This study primarily explored the perceptions of dyslexia held by early childhood educators teaching in Head Start centers. A secondary purpose was to investigate how early childhood educators in Head Start centers perceive the notion of risk for dyslexia and how they identify at-risk students in ways that are consist with the results of a research-based assessment instrument. A case study approach was used for this study of two Head Start centers, one in the state of New Jersey and one in the state of Pennsylvania. Two teachers in each center (n = 4) and a total of 19 preschoolers participated in the study. Data were gathered using semi-structured interviews, observations, a teacher rating scale, and the Preschool Early Literacy Indicator (PELI) assessment. Findings indicate that the Head Start teachers held the prevailing misconception that dyslexia is a visual processing disorder rather than a phonological processing disorder. The Head Start teachers did not view phonemic awareness as a key factor in identifying children at-risk for dyslexia. Participants had a high success rate in identifying students at-risk in the areas of alphabet knowledge and oral language, but not in phonemic awareness and vocabulary. The results suggest that the stereotypes of dyslexia are hard to dispel and that professional development for pre-service and in-service teachers in early literacy practices and dyslexia are needed.
This phenomenologically-based, teacher research study looked at themes across the interviews of college students after they participated in the Digital Reading Log (DRL), a literacy-based activity utilizing the Internet, word processing software, and email. The purpose of this study was to investigate students' experiences in the basic skills reading classroom while engaged with the DRL. Findings indicate that the DRL afforded the students various freedoms, such as freedom of language and choice. The data suggested that the instructor was able to draw upon these freedoms to effectively create a Third Space that improved struggling young adult readers' understanding of text while increasing their motivation to read.
While job interviewing training is part of the transition planning and school-to-work curriculum, using virtual reality (VR) can be a valuable addition to the current curriculum, specifically given the unique characteristics of individuals with ASD. This article will provide step-by step procedures to integrate VR into the current classroom transition training program.
Two successful and two struggling beginning readers were studied with the goal of understanding how beginning readers of varying ability levels make sense of instruction in learning to read. Through interviews, classroom observations, and the collection of artifacts from home and school, the author explored meanings constructed by the students about literacy and literacy learning. The findings suggest that standardizing the presentation of information does not neutralize the differences in students' meaning making. The findings raise questions that challenge current trends in instruction for beginning readers, particularly those who struggle.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.