Using case study and cross-case qualitative analyses, the researcher explored the utilization of wordless picture books as mentor texts with young multilingual learners in second grade. Eight students participated in the study and four focus students were highlighted through case studies. The researcher implemented three, 45-minutes lessons per…

This year-long qualitative study draws from multimodal theory and New Literacies Studies to document the digital literacy experiences of a diverse group of 2nd-graders using e-readers. Twenty-first century classrooms must expand traditional notions of literacy to prepare students for the ever-changing, media-rich world. Students participated in…

What does it mean to be engaged, especially when it comes to literacy learning? It is this question that drove my doctoral research in 2007 when I became a participant observer in a grade two classroom with the goal of making the everyday visible while sharing a greater understanding of classroom life in relation to engagement. Six years later, I…

This study aims to explore the nature of the identities constructed by EFL learners through picture-book read-alouds and the possible relationship between these identities and their literacy learning. Eight Korean students were encouraged to connect with stories through picture-book workshops. Before and after the picture-book read-alouds, tests…

In a two-year study, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University education staff found that students who participated in a museum-school collaboration became more proficient in several Common Core State Standard skills than a control group. The program, Words & Pictures, directly ties to the English Language Arts Common Core State Standards and is…

Literacy activities in which children invest in and understand literacy creates spaces for them to construct their identity as readers/writers and build their personal theories of literacy. This study presents the identity construction of second grade students who identified as successful, average or struggling in their first time engagement with…

This dissertation examined the application of evidence-based tutoring for oral reading fluency (ORF) to a natural setting, using teachers as parent trainers. Measures used to determine the impact of parent tutoring included treatment integrity, student reading outcomes, attitudes towards involvement and reading, and social validity. Six teachers…

This study examined the perceptions of preservice teachers as they reflected upon teaching the writing process to second grade students over the course of one semester. Implications for teacher educators were identified based on the findings: Preservice teachers benefited from teaching writing on a consistent basis; preservice teachers learned and…