Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Magister Artium (Sport, Recreation and Exercise Science) - MA(SRES) / Through the process of motor learning and control, new skills are then developed. There are various physical activities that enable the development of new motor skills, one being dance. Numerous studies have found that dance has improved sensorimotor control of body sway following just a single dance session. Furthermore, learning dance engages a variety of cognitive resources that improve postural control of children. Dancing therefore contributes to the development and refinement of the fundamental motor skills like gait and balance. The aim of this research was to determine the effect of dance training on gait and balance of Grade R and Grade 7 school children, and to investigate which age group would best demonstrate these effects. This study was conducted using an intervention and control group. The Grade R intervention group constituted a sample of thirty-four participants, the Grade R control consisted of twenty-seven participants, the Grade 7 intervention group and control group consisted of twenty-one participants each. Three different testing instruments were used; a 10-meter walk test for stride pattern analysis, a dynamic balance test known as the tandem gait and the static balance test known as the tandem stance balance test. Both the control and experimental group were required to perform these tests before and after the intervention period. The dance training lasted a period of six weeks and was conducted on a weekly basis. Following the intervention it was found that only Grade R stride pattern in terms of stride frequency was significantly changed and that no significant changes were seen at any time for Grade 7 children stride pattern and balance. The balance changes were seen for both Grade R intervention and control groups, showing that the children were improving with physical activity, which cannot be attributed to dance alone. This highlights that training should be started at the young age, and that physical activity programs like dance are good and diverse options to consider when designing such activities.

The current longitudinal study examined the development of morphological awareness (MA) in the writing of 59 (27 EL1, 32 ELL) participants in grade 3 and grade 5, using an experimental morphological error type scoring (METS) guide. The researcher -developed METS guide provided an in-depth analysis of inflectional and derivational morphological usage across five categories: omissions (MO), morphological spelling errors (Msp), morphological attempts (Mat), wrong word (WW) and wrong homophones (WH). Standardized literacy measures evaluated spelling, oral vocabulary and oral syntax. For all grade 3 to grade 5 participants the total morphological errors (TME) and morphological omissions (MO) decreased and the morphological attempts (Mat) increased. Increases in oral syntax and vocabulary correlated to increased writing performance and decreased total morphological errors (TME). Differences were observed in the correlation analysis across all morphological measures between language groups (EL1, ELL). Using a detailed morphological error analysis in children’s writing may provide an accurate measure of the development of morphological awareness and patterns of usage for morphological structures in the writing samples of diverse language groups. / Graduate

The purpose of this study is to make a thorough investigation of the state-adopted readers for the first and second grades to determine if they have literary qualities that would encourage the reading and appreciation of good literature.

The problem of this study is to compare the constancy of inter-personal relationships in the first grade of the elementary school and the last grade of the elementary school, the sixth grade.

The purpose of this study is to discover through the use of the descriptive evaluation technique information about children's reading which may be of value as suggestions for classroom teachers who teach reading in the intermediate level. It is hoped that through the use of this technique the relation of the reading level of the individual children in a fourth and fifth grade group to the reading level of the material the children would read if left to their own choice in its selection may be determined.

The dual purpose of this study is to survey the interests of boys and girls who are in the sixth grade and to suggest a program of school work based upon these interests. The writer presents the study with the hope that it will contribute to a better understanding of what children's interests are and the part they should play in planning the curriculum and complete school program.

The problem of this investigation is to make a comparative study of first-grade children to determine, if possible, whether the child who attends kindergarten has any advantages over one who does not attend.

The purpose of this study is to make a comparative analysis of the adopted textbooks for the sixth and seventh grades in social studies in the public schools of Texas from 1913 until the present time, 1949, to determine changes in concepts of presenting and teaching social studies during this time.

This study was conducted in multi-grade primary schools located in Limpopo Province, Capricorn District, Bochum Cluster. The main purpose of the study was to analyse the effects of the principals’ workloads on learners’ academic performance in multi-grade primary schools in Limpopo Province. Twelve schools with the most multi-grade classes were qualitatively sampled from four circuits of Bochum Cluster (Bochum East, Bochum West, Maleboho Central and Maleboho East) as the target for the study. Multi-grade schools are characterised by low learner enrolment. The departmental model of allocating teachers to schools allocates posts according to the number of learners in a school regardless of grades. The school principal is therefore compelled to teach full-time and carry out other related responsibilities such as administration, professional duties and extra-mural activities. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches were employed to achieve the research goals. The study was based on the research question How do principals’ workloads affect learners’ academic performance in multi-grade primary schools in the Capricorn district, Limpopo Province? The study findings, based on interviews, observations and documents analysis have revealed that there are some managerial, leadership, curriculum, teaching and administrative challenges that principals in multi-grade schools are faced with. These challenges collectively contribute to principals’ heavy workload that eventually affect learners’ performance negatively. The researcher therefore concluded that the principals’ workload in multi-grade primary schools have a negative impact on learners’ performance. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2017. / Education Management and Policy Studies / MEd / Unrestricted