No description available.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University / This experimental study examined the effects vocabulary acquisition strategies and story discussion styles on the English vocabulary acquisition and story comprehension of ESL preschoolers. Eighty preschool-aged, typically-developing, native speakers of Portugese who are also second language learners of English were pretested in L1 (Portugese) receptive vocabulary and L2 (English) receptive and expressive vocabulary to determine a baseline of vocabulary knowledge in each language. Matched according to age, gender, and pretest L2 receptive vocabulary scores, subjects were assigned to experimental or control groups. Subjects in the experimental group heard eight stories read three times with rich explanations of target vocabulary words and with several discussion questions within either a didactic-labeling style of discussion (i.e., explicit questions requiring children to recall basic facts or to recite text) or a performance-oriented style of discussion (i.e., implicit questions requiring children to analyze and integrate information within the text). Subjects in the control group heard eight stories read three times without explanation of target vocabulary words and without discussion questions. Parents of all participants returned questionnaires about children's home reading experience. Results for target vocabulary acquisition showed a strong and significant effect of treatment (i.e., rich explanation of new vocabulary) on ESL preschoolers' target vocabulary acquisition. Regression analyses showed that treatment, initial L2 receptive skill, home reading practices, and story comprehension accounted for 69% of the variance in target vocabulary scores. Initial Ll skill did not have a significant effect on target vocabulary acquisition. Results for story comprehension showed a weak but significant effect of the performance-oriented discussion style on children's story comprehension. Regression analyses showed that L2 receptive skill, treatment (i.e., performance-oriented style of discussion), L2 expressive skill, target vocabulary acquisition, and home reading practices accounted for 60% of the variance in story comprehension scores. Initial Ll skill did not have a significant effect on story comprehension. In conclusion, L2 skills are paramount to children's vocabulary acquisition and story comprehension. Moreover, the supportiveness of adult input (i.e., rich explanations and cognitively challenging discussion questions) and home reading practices make important contributions to ESL preschoolers' English vocabulary acquisition and story comprehension.

Previous research indicates that joint storybook reading between caregivers (parents or teachers) and children can have positive effects on the oral language development of young children (Whitehurst et al., 1988; Dickinson & Smith, 1994). This study aimed to add to this body of research by providing information on the relationship between teachers’ language complexity and vocabulary strategies used during storybook reading and vocabulary outcomes for monolingual and dual language learners in linguistically diverse Head Start classrooms. Videotapes of 23 Head Start teachers were coded and analyzed for vocabulary instruction strategies and language complexity during storybook reading using hierarchical regression techniques to determine how these factors related to gains in student vocabulary over the course of a year. Students’ oral language was assessed using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) and the Learning Express vocabulary sub-test (LE). Teacher’s language complexity was calculated with respect to both quantity (mean length of utterance) and quality (type/token ratio and use of uncommon words). Teacher’s use of vocabulary strategies was examined with respect to the words chosen for instruction and the strategies used to instruct those words. Overall, teachers in this study tended to choose high utility words to instruct, but the strategies used to teach those words, and the number of words chosen for instruction, were often not optimally aligned with best practices in vocabulary instruction (Beck et al., 2002). For the PPVT outcome measure, teachers’ use of higher numbers of vocabulary instruction strategies per word was differentially related to students’ vocabulary outcomes based on the student’s prior vocabulary knowledge, such that the use of more vocabulary instruction strategies per word was negatively related to vocabulary outcomes for students who began the year with the smallest vocabularies. There was also a significant interaction between teachers’ use of uncommon words and students’ prior vocabulary knowledge, though this relationship was only statistically significant for the PPVT outcome. Teachers’ use of more complex language was differentially related to students’ outcomes. Students who began the year with the lowest vocabulary levels exhibited a positive relationship between the teacher’s use of uncommon words and vocabulary outcomes, while average or higher vocabulary students showed a negative relationship between increased exposure to these uncommon words and their vocabulary outcomes. The implications for teachers’ professional development are discussed.

Abstract The main purpose of this paper was to explore the effects of reading motivation and reading self-efficacy on Creative Thinking Instruction of picture storybooks for third grade students in elementary schools. The researcher adopted the ¡§Equivalent Control Group Pretest-posttest Design¡¨ of Quasi-experiments Research Method and used the third grade students of two classes in the Kaohsiung elementary school as samples. One class was assigned to the experimental group for the purpose of carrying out Creative Thinking Instruction of picture storybooks. Another class was the control group for the intention of proceeding Common Reading Instruction of picture storybooks. The research instrument of this paper included Elementary Reading Motivation Scale (Su-Zu Li, 1999) and Elementary Reading Self-efficacy Scale (Chih-Hsien Tu, 1998). In addition, the data was analyzed and tested by descriptive statistic, t-test, independent sample one-way ANCOVA, and product-moment correlation. The findings of the study were as follows: I.The influences of Creative Thinking Instruction of picture storybooks on students¡¦ reading motivation A.In the aspect of reading motivation, there was no significant difference between the experimental group and the control group before accepting Creative Thinking Instruction of picture storybooks. B.There was a significant difference in reading motivation between the students who accepted Creative Thinking Instruction of picture storybooks and the students who didn¡¦t. II.The influences of Creative Thinking Instruction of picture storybooks on students¡¦ reading self-efficacy A.In the aspect of reading efficacy, there was no significant difference between the experimental group and the control group before accepting Creative Thinking Instruction of picture storybooks. B.There was a significant difference in reading efficacy between the students who accepted Creative Thinking Instruction of picture storybooks and the students who didn¡¦t. III.There was a significant positive correlation between reading motivation and reading self-efficacy. According to the study results of above, the researcher offered the suggestions for the reference in educational applications and prospective studies as follows: I.If quantification and action research was operated together, the research benefit would be higher. II.Creative Thinking Instruction was subsumed in school-based curriculum. III.The research subject could be extensively discussed.

In the field of deaf education, a long-standing and still unanswered question is why are the reading levels and academic achievement levels of deaf and hard of hearing children inferior to their hearing peers. Teachers and parents continue to look for reasons to explain the gap and strategies they can use to narrow this gap between the reading achievement of children who are deaf and children who hear. For all children, literacy learning begins at birth. During the early years, children listen to and learn from the language their parents speak to them. The children are affected by the family interactions and experiences of daily life both inside and outside the family. Examination of literacy interactions of deaf children and their parents may provide answers to help us understand the literacy achievement gap deaf children experience. For this research dissertation, my focus was on: (a) How does the communication method of the deaf child affect language learning?; (b) How can the parent-child literacy interactions of deaf children be described?, and (c) How can preschool-age deaf children’s emergent literacy behaviors be described? This naturalistic study looked at the early literacy interactions of preschool deaf children of hearing parents. From an initial group of ten families, three families from an early intervention program were selected. The researcher identified the literacy histories of the deaf children, described the parent-child literacy interactions, and explored emergent literacy behaviors occurring in the home. Data sources included parent questionnaires, parent interviews, literacy logs, and observations of parent-child literacy interactions, including storybook reading. Findings reveal that overall family support, the definitive personality of the parents, and the early diagnosis and amplification of the deaf child defined the difference between the deaf child that excelled as an emergent reader and those who did not. Family support assisted in making each child a successful emergent reader. Parents who made an early decision and commitment to a communication mode, whether manual or oral, allowed their child to progress in areas beyond simple vocabulary. Lastly, the early diagnosis of deafness and early amplification aided the deaf child in emergent literacy achievements.

Digital media technologies have been extensively utilized in children's daily lives and many researchers, educators, caregivers, and developers have been interested in finding ways to utilize these technologies in educational settings to facilitate early cognitive development. Among a wide range of media technologies, the accessibility of voice assistants and smart speakers powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) has notably increased. However, there is a paucity of knowledge about how this advanced technology can be used to teach young children important mathematical concepts during shared book reading. The current study aimed to examine whether and under what circumstances shared book reading with an AI voice agent would enhance preschool-aged children's learning of mathematical language, a critical domain-specific language highly associated with early numeracy skills and vocabulary development. Sixty-six participants who were recruited for home-visit and school-visit sessions were randomly assigned to one of three reading conditions to read a storybook with the AI voice agent three times: math storybook reading with dialogic questions, math storybook reading without dialogic questions, and non-math storybook reading with dialogic questions. The findings indicate that shared math storybook reading supports children's target mathematical language learning differently based on their initial understanding of numeracy skills. Children with higher levels of numeracy skills demonstrated greater benefits from simply listening to the story, whereas children with lower levels of numeracy skills showed a tendency to learn better when hearing questions and feedback from the AI voice agent. This study provides implications for the use of advanced technology involving social interaction to support children's learning of key mathematical language that can benefit from repeated reading. / Doctor of Philosophy / Digital media technologies have been widely used in children's daily lives and many researchers, educators, caregivers, and developers have been interested in finding ways to utilize these technologies in educational environments to support children's early cognitive development. Among a wide range of media technologies, more and more families with young children have access to smart speakers using voice assistant technology where users can talk to and give commands verbally. However, we do not know much about how this advanced technology can be used to teach young children important mathematical concepts during everyday activities. The goal of this study is to look at whether and in what condition shared book reading with an AI voice agent would support preschool-aged children's learning of mathematical language such as fewer, fewest, and a little bit which is critical in developing numeracy skills and vocabulary. Sixty-six participants who were recruited for home-visit and school-visit sessions were randomly assigned to one of the three reading conditions to read a storybook with the AI voice agent three times: math storybook reading with dialogic questions, math storybook reading without dialogic questions, and non-math storybook reading with dialogic questions. The findings suggest that shared math storybook reading supports children's target mathematical language learning differently based on their initial understanding of numeracy skills. Children with higher levels of numeracy skills benefited more from simply listening to the story, whereas children with lower levels of numeracy skills showed a tendency to learn better when hearing questions and feedback from the AI voice agent. This study provides implications for the use of advanced technology involving social interaction to support children's learning of mathematical language that can benefit from repeated reading.

Introduction: The development of thinking skills is increasingly evolving as the one most important goals of formal primary and secondary education. Storybook reading is a well-established routine in early learning classrooms ranging from early preschool to foundation phase. As these interactions can typically be quite rich in exchanges and inquiry, the impact of book reading routines is significant, particularly as reading to young children plays a significant role in preparing them for later schooling. Aim: To describe how teachers interact during storybook reading with Grade R children. Methods: This study investigated five teacher’s interactions during storybook reading with their grade R (reception) classes in rural Zululand. The teachers were videotaped during 3 storybook reading sessions, these interactions were translated, transcribed and coded. Results and analysis: The results indicated that all five teachers interacted with the children throughout the storybook reading procedure. The teachers used a number of techniques that were suggested by researchers to increase oral language gains, emergent literacy gains and high cognitive thinking skills. Although teachers mainly used low cognitively challenging utterances, it was found that the teachers who gave the children the focus of control in the session, produced more high cognitively challenging utterances. The unfamiliar book was found to produce a higher percentage of high cognitive level utterances and teachers, who focused, not only on the story itself but on other concepts, produced more high level cognitive utterances. In general teachers seemed to favor requesting of information as a method of interaction and the highest percentage of high cognitive utterances, were found during the after reading period. Directions for intervention and for future research are discussed in light of the results. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (CAAC) / Unrestricted

Individuals experiencing a mental illness are often stigmatized. Children also stigmatize those who experience a mental illness. There is national interest in reducing the negative effects of stigma, especially in children. Unfortunately, children anti-stigma interventions are being used without being empirically tested for their effectiveness. A goal of the Opening Minds Anti-stigma initiative of the Mental Health Commission of Canada is to identify programs and resources that have been empirically tested and found to be effective in reducing stigma. This study was funded by the Opening Minds Initiative of the Mental Health Commission of Canada to: First, investigate the effectiveness of providing children ages 11-14 with mental illness education using a storybook in order to reduce their mental illness stigma; and, second, to examine children’s perceptions of the anti-stigma book used to provide the education. A quasi-experimental design was used to test the effectiveness of the mental illness educational storybook in reducing mental illness stigma. The Youth Opinion Survey for Stereotype and Social Distance measurement was used to obtain baseline information before the education was provided. A pre-test, post-test process was used. Several qualitative questions, embedded in the post-test questionnaire, were provided to the children participating with an opportunity to use their own words to describe what they thought about mental illness before and after the education, what they learned from the educational storybook and whether or not they liked the education they received. The results show that the exposure to an educational storybook about children mental illness stigma was effective in reducing the percentage of negative responses at post-test. The participants used less negative words to describe someone “with a mental illness”. An improvement in the overall scores at post-test was seen for both stereotype and social distance. After the study was completed, the feasibility of conducting a study of this type was evaluated. Recommendations for the possibility of using this method for future studies are included. / Thesis (Ph.D, Nursing) -- Queen's University, 2013-07-03 11:39:54.603

Reading aloud is something that is considered important for children's linguistic development, although I have experienced that reading is something that has rarely taken place in the teaching context I´ve found myself in. I therefore chose to study how the attitude to reading aloud looks among selected teachers at the lower secondary school. The purpose of my thesis is to investigate how often pedagogues use reading aloud. I also want to investigate how the pedagogues proceed with the selection of text or book for their reading aloud and how the educator connects his or hers reading to the curriculum. My choice to gather information is based on a selected framing of questions through three semi-structured interviews in which three teachers from grade 1, 2 and 3 participates. All educators practice reading aloud but the scope and purpose varies slightly. All participants share the same view of reading aloud, they say that it’s important and meaningful. I’ve also used a survey to get a broader view of the topic. The result is clear; most of the pedagogues who participated in the survey uses reading aloud for their students, similar to the interviews the scope varied. My personal teaching experience thus differs from the results that the survey provides. / Högläsning är något som anses vara viktigt för barns språkliga utveckling. Trots detta har jag upplevt att högläsning är något som sällan ägt rum i de undervisningssammanhang jag befunnit mig i. Jag valde därför att studera hur inställningen till högläsning ser ut bland utvalda pedagoger på lågstadiet. Syftet med mitt examensarbete är således att undersöka hur ofta pedagogen arbetar med högläsning på lågstadiet. Jag vill även undersöka hur pedagogen går tillväga vid valet av text eller bok till sin högläsning och hur pedagogen kopplar sin högläsning till läroplanen. I min studie använder jag mig av tre semistrukturerade intervjuer där tre respondenter från årskurs 1, 2 samt 3 medverkar för att samla information om valda frågeställningar. Samtliga pedagoger använder sig av högläsning, men omfattningen och syftet varierar något. Respondenterna ser på högläsning som något viktigt och betydelsefullt. Jag använder mig även av en enkätstudie för att få en bredare syn på ämnet. Precis som vid resultatet för intervjuerna, är resultatet vid enkätundersökningen tydligt; de flesta av pedagogerna som medverkade i enkätundersökningen högläser för sina elever, och likt intervjuerna varierade omfattningen något. Min personliga pedagogiska erfarenhet skiljer sig således från resultaten som undersökningen ger.

This study examined the effects of a computer CD-ROM storybook program on 73 Head Start children in Logan, Utah. A variation on the two-group pretest/posttest design was used to determine if there was any increase in emergent literacy skills after spending an average of 15 minutes per day for an average of 12 days on the computer. Previous research suggests that a child's home environment is integral to the preschool child 's emergent literacy development. A parent questionnaire designed for assessing information regarding the child 's I iterate environment at home was administered. Mean scores indicated that those children scoring highest on an aggregate score of four questions from the parental questionnaire also scored highest on three assessments of emergent literacy, supporting previous research that children who have been read to at home are more prepared to learn reading in the classroom. Posttest scores indicated an increase in scores for the experimental group over the not-well-read-to control group on all three assessments. Two of the three measures indicated statistically significant differences from the well-read-to control group (p = < .05). One of the most interesting findings, however, was that the experimental group's assessment scores increased over the not-well-read-to control group, but did not exceed the well-read-to control group's scores, further supporting the evidence discussed above that children who are read to in the home have an advantage over those children who are not. From these results, it was determined that computers cannot take the place of effective instruction in the home; however, when used appropriately in the classroom, the results of this study suggest that it is useful to integrate computers in the preschool classroom to augment the emergent literacy instruction already taking place.