Literacy specialists have evolved into commanding a unique status as leaders of the school's overall literacy program. Situated within Ohio's Core Project, literacy specialists were responsible for assuming leadership by helping to develop the knowledge, skills, and dispositions essential for excellent literacy teaching in K-3 classrooms across the state. They were expected to present a core curriculum to their colleagues, particpate in peer coaching and assist with research and evaluation activities. This inquiry was conducted to discover to what extent literacy specialists were able to carry out the intended goals of the Project. What were literacy specialists doing their roles and what were some of the most critical ecological conditions that supported or constrained them as they functioned? This multifaceted study of between 20-34 literacy specialists located in five separate geographic locations in the state verified that literacy specialists were able to carry out the Core Project's goals to a large degree. Results showed that they have an integrative role, encompassing significant amounts of leadership activities including making professional development presentations and modeling lessons and lesser amounts of instruction and assessment. The ecological conditions they reported as supporting and constraining them as they performed their roles were most closely associated with those that thad to do with the impact they were having on their participants and their collaboration with others to be more effective in their roles.
Results of this study showed that when the goals of the project were more clearly understood by everyone involved; when professional development and coaching were reported as meaningful to the participants and when district suport was stronger, literacy specialists reported increased time spent at higher levels of efficacy. The school's culture and teacher willingness were also conditions that further promoted the level of sophistication at which literacy specialists functioned in their role. The implications of this study were described in terms of how policies and initiatives can build the individual capacity of literacy specialists and the local school's capacity for increasing literacy performance excellence in their schools.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-08012005-130200 |
| Date | 15 August 2005 |
| Creators | Taylor, Mary Jo |
| Contributors | Margaret McMackin, Ph.D., Charlene Trovato, Ph.D., Charles J. Gorman, Ed.D., Rita Bean, Ph.D. |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-08012005-130200/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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