Thesis advisor: Marina Vasilyeva / Book-reading is a common practice among teachers in developed countries; yet, little research has been done on the nature and the role of this activity in predicting children's language outcomes in developing countries with languages other than English. The present study sought to address this gap by examining preschool teachers' speech characteristics and the read-aloud strategies used in Chilean schools serving Spanish-speaking children from low-income families. The investigation expanded previously used methodology by providing a more in-depth analysis of the teachers' strategies used during book reading in preschool classrooms. It examined whether the variability in read-aloud strategies and speech characteristics predicted preschoolers' vocabulary and comprehension growth over a school year. This study was exploratory in nature and it used available Chilean Prekindergarten data from Un Buen Comienzo intervention project. As part of the project, teachers were randomly assigned to either intervention or control group, with teachers in the intervention group participating in workshops designed to improve their instructional methods. Teachers' speech characteristics and read-aloud strategies were coded based on videotaped records of reading activities in classrooms. A final list of 24 read-aloud strategy codes emerged; High and Low level composites were created to reflect different degrees of cognitive stimulation. Descriptive analysis demonstrated substantial variability in the use of read-aloud strategies and speech characteristics across teachers. Teachers in the intervention group, on average, used a greater number of diverse read-aloud strategies than teachers in the control group. Results from Hierarchical Linear Modeling analysis revealed a significant difference in the relation between the use of Read-aloud strategies and the growth of children's vocabulary as a function of condition (intervention vs. control group). Specifically, for the teachers in the intervention group, High-level read-aloud strategies were found to be a statistically significant predictor of children's vocabulary growth scores. In contrast, for teachers in the control group, this relation was not significant. Low-level read-aloud strategies and speech characteristics were not significantly related to children's language outcomes in either intervention or control group. The implications of the findings for further research on classroom linguistic environment and for teaching practices in preschool classrooms are discussed. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Counseling, Developmental, and Educational Psychology.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BOSTON/oai:dlib.bc.edu:bc-ir_101624 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Gomez Franco, Ligia E. |
| Publisher | Boston College |
| Source Sets | Boston College |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, thesis |
| Format | electronic, application/pdf |
| Rights | Copyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. |
Page generated in 0.1153 seconds