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Description
The incorporation of electronic books (e-books) into the classroom and home of young children has been shown to have positive effects on the acquisition of early literacy skills. Dialogic reading methods, which include interactive conversations between caregiver and child about a story as it is being read, additionally are known to improve skills that lead to improved literacy during the school years. No research to date, however, has examined e-books and dialogic reading when used together. This study examines how using dialogic reading with a child reading an e-book will impact the acquisition of emergent literacy skills, particularly vocabulary knowledge and story recall ability. Twenty-three children aged 3 to 5 took part in a matched pairs experiment that included reading a select e-book four times in which half received a dialogic reading intervention. The children who received the intervention scored significantly higher in the story recall measure of the posttest than those in the control group. No differences were found between the experimental and control groups on the vocabulary measure, although mutual gains were found among both groups from the pretest to the posttest. The results suggest that dialogic reading when incorporated with e-books may improve a child's ability to recall a story. Further, the results indicate that repeated reading of the same e-book may increase vocabulary knowledge.
ContributorsFallon, Ashley Elizabeth (Author) / Connor, Carol (Thesis director) / Kupfer, Anne (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Division of Teacher Preparation (Contributor)
Created2014-12
Description
A commonly held belief among educators, researchers, and students is that high-quality texts are easier to read than low-quality texts, as they contain more engaging narrative and story-like elements. Interestingly, these assumptions have typically failed to be supported by the writing literature. Research suggests that higher quality writing is typically associated with decreased levels of text narrativity and readability. Although narrative elements may sometimes be associated with high-quality writing, the majority of research suggests that higher quality writing is associated with decreased levels of text narrativity, and measures of readability in general. One potential explanation for this conflicting evidence lies in the situational influence of text elements on writing quality. In other words, it is possible that the frequency of specific linguistic or rhetorical text elements alone is not consistently indicative of essay quality. Rather, these effects may be largely driven by individual differences in students' ability to leverage the benefits of these elements in appropriate contexts. This dissertation presents the hypothesis that writing proficiency is associated with an individual's flexible use of text properties, rather than simply the consistent use of a particular set of properties. Across three experiments, this dissertation relies on a combination of natural language processing and dynamic methodologies to examine the role of linguistic flexibility in the text production process. Overall, the studies included in this dissertation provide important insights into the role of flexibility in writing skill and develop a strong foundation on which to conduct future research and educational interventions.
ContributorsAllen, Laura (Author) / McNamara, Danielle S. (Thesis advisor) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / Connor, Carol (Committee member) / Duran, Nicholas (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017