Crawley, Sharon J.

The purpose of this study was to examine an effect of read-alouds on the reading
achievement of middle grade students in a core intensive reading program in the School
District of Palm Beach County, the fourth largest school district in Florida. This was
accomplished conducting literature studies through read-alouds and sustained silent
reading with sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade intensive reading students as a supplement
to the READ XL® remedial program. Specifically, this study investigated the difference
on the achievement scores on the Florida State Fluency Probes (FORF), the Florida
Comprehensive Achievement Test in Reading (FCAT), the Florida Comprehensive Norm
Reference Test Scale Scores (FCAT/NRT), the Scholastic Reading Inventory Lexile
Levels (SRI), and the teacher created tests on the literature during the period 2006-2007. The study further examined the interaction of both grade level and gender with the readaloud
strategy and sustained silent reading.
A Factorial ANOV A (analysis of variance) was used to test the effect of each of
the treatments, read-alouds and sustained silent reading, on the dependent variables,
FORF, the FCAT, the FCAT/NRT, the Scholastic Reading Inventory Lexile Levels, and
the teacher created tests and the interactions with grade level and gender. Results
indicated a greater increase in fluency, as measured by the Florida State Fluency Probes,
from 2006 to 2007, for students in the read-aloud group (test) as compared with students
in the sustained silent reading group (control group), and for students in grades 6 and 7 as
compared with students in grade 8. Overall there was no difference in fluency as
moderated by gender.
The results of this study also found that read-alouds promoted increased
performance of female students on the teacher-created tests. This suggests that readalouds
may play a role in increasing the performance of middle school at-risk female
readers on similar instruments.

A review of the literature reveals that many factors are related to the learning of a second language. In order to meet the needs of the large and growing number of Haitian students, it would be beneficial to be able to determine which factors affect Haitian students' acquisition of English. This study uses a Haitian Creole Literacy Test and a questionnaire to determine the relationship of age, age at immigration, years of residence, years of schooling, gender, grade point average, parents' English proficiency, use of English outside school, attitude toward English, and native language literacy on oral proficiency and literacy in English. Correlations, ANOVAs, multiple regressions, and a factor analysis revealed that the factors affecting the English acquisition of the 276 Haitian students in the study were similar to and different from some of those found to affect second language acquisition of other language groups. The differences included the fact that age was not positively related to their L2 proficiency; L1 literacy was only slightly related to L2 reading proficiency and achievement and negatively related to L2 oral proficiency; their age at immigration was not related to L2 reading proficiency and was negatively related to L2 oral proficiency; their mother's L2 proficiency was not related to their academic achievement or L2 reading proficiency; motivation was not related to L1 literacy or L2 oral proficiency; their belief that learning L2 is important was not related to L2 proficiency; and their liking to study English had a negative relationship with L2 oral proficiency and no relationship with L2 literacy or achievement. These findings suggest that the facilitative effect of L1 literacy on L2 proficiency shown by previous studies depends upon the L1 and the value the L1 culture places on literacy. In addition, different factors affect L2 acquisition by different language groups. This fact must be taken into consideration by those who design curriculum and instruction for L2 learners.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of computer-assisted instruction (CAI) on the reading skills of emergent readers in kindergarten classes at select Reading First schools in the School District of Palm Beach County, Florida. The reading software analyzed was Destination Reading (Riverdeep, 2001), used during the 2004-2005 school year. Comparisons were made between users of the program and nonusers. Comparisons were also made between English language learners who used or did not use the program, as well as Exceptional Education students who used or did not use it. Another factor analyzed was how teacher attitude toward the computer affected student reading achievement. This was established by survey responses. The measures used to compare treatment and non-treatment schools were the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS), which tested letter naming ability, initial sound identification, phoneme segmentation ability, and nonsense word decoding. The Word Recognition and Reading Running Record assessments from the School District of Palm Beach County Reading and Writing Assessment System Grades K-1 protocol booklet tested identification of 25 sight words and ability to read continuous text. Students using Destination Reading (Riverdeep, 2001) did not benefit significantly from use of the program compared to nonusers. Only on the letter-naming measure was there a significant advantage for all students in the sample and the English language learner group. The CAI group scored significantly lower on the initial sound fluency measure. Word Recognition and Reading Running Record assessments showed no significant results. ESE students showed no significant advantage in having had supplemental computer-assisted instruction on any measures. Factorial ANOVAs were used to compare DIBELS scores for effectiveness of the treatment, pre- and posttest comparisons, and interaction of treatment with test scores for the CAI compared with the nonuser group. T distributions were used to analyze data from the Reading Running Record and Word Recognition assessments. There were no significant differences between the CAI and comparison schools on these two measures. Teacher attitude toward computers did not affect students' acquisition of reading skills, as survey responses were in the positive range for all participants.

The purpose of this paper is to share the design, development, and implementation of an Elementary Education/ESOL Endorsement integrated program which targets undergraduate students working towards a bachelor's degree and state certification in the State of Florida. This paper attempts to answer the following three research questions: (1) What is the need for an elementary education with built-in ESOL endorsement program in southeast Florida? (2) What theoretical framework was used to develop the program? and, (3) What are the design features of an elementary education plus ESOL integrated program? The findings show that there is a great need for an Elementary Education/ESOL endorsement program in southeast Florida.