Children have difficulty with reading for a number of reasons. One of these reasons may be temporary conductive hearing loss (TCHL) in preschool, which can be caused by otitis media (persistent fluid build-up in the middle ear), one of the most frequent medical issues in preschool children (Burt & Schappert, 2004). While otitis media can be treated medically, the duration of hearing loss and the age at which the hearing loss occurred may contribute to future reading difficulties (Easterbrooks, Lederberg, Miller, Bergeron & Connor, 2008). The literature surrounding the connection between otitis media, TCHL, and reading development is inconclusive. In addition, the nature of interdisciplinary communication to discuss the potential future challenges for children who have had TCHL is unclear. Little is known about how professionals communicate with parents about these challenges, and about how parents can best support their children. This research focused on providing detailed descriptions of how medical and educational professionals reported they communicated with each other and with parents about the potential reading risks associated with TCHL. This study followed standard qualitative research methods to conduct in-depth interviews with six medical and educational professionals and with two parents of children with TCHL. Results from this study have revealed important aspects that characterize what, when, and how professionals inform parents of children with TCHL about potential future reading problems. The knowledge gained through this research can guide future research and have practical implications for medical and educational professionals and provides recommendations for how parents are informed about potential future reading difficulties. / Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2011-09-27 11:48:59.805

The purpose of this study is to examine how four educators in two different departments at two different preschools in Stockholm, selects children's literature in preschool and how literature is used in the activities and how much influence children have in the choice of literature. Based on qualitative interviews as a method we have interviewed pedagogues to get answers to our questions. We will also interview some children to find out how involved they are in the purchase of literature on the departments we examined. We consider the social cultural perspective to be a well rounded starting point for our survey, because the theory gives us the opportunity to study how the interaction and meetings between educators and children develop for each reading encounter. And through the analysis a thorough display between educators and children towards literature will be shown. The study show that the educators are aware of the importance that literature entails for children´s language development. Therefore, it is a thoughful approach to how educators preselect the usage of literature in its operation. All educators have the purpose to increase the childrens influence in purchasing litterature in the teaching activities, in hopes of increasing the children’s interest in books and therefore increase children's language development.

Dagens samhälle med ett allt snabbare tempo skapar ny teknik som blir ålderdomligt redan dagenefter. Samtidigt underlättar tekniken informationsspridningen. Detta ställer höga krav på skolansom ska rusta eleverna inför framtiden. Svenska elever är i nuläget duktiga i läsning i eninternationell jämförelse men antalet elever med läsförmåga över medel sjunker samtidigt somfärre antal läser längre texter. Denna aktionsforskningsstudie är ett sätt att utveckla och bidra medkunskap om hur elever upplever läsning genom en för gruppen ny arbetsgång där olika lässtilarinkluderas. Studiens frågeställning är: Hur upplever elever ett nytt arbetssätt i läsundervisningen?Genom samarbete med klassens lärare, som är medforskare, har ett nytt material introducerats.Materialet innehåller onlineböcker som går att läsa genom enbart bilder, enbart text, både text ochbild samt att texten blir uppläst. Eleverna använder sig av pekplattor och har fått bekanta sig medmaterialet som sedan utvärderats genom intervjuer. Introduktionstillfället och de enskildaintervjuerna har spelats in på video och observationer har utförts. Eleverna har visat sigengagerade och positiva till det nya materialet. Några föredrog att läsa på pekplattan och några iböcker. Några tyckte bäst om att lyssna till berättelsen medan andra hellre läste. Deras olika nivåeri läsutvecklingen har påverkat resultaten samtidigt som det faktum att arbetssättet har varierats hargjort att fler kan ta till sig innehållet i böcker. I sin tur påverkar detta den personliga utvecklingenoch att eleverna blir mer delaktiga i undervisningen ur ett specialpedagogiskt perspektiv. / In today’s society new technology is being created as we speak and is at the same time rapidly becoming outdated. Still, technology facilitates the dissemination of information. This puts a strong demand on the school to prepare the students for the future. Swedish students are currently good at reading compared to other countries but the amount of students who performs above average is decreasing and at the same time less students are reading larger volumes of texts. This action research study is a way of developing and contributing with knowledge about how students experience reading through for the group a new way of working where different reading styles are included. The objective of this study is to answer the question of how students experience this new way of working with reading. Through cooperation with the teacher of the participating class in the study, who is a co-researcher, a new material has been introduced to the class. The material includes online-books, which can be read using only pictures, text only, both text and pictures and also by the text being read aloud. The students have used touchpads for reading and have familiarized themselves with the material which later on has been evaluated via interviews. The study introduction and the separate interviews have been recorded on tape and observations have been carried out. The students have been engaged and positive to the new material. Some preferred to read on the touchpad and others in books. Some found it best to listen to the stories as other preferred to read themselves. Their different levels of reading has affected the results while at the same time the fact that the working methods varied has made it possible for more students to understand the content in the books. In turn, this affects the personal development and that students are becoming more involved in the education from a special education perspective.

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2015. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Reading skills of Deaf schoolchildren in the United States of America are reported to be significantly below those of their hearing peers. In South Africa, Deaf learners’ prospects of attaining high levels of literacy are even bleaker. This fact gave rise to the current study, which examines the impact of a newly introduced Curriculum Assessment Policy Statements (CAPS) curriculum with South African Sign Language (SASL) both as a school subject and as language of learning and teaching on (i) the course of language development in SASL and (ii) early reading development in second language (L2) Afrikaans amongst young Deaf learners. The expressive language (SASL) of four participants with various home language backgrounds (some with signing, Deaf parents; others with hearing, non-signing Afrikaans- or English-speaking parents) was regularly video-recorded over a period of three years, from the beginning of their pre-Grade R (i.e., Grade 0) year until the end of their Grade 1 year. These learners all started reading at the beginning of Grade 1, but were exposed to SASL for varying periods prior to that. The language development (in terms of handshape and discourse skills) and literacy development (reading comprehension) of the participants were qualitatively analysed based on the recordings. Despite the diverse circumstances of the four participants in terms of date of diagnosis, length of exposure to SASL and age of first exposure, parental mastery of SASL, and length of attendance of the school in which the SASL curriculum was piloted, they all showed notable progress in terms of SASL acquisition over the course of the study period, and they all managed to acquire reading skills up to the level expected of a Grade 1 learner. As was found for hearing users of a spoken language, language competence appears to be a prerequisite for the development of literacy skills in Deaf children (see Adams 1990; Gathercole and Baddeley 1993). The assumption is that the four children studied here were successful readers in their L2 (despite Deaf children usually finding the acquisition of reading skills very challenging) because they had sufficiently developed first language (SASL) skills as a foundation for literacy acquisition. The participants’ phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic knowledge of SASL appeared to have “come together” by the time they reached Grade 1, although these were not necessarily taught explicitly. This, again, enabled the acquisition of grade-appropriate reading skills in the L2. The findings of this study indicate the potential benefit of early intervention for Deaf children and that the SASL CAPS curriculum ought to be introduced at the time of enrolment in a school for the Deaf (i.e. from age three years onwards), and not only in Grade R. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Leesvaardighede van dowe skoolkinders in die Verenigde State van Amerika is na berigte beduidend laer as dié van hul horende eweknieë. In Suid-Afrika is dowe leerders se kanse om hoë geletterdheidsvlakke te bereik selfs skraler. Hierdie feit het aanleiding gegee tot die huidige studie, wat die impak ondersoek van ‘n nuut-bekendgestelde Kurrikulum-assesseringsbeleidstellings- (KABS) kurrikulum met Suid-Afrikaanse Gebaretaal (SAGT) as beide skoolvak en taal van leer en onderrig op (i) die verloop van taalontwikkeling in SAGT en (ii) vroeë leesontwikkeling in tweedetaal- (T2) Afrikaans onder jong Dowe leerders. Daar is gereeld oor die verloop van drie jaar video-opnames gemaak van die ekspressiewe taal (SAGT) van vier deelnemers met diverse huistaalagtergronde (sommige met Dowe gebaretaalgebruikers as ouers; andere met horende Afrikaans- of Engelssprekende ouers wat geen gebaretaal ken nie), van die begin van hul pre-Graad R- (i.e., Graad 0-) jaar tot die einde van hul Graad 1-jaar. Hierdie leerders het almal begin lees aan die begin van Graad 1, maar is voor dit vir verskillende periodes aan SAGT blootgestel. Hul taalontwikkeling (in terme van handvorm en diskoersvaardighede) en geletterdheidsontwikkeling (leesbegrip) is aan die hand van die opnames kwalitatief geanaliseer. Ondanks die diverse omstandighede van die vier deelnemers in terme van diagnosedatum, lengte van blootstelling aan SAGT en ouderdom van eerste blootstelling, ouers se bemeestering van SAGT, en lengte van bywoning van die skool waarin die SAGT-kurrikulum geloods is, het hulle almal noemenswaardige vordering getoon in terme van SAGT-verwerwing oor die verloop van die studietydperk, en het hulle almal daarin geslaag om leesvaardighede te verwerf tot op die vlak wat van ‘n Graad 1-leerder verwag word. Soos gevind is in die geval van horende gebruikers van ‘n gesproke taal, blyk taalkompetensie ‘n voorvereiste te wees vir die ontwikkeling van geletterdheidsvaardighede in dowe kinders (kyk Adams 1990; Gathercole en Baddeley 1993). Die aanname is dat die vier bestudeerde kinders suksesvolle leerders in hul T2 was (ondanks die feit dat die verwerwing van leesvaardighede gewoonlik vir dowe kinders ‘n groot uitdaging is) omdat hulle eerstetaalvaardighede (in SAGT) voldoende ontwikkel was om as fondament vir geletterdheidsverwerwing te dien. Die deelnemers se fonologiese, morfologiese, sintaktiese, semantiese en pragmatiese kennis van SAGT blyk “byeen te gekom het” teen die tyd wat hulle Graad 1 bereik het, alhoewel daar nie noodwendig eksplisiete onderrig hieroor gegee is nie. en dit het die verwerwing van graadtoepaslike leesvaardighede moontlik gemaak. Die bevindinge dui die belang van vroeë intervensie vir die Dowe kind aan. Die bevindinge ondersteun ook die seining dat die SAGT KABS-kurrikulum vanaf toetrede tot ‘n skool vir Dowes gevolg behoort te word (d.i. vanaf ouderdom drie jaar), en nie eers vanaf Graad R nie.

Este trabalho apresenta uma proposta de atividades desenvolvidas, no Colégio Americano, com a oitava série do Ensino Fundamental, a qual aborda a formação de um indivíduo mais crítico, mais consciente e mais comprometido com as questões de seu tempo por intermédio do trabalho com a leitura. Consideramos as especificidades dessa série quanto ao desenvolvimento cognitivo, afetivo e psicológico. Fundamentamos esta pesquisa por meio das contribuições da Análise do Discurso, da Lingüística, da Teoria da Literatura, assim como por meio das contribuições teóricas oriundas da área da Educação. Faremos, aqui, uma descrição apenas das duas propostas que serviram de fonte de dados para realização dessa pesquisa: a primeira constou de um estudo comparativo, com enunciação de juízos, entre a obra Capitães da Areia, do escritor Jorge Amado, e o Estatuto da Criança e do Adolescente; a segunda, de registro, de impressões, de questionamentos, de reflexões sobre a realidade que circunda o educando, por meio dos diferentes gêneros textuais estudados em aula, como também por meio de fotografias, a fim de os alunos comporem uma revista de leitura de mundo. Com o objetivo de facilitar a aplicabilidade desta proposta e de garantir material viável e acessível a todas as escolas, com bons resultados experimentais, apresentamos uma descrição detalhada dos procedimentos que realizamos. Ainda um fator a ser considerado em nossa pesquisa é a possibilidade de adaptação deste trabalho a diferenciados níveis de ensino, por intermédio do estudo de outras estratégias de leitura e de produção textual. / This work presents a proposal of activities developed, at Colégio Americano with the 8th grade. It focus on the formation of individuals who are more critical, more conscious and more engaged with the questions of their times through reading. We took into consideration the specificities of this school grade as to their cognitive, affective and psychological developments. We based this research on the contributions of the Analysis of Speech, Linguistics, and Theory of Literature as well as on the theoretical contributions of the field of Education. Here we describe only the two propositions that worked as data sources for this research. The first one was a comparative study, with judgment manifestation, between Jorge Amados Capitães da Areia and the Child and Adolescent Statute; the second one, the noting of feelings, questionings, reflections about the reality that surrounds the students, by means of different text styles studied at class as well as pictures, so that students could produce a world reading magazine. In order to facilitate the applicability of this proposal and of guaranteeing useful and accessible material to any school, with good experimental results, we present a detailed description of our procedures. Another point to be considered in our research is the possibility of adapting this work to different grades, by means of studying other reading and text production strategies.

The purpose of this study is to investigate if the integration of ipad as a tool can promote children´s reading development with focus on whether the ipad as a tool for reading aloud to 4-5 yers old can serve the cause. Iused a case study with semi structured interviews and observations.But in order to avoid a staged situation during observation i chose to look at reading aloud at naptome as it is a situation that happen daily. The result of this study points out that the ipad can be a tool for reading development when reading aloud as interaction between children-children and educator-children occurs. All education in the study seemed to have the purpose of using the ipads at naptime but nobody seemed to have really reflected on their purpose since the old tradition of resting at naptime was lingering. They are heading into a world of change.

This study examined a Pseudoword Phonics Curriculum to determine if this form of instruction would increase students’ decoding skills compared to typical real-word phonics instruction. In typical phonics instruction, children learn to decode familiar words which allow them to draw on their prior knowledge of how to pronounce the word and may detract from learning decoding skills. By using pseudowords during phonics instruction, students may learn more decoding skills because they are unfamiliar with the “words” and therefore cannot draw on memory for how to pronounce the word. It was hypothesized that students who learn phonics with pseudowords will learn more decoding skills and perform higher on a real-word assessment compared to students who learn phonics with real words. Students from two kindergarten classes participated in this study. An author-created word decoding assessment was used to determine the students’ ability to decode words. The study was broken into three phases, each lasting one month. During Phase 1, both groups received phonics instruction using real words, which allowed for the exploration of baseline student growth trajectories and potential teacher effects. During Phase 2, the experimental group received pseudoword phonics instruction while the control group continued real-word phonics instruction. During Phase 3, both groups were taught with real-word phonics instruction. Students were assessed on their decoding skills before and after each phase. Results from multiple regression and multi-level model analyses revealed a greater increase in decoding skills during the second and third phases of the study for students who received the pseudoword phonics instruction compared to students who received the real-word phonics instruction. This suggests that pseudoword phonics instruction improves decoding skills quicker than real-word phonics instruction. This also suggests that teaching decoding with pseudowords for one month can continue to improve decoding skills when children return to real-word phonics instruction. Teacher feedback suggests that confidence with reading increased for students who learned with pseudowords because they were less intimidated by the approach and viewed pseudoword phonics as a game that involved reading “silly” words. Implications of these results, limitations of this study, and areas for future research are discussed.

Syftet med studien var att undersöka hur lärare och speciallärare i årskurserna 1–3 upplever att elever med lässvårigheters attityder och motivation till läsning påverkar deras läsutveckling. De forskningsfrågor som besvaras är: Vad upplever informanterna att elevernas attityder och motivation påverkas av?, Hur hanterar informanterna elevernas attityder och motivation till läsning? och på vilket sätt undervisar informanterna eleverna för att utveckla deras attityder och motivation till läsning? Den teoretiska utgångspunkten som studien intog var teorier om läsutveckling baserat på forskning. Studien utgick från Lundberg och Herrlins (2005) definition av de fem olika dimensionerna som eleverna behöver behärska för att anses som goda läsare. Forskningsmetoden som använts i studien utgick från teorin, teorier om det subjektiva, som är grunden för en fenomenografisk teoribildning. Materialet utgjordes av semistrukturerade intervjuer och de informanter som studien hade var strategiskt utvalda. Intervjuerna utgick från en intervjuguide och efter avslutad intervju transkriberades dem. Dessa transkriberingar analyserades med en tematisk analys. Det resultat som framkom utifrån intervjuerna är att samtliga informanter stött på olika grupper av läsattityder. En grupp utgör elever som anser att läsning är lustfyllt och därmed har positiva attityder till läsning och en grupp utgör de elever som anser läsning är mindre lustfyllt och därmed har negativa läsattityder. Informanterna anser också att föräldrarnas attityder till läsning påverkar elevernas läsattityder. Lärarna och speciallärarna hanterar elevernas läsattityder på olika sätt men samtliga informanter anser att det är viktigt att stötta eleverna i deras läsutveckling, för att minska risken att eleverna skapar negativa läsattityder. De har olika tillvägagångssätt i sin undervisning för att ta hänsyn till elevernas läsattityder. Samtliga informanter är däremot eniga om att elevernas läsattityder påverkar deras läsutveckling. / The purpose of the study is to study active teachers and special teachers 'experiences of how pupils with reading difficulties' read attitudes and motivation affects their reading development. The research questions that will be answered in the study are: What do the teachers describe that the involved pupils reading attitudes and motivation are influenced by and how do they mean that the pupils' attitudes affect their reading development? How do the teachers describe the way in which they handle the pupils’ reading attitudes? In what way do the teachers describe that they are teaching to affect pupils' attitudes for reading? The study is based on general theories of pupils’ reading development. This study will be based on Lundberg and Herrlins (2005) definition of the five different dimensions that pupils need to master in order to be considered as good readers. Theories on the subjective, in this respect phenomenological theory, provide the methodology of the study.  The material comprise of semi structured interviews and the candidates in the study were strategically selected. The interviews were based on an interview guide and after the interview, they were transcribed. These transcripts were analyzed by a thematic analysis. The results show that all candidates encounter diverse groups of attitudes to reading. One group constitutes pupils who think reading is fun and thus have a positive attitude to reading and one group constitutes those pupils who consider reading are less fun and thus have a negative attitude to reading. The candidates also consider that the attitudes of parents to reading influence the readings of pupils. Teachers and special teachers handle student readings in diverse ways, but all candidates consider it important to support pupils in their reading development, to reduce the risk of pupils creating negative readings. They also make different in their teachings to consider the pupils' readings. All candidates, on the other hand, agree that pupils' reading positions affect their reading development.

Dual-immersion is a bilingual education method offered that places English as a first language (EFL) and English language learner (ELL) students in the same classroom to learn two languages at the same time. This study examines whether second language acquisition through dual-immersion supports literacy for both ELL and EFLS children over time. Students' scores on standardized tests (ITBS, TAKS, Logramos, Stanford 9, and Aprenda) were studied to assess the impact, if any, of dual-immersion instruction vs. regular/bilingual education on reading development. Scores from 2000 through 2004 were gathered and analyzed for students enrolled in a dual-immersion class which started in kindergarten in 2000. These scores were compared to scores of students enrolled in regular and bilingual education classrooms for the same amount of time at the same school to examine whether there was an effect for students in the dual-immersion class. It was found that no significant difference existed between the groups. All groups were performing at a passing level on the standardized tests. The dual-immersion class was performing as well as the regular education class on standardized tests in both English and Spanish.

Högläsning är ett vardagligt moment under barnens skoldag. Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur ett urval lärare som är verksamma i både årskurs1 och årskurs 3 säger sig arbeta med högläsning och om, och i så fall varför, deras arbete med högläsning skiljer sig åt mellan de två årskurserna. Det teoretiska ramverket som ligger till grund för studien är det sociokulturella perspektivet. Enligt det sociokulturella perspektivet är det samspelet mellan människor som ger oss kunskap. Under högläsningsundervisningen är samspelet mellan läraren och eleverna av stor vikt och läraren behöver stötta eleverna för att de ska komma vidare i sin utveckling.  För att besvara studiens syfte användes en kvalitativ metod och fem semistrukturerade intervjuer genomfördes med lärare verksamma i årskurs 1 och 3. För att analysera den insamlade datan gjordes en tematisk analys. I resultatet framkom det att lärarna hade en positiv syn på högläsning och samtliga upplevde högläsningsarbetet som viktigt för att utveckla elevernas läsförmåga. För lärarna är högläsning en självklarhet och i studiens analys framkommer det att lärarna alltid har ett syfte med sin högläsning. Även om lärarna arbetade på olika sätt kunde många likheter identifieras i upplägget och i syftet med högläsningsundervisningen. Det framkom även att högläsningsundervisningen inte ändras speciellt mycket mellan årskurs 1 och 3. Den största skillnaden lärarna gjorde var att de anpassade nivån på undervisningen till respektive årskurs. / Reading aloud is an everyday activity during the children's school day. The aim of the study is to investigate how a sample of teachers working in both Year 1 and Year 3 say they work with read alouds and whether their work with read alouds differs between the two year groups, and if so, why. The theoretical framework underlying the study is the sociocultural perspective. According to the sociocultural perspective, it is the interaction between people that gives us knowledge. When reading aloud, the interaction between the teacher and the students is of great importance and the teacher needs to support the students in order for them to progress. To answer the purpose of the study, a qualitative method was used and five semi-structured interviews were conducted with teachers working in grades 1 and 3. To analyse the collected data, a thematic analysis was conducted. The results showed that the teachers had a positive view of reading aloud and all of them felt that reading aloud was important for developing the students' reading skills. For the teachers, reading aloud is a matter of course, and the study's analysis shows that the teachers always have a purpose for their read alouds. Although the teachers worked in slightly different ways, many similarities could be identified in the approach and purpose of the lessons. It was also found that the teaching of reading aloud did not change very much between year 1 and 3. The main difference between the years was that the teachers adapted the level of difficulty to each grade.