In this study, the researcher investigated how computer use functions as an aspect of literacy development within a second-grade classroom. The researcher sought to gather data to help define the role that computer use plays in the literacy development of elementary school students by concentrating on how computers are actually used in the classroom being studied, and by looking for relationships revealed by students' and teacher's beliefs about computer use in the classroom.

The purpose of this study was to describe the nature of reading instruction in a program using children's trade books instead of basal readers, and to identify patterns resulting in hypotheses regarding the nature of instruction. The study informs practitioners by providing descriptions of actual instruction, enabling readers to envision how reading instruction is accomplished using children's trade books, and it informs the research community by developing grounded theory concerning the nature of instruction in one literature-based reading program. The study can help bridge the polarization between traditionalists and whole language advocates through the descriptions of how traditionally accepted academic domains of reading instruction were accomplished. Also, it provides a model of a successful way to structure instructional time so that students spend more time actually reading, and it documents the social dimensions of instruction as important domain of reading instruction.

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the interactions that take place during a reading apprenticeship which facilitate the learning of reading strategies by adolescent students who are at the middle school level and are still at-risk for reading failure and to investigate how a reading apprenticeship affects reading achievement in the areas of fluency, vocabulary development, comprehension, and the self-perception of the reader. The case study was descriptive and interpretive in nature, and examined two students, each of whom was part of a one-to-one reading apprenticeship. The researcher served as participant observer in both cases and was the teacher in each of the one-to-one reading apprenticeships. The primary data set was qualitative in nature, and elements of quantitative data were also considered. Sessions included pretesting and posttesting using the Classroom Assessment of Reading Processes (Swearingen & Allen, 1997), reading from narrative or expository books, working with words, writing, and dialoguing about the reading. Reading strategies were directly taught, modeled, and reinforced by the teacher/researcher with the goal of the students internalizing the strategies and improving their reading in the areas of fluency, vocabulary development, and comprehension, as well as improving their attitudes toward reading and their …

The study was designed to determine the effect a dramatic play activity had on the content of a story retelling of kindergarten students. Approximately 35 students were randomly sampled to form experimental and control groups. Both groups engaged in a read aloud activity, followed by brief discussion, and an independent illustration of the story. The experimental group participated in a creative reenactment of the story prior to the illustration activity. Students in both groups then retold the story to the researcher. Retellings were transcribed and scored for: Story Retelling Analysis score (Morrow, 1988); percentage of characters recalled; percentage of plot episodes recalled; and the presence of story language, inferential statements, and a distinct beginning, middle, and end. Anecdotal data are described narratively.

The purpose of this study was to describe the behaviors of kindergarten students during Sustained Silent Reading sessions modified to be developmentally appropriate.

The problem of this study was to investigate the philosophical assumptions underlying the holistic paradigm. These underlying philosophical assumptions include beliefs about the nature of being (ontology), goals (axiology), and knowledge (epistemology). The interdependence of these assumptions, as well as how they translate into different research processes, is noted in this study.

The purpose of this study was to examine first-graders' construction of knowledge of graphophonemic and orthographic relationships. Three levels of treatment were assigned randomly to three groups of first-graders in their first semester of first grade. Treatment varied in student engagement with reading and writing texts based on student interests and in the amount of interaction students had with one another and the researcher as they read, wrote, and examined words, word patterns, and graphophonemic relationships. The study was based on a quasi-experimental nonequivalent control group design (Campbell & Stanley, 1963) with an added within-subjects factor of 12 weekly test occasions. These weekly tests involved students writing a researcher-dictated continuous text selected by students in the full-treatment group from the larger portion of text read each week. Additional elements of qualitative research were included in the design and analyses. Quantitative analyses revealed statistically significant results. Qualitative data analyses confirmed that students who interacted daily with each other and the researcher in reading and writing activities constructed more knowledge about graphophonemic and orthographic relationships than peers from the partial-treatment group and the control group. Results led to conclusions and implications involving a reexamination of current and traditional methods of spelling instruction …