Date of Award
2003
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Programs for Higher Education
Advisor
Dennis Triplett
Committee Member
James Ann Lynch
Committee Member
Barbara Packer
Keywords
balanced literacy, center rotation, control groups, daily oral language, English classrooms, experimental groups, experimental study, grade-level improvement, guided reading, high school students, high schools, literacy education, miscue analysis, ninth grade, program evaluation, reading achievement, reading development, reading skills, reading strategies, shared reading, statistical significance, traditional classrooms
Abstract
This report describes the evaluation of an existing program that uses balanced literacy in ninth grade English classrooms to accelerate the reading development of students entering high school reading below grade level. This evaluation consisted of two target goals for the program. Goal one set a target improvement standard of two full grade levels of improvement for students reading at or below the sixth grade level upon entering high school, and one full grade level of improvement for students reading at the seventh grade level. Goal two dictated a standard of statistical significance between the mean reading ability of an experimental group and control group.
Strategies for improving reading achievement included (a) guided reading, (b) shared reading, (c) daily oral language, and (d) center rotation. This project was an experimental study employing randomly selected control and experimental groups.
The overall goal of this project, accelerating reading development for students deficient in reading, was met. Students entering high school reading on a sixth grade level or below improved their reading ability by 2.52 grade levels while engaged in balanced literacy. Finally, balanced literacy students out-gained control group members randomly drawn from traditional classrooms not utilizing balanced literacy by one full grade level.