published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

Mass media such as television, video players, video games, compact disks, and the computers are commonplace in current American culture. For English as a Second Language children, television may be the only source of English in the home serving as models of grammar, syntax, story structure. An investigation was made using English as a Second Language (ESL) kindergarteners, the classroom writing center, participant-observation, teacher as researcher, and case study methodology to investigate the following questions: Do ESL kindergarten children use media in their writing? If so, how do they use media in their writing? Upon examination of the data, it was found that all these ESL children did use media in the writing process. The function and form of the media references varied from child to child. Media was a cultural context for the childrenÕs social interactions. Oral language (with and without media references) not only informed the writing for some, but also served: to initiate, participate in, and sustain social relationships with peers. Findings indicated that two case study subjects used social dialogue as a separate operation from the production of a written story. Language informed the writing but it also had a socialization function in addition to what the writing needs were. The social aspects of literacy beyond language used to inform the writing is a topic suggested for further research.

Over the past 20 years, the United States has seen a rapid increase in school age students entering PK-12 schools for whom English is not their primary home language. These students are known as English learners (ELs). In Oregon, 77% of ELs speak Spanish and constitute the largest minority group, 21% of the total K-12 student enrollment in 2011-2012. With such potential for bilingualism in schools, bilingual teachers should be prepared to teach biliteracy effectively, especially in the early school years when students learn to read. There is an increasing demand for bilingual teachers in Oregon each year to teach in bilingual programs, particularly at the primary grade levels. However, for the most part, the emphasis of instruction and teacher preparation is on developing student English skills rather than supporting bilingualism (Flores, Sheets, & Clark, 2011; Macedo, Dendrinos, & Gounari, 2003; Wink, 2005). There is a need in Oregon to effectively prepare bilingual teachers who can help Spanish-speaking students develop biliteracy skills in the early grades. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore in depth the lived experiences among Oregon bilingual reading specialists in relation to biliteracy. The research question was "How do bilingual reading specialists understand the phenomena of teaching biliteracy to bilingual students?" Three themes emerged from the interviews conducted: collaboration, language and caring. The insights gained from the lived experiences of bilingual reading specialists can allow teacher educators, school district personnel, and state policy makers to better understand the phenomenon of developing biliteracy and change the way we prepare bilingual teachers in Oregon regarding biliteracy pedagogy. Recommendations are offered for stakeholders, such as the need to include courses in biliteracy as part of the initial teaching license, deliver courses in Spanish, and provide practicum experiences that prepare bilingual teachers and reading specialists to collaborate with colleagues and families. Also, it is important that some of the strategies identified at the state level as part of the English Learner Strategic Plan specifically focus on biliteracy and dual language programs.

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

No description available.

The primary purpose of this study was to determine if the implementation of an intervention involving teachers' use of children's literature, related storybook manipulatives, and a scaffolding (LMS) approach to learning would improve preschool children's mathematics test scores. Additionally, the LMS approach was examined to determine whether teachers' perceptions of their effectiveness in mathematics instruction changed from the beginning to the end of the study. The subjects of the study included 60 preschool-aged children and six teachers from two child care centers. The preschool teachers participated in either a control or experimental condition (the LMS approach) in their daily mathematics instruction with their preschool children. The researcher tested the children using the Test of Early Mathematics Ability and an abbreviated version of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale. The study was based on two main research questions. The first question asked if there was a difference in the Test of Early Mathematics Ability total posttest scores between children in the literature-manipulatives-scaffolding intervention group and children in the control group after assuring equivalency of the two groups. The second question addressed if preschool teachers believed they were more effective in their mathematics instruction after implementing the LMS approach with young children. The answer to the first research question was that there was no statistically significant difference in the Test of Early Mathematics Ability total posttest scores between children in the literature-manipulatives-scaffolding group and children in the control group. However, the answer to the second question was that preschool teachers believed they were more effective in their mathematics instruction after implementing the LMS approach with young children. Recommendations for future research on early childhood mathematics include the investigation of preschool children's ability, achievement, and interest in mathematics; teachers' use of mathematics scaffolding techniques; and longitudinal mathematics interventions beginning during the preschool years.

A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of Arts University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in partial fulfilment for the Degree of Master of Arts in Speech-Language Pathology. / This dissertation explores the role of the speech-language therapist in second language acquisition. The motivation for the study arose out of recent political changes in South Africa, which led to desegregated education, and the need for young children to cope with English as the medium of instruction from the start of their schooling. The aim was to determine whether language intervention provided by a speech-language therapist significantly improved the English proficiency of a group of black pre-school children. A pre-test, post-test, centrol group experimental design was employed. The comprehension and expression of English vocabulary and syntax of thirty, three to six year old subjects was assessed using a modified version of the Test of Auditory Comprehension of Language-Revised (Carrow, 3.988), a newly devised vocabulary measure, as well as crystal's (1982) Profile in Lexical Semantics, and the Language Assessment Remediation and Screening Procedure (crystal et aL, 1989). The results showed that the English proficiency of the group of children who received language intervention from a speech-language therapist, improved significantly more than that of the first control group, who received only additional input in English, and the second control group, who received no input beyond that provided through the regular pre-school programme. The positive results of this research can now be applied to the teaching of languages other than English, and the training of teachers who would like to improve their skills at facilitating language acquisition. / Andrew Chakane 2018

The primary aim of this study was to investigate the effects of two video-based interventions, one guided, the other non-guided, on pre-service early childhood education teachers' understanding of students' mathematical thinking. Five web-based lessons on various topics in children's mathematical development were created for this study. Each contained a short reading introducing a videotaped clinical interview of a young child performing a mathematical task. The unguided group then watched a 2-minute video, while the guided group watched the same video segmented into short clips and then answered open-ended questions at each break. The main goal was to examine the effectiveness of the use of videotaped clinical interviews in professional development. More specifically, I was interested in the types of experiences offered by the guided and unguided versions, as compared to those of the control group. The results of this study showed that both the guided- and unguided-video experiences were successful in changing the way prospective teachers interpreted children's mathematical thinking. While the results show it was possible to use videos to improve prospective teachers' interpretive abilities, it was not possible to improve their ability to apply the interpretations to developing appropriate teaching activities.

The objective of Experiment I was to determine whether establishing conditioned reinforcement for engaging in math for pre-kindergarten students was possible using the three conditioning procedures outlined in previous research for conditioning book stimuli. The purpose of Experiment II was to determine whether this change in preference for engaging in math had an effect on 6 pre-kindergarten participants’ rate of learning math. In Experiment I a counterbalanced pre- and post-intervention ABAB/BABA functional analysis and a delayed multiple probe across dyads design, was used to measure the indirect and direct reinforcement value of math for each participant. Indirect measures referred to a functional analysis where the participants’ rate of responding to a performance task during a 1-min session when Play-Doh® was delivered as a reinforcer was compared to their rate of responding when math was delivered as a reinforcement operation. Direct measures referred to the number of 5-s intervals (out of 60) each participant engaged in math when given math worksheets and Play-Doh®. The individualized reinforcement intervention consisted of a sequence of conditioning procedures until a defined successful outcome resulted. First learn units were delivered, then stimulus-stimulus pairing, and then observational conditioning-by-denial. Learn unit instruction resulted in the establishment of conditioned reinforcement for the first dyad, while the stimulus-stimulus pairing procedure was necessary for the remaining dyad. The purpose of Experiment II was to test if establishing conditioned reinforcement for math would change rate of learning. The dependent variable was each participant’s rate of learning as measured by the number of learn units required to meet mastery criterion for 4 units of the Multiple Exemplar Functional Math (MEF-Math) curriculum. The dependent variable, rate of learning, was tested using a multiple probe design. The independent variable was the establishment of conditioned reinforcement for math using individualized reinforcement procedures as detailed in Experiment I. The intervention also consisted of a multiple probe design on testing the effect of the individualized reinforcement procedures on establishing conditioned reinforcement. Three participants required learn units, 2 participants required the stimulus-stimulus pairing procedure, and 1 participant required observational conditioning-by-denial to establish conditioned reinforcement for math. Results showed an educationally significant acceleration of learning following the establishment of conditioned reinforcement for math across all 6 participants. Results are discussed in terms of the significance of early math instruction.