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Reading is not an easily learned skill for most students. I chose to look at the methodology being used by teachers in East Tennessee to instruct emerging readers. Through my review of literature, I researched reading approaches implemented in American classrooms in the last 150 years. I compared and contrasted data to determine current researchers' findings concerning the most effective techniques for teaching reading and how teachers have implemented this knowledge base into their teaching strategies. Teachers cannot teach what they do not know. Therefore, I also researched literature addressing the growing concern among educators with teachers' preparation and professional development opportunities as well as the amount of specific preparation teachers received regarding the reading methods they are using. After compiling the data from my interviews with 30 East Tennessee first-grade teachers, I found that most said they did not feel adequately prepared to teach emergent readers. These teachers reported they had not had instruction that provided foundations in a wide range of research-based approaches to reading. The professional development offerings for teachers already in the classroom were often sporadic and did not compensate for their lack of preparation in college. There is a need for colleges and universities to re-evaluate the current teacher preparation programs. School systems should strive to provide quality inservice opportunities for instructors of emergent readers as well as hiring reading coaches or specialists to assist the reading instructors.

Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / Marjorie R. Hancock / Our society is increasingly bombarded with visual imagery; therefore, it is important for educators to be knowledgeable about the elements of art and to use our knowledge to help students deepen their reading understanding. Arizpe & Styles (2003) noted that students must be prepared to work with imagery in the future at high levels of competency, yet visual literacy is seldom taught in schools. Children are surrounded with multiple forms of literacy daily and frequently the communication is in a nonverbal format. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to identify textual/visual connections and describe ways the text-illustration relationship can influence understanding for readers in the second grade. This qualitative research study took place in a Department of Defense school in Europe with six second grade students from September 14, 2009 to November 24, 2009. The six student participants were introduced to the basic elements of art—color, shape, line, texture, and value—at the onset of the study. Student participants expressed their textual, visual, and blended textual/visual understanding of four picture storybooks and four informational picture books. Data collection sources included group discussions, student verbal story retellings, student pictorial drawings and retellings, student interviews, observational field notes, teacher email correspondence, and teacher initial/final interviews. Initial analysis was based on Kiefer’s (1995) Functions of Language taxonomy, Kucer and Silva’s (1996:1999) Taxonomy of Artistic Responses and Sipe’s (2008) Categories of Reader Response. The analysis focused on participants’ textual and visual responses and the blending of textual/visual elements. The analysis revealed six emerging Categories of Textual/Visual Understanding including Personal Life Connections, Text Connections, Factual Connections, Predictive Connections, Elemental Connections, and Emotional Connections. The six categories were also reviewed for the dominant category for each student participant and how the textual/visual responses applied to both picture storybooks and informational picture books. Data analysis also revealed the second grade teacher’s perceptions of the text-illustration relationship as a part of the reading process. Student participant benefits included greater student interest and motivation, increased awareness of visual elements in picture storybooks and informational picture books, and higher level thinking expressed through textual/visual connections.

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Les adultes allophones peu ou pas scolarisés (AAPPS) rencontrent des défis pour effectuer des tâches essentielles dans la société québécoise en raison de leurs compétences langagières limitées. Leur intégration socioculturelle et professionnelle s’avère donc difficile et soulève des enjeux socioéconomiques tant pour les AAPPS que pour la société en pénurie de main-d’œuvre. En apprenant le français dans le contexte formel de scolarité, les AAPPS font face à d’autres défis d’acculturation aux conventions scolaires, notamment aux évaluations formelles des apprentissages. En étudiant les particularités des AAPPS, Abbott et al. (2021), de même que Gonzalves (2020) ont mis en question l’évaluation de ce public parce qu’elle est faite de l’angle des personnes scolarisées sans considérer la perspective des AAPPS. Quant à Altherr Flores (2020), elle a critiqué la tendance à supposer que les AAPPS comprenaient l’évaluation alors qu’ils ignoraient les attentes des évaluateurs et leur rôle comme évalué selon Simpson (2006). Ces préoccupations soulèvent des enjeux éthiques d’équité, de diversité et de différenciation pédagogique pour une évaluation adéquate, d’où l’intérêt au sens de l’expérience évaluative aux yeux des AAPPS en cours formelle de francisation. Pour ce faire, l’approche phénoménologique de Giorgi (1997) permet d’étudier l’expérience des phénomènes vécus telle que comprise par les acteurs sociaux. L’analyse de six entretiens individuels semi-dirigés menés en arabe maghrébin, auprès de six participantes issues du Maghreb, permet de comprendre l’expérience évaluative des AAPPS comme un processus dynamique et continu d’exploration, d’acculturation et de maturation. L’exploration met en relief les premières expériences évaluatives caractérisées par la confrontation à la nouveauté, la surprise, le stress et le choc de l’échec. En acculturation, les AAPPS approprient l’évaluation et développent des stratégies pour réussir et pour gérer le stress qui diminue, mais demeure présent. Et en maturation, elles et ils réfléchissent sur leur évaluation, échec et réussite en lien avec leur besoin et habileté à l’extérieur de la classe. Ces résultats contribuent à éclairer les angles morts de l’expérience évaluative des AAPPS et présentent un appui pour les conceptrices et concepteurs des évaluations visant ce public. / Allophone adults with little or no schooling (AAPPS) face challenges in performing essential tasks in Quebec because of their limited language skills. Their socio-cultural and professional integration is therefore difficult and raises socio-economic issues both for the AAPPS and for the society facing a labour shortage. Learning French in the context of formal schooling, AAPPS face challenges related to acculturation to school conventions, particularly those of formal learning assessment. Based on the particularities of AAPPS, Abbott et al. (2021) as well as Gonzalves (2020) have questioned the assessment of this audience because it is made from the angle of educated people without considering the perspective of AAPPS. As for Altherr Flores (2020), she criticized the tendency to assume that AAPPS understood the assessment while ignoring the fact that AAPPS might misunderstand the expectations of the evaluators and their role as evaluated according to Simpson (2006). These concerns raise ethical issues of equity, diversity, and pedagogical differentiation for an adequate assessment, hence the interest in the meaning that the AAPPS give to their assessment experience in the formal francization course. The phenomenological approach of Giorgi (1997) makes it possible to study the experience of lived phenomena as understood by social actors. The analysis of the six semi-directed individual interviews conducted with six participants from the Maghreb in Maghrebi Arabic, allows us to understand the evaluative experience of the AAPPS as a dynamic and continuous process of exploration, acculturation, and maturation. Exploration concerns the first evaluative experiences characterized by the confrontation with novelty, surprise, stress, and the shock of failure. In the acculturation phase, AAPPS appropriate assessment and develop strategies to succeed and manage stress that diminishes but remains present. And in maturation, they reflect on their assessment, failure, and success in relation to their needs and abilities outside the classroom. These results shed light on blind spots of the AAPPS assessment experience and provide support for designers of assessment aimed at this audience.