Date of Award
11-21-2014
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
School Name
Annsley Frazier Thornton School of Education
Department
Education
Major Advisor
Dr. Kathleen S. Cooter
Second Advisor
Dr. Robert B. Cooter
Third Advisor
Dr. Theresa Magpuri-Lavell
Fourth Advisor
Dr. Grant Smith
Fifth Advisor
Dr. Marco Muñoz
Abstract
The persistent achievement gap between children from low-socioeconomic and mid- to upper-socioeconomic homes is evident in both national and statewide literacy assessments. Although the summer months away from school are part of the problem, they also hold the potential for an effective solution. Interventions that accelerate literacy development during summer vacation, particularly for children of low-socioeconomic status, have the potential to shift the educational trajectory of our most at-risk students. We investigated the effect of a four-week summer oral language and literacy intervention on the literacy development of rising first grade students from at-risk elementary schools in Jefferson County Public School system located in Louisville, Kentucky. The participants included 95 rising first grade students attending the summer intervention; and 92 students eligible for attendance, but whose families did not register them for voluntary participation. Trained interventionists administered the six tasks of the Observation Survey (Clay, 2002, 2005) to both groups of students in May of their kindergarten year and again in August of their first grade year. The tasks included letter identification, a word test, concepts about print, hearing and recording sounds in words, writing vocabulary, and text level reading. A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted with the posttest data to determine the effect of the summer intervention. The analysis indicated there were significant differences between the treatment and comparison groups in each of the six tasks, demonstrating a positive effect of the summer oral language and literacy intervention.
Recommended Citation
Stevens, Mary Beth, "The Effect of a Summer Oral Language and Literacy Intervention on the Literacy Acquisition of At-Risk First Grade Emergent Readers" (2014). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Capstones. 3.
https://scholarworks.bellarmine.edu/tdc/3
Included in
Curriculum and Instruction Commons, Curriculum and Social Inquiry Commons, Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Commons, Elementary Education and Teaching Commons, Urban Education Commons