Date of Award
2003
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Fischler Graduate School of Education and Human Services
Advisor
Patricia H. Grimes Smith
Committee Member
Lucille Beisner
Committee Member
Barbara Packer
Keywords
assessment data, at-risk children, Bouchet, collaborative learning, early childhood education, early intervention, early literacy, educational readiness, kindergarten children, language arts program, literacy deficits, literacy education, literacy training, low-achieving students, Miscue Analysis, parent involvement, parent training, parental involvement, reading readiness, reading skills, readiness skills, research-based strategies, sight words, student achievement, teacher assistant, teacher performance, teacher training, total language arts program
Abstract
This applied dissertation was implemented as a developmentally appropriate total language arts program to teach readiness skills to kindergarten children at risk of failure. Assessment data for the past 2 years showed literacy deficits among kindergarten students at Bouchet.
Possible causes for early reading difficulties included (a) insufficient teacher training on how to work with children who are low achievers; (b) insufficient parental involvement in the educational process; (c) lack of early literacy experiences, exposure, and skills; and (d) lack of opportunities for collaborative student learning.
The researcher conducted workshops for three kindergarten teachers, the teacher assistant, and parents on research-based strategies to improve parental involvement, teacher performance, and daily literacy and readiness skills for young children. The project was implemented with 128 participants from January 2002 through June 2002 and 110 participants from September 2002 through December 2002.
Although an intervention project, parent training and teacher training were implemented, only 2 of the 5 objectives were met. The objective of at least 70% mastery of readiness skills was met with 76.6% of the 2001 participants demonstrating 100% mastery and 71% of the 2002 participants demonstrating 100% mastery. The objective of 70% of the participants reading to Level 7 on the Miscue Analysis was not met with 89% not reading to Level 7 for 2001 and 97% not reading to Level 7 for 2002 participants. The objective of 70% of the students recognizing the 100 sight words with 70% accuracy was not met with 71.1% for 2001 and 85.5% for 2002 participants not recognizing the 100 sight words. The objective of 40% of the parents attending 3 workshops was not met with 88% for 2001 parent participants and 84% for 2002 parent participants not attending three workshops. The objective of 100% teachers and teacher assistant completing the literacy training was met.