with LD. In addition, findings suggest that elementary students with LD may benefit from video modeling or word/phrase-based practices that provide opportunities to repeat misread words or phrases with words incorrectly read during the initial reading.

The over-all purpose of this study is to determine the ways in which children differ from one another as related to the instructional program in the school, to point out ways of taking care of individual differences in the learning situations in the classroom, and to apply these principles to the teaching and learning of arithmetic in the higher grades at the elementary level.

The proposed interaction between race and sex on achievement orientation has not been adequately demonstrated when cognitive measures are used. Therefore, the present study examined the effects of sex and race on attributions for achievement., Elementary level students made attributions to ability, effort, task-difficulty, or luck for 16 academic successes or failures described in a questionnaire. Girls made significantly (p < .001) fewer ability and significantly (p < .001) more effort attributions on success items than boys, regardless of their race. Six success items that had been sex-typed (3 girl, 3 boy) provided similar results. Sex-typing data indicated these subjects exhibited strong sex-role stereotypy. Results were discussed in terms of sex-typing of the individual and not the task.