Fidelity of Implementation, Teacher Perspectives and Child Outcomes of a Literacy Intervention in a Head Start Program: A Mixed Methods Study

The success of early childhood interventions have been influenced by the degree to which they were implemented with fidelity (e.g., Davidson, Fields & Yang, 2009; Dusenbury, Brannigan, Falco, & Hansen, 2003; Elliot & Mihalic, 2004), meaning “the degree to which teachers and other program providers implement programs as intended by the program developers” (Mellard & Johnson, 2008, p. 240). This study examines relations among implementation fidelity, teacher characteristics, their perceptions, and child literacy outcomes within a preschool literacy intervention using a mixed methods design. This study examines child literacy outcome data from 247 preschool children and fidelity, perceptions and demographic characteristics from 11 lead preschool classroom teachers. Teachers implemented a literacy curriculum in their classrooms and were observed in fall and spring with measures of classroom quality measures and fidelity. Six teachers participated in a semi-structured interview in the spring. Children were assessed in fall and spring using three literacy assessments targeting expressive vocabulary, uppercase letter identification and early literacy skills. Findings from the quantitative data revealed no relationship between fidelity and child literacy outcomes. Qualitative data from the teacher interviews indicated teachers felt their implementation was supported by the use of coaching, material support, positive experiences with child engagement and growth and positive parent feedback. Teachers felt implementation barriers were time, inappropriateness of some activities, negative experiences with the curriculum and incongruence between their own beliefs about how children learn best and the curriculum. When the data were mixed, both teachers with high fidelity and high child outcomes and teachers with low fidelity and low child outcomes were most positive about the curriculum. Teachers with high fidelity but low child outcomes reported the most negative perceptions of the curriculum. The current study provides insights into teacher perceptions of a curriculum, how those perceptions may influence implementation as well as child outcomes and offers some implications to early childhood programs and implementation science. Adviser: Helen H. Raike

Naming Speed, Letter-Sound Automaticity, and Acquiring Blending Skills among Students with Moderate Intellectual Disabilities

Students with moderate intellectual disabilities (MoID) typically are not taught decoding skills because they have difficulty mastering critical blending skills. In response to this skill deficit among students with MoID, an Initial Phonics instructional sequence was created that included student development of rapid and automatic retrieval of taught letter-sound correspondences to a level of mastery before teaching the skill of blending. For each of 16 students with MoID (ages 6-15), mastery criterion of letter-sound automaticity phases was determined by their individual naming speed as measured by the Rapid Object Naming (RON) subtest of the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP). Visual analysis of graphically displayed single-case data revealed a functional relation between simultaneous prompting procedures and letter-sound correspondences, automaticity, and blending acquisition for all students. Furthermore, the use of hierarchical linear growth modeling (HLGM) revealed statistical significance for: (a) the impact of daily instruction on the development of letter-sound correspondences, automaticity, and blending in terms of average student growth per instructional session, (b) variability between student growth trajectories within automaticity and blending phases, (c) student pretest scores on RON as an explanatory variable for differences between growth trajectories within automaticity treatment phases, and (d) the extent to which the number of sessions to mastery within automaticity phases and student age predicted acquisition of blending skills. The purpose of identifying explanatory/predictor variables was to classify cognitive predictors for students with MoID who successfully acquire blending skills

Can multiple-choice testing potentiate new learning for text passages? A meta-cognitive approach to understanding the forward testing effect

A burgeoning area of research has begun to examine how retrieval practice can influence future learning that occurs after a test. In general, the extant literature has demonstrated a forward testing effect, in which prior testing enhances new learning. However, there is not a consensus as to the mechanism that leads to this phenomenon. In the present dissertation, I propose a metacognitive account, in which testing is purported to benefit subsequent learning by leading learners to better attend to and encode material. In particular, individuals who are tested gain valuable information about the nature and difficulty of upcoming tests, which helps guide their strategy use. Under this account, more difficult retrieval (e.g., recall) should lead to a greater metacognitive benefit than easier retrieval (e.g., multiple-choice). In Experiment 1, I compared prior cued-recall, prior multiple-choice, or no prior testing on performance for a criterial test of a text passage. Furthermore, I examined how the match between initial and criterial tests might determine whether testing influences new learning. In fact, prior cued-recall testing enhanced learning to a greater degree than prior multiple-choice testing (relative to no prior testing) regardless of criterial test format. Reading times for each text passage provided preliminary evidence for a metacognitive benefit of testing. Whereas reading times fell across the passages for individuals who were not tested, reading times remained stable in both testing conditions. In Experiments 2 and 3, I aimed to further investigate the metacognitive mechanism underlying the forward testing effect by requiring explicit judgments of learning (JOLs) prior to each testing (or non-testing) episode. Surprisingly, when JOLs were required, there was no forward testing effect observed in Experiment 2 (which included prior cued-recall, multiple-choice, or no-testing) or in Experiment 3 (which included a more difficult prior multiple-choice condition). In both Experiments 2 and 3, reading times remained stable across passages in each condition, although JOLs indicated less confidence in predicted performance in the tested conditions than in those who were not tested prior to the criterial test

Strong Black Women, Depression, and the Pentecostal Church

Depression is a global health concern and among the top two causes of disability and disease. African-Americans often seek help from the Black church, but Pentecostal churches may fail to provide effective support due to doctrinal beliefs. African-American women with depression struggle due to psychosocial implications of the diagnosis. This research study used social constructionism and the biopsychosocial model of health to explore the lived experiences of African- American women suffering from self-reported depression while attending Pentecostal churches in the Northeast United States. Fourteen women, ages 20 to 76, participated in this qualitative, phenomenological study. Data obtained from the semistructured, face-to-face interviewswas analyzed with Moustakas\u27 modified Stevick-Colaizzi-Keen method. Findings included the following main themes: the Pentecostal church was ineffective in dealing with depression, participants drew comfort from personal faith in God, participants emoted through their behavior, most felt they had to wear a mask, traditional supports were used to deal with depression, strength was expected of them, they were blamed by the church for their depression, traumatic experiences were related to depression, and psychological harm was suffered because of Pentecostal church membership. Social change implications included the personal liberation of research participants who shared their experiences. Other implications include the potential for clergy to adopt more supportive practices for their members based on these findings and for mental health professionals to develop treatment options that are more culturally attuned and sensitive

Lessons in Montanism: Charismatics, Feminists, and the Twentieth Century Roman Catholic Church

Christianity arose in the midst of a pagan world filled with many different cultic beliefs that worshipped a variety of gods and goddesses. Homogeneity did not become a characteristic of Christianity itself until after the first five centuries of debate hammering out the theological doctrines and modes of praxis that determined what was and was not heresy. Debates continue to take place among scholars concerning pagan influences on the early emerging Christian world. One of the many sects that developed, Montanism, a reform movement within the orthodox Christian Church, came into being as a result of the persecution of Christians and a perceived laxity by the Church toward those who recanted. This movement that utilized frenzied prophecy and allowed women to exercise leadership roles, including the office of the keys, is especially viewed by some as a pagan-Christian hybrid. By the fifth century A.D., the orthodox Church declared Montanism anathema and it ceased to exist as a cult. Throughout the history of the Christian Church, ideologies that do not agree with orthodox standards of doctrinal beliefs and praxis occur and reoccur in varying forms. The twentieth century produced two movements in the Roman Catholic Church in the United States that reflected characteristics of the Montanist movement in the early Church. One of these, the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, found acceptable by the Roman Catholic hierarchy continues to influence life and social teaching within the orthodoxy of the Church. The other, the feminist movement, condemned by the Church and labeled heretical, resulting in numerous excommunications, brought a new schism to the Christian Church. This paper examines the rise and fall of Montanism in the early Christian Church, its characteristics and the causes of its demise. This creates a platform from which the two movements in the late twentieth century Catholic Church in the United States, the Charismatic Renewal and the Catholic feminist movement, can be explored. Each movement contained elements similar to Montanistic ideology, yet only one found itself condemned. The similarities and differences between each movement and Montanism, with their attitudes of unity or divisiveness, when looked at closely, explain why this is so. Montanism’s demise can be attributed to its multi-layered challenge to the hierarchical authority of the developing ecclesiastical Christian Church, particularly in regard to the office of the prophet that became subsumed by the office of the bishop and the roles Montanism allowed women to exercise. In the end, unlike the Catholic feminist movement, the recent Charismatic Renewal movement was acceptable to the Church because it did not reject Church authority; like Montanism, the feminist movement’s refusal to accept that authority, dismissing Canon Law and Tradition, was the reason it failed to be accepted

LET’S KNOW! PROXIMAL IMPACTS ON PREKINDERGARTEN THROUGH GRADE 3 STUDENTS’ COMPREHENSION- RELATED SKILLS

Let’s Know! is a language-focused curriculum supplement developed through the Institute of Education Sciences’ Reading for Understanding initiative aimed at supporting prekindergarten through grade 3 students’ listening and reading comprehension. The current study reports results concerning the impacts of 2 instantiations of Let’s Know! on students’ comprehension-related skills (comprehension monitoring; understanding narrative and expository text, as supported by inference making and knowledge of text structure; and vocabulary) as proximal measures of efficacy. Results from the first cohort of a large, field-based, randomized controlled trial (N p 766 students across grades) indicate large, con- sistent, and statistically significant effects on curriculum- aligned comprehension monitoring and vocabulary probes relative to control, minimal effects on understanding nar- rative and expository text probes relative to control, and few differences across the two instantiations. Findings are interpreted with respect to the promise of Let’s Know! for achieving intended comprehension impacts, and limitations and future directions are discussed

LET’S KNOW! PROXIMAL IMPACTS ON PREKINDERGARTEN THROUGH GRADE 3 STUDENTS’ COMPREHENSION RELATED SKILLS

Let’s Know! is a language-focused curriculum supplement developed through the Institute of Education Sciences’ Reading for Understanding initiative aimed at supporting prekindergarten through grade 3 students’ listening and reading comprehension. The current study reports results concerning the impacts of 2 instantiations of Let’s Know! on students’ comprehension-related skills (comprehension monitoring; understanding narrative and expository text, as supported by inference making and knowledge of text structure; and vocabulary) as proximal measures of efficacy. Results from the first cohort of a large, field-based, randomized controlled trial (Np766 students across grades) indicate large, consistent, and statistically significant effects on curriculum aligned comprehension monitoring and vocabulary probes relative to control, minimal effects on understanding narrative and expository text probes relative to control, and few differences across the two instantiations. Findings are interpreted with respect to the promise of Let’s Know! for achieving intended comprehension impacts, and limitations and future directions are discussed

Heal the Suffering Children: Fifty Years after the Declaration of War on Poverty

Fifty years ago, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared the War on Poverty. Since then, the federal tax code has been a fundamental tool in providing financial assistance to poor working families. Even today, however, thirty-two million children live in families that cannot support basic living expenses, and sixteen million of those live in extreme poverty. This Article navigates the confusing requirements of an array of child-related tax benefits including the dependency exemption deduction, head of household filing status, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and the Child Tax Credit. Specifically, this Article explores how altering the definition of a qualifying child across these tax benefits might provide financial relief for working families. The Article concludes that the elimination of outdated citizenship or residency requirements would reduce taxpayer confusion and result in more effective tax benefits to help lift working families out of poverty