Semester

Fall

Date of Graduation

2004

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Type

EdD

College

College of Education and Human Services

Department

Curriculum & Instruction/Literacy Studies

Committee Chair

Joy Faini Saab.

Abstract

Today, more than 75 percent of women ages 25--34 and 75 percent of women with a child under six years of age participate in the labor force. When both parents work outside the home, they often want to send their child to preschool, but preschool classes aren't always available, and often those that are available are the government programs that are open only to those of lower socio-economic status.;In addition, parents often want to support the emergent literacy of their children and help prepare them for kindergarten but aren't sure of how to provide the type of assistance that might maximize their efforts. In order to meet this need, a ten-week parent involvement program was implemented with two preschool classes. Students attended the evening sessions with their parents and participated in dialogic reading, journaling, and literacy activities. Take-home packets were provided with activities focused on skill development in the areas of concepts of print and words, letter identification, and sound classification. Parents were asked to spend ten minutes daily for five days working with their children on these packet activities and also to keep records of progress.;Data was gathered using pre and post tests, interviews, observations, journal analysis, and parental records from the weekly packets. Results were examined qualitatively with these four research questions in mind: (1) How will participating preschoolers' concepts of print and words change during the course of the family support literacy program? (2) How will the participating preschoolers' ability to identify sound-letter relationships change during the course of the family support literacy program? (3) How will participating preschoolers' acquisition of letter names change during the course of the family support literacy program? (4) In what ways do family literacy training sessions impact the ability of parents to support their preschooler's emergent literacy skills?;Findings showed that the preschoolers' skills did improve in the areas of concepts of print and words, letter identification, and sound classification; the parents felt more confident in their ability to work with their children on literacy skills and were eager to continue using the packets after the program ended.

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