Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Psychology

Faculty/School

Faculty of Science

First Advisor

Alexandra Gottardo

Advisor Role

Thesis Supervisor

Abstract

The impact of a training program that combined phonological awareness activities with instruction in the alphabetic principle and teaching of basic vocabulary items (Zimmer, 2003) and commonly used words in school (Scarborough, 2003) was evaluated through a repeated measures design with a control group. The intervention targeted low-income preschool English-as-a-second language children (ESL) and low-income English speaking children, as well as middle-class ESL children. The results show that the children participating in the intervention group showed significantly better performance on phonological awareness and trained vocabulary measures than children in the control group. Additionally, ESL trained children demonstrated significantly better performance on sight word recognition than children in the ESL control group. The positive effects of training on selected vocabulary items (Scarborough vocabulary) did not transfer to untrained vocabulary. Educational implications of these findings are discussed.

Convocation Year

2006

Convocation Season

Spring

Download

Included in

Psychology Commons

Share

COinS