Date of Award
2003
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Programs for Higher Education
Advisor
Carolyn Buckenmaier
Committee Member
Clifford Claiborne
Committee Member
Barbara Packer
Keywords
achievement, Alabama, assessment, comprehension, Direct Instruction, Edward T. Davis Elementary School, elementary school students, Grade 1, Grade 2, Grades 3-6, home-school literacy connection, intervention outcomes, literacy, Montgomery, phonemic awareness, proficiency, public school, reading, reading ability, reading comprehension, reading interventions, reading proficiency, reading vocabulary, research-based reading instruction, rewards program, schoolwide program, student achievement, teacher training, vocabulary development
Abstract
This applied dissertation focused on a schoolwide program of reading interventions that was implemented to increase the reading ability of elementary school students at Edward T. Davis Elementary School in Montgomery, Alabama. These interventions included (a) teacher training in research based reading instruction; (b) the implementation of Direct Instruction (Englemann, 1996); (c) the implementation of additional reading time, (d) a student reward program, and (e) a home-school literacy connection.
The school is a public school with a population of 697 students in Grades Kindergarten through 6. An analysis of formal and informal data such as the Stanford Achievement Test (American Psychological Corporation, 2000), the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy (University of Oregon, 2002), the Qualitative Reading Inventory (Leslie & Caldwell, 2000) and the Star Reading Assessment (Advantage Learning Systems, 1996) showed that the majority of students at Edward T. Davis Elementary School were behind one or more grade-levels in reading.
The outcome of this applied dissertation was that the majority of students showed gains in phonemic awareness, reading vocabulary, and reading comprehension. Terminal objective 1 which stated that 50% of the targeted students in Grades 3 through 6 would show reading increases was achieved. Terminal objective 2 which stated that 100% of Grade 1 and 2 targeted students would show reading proficiency was not achieved; however, 76% of the targeted first- and second-grade students did reach proficiency.