This research study was designed to investigate good readers' perceptions of what it means to read and the processes by which they became good readers. The theory informing this study comes from work across several disciplines: reading research, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and developmental and cognitive psychology. The researcher became a participant observer in two fifth-grade classrooms over a period of five months. During this time, the researcher engaged in ethnographic interviewing with the six good readers and their parents. The researcher employed a number of qualitative methods designed to gather information pertinent to the research questions proposed: participant observation, interviewing, audio-recording, triangulation procedures and general qualitative case study methods. The six good readers were studied in-depth from a social and academic context of school and from the context of home and family interactions. All of these observations and interviews contributed to the analysis of the qualitative data and consequent emerging themes. / The emerging themes derived from the qualitative data were: Learning About Reading, Learning to Read and Engaging in Reading. / The following conclusions were generated from the analysis of data collected during the observation and interviews with the teachers, parents and students: (1) early social interactions with parents in storyreading nurtured a love of reading, confidence in learning to read, encouragement and acceptance in the process of becoming a reader and establishing a positive attitude toward reading, (2) exposure to books with parents enhanced the good readers' understanding of language conventions, concepts of print and the language used to talk about reading, (3) the school context and the teacher's language and behaviors influenced the good reader's perceptions of reading and learning to read, (4) interest, self-confidence and motivation appeared to be of primary importance in becoming a good reader, (5) good readers perceived themselves to be good readers when they were free to self-select books and actively pursue knowledge on their own, (6) the good readers shared common understandings and beliefs about learning to read and the reading process. From the good readers' perspectives reading empowered them to become active learners. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-03, Section: A, page: 0860. / Major Professor: Diana Scott. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_76343 |
| Contributors | Brannon, Pamela Anne Kahlich., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 303 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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