The Pathways to Literacy reading program (Lee, Mims, & Browder, 2011) has been demonstrated to be effective at increasing both engagement and comprehension during shared storybook reading for students with exceptional needs. To date, research on Pathways to Literacy has been limited to students in early elementary school rather than preschool, which is when shared reading is usually emphasized as part of the general education curriculum. In these investigations, the reading program has been administered in one-on-one instructional settings, often in special education classrooms. No existing research has examined the ability of participating students to generalize newly learned skills to novel adapted books. The current study seeks to add to the literature by investigating the use of the Pathways to Literacy reading program in inclusive preschool settings. Three questions were addressed. First, using a multiple baseline design across three students, the question of whether or not the reading program remained effective for the target student when introduced in this new setting was asked. Second, whether or not the target students were able to generalize their skills in the areas of engagement, listening comprehension, and communication was addressed via the introduction of novel adapted books. Finally, teachers' perceptions of the reading program were explored. Of particular interest were questions related to what changes they would recommend so that the reading program can be used in this new setting. Results suggest that the Pathways to Literacy reading program was effective in increasing both engagement and listening comprehension and communication for the targeted preschool students and these skills generalized to novel adapted books. Pre- and post-intervention interviews suggest that the teachers found the goals, procedures, and outcomes of the Pathways to Literacy reading program were generally appropriate for preschool students.

This study was conducted to expand the field's understanding of how various preschool teacher practices can foster emergent literacy growth as needed to prevent widespread reading difficulties and how teachers' educational backgrounds can influence the use of such practices. Utilizing a national dataset from the Preschool Curriculum Evaluation Research project, hierarchical linear modeling was employed to examine the relationship between 259 teachers' practices and 1,723 students' oral language, phonological awareness, and print knowledge growth from fall to spring of the preschool year. Data was collected at 18 geographical sites across the country. A number of statistically significant relationships were observed between children's development in critical emergent literacy domains and teachers' language and literacy instructional practices (i.e., book reading practices, oral language use, phonological awareness instruction, and print and letter knowledge instruction), differentiated instruction planning, and teacher-child social interactions. The effects of teachers' practices were specific to each emergent literacy outcome, and a few findings suggest that the quality, rather than the quantity, of instruction may be more important for certain child outcomes. Some significant Child X Instruction effects were also found. Optimal book reading practices were found to be exceptionally beneficial for children who start the year with far below average (below the 5th percentile) oral language skills, and children with below average (below the 10th percentile) print knowledge skills at preschool entry benefitted more considerably when their teachers adeptly planned differentiated instruction. Furthermore, differentiated instruction planning and less permissiveness were both observed to moderate the effect that book reading practices had on children's print knowledge gains. Despite the evidence that a comprehensive repertoire of teacher practices is needed to alter children's emergent literacy developmental trajectories toward greater reading success, average national teacher practices were less than ideal. Although teachers' educational backgrounds were generally found to have no substantial relationship with teachers' practices, a positive relationship between specific coursework in early childhood education and aspects of teachers' language and literacy instruction was observed. Possible reasons for teachers' current implementation of practices are explored, and implications for future research, practice, and policy are discussed.

Early writing during pre-kindergarten is increasingly the subject of basic research and applied classroom practice. Findings from multiple disciplines highlight the role of young children’s print-related skills in predicting and enhancing later literacy abilities.

This growing body of research, however, lacks a refined model of writing development for this age group. Moreover, the early literacy field needs streamlined, valid assessments of writing progression from scribble lines to letters, first words, and sentences.

In this study I investigate the writing development of 62 children (ages 3 and 4) across six months in a state-funded pre-K program. The Play Plan, a daily activity from the Tools of the Mind curriculum that includes children’s speech, drawing, and writing, served as the source of repeated measures. I created a synthetic, 10-point coding system (Early Writing-10; EW10) to score the continuum of early writing across an average of 16 weekly samples per child. The inter-coder agreement was excellent (r = .94, p < .001). Findings from Hierarchical Linear Modeling demonstrate that growth in early writing was substantial, highly variable, and often rapid across the 24 weeks sampled. The overall shape of the trajectory yielded significant linear, quadratic, cubic, and quartic trends. Among predictor variables, only name-writing ability, assessed at school entry, strongly predicted writing scores at the end of the investigation, but univariate analyses showed higher writing abilities for 4-year-olds than 3-year-olds. Three trajectory profiles of early writing development were categorized: slower, incremental, and rapid.

Future steps include examining the trajectory scores as predictors of subsequent literacy development, evaluating the EW10 scoring system in larger and more diverse samples, and extending it to more advanced writing development in kindergarten. I discuss implications for a developmental model of early writing and for the use of early writing assessments by researchers and educators.

Abstract

Orthographic Learning Through Self-Teaching: Effects of Decoding Accuracy, Decoding Speed, Word Length, Morphology, and Individual Differences

by

Maria Deborah Callahan

Doctor of Philosophy in Education

University of California, Berkeley

Professor Anne E. Cunningham, Chair

The self-teaching hypothesis (Share, 1995) posits that readers learn the orthography of new words incidentally through the process of phonological recoding. In the current study, the

self-teaching hypothesis was tested by simulating everyday reading through the use of real and pseudowords, analyzing the effects of syllable length, and considering the independent contributions of general cognitive ability, including rapid naming ability and prior orthographic knowledge. A total of 94 second grade children were presented with 24 pseudoword targets over a 7-week period, each embedded 4 times within a short passage to be read aloud and independently. The targets varied by length (containing 1, 2, or 3 syllables) and by morphological legality (with real affixes or fabricated affixes). Findings indicated that the length of a word and its morphological legality significantly influenced decoding speed and accuracy. Shorter words were read faster and more accurately than longer words, although the difference in accuracy between 2- and 3-syllable words was only seen in the morphologically illegal condition. In all cases, morphologically legal words were read faster and more accurately than their morphologically illegal counterparts. A week after encountering a new pseudoword, the children were assessed for orthographic learning using two measures--an orthographic choice task and a naming task. Children demonstrated robust orthographic learning on the orthographic choice posttest for all words, regardless of word length or morphological legality, and for 2- and 3-syllable words on the naming posttest. There were no word length effects on posttest performance, however morphologically legal words resulted in more orthographic learning on the orthographic choice task than their illegal counterparts. In order to examine mediating factors that may contribute to children's orthographic learning, measures of vocabulary, prior orthographic knowledge rapid automatized naming, morphological awareness, and print exposure were administered. Children were also given tests to measure individual levels of vocabulary, prior orthographic knowledge, rapid automatized naming, morphological awareness, and print exposure. These factors, along with decoding speed, decoding accuracy, morphological legality, and word length were then analyzed for the contributions to orthographic learning using hierarchical linear and logistic regression models. Consistent with prior research, decoding accuracy and prior orthographic knowledge were the most powerful independent predictors of orthographic learning. The trajectories of decoding speed and accuracy across 4 exposures to a new word were also examined. It was observed that decoding duration time drops off dramatically after the first encounter and, intriguingly, that children tend to stay with their first pronunciation of a word, accurate or inaccurate.

Although inequities are rooted across the educational ecosystem, access to high-quality learning represents a salient inroad for improving marginalized students’ educational experiences. However, preparing teachers to enact equity-centered pedagogy—that which renders high-quality learning accessible to all students—remains a multidimensional problem with a dearth of empirically supported solutions. Given special educators’ central role in supporting marginalized students’ learning, ensuring that special educator preparation supports the development of an equity-centered practice is of particular importance.

Therefore, this study examines Teacher Study Groups (TSGs) as a model for building preservice special educators’ practice and, in doing so, examines the underlying processes of preservice learning that result in instructional improvements. My conceptual framework articulated communities of practice theory with empirical research on teacher learning and the conception of critically inclusive pedagogy, which cross-pollinates access- (i.e., Universal Design for Learning) and asset-based (e.g., culturally sustaining pedagogy) paradigms.

To understand the underlying processes that preservice teachers’ traverse as they build capacity in critically inclusive practices, I studied preservice teachers’ participation in a course-embedded TSG. Through a convergent mixed methods design, I examined 60 preservice teachers’ instructional quality prior to and following participation, along with their knowledge, attitudes, and knowledge calibration, as well as teaching artifacts and reflections shared during weekly sessions. In alignment with a convergent approach, I first analyzed quantitative and qualitative data separately, and I then integrated data through a joint display analysis to generate meta-inferences. Results indicated that participants significantly improved practice and foregrounded salient participatory experiences that hindered and facilitated participants’ professional growth. I conclude with a discussion of implications for equity-centered teacher preparation.

Early care and education quality is a complex, multi-faceted construct consisting of multiple dimensions, such as: 1) emotional climate, 2) instructional supports, 3) learning formats, 4) assessment practices, and 5) support for families (e.g., Bulotsky-Shearer, Wen, Faria, Hahs-Vaughn, & Korfmacher, 2012; Copple & Bredekamp, 2009; LoCasale-Crouch, et al., 2007). Each of these dimensions represents separate but interrelated aspects of classroom quality that exist as part of an ecological system. Individual teachers may vary widely in the levels of support they provide across domains (Curby, Rimm-Kaufman, & Ponitz, 2009). The present study used profile analysis to identify distinct patterns of quality across multiple dimensions in a national sample of early care and education settings (N = 283 classrooms). Five distinct profiles emerged, which were differentially related to teacher/program background characteristics such as teacher education, beliefs, self-efficacy, salary, and program type. Profile membership was also predictive of child outcomes (N = 2,604) at the end of the preschool and kindergarten year. For academic outcomes, the most optimal gains were seen in the profile with high levels of quality overall, particularly in the area of instructional supports. For social-emotional outcomes, this profile was statistically similar to other profiles with above average levels of quality in emotional climate and support for families. These findings are discussed within the context of implications for policy and practice.

Many words in English resemble each other in multiple ways. When these words have similar spelling, they are referred to as orthographic neighbors. The purpose of this within-subject experimental study was to examine the effect of orthographic neighbors on the acquisition of spelling, more specifically constructing orthographic representations of words. Five questions will be addressed in the study: (1) Is there an effect of orthographic neighbors on the acquisition of orthographic representations? (2 Is there an effect of phoneme-to-grapheme consistency on spelling acquisition? (3) Is there an effect of delay on spelling acquisition? (4) Can participants’ ability to learn spelling improve without specific instruction? (5) Are there interactions between the effects of orthographic processing ability and the effects of rime, substitution, and transposition neighbors on participants’ spelling acquisition?

Seventy-one second grade students in northern California participated in the study. Following assessment of participants’ cognitive ability, five sessions of a computer-based experiment were conducted. In each session, the participants were shown two base words and attempted to learn seven new words. The seven new words included control words (without orthographic neighbors: no connection with the corresponding base word) and target words (representing various types of connections with the corresponding base word). Each new word was presented three times for five seconds in random order. Orthographic choice and spelling tasks were used to assess orthographic learning via the orthographic choice and spelling tasks. Each task was administered twice: immediately after the experiment and two days after the experiment.

Three-level logistics regression with random effects for sessions and participants were used to analyze the data. The model allows between-student variation in learning outcomes due to the individual differences among participants and contextual effects at the session level. The outcome variable was participants’ performance on the orthographic choice and spelling tasks. Level 1 included the words’ characteristics, Level 2 the sessions’ characteristics, and Level 3 the participants’ characteristics. In addition, random coefficients of effects of neighbors (Rime, Substitution, Transposition) and the cross-level interaction between orthographic neighbors and the participants’ orthographic processing ability were considered.

The effect of rime neighbors on participants’ performance were found in both the orthographic choice and the spelling tasks. The effects of substitution and transposition neighbors existed only for participants’ performance on the orthographic choice tasks. The facilitative effect of phoneme-to-grapheme consistency was found in the orthographic choice tasks, but not in the spelling tasks. The effect of delay was found both in the orthographic choice tasks and the spelling tasks. Orthographic processing was as a significant predictor for participants’ performance on all four posttests. A significant interaction between orthographic processing and rime neighbors was observed in both spelling tasks. The findings demonstrate that second-grade students can use orthographic analogies to facilitate their orthographic learning and that orthographic processing is an important cognitive ability for spelling acquisition.

Abstract

Vocabulary Development through Shared Storybook Reading with Preschool Parents

by

Mary Kathryn Requa

Doctor of Philosophy in Special Education

University of California, Berkeley

Professor Anne E. Cunningham, Chair

The goal of this study was to examine the efficacy of an intervention designed to teach parents vocabulary learning strategies to incorporate into their storybook reading with their preschool children. The group differences between children whose parents participated in the intervention (treatment group) and children whose parents who did not attend the intervention (comparison group) were tested. Additionally, within the treatment group, parents provided both elaborated and non-elaborated vocabulary instruction to their children. The impact of each type of instruction was examined. Twenty-four target words were selected from four storybooks. Within the treatment group, 12 words were taught using the elaborated technique and 12 words were taught using the non-elaborated method. Word-level analysis was employed to compare differences in treatment children’s acquisition of elaborated (n = 12) and non-elaborated (n = 12) conditions. Finally, the effect of frequency of vocabulary learning (reading storybooks two or four times each week) was also compared between the treatment and comparison groups. Participants in each condition were randomly assigned to read four designated storybooks two or four times each week over the course of four weeks.

Participants included 69 parents and their three- to four-year-old children who attended Head Start preschools. Children were initially matched on pretest measures of verbal ability using the Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test-4th Edition (EOWPVT – 4; Gardner, 2010), a measure of single-word expressive vocabulary, and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test–Fourth Edition (PPVT – 4; Dunn & Dunn, 2012), a measure of single-word receptive vocabulary, and then randomly assigned to a treatment or comparison group.

To measure children’s knowledge of 24 target words presented in four pre-selected storybooks, a researcher-designed assessment, Big Words for Little People (BWLP), was used at three different time points; before the intervention, after the intervention, and 14 days following the intervention.

Across three one-hour workshops, parents in the treatment group were taught to implement elaborated vocabulary instruction that emphasized precise definitions, synonyms, and examples of word meanings and non-elaborated vocabulary instruction that emphasized simple, incidental definitions of words during shared storybook reading. Families in the treatment group received four books (one each week) with scripted adhesive labels pasted onto pages of the text where the targeted words first appeared. Six target words appeared in each storybook; parents presented three words in the elaborated instructional method and three words in the non-elaborated method during shared storybook reading interactions. Families in the comparison group received the same storybooks but without adhesive labels, they had no knowledge of the targeted words, and they received no instruction regarding the word learning strategies.

The findings of this research suggest that parents’ participation in the treatment intervention positively enhanced the vocabulary growth of their children compared to the comparison group. Fourteen days following intervention, children of treatment parents demonstrated sustained targeted vocabulary knowledge. No significant differences in the acquisition of targeted vocabulary words between the elaborated and non-elaborated instructional techniques were observed for children of treatment parents. Also, no significant differences were observed between frequency of repeated text exposure (two versus four readings).

In short, results of this efficacy study suggest that an intervention teaching parents to use elaborated and non-elaborated instruction of unfamiliar words during shared storybook interactions with their children is a viable mechanism for fostering vocabulary learning at home in preschool aged children.

Key words: Shared storybook reading, emergent literacy, elaborated and non-elaborated vocabulary instruction, frequency

Many children in the United States suffer from mental health issues, and an even larger number have milder social-emotional difficulties that require support (Blanchard, Gurka, & Blackman, 2006; Child Mind Institute, 2011; Knopf, Park, & Mulye, 2008). Although school-based interventions to address these issues can be effective (Mills et al., 2006), the systems used to identify and treat children are lacking. Current research and trends in education, such as the Response to Intervention (RTI) model, support the use of broad screeners that are efficient and accessible, and that solicit young children's own reports of their well-being. In the current study, a self-survey of social-emotional problems, the How Am I Feeling Survey (HAIFS) was constructed, piloted, analyzed, and revised, with many promising results. The HAIFS was administered to students (N = 392) in Grades 1 through 3, across 31 classrooms in 5 schools. Student responses on the HAIFS demonstrated high levels of internal consistency, structural integrity, and concurrent validity. Parent and teacher reports of child functioning had small positive correlations with child reports and small to moderate correlations with one another. Child self-reports on the HAIFS did not predict performance on standardized tests, which can be explained by a number of factors. Implications of these findings for practice and policy and areas for further research are also explored.

In this qualitative study, in-depth interviews were conducted with 17 sets of parents who have children with cancer. Measures were used to assess how schools may or may not have supported these families during this time.

For the case studies, data were collected using parent demographic surveys, parent interviews, child interviews, and principal and educator surveys. Likert scales were included in surveys given to parents and teachers. When appropriate, information from one data source was used to substantiate and expand upon information provided by another.

In this study, the research data was examined using two complementing models, Bronfenbrenner's (Bronfenbrenner, 1994) bioecological model and McCubbin and Patterson's (1983) Double ABCX model. Both models examine the effects of "over an extended period of time" (Bronfenbrenner, 2001). The bioecological model emphasizes family interactions amongst themselves and other systems, including schools. It examines the interplay between three systems, the family, hospital, and school and how these interactions affect the family and the child with cancer.

McCubbin and Patterson's (1983) Double ABCX model of families examines the impact of the original stressor on a family according to a pile up of stressors, the family's perception of resources, and their management of these resources and stressors. The philosophy of moral pedagogy, where the virtues relative to the process of teaching are congruent with the personal values of the teacher, further serves to assess the relationship between the school and the family (Sockett, 1993). Noddings'(1992) ethic of care is taken into consideration when examining the school-parent relationship in terms of moral pedagogy. Noddings defines caring as a connection or encounter between two human beings. Within the school setting, the student and his/her family have had experiences which may or may not include moral pedagogy. The major goal of this study was to assess whether schools are a stressor or resource for families using the Double ABCX and the bioecological models. .Results generated ideas about how the educational system can work more effectively with families.