The primary goal of homebound education is to provide homebound students with exceptional educational services while they cannot attend school for various reasons. The researcher investigated the challenges within the curriculum and instruction encountered by homebound educators when teaching homebound students, given their limited time with…

Children with multiple disabilities may experience significant disabilities in two or more areas of functioning including vision, motor, hearing, and communication such that they face limitations in social interactions throughout their daily lives (Bruce & Ivy, 2017). Many children have complex communication needs and evidence indicates that…

This qualitative descriptive study delved into how parents of Pre-Kindergarten through fifth-grade students in Title I schools in a Southeastern state perceive parental involvement, communication, and support for the home literacy environment. Utilizing Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory and Epstein's Model of Parental Involvement as…

The problem addressed in this qualitative case study was the ineffective use of book distribution program materials due to low self-efficacy of caregivers hinders the implementation of early literacy skills at home. The purpose of this qualitative exploratory case study was to explore caregivers' self-efficacy while implementing book distribution…

Every year in Riverside School District, a pseudonym, children face the prospect of not attaining a prekindergarten school admission. Riverside has a large population of Black and Brown students and Haitian second language learners. The school also has a high percentage, 89.4%, of families who are considered to be low-income (School and District…

This study investigated the types of reading instruction and opportunities prekindergarten children have both at school and outside of school to understand how their reading develops during the first semester of prekindergarten. An abundance of research suggests that many children enter kindergarten lacking foundational reading skills that they…

As the dynamics of our classrooms across the county continue to change, so must our teaching practices. Multilingual students live in homes with varied cultural and literacy experiences. Since multilingual families may not engage in school-based literacy practices, teachers often overlook the development of students' language and literacy skills.…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to describe how Latino parents of children with disabilities perceived their involvement at home or their volunteering at their child's school in Southern California. This study used Epstein's Theory of Overlapping Spheres of Influence and Epstein's Framework of Six Types of Involvement as the…

Heavy metals are a recognized toxic environmental contaminant, even at very low concentrations. There have been well-known events in the last decade within the US of high amounts of lead in the drinking water supplies of cities, leading to detrimental effects within its population. Ways have been found to remove this metal, and others, from water…

This study examined how a structured voluntary reading intervention supports students in becoming better readers. A one-group pretest/posttest design was used to measure changes in elementary student's reading fluency, reading comprehension, and attitude towards reading in response to receiving an 8-week structured reading intervention. The 8-week…

Because of the priority placed on learning intercultural skills in the 21st century workplace, many higher educational institutions around the world have emphasized internationalization in recent years. In late 2022, two years after the Covid-19 pandemic significantly impacted their internationalization efforts, resulting in quarantine…

Over the past 150 years, schools in America have been governed by various legislations geared toward increasing learning. One recurring theme across the various acts is that of parental involvement. This led to the broad question, "How does parental involvement impact student progress for primary students in Tier 2 and Tier 3 reading…

Chilean data show that a large reading-proficiency gap exists between students with high and low socioeconomic status (SES), that most children do not see themselves as readers, and that half of adolescents read below grade level (Agencia de Calidad de la Educacion, 2019; Consejo Nacional de la Cultura y las Artes, 2014). To understand the reasons…

Parents' perceptions regarding the home literacy environment and their ability to provide their children with literacy experiences and materials was the focus of this quantitative, exploratory quasi-experimental research study. Parents' ability to provide quality literacy experiences and materials provides a foundation for their children's future…

This dissertation portfolio is comprised of three first-authored pieces of writing that investigate the oral language and emergent literacy development of Spanish-speaking children with specific language impairment (SLI). Each piece features a unique but complementary aim. The first study investigates group differences on a battery of emergent…