Date of Award
2003
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Programs for Higher Education
Advisor
Paul Terry
Committee Member
Patricia Grimes
Committee Member
Barbara Packer
Keywords
academic deficiencies, assessment tests, Barnes, beginning kindergarten students, cognitive ability, dropout rate, eighth grade, elementary schools, full-time school nurse, Grade 8, initial sound fluency, intensive instruction, kindergarten, letter-naming fluency, mean scores, New Hope Elementary School, New Hope High School, ninth grade, percentage ranges, prekindergarten, prekindergarten program, pretest data, reading readiness, reading specialist, readiness skills, reasoning abilities, research, Schweinhart, standardized tests, student performance, system average, thinking abilities, Weikart
Abstract
At New Hope Elementary School, which included Kindergarten through Grade 8, students performed below the system average on standardized tests at every grade level. The eighth-grade students left New Hope Elementary School to attend ninth grade at New Hope High School. New Hope High School received ninth-grade students from only New Hope Elementary School. In 2001-2002, New Hope High School had the highest dropout rate in the system. The academic deficiencies at New Hope High School and New Hope Elementary School were traced to the kindergarten level. Students in kindergarten scored significantly lower than the system average on 2001 state-mandated kindergarten assessment tests. Students were not entering kindergarten with sufficient readiness skills.
Interventions included the implementation of a 10-month, 1/2-day, prekindergarten program with support services provided by a full-time school nurse and a reading specialist. Research provided evidence that students who attend prekindergarten have improved cognitive ability, which increases reasoning and thinking abilities (Schweinhart, Barnes, & Weikart, 1993). Initial pretest data revealed that beginning prekindergarten students at New Hope Elementary School demonstrated a low level of readiness skills. The students received intensive instruction in reading readiness. After 6 months of instruction, the prekindergarten students improved their performance in the area of initial sound fluency and outscored the entering August 2002 kindergarten students in letter-naming fluency. The purpose of the research was to improve readiness skills of beginning kindergarten students at New Hope Elementary School. Students who had the opportunity to begin kindergarten with basic readiness skills had a greater chance of building a strong foundation for future skill development. The prekindergarten students at New Hope Elementary School improved their readiness skills.