The purpose of this study was to examine the relation between childrens use of nonmainstream dialect and their emerging reading ability. The data were from 79 kindergarteners; 39 were AA and 40 were non-AA; 38 were male and 41 were female. All children presented with varying language abilities and dialect densities, as measured by the DELV-ST. Dialect densities ranged from Mainstream American English (MAE), some variation of MAE, and strong variations of MAE. The childrens reading abilities were measured by the DIBELS, which was administered at the beginning, middle, and end of the school year.
Preliminary results showed that childrens mean DIBELS scores significantly increased over time. In addition, their mean reading scores were above benchmark cutoff scores at all testing sessions, indicating that on average, the nonmainstream English-speaking kindergarteners were not at risk for reading failure. When analyzed by race and gender, a main effect was found for race but not gender. Given this, analyses were completed on the AA and non-AA children separately to examine the relationship between the childrens dialect ratings and their emerging reading abilities.
For both the AA and non-AA groups, their childrens rates of nonmainstream dialect density were related to their DIBELS scores. This finding was documented in two ways. First, for both races, the children who earned low DELV-ST ratings produced higher DIBELS scores than those who earned moderate and high DELV-ST scores. Second, for both races, there was a negative correlation between the childrens DELV-ST ratings and their DIBELS scores. Nevertheless, an item analysis of the GFTA suggested minimal overlap between the childrens nonmainstream English productions and the target sounds included within the items of the DIBELS.
Together these findings suggest that childrens nonmainstream dialect use negatively relates to their reading abilities, and this negative relationship exists for both AA and non-AA children. This negative relationship also exits in spite of finding minimal overlap between the childrens nonmainstream sound productions and the target sounds included within the items on the DIBELS.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-04272012-093750 |
| Date | 10 May 2012 |
| Creators | Rodrigue, Katelyn Danielle |
| Contributors | Oetting, Janna B., Norris, Janet A., Hoffman, Paul R. |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-04272012-093750/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein 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 LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, 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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