Children with Down syndrome (DS) are reported to experience difficulty with spoken and written language which can persist through the lifespan. However, little is known about the spoken and written language profiles of children with DS in the New Zealand social and education environment, and a thorough investigation of these profiles has yet to be conducted. The few controlled interventions to remediate language deficits in children with DS that are reported in the literature typically focus on remediation of a single language domain, with the effectiveness of interventions which integrate spoken and written language goals yet to be explored for this population. The experiments reported in this thesis aim to address these areas of need. The following questions are asked 1) What are the phonological awareness, speech, language and literacy skills of New Zealand children with DS? 2) What are the home and school literacy environments of New Zealand children with DS and how do they support written language development? and 3) What are the immediate and longer term effects of an integrated phonological awareness intervention on enhancing aspects of spoken and written language development in young children with DS? These questions will be addressed through the following chapters. The first experiment (presented in Chapter 2) was conducted in two parts. Part 1 consisted of the screening of the early developing phonological awareness, letter knowledge, and decoding skills of 77 primary school children with DS and revealed considerable variability between participants on all measures. Although some children were able to demonstrate mastery of the phoneme identity and letter knowledge skills, floor effects were also apparent. Data were analysed by age group (5 - 8 years and 9 -14 years) which revealed increased performance with maturation, with older children outperforming their younger peers on all measures. Approximately one quarter of all children were unable to decode any words, 6.6% demonstrated decoding skills at a level expected for 7 - 8 year old children and one child demonstrated decoding skills at an age equivalent level. Significant relationships between decoding skills and letter knowledge were found to exist. In Part 2 of the experiment, 27 children with DS who participated in the screening study took part in an in-depth investigation into their speech, phonological awareness, reading accuracy and comprehension and narrative language skills. Results of the speech assessments revealed the participants’ speech was qualitatively and quantitatively similar to the speech of younger children with typical development, but that elements of disorder were also evident. Results of the phonological awareness measures indicated participants were more successful with blending than with segmentation at both sentence and syllable level. Rhyme generation scores were particularly low. Reading accuracy scores were in advance of reading comprehension, with strong relationships demonstrated between reading accuracy and phonological awareness and letter knowledge. Those children who were better readers also had better language skills, producing longer sentences and using a greater number of different words in their narratives. The production of more advanced narrative structures was restricted to better readers. In the second experiment (presented in Chapter 3), the home literacy environment of 85 primary school aged children with DS was investigated. Parents of participants completed a questionnaire which explored the frequency and duration of literacy interactions, other ways parents support and facilitate literacy, parents’ priorities for their children at school, and the child’s literacy skills. Results revealed that the homes of participants were generally rich in literacy resources, and that parents and children read together regularly, although many children were reported to take a passive role duding joint story reading. Many parents also reported actively teaching their child letter names and sounds and encouraging literacy development in other ways such as language games, computer use, television viewing and library access. Writing at home was much less frequent than reading, and the allocation of written homework was much less common than reading homework. In the third experiment (presented in Chapter 4), the school literacy environment of 87 primary school aged children with DS (identified in the second experiment) was explored. In a parallel survey to the one described in Chapter 3, the teachers of participants completed a questionnaire which explored the frequency and duration of literacy interactions, the role of the child during literacy interactions, the child’s literacy skills, and other ways literacy is supported. The results of the questionnaire revealed nearly all children took part in regular reading instruction in the classroom although the amount of time reportedly dedicated to reading instruction was extremely variable amongst respondents. The average amount of time spent on reading instruction was consistent with that reported nationally and in advance of the international average for Year 5 children. Reading instruction was typically given in small groups or in a one on one setting and included both ‘top-down’ and bottom up’ strategies. Children were more likely to be assigned reading homework compared to written homework, with writing activities and instruction reported to be particularly challenging. In the fourth experiment (reported in Chapter 5), the effectiveness of an experimental integrated phonological awareness intervention was evaluated for ten children with DS, who ranged in age from 4;04 to 5;05 (M = 4;11, SD = 4.08 months). The study employed a multiple single-subject design to evaluate the effect of the intervention on participants’ trained and untrained speech measures, and examined the development of letter knowledge and phonological awareness skills. The 18 week intervention included the following three components; 1. parent implemented print referencing during joint story reading, 2. speech goals integrated with letter knowledge and phoneme awareness activities conducted by the speech-language therapist (SLT) in a play based format, and 3. letter knowledge and phoneme awareness activities conducted by the computer specialist (CS) adapted for presentation on a computer. The intervention was implemented by the SLT and CS at an early intervention centre during two 20 minute sessions per week, in two 6 week therapy blocks separated by a 6 week break (i.e. 8 hours total). The parents implemented the print referencing component in four 10 minute sessions per week across the 18 week intervention period (approximately 12 hours total). Results of the intervention revealed all ten children made statistically significant gains on their trained and untrained speech targets with some children demonstrating transfer to other phonemes in the same sound class. Six children demonstrated gains in letter knowledge and nine children achieved higher scores on phonological awareness measures at post-intervention, however all phonological awareness scores were below chance. The findings demonstrated that dedicating some intervention time to facilitating the participants’ letter knowledge and phonological awareness was not at the expense of speech gains. The fifth experiment (presented in Chapter 6) comprises a re-evaluation of the speech, phonological awareness, and letter knowledge, and an evaluation of the decoding and spelling development in children with DS who had previously participated in an integrated phonological awareness intervention (see Chapter 5), after they had subsequently received two terms (approximately 20 weeks) of formal schooling. Speech accuracy was higher at follow-up than at post-intervention on standardised speech measures and individual speech targets for the group as a whole, with eight of the ten participants demonstrating increased scores on their individual speech targets. Group scores on both letter knowledge measures were higher at follow-up than at post-intervention, with nine participants maintaining or improving on post-intervention performance. The majority of participants exhibited higher phonological awareness scores at follow-up on both the phoneme level assessments, with above chance scores achieved by five participants on one of the tasks, however, scores on the rhyme matching task demonstrated no evidence of growth. Some transfer of phonological awareness and letter knowledge was evident, with five children able to decode some words on the single word reading test and three children able to represent phonemes correctly in the experimental spelling task. The emergence of these early literacy skills highlighted the need for ongoing monitoring of children’s ability to transfer their improved phonological awareness and letter knowledge to decoding and spelling performance. In the sixth experiment (presented in Chapter 7) the long term effects of the integrated phonological awareness intervention was evaluated for one boy with DS aged 5;2 at the start of the intervention. The study monitored Ben’s speech and literacy development up to the age of 8;0 (34 months post pre-school intervention) which included two years of formal schooling. Ben demonstrated sustained growth on all measures with evidence of a growing ability to transfer letter-sound knowledge and phoneme-grapheme correspondences to the reading and spelling process. The results indicated an intervention which is provided early and which simultaneously targets speech, letter knowledge and phonological awareness goals provides a promising alternative to conventional therapy, and that integrating spoken and written therapy goals for children with DS can be effective in facilitating development in both domains. This thesis provides evidence that the spoken and written language abilities of New Zealand children with DS exhibit a pattern of delay and disorder that is largely consistent with those of children with DS from other countries reported in the literature. The home and school literacy environments of children in New Zealand with DS are rich in literacy resources and are, for the most part, supportive of their literacy development. The immediate and longer term results of the integrated phonological awareness intervention suggest that it is possible to achieve significant and sustained gains in speech, letter knowledge and phonological awareness which may contribute to the remediation of the persistent and compromised spoken and written language profile characteristic of individuals with DS.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wyoming, 2008. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on June 27, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. 45-47).

Thesis (Ed.D.)--University of Western Sydney, 2010. / A thesis presented to the University of Western Sydney, College of Arts, School of Education, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education. Includes bibliographies.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2005. / Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains xiv, 361 p.; also includes graphics Includes bibliographical references (p. 315-345). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center

Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-07T15:09:31Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 1272546 bytes, checksum: 453671f86b143aabf8047b4647651f87 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-08-30 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The school literacy has advocated tasks of reading and writing whose values are determined in the ideals of the skills that go beyond the boundaries of the school and reach the spaces of everyday life of individuals, guiding not only communication events, but alsoconceptions of the nature and potential of the person. Thus, the teaching of reading and writing has responded to the autonomousmodel of literacy, which assumes there is only one way of being literate, this, combined with the range of full citizenship rights and duties, and developing individual and collective progress. The slam of this practice is characterized as symbolic violence insofar as it excludes the possibility of the subject of other forms of relationship with reading and writing, creating arrays of behavior, habitus, marked by theacceptance of rules and sanctions of schooled literacy as neutral and universal. Thus, this study aims at analyzing, from the meanings assigned by a group of 11 students in the 9th year of elementary school, how literacy in school is an expression of symbolic violence. To this end, we adopted as an instrument of data collection, the Focus Group, the codification of Grounded Theory as a method of data treatment and Content Analysis, based on the analysis unit theme, as a strategy for interpretive analysis of the speeches in the group. Data were analyzed and discussed from the theoretical assumptions of Cultural Studies, the New Literacy Studies, Psychology of Education and sociological concepts of Pierre Bourdieu. The results show that there are symbolic manifestations of violence present in the belief that only the school literacy ensures a superior way of life, social mobility and advancement personnel, the provisions of the naturalization of school culture on the jurisdiction, the values adopted to measureto yourself and others, in the belief that only by school literacy is the ability of a person be considered fully functional and suitable to live in society, the naturalization of the additional effort that the group needs to take to adapt their language to the standard regulated by the school , and in recognition of the superiority of school literacy to other forms of relationship of writing and reading, including your own experiences outside of school. Given this, we reflect on the possibilities of achieving literacy in school proposals that denaturalizes speech settled on beliefs about a culture that, presumably taken as legitimate, is invested with privileges, the visibility and relevance of the multiple literacies that take place, even outside of school. / O letramento escolar tem preconizado funções de leitura e de escritacujos valores estãofixados no ideáriodascompetênciasque ultrapassam os limites da escola e alcançam os espaços da vida cotidiana dos sujeitos, orientando não apenas eventos de comunicação, mas concepçõessobre a natureza e as potencialidades da pessoa.Desse modo, o ensino da leitura e da escrita temrespondido ao modelo autônomode letramento, que pressupõe haver apenas um modo de ser letrado, este, associado ao alcance de cidadania plena de direito e deveres, desenvolvimento e progresso individual e coletivo.Ocaráter impositivo desta práticaconfigura-se comoviolência simbólica na medida em que exclui do sujeito a possibilidade de outras formas de relação com a leitura e a escrita,gerando matrizes de comportamento, habitus, marcadas pela aceitação das regras e das sanções do letramento escolar como neutras e universais. Nesse sentido, este trabalho tem como objetivo geralanalisar,a partir dos sentidos atribuídos por um grupo de11estudantesdo 9º ano doEnsino Fundamental Anos Finais, de que modoo letramento escolar constitui-se em expressão da violência simbólica. Para tanto, adotamos como instrumento de coleta de dados, o Grupo Focal, a codificação da Teoria Fundamentada como método de tratamento dos dados e a Análise de Conteúdo,baseada na unidade de análise Tema, como estratégia para a análiseinterpretativa das falas no grupo.Os dados foram analisados e discutidos a partir dos pressupostos teóricos dos Estudos Culturais, dos Novos Estudos sobre o Letramento, da Psicologia da Educaçãoe de conceitos sociológicos de Pierre Bourdieu.Os resultados mostram que há manifestações de violência simbólica presentes na crença de que apenas o letramento escolar asseguraum modo de vida superior,ascensão social e progresso pessoal; na naturalização dasdisposições da cultura escolar sobre a competência; nos valores adotados para medir-se a si mesmo e aosoutros;na crença de que só peloletramento escolar há a possibilidade de uma pessoa ser considerada plenamente funcional e adequada para viver em sociedade; na naturalização do esforço adicional que o grupo precisa empreender para adequar seu padrão linguístico ao normatizado pela escola;eno reconhecimento da superioridade do letramento escolar frente a outras formas de relação de escrita e de leitura, inclusive a de suas próprias experiências fora da escola.Diante disto, refletimos sobre as possibilidades de alcançar propostas de letramento na escolaque desnaturalizem o discurso sedimentado sobre convicções acerca de uma cultura que, tomada presumidamente como legítima, é investida de privilégios, paradarvisibilidade e relevância àmultiplicidade de letramentos que se dão, inclusive, fora da escola.

nÃo hà / This thesis presents an investigation about the family and the school as contexts of literacy. As diverse institutional domains, the family and the school produce their own literacy. At school, literacy begins with reading and writing. In the family, literacy materializes, basically, by the use of oral language. The study of this theme arose from the need to deepen an understanding about family and school as spaces of formation of social subjects. As Street (2014) defines, literacy is social; Therefore, cultural, differently constructed in different peoples and different cultures. In this context (STREET, 2014), this research is based on the discursive practices of families as constitutive practices of family literacy. A literacy complexed by the relationships established in this context, according to the level of education of its members, who very commonly value school literacy, but do not always have it and do not always use reading or writing texts in their daily lives. The general objective of this research is to investigate how families of a specific city have built family literacy and school literacy. The theoretical-methodological support is the Critical Discourse Analysis (ADC) articulated to the Social Theory of Literacy (TSL): this for analysis of the events and practices of literacy and the other for analysis of the representational meaning, based on the system of transitivity, and the meaning identification, for analysis the modality and the evaluation. This research is qualitative in nature, with an ethnographic-discursive approach. At the conclusion of the research, there are indications that families value school literacy and construct family literacy in the daily life of the family; with evidence that family literacy and school literacy coexist in a complementary relationship. / Esta tese apresenta uma investigaÃÃo sobre a famÃlia e a escola como contextos de letramento. Nesse direcionamento, como domÃnios institucionais diversos, a famÃlia e a escola produzem letramentos prÃprios. Na escola, o letramento escolar instaura-se com base na leitura e na escrita. Na famÃlia, o letramento materializa-se, basicamente, pelo uso da linguagem oral. O estudo desse tema surgiu da necessidade de aprofundar uma compreensÃo acerca da famÃlia e da escola como espaÃos de formaÃÃo de sujeitos sociais. Como define Street (2014), os letramentos sÃo sociais; portanto, culturais, diversamente construÃdos nos diferentes povos e nas diferentes culturas. à nesse enquadramento que esta investigaÃÃo se apoia para denominar as prÃticas discursivas das famÃlias como prÃticas constitutivas do letramento familiar. Um letramento pautado complexamente pelas relaÃÃes que se estabelecem nesse contexto, conforme o nÃvel de escolaridade de seus membros, que muito comumentemente valorizam o letramento escolar, mas nem sempre o possuem e nem sempre se utilizam da leitura ou da escrita de textos no seu cotidiano. O objetivo geral desta pesquisa à investigar como famÃlias de uma cidade especÃfica tÃm construÃdo o letramento familiar e o letramento escolar. O suporte teÃrico-metodolÃgico à a AnÃlise de Discurso CrÃtica (ADC) articulada à Teoria Social do Letramento (TSL): esta para anÃlise dos eventos e prÃticas de letramento e aquela para anÃlise do significado representacional, baseado no sistema de transitividade, e o significado identificacional, para anÃlise da modalidade e da avaliaÃÃo. Esta pesquisa à de natureza qualitativa, com abordagem etnogrÃfico-discursiva. Ao concluir a investigaÃÃo, hà indicaÃÃes de que as famÃlias valorizam o letramento escolar e constroem o letramento familiar no cotidiano da vida em famÃlia; com evidÃncias de que o letramento familiar e o letramento escolar coexistem em relaÃÃo de complementaridade.

nÃo hà / Os resultados das avaliaÃÃes externas da AvaliaÃÃo Nacional da AlfabetizaÃÃo - ANA e da Prova Brasil para as disciplinas de LÃngua Portuguesa tÃm mostrado que existem alunos que concluem o 3 ano do Ensino Fundamental (E.F.) e chegam atà o 5 ano sem estar devidamente alfabetizados â fator que interfere diretamente no seu desempenho escolar. Nesse sentido, as estratÃgias de intervenÃÃo pedagÃgicas se apresentam como essenciais para a superaÃÃo de dÃficits de aprendizagem. Partindo dessa premissa, essa pesquisa investigou as aÃÃes de avaliaÃÃo e estratÃgias de intervenÃÃo pedagÃgica desenvolvidas com alunos de 4 ano identificados como nÃo alfabetizados em uma escola do municÃpio de Fortaleza- CE, com baixo desempenho nas avaliaÃÃes externas de LÃngua Portuguesa (ANA-2013 e Prova Brasil â5 anoâ â 2015). A metodologia da pesquisa, de carÃter qualitativo e a nÃvel descritivo, incluiu aplicaÃÃo de atividades de leitura e escrita com alunos de 4 ano nÃo alfabetizados, entrevistas com a coordenaÃÃo pedagÃgica da escola e professores-regentes, bem como tÃcnicas de observaÃÃo nas aulas de LÃngua Portuguesa ministradas pelas professoras regentes e apoio com foco nas intervenÃÃes voltadas para as dificuldades dos alunos nÃo alfabetizados. Os resultados mostraram que a escola desenvolve aÃÃes de melhoria para a recuperaÃÃo de alunos nÃo alfabetizados, no entanto, devido a nÃo sistematizaÃÃo das aÃÃes estratÃgicas nÃo foram percebidas melhorias significativas, visto que as atividades de leitura e escrita aplicada a 8 (oito) alunos nos meses de Novembro a Dezembro/2017 detectou ainda sÃrios problemas de alfabetizaÃÃo. AlÃm disso, a pesquisa mostrou que as professoras-apoio nÃo desenvolveram atividades voltadas para as dificuldades dos alunos, enquanto as professoras-regentes, apesar de terem apresentado metodologias que contribuem para o processo de alfabetizaÃÃo e letramento das crianÃas, nÃo conseguiram desenvolver atividades diferenciadas a fim de atender o nÃvel cognitivo dos alunos nÃo alfabetizados em sala de aula. ConcluÃmos que as estratÃgias, por ora observadas, carecem de / The results of the external evaluations of the National Literacy Assessment - ANA and the Brazil Proof for the Portuguese Language disciplines have shown that there are students who complete the 3rd year of Elementary School (EF) and arrive until the 5th year without being properly literate - which interferes directly with their school performance. In this sense, pedagogical intervention strategies are presented as essential for overcoming learning deficits. Based on this premise, this research investigated the evaluation actions and strategies of pedagogical intervention developed with 4th grade students identified as not literate in a school in the city of Fortaleza, CE, with low performance in the external evaluations of Portuguese Language (ANA-2013 and Brazil Proof "5th year" - 2015). The qualitative and descriptive research methodology included the application of reading and writing activities with non-literate 4th year students, interviews with the pedagogical coordination of the school and teachers-regents, as well as observation techniques in Language classes Portuguese teachers taught by the regent teachers and support focused on interventions aimed at the difficulties of the non-literate students. The results showed that the school develops improvement actions for the recovery of non-literate students, however, due to the nonsystematization of the strategic actions, no significant improvements were noticed, since the reading and writing activities applied to 8 (eight) students in the November to December / 2017 also detected serious problems of literacy. In addition, the research showed that the support teachers did not develop activities focused on the difficulties of the students, while the teachers-regents, although presenting methodologies that contribute to the literacy and literacy process of the children, were unable to develop differentiated activities at the same time. order to meet the cognitive level of non-literate students in the classroom. We conclude that the strategies, for the time being observed, need to be better systematized, adequate didactic resources and results monitoring.

The goal of this research was to understand the work lives of literacy coaches in central Florida by studying who they were, what they did, and what they believed influenced student achievement. In addition, it was important to understand the perceptions of literacy coaches as to what factors influenced positive changes in student achievement. Of 27 central Florida literacy coaches, this study examined the academic and professional background of each coach, explored the time spent on ten key literacy coaching activities, and analyzed work factors related to student achievement in reading on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. Although the literacy coaching role was one that was expanding in the United States through state funding initiatives, much about the role and its effectiveness were not known through the literature. A web-based survey system and purposive interviews were used to gather important data relevant to providing understandings about literacy coaches. Exploratory regression analyses using coaching activities and school performance measures were run to determine the existence of relationships. Qualitative analysis was employed to develop literacy coaching themes from survey responses, and all data were triangulated and used to develop case studies. Case studies provided narrative descriptions of all data in the context of individual schools and their coaches all embedded within case types as identified by prior year school letter grade. The results of the study showed an overwhelming amount of time was spent on other activities not related to literacy coaching. Assisting with test preparation was one reason for other activity assignment. Modeling of literacy strategies was reported as one of the more useful and influential activities, but few of the coaches in the study organized their time for this. Case studies provided rich context into the work lives of literacy coaches. Suggested uses for the study included the development of stronger professional development programs for school administrators in working with high school literacy coaches. Although literacy coaches were a well-trained group, more specific training is needed in the re-allocation of time so that more influential activities are pursued.

No description available.

Professional growth is a complex process that requires thoughtful planning, persistence in execution, collaboration, and a common goal if it is to be successful. Classroom teachers have many opportunities to participate in professional development, but experiences vary and it is important to determine which have the greatest effect. The purpose of this comparative study was to examine the strengths and differences of three models of professional learning communities involved in a three-year project to improve writing instruction in kindergarten to Grade 3 classrooms. Based on the work of Routman (2008a), professional staffs at treatment schools were involved in a multi-year, inter-divisional, professional learning community. Teachers and principals in the project participated in one of three experiences of varying intensity. Results are compared to a control group of schools. The study design takes a pragmatic worldview and utilizes mixed methodology to conduct an ex post facto, quasi-experimental analysis. Artifacts collected from 2009 to 2012 include questionnaires, written self-evaluations, and samples of student writing, that were examined to determine the degree and nature of change in principals’ increased perceptiveness of the school literacy team, teachers’ increased sense of efficacy in writing instruction, and significant changes in student writing. These are compared to samples from a control group of schools that were not involved in the experience. Several aspects of this multi-year project bring to light three critical observations. First, real-time, live experiences with an expert facilitator have a dramatic effect on teacher learning. Second, students in the first four years at school are capable of much more sophistication in writing than is generally expected. Third, principals’ involvement as educational leaders is critical to enduring teacher change and ongoing student improvement. / February 2017