Date of Award
2003
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Programs for Higher Education
Advisor
Natalie A. Fulwider
Committee Member
Barbara Packer
Keywords
African American, attitude survey, dyslexia, high school students, letter-sound relationships, motivation, phonemic awareness, Phono-Graphix, reading, reading disabilities, reading instruction, reading program, reading skills, reading strategies, special services, unfamiliar words, word analysis skills, word recognition
Abstract
This applied dissertation was designed to provide African American high school students with a number of reading strategies that they could use when confronted with unfamiliar words. These strategies would allow the students to recognize unfamiliar words rapidly and independently. Although the participants of the host community continued to make progress academically and are currently in their expected grades they have struggled in the area of reading. None of them have been identified by school officials as students who struggle with reading consequently, these students are not receiving special services in the schools they attend. As a result, African American high school students lack the motivation needed to accomplish reading tasks, consequently, they lack the desire to read.
The writer used the Phono-Graphix reading program which was designed and developed by McGuinness, McGuinness and McGuinness (1996). This program has been designed to use explicit and systemic training in letter to sound relationship. Along with the reading program which examines the phonemic awareness skills of the participants the writer administered an attitude survey, had the participants read a reading sample and attend a four week motivational workshop.
After twenty-two weekly forty-five minute training sessions, an analysis of the data revealed that African American high school students who had difficulty identifying unfamiliar words improved their word analysis skills. This accomplishment is partially attributed to phonemic awareness training sessions. This project has demonstrated the possibility of increasing the reading skills of the older reader with the use of phonemic awareness