Pre-service teachers have a large role to play in initiatives to raise children’s literacy achievement. There is growing concern about the disparity of reading abilities of children, particularly in New Zealand, prompting a greater need to examine the skills and knowledge of the adults who provide reading instruction to these children. Adults engaged in higher education are typically expected to possess strong and proficient literacy skills, yet research examining the literacy skills of the broader adult population reports adult literacy levels to be much lower than assumed. Well over a third of adults in countries including the United States of America and New Zealand do not possess basic literacy skills. There is a paucity of research identifying and addressing the literacy needs of the adult population. Further, there have been limited studies investigating the literacy abilities of adults with relatively higher levels of literacy skill (e.g., those in higher education). Such research is particularly pertinent in the education context due to the influence that teaching professionals have on future generations of readers. The research reported in this thesis investigated the reading comprehension and metalinguistic abilities of pre-service teachers, and conducted two interventions within this population. The first intervention focussed on improving the reading comprehension of individuals who presented with difficulties understanding written text relative to their peers. The second intervention provided explicit instruction in building students’ language structure knowledge within general coursework completed by a whole cohort of pre-service teachers. The findings from this thesis have implications for the provision of support for pre-service teachers with literacy needs in higher education, as well as for augmenting the skills of the broader pre-service teacher population to prepare them to deliver evidence-based reading instruction. The first study (presented in Chapter Four) assessed selected cognitive and literacy skills of a cohort of undergraduate pre-service teachers in their initial year of higher education. One-hundred and thirty-one students completed an assessment battery comprising tasks of spelling, reading comprehension, inferencing, working memory, and knowledge of language structure. Analysis of results demonstrated a wide range of abilities across each of the measures, reflecting the large variance in skill with which these individuals enter into higher education. Spelling, inferencing, and working memory were each found to make significant unique contributions to reading comprehension. Furthermore, the elements contributing towards reading comprehension were found to be highly interactive, thus demonstrating the complex interactive nature of the skills that contribute to the reading comprehension process in these individuals. In the second study (presented in Chapter Five) individuals with difficulties understanding written text were identified using the reading comprehension measure from the first study. Individuals who performed more than one standard deviation below the group mean were identified for inclusion in a reading comprehension intervention. Seventeen individuals met the criteria for inclusion in the intervention and consented to participate (referred to as the IN group). Two control groups were also identified to allow for comparisons to be made pre- and post-intervention. The first control group, referred to as the NT group (n = 6), comprised of six participants who qualified for the intervention but who opted not to participate. The second control group, referred to as the CN group (n = 83), comprised of the remaining students from the large cohort. Four different strategies designed to assist with reading comprehension were modelled and practiced with each participant in the IN group over four sessions. Each intervention session focussed on one strategy alone and the intervention was administered on an individual basis. Reading comprehension and summarising assessments were completed following every session to ascertain the effectiveness of each strategy. Results showed that the first strategy (text-to-speech) was detrimental to the participants’ reading comprehension scores, while a further strategy (highlighting and summarising) was beneficial for almost all participants. There was a significant gain in reading comprehension score by the IN group after completing the intervention. Neither the NT nor the CN group, however, made any improvement in reading comprehension over this time period. The results also demonstrated that the improvement made by the IN participants increased their mean reading comprehension score to within range of the CN group (i.e., their peers identified with typical ability at the outset of the study). A third study (presented in Chapter Six) examined the responsiveness of the intervention participants to the reading comprehension intervention at a subgroup and individual level. Four subgroups of participants were identified based on their underlying literacy profile at the outset of the intervention. The first group (n = 2) comprised individuals with poor spelling; the second (n = 4), individuals with poor listening comprehension; the third (n = 1), those with poor spelling and listening comprehension; and the fourth (n = 10), individuals who did not demonstrate poor spelling or listening comprehension. There were no differences in the responsiveness of these groups to the four different strategies. There was also no association between an individual’s literacy profile and their response to the various strategies. Furthermore, closer examination of four case studies (one from each of the four subgroups) did not demonstrate any clear relationship between the responsiveness to the four different reading comprehension strategies, and their literacy profile. Finally, the fourth study (presented in Chapter Seven) examined the responsiveness of the whole cohort (n = 121) to a teaching intervention targeting metalinguistic knowledge. Two subgroups were identified within the larger cohort based on participants’ word-level skill (determined by spelling ability): good spellers (n = 24), and poor spellers (n = 24). Two subgroups were also identified based on participants’ comprehension-level skills (determined by reading comprehension): individuals with difficulties understanding written text (n = 22), and individuals with typical reading comprehension (n = 99). The metalinguistic intervention was integrated into an existing literacy course and delivered over seven weeks. The intervention focussed on raising phoneme, morpheme, and orthotactic knowledge amongst the participants in a pre-test / post-test study design. The whole cohort demonstrated significant gains in knowledge in each of the constructs targeted, after just seven hours of teaching integrated into an existing course. Analysis of subgroups of participants demonstrated that individuals with stronger spelling skills responded more favourably to the intervention than their peers with weaker spelling skills. The between-groups differences identified in the subgroups determined by reading comprehension were not as significant as those of the spelling subgroups. Thus, the results suggest the need for differentiated teaching of metalinguistic constructs based on the underlying word-level skills of each individual to ensure that pre-service teachers acquire adequate language structure knowledge within their teacher preparation programme. The findings from this thesis refute the assumption that individuals who meet the criteria required to enter into higher education present with strong or adequate literacy skills. The pre-service teachers in the reported studies demonstrated a wide range of literacy ability. The results of this assessment identified spelling, inferencing, and working memory as significant predictors of reading comprehension. The appropriateness of the Simple View of Reading framework for this population was also investigated. Individuals who demonstrated lower reading comprehension showed significant increases in their reading comprehension scores when using a strategy that incorporated highlighting and summarising techniques. This strategy was highly effective across the whole intervention group, in spite of the vast differences in the literacy profiles of these individuals. Findings from a whole-cohort teaching intervention to raise metalinguistic knowledge provide support for the inclusion of differentiated, explicit teaching of these constructs within pre-service teaching programmes. The results reported in this thesis show that by providing targeted intervention to raise the reading comprehension and metalinguistic abilities of pre-service teachers, they become better equipped to provide effective reading instruction for children, and address the disparity in children’s literacy achievement.

Dialektal medvetenhet är en förmåga som grundas i en metaspråklig förmåga, det vill säga att kunna resonera kring språk och hantera språkliga enheter. Exempel på detta är att med hjälp av prosodi kunna utläsa information i tal såsom känslor och dialekter. Det finns relativt lite forskning angående barns dialektala medvetenhet. Däremot finns mer forskning inom metaspråklig utveckling. En god metaspråklig förmåga hör samman med god generell språkutveckling och en metaspråklig kompetens innebär ett senare stadium av språkutveckling. Resultat från tidigare studier har visat att metaspråklig förmåga börjar utvecklas vid en ålder av cirka fem år vad gäller bland annat intonation och dialektrelaterat tal. I föreliggande studie konstruerades ett testbatteri för att kartlägga dialektal medvetenhet i åldrarna fem till tolv år. I studien deltog tre åldersgrupper, 5-, 8- och 11-åringar, med tio barn i respektive åldersgrupp. Testet är uppbyggt i tre delar som undersöker olika aspekter av dialektal medvetenhet. Studien är genomförd i Östergötland med barn som förväntas identifiera sig med östgötsk dialekt. Resultatet i föreliggande studie bekräftar att viss metaspråklig kunskap finns etablerad hos de femåriga barnen och att det sker en gradvis ökning i utvecklingen mellan åldrarna vad gäller att kunna avgöra om två personer låter som att de kommer från samma region. En liknande ökning av metaspråklig utveckling finns mellan respektive åldersgrupp och visas i barnens sätt att resonera kring olika sätt att tala. Föreliggande studies resultat visar även att barnen vid åtta år uppnått en god förmåga att urskilja sitt eget sätt att tala bland andra regionsdialekter, dock påvisas ingen ytterligare ökning av denna förmåga vid elva års ålder. / Awareness of accents is an ability derived from metalinguistic skills, which includes being able to reason about language and being able to handle small language units. An example of this may be to be able to use prosodic features in order to understand expressions of feelings and regional accents. There is not much research regarding regional accent awareness in Swedish children. There is, on the other hand, more research available about metalinguistic ability in children. Metalinguistic ability is associated with a more advanced language development in general, which means that metalinguistic capacity belongs to a latter phase of language development. Results from recent research have shown that metalinguistic ability starts to develop by the age of five regarding intonation and regional accents. The present study has produced a test battery to survey accent awareness in the ages five to twelve years. In the study participated three age groups of 5, 8 and 11 years with ten children from each age group. The test comprises three parts that investigate different aspects of awareness of Swedish regional accents. The study is carried out in Östergötland in Sweden, with children expected to identify themself with the Swedish regional accent Östgötska. The results of the present study confirm that certain metalinguistic knowledge is established by the age of five and that there is a gradual development between the age groups regarding the ability to decide if two persons sound like they are coming from the same region.  A similar gradual development of metalinguistic awareness in respective ages is shown in the children’s way to reason about different ways to talk. The results of the present study also indicate that children by an age of eight have achieved the ability to distinguish their own way of talking among other regional accents. No further development of this ability by the age of eleven is demonstrated.