Teaching Strategies That Support Emergent Literacy: Effects of a Collaborative Training Model

109 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2005.The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of a collaborative training model on early childhood teachers' acquisition of teaching strategies that are linked to young children's emergent literacy development. The impact of the intervention on teachers' beliefs, the overall classroom literacy environment, and children's literacy development also was investigated. Participants included 5 early childhood teachers and the children enrolled in their classrooms. A multiple baseline design across three teaching skill clusters was replicated with each of five teachers to investigate the experimental effects. The order in which the clusters were taught was counterbalanced across teachers. Results indicated the training package was effective at increasing the teachers' use of each of the three skill clusters. The intervention changed teachers' beliefs and the overall classroom literacy environment, especially items associated with the targeted literacy strategies. Improvement in children's literacy performance from pre to post-test on all four measures (i.e., picture naming, alliteration, rhyming, and book handling knowledge) also was observed. Future research ideas and implications for practice were discussed.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD