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    Emergent literacy practices for preschool children with autism spectrum disorders : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Speech [and] Language Therapy at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2014) Wright, Julia
    Literacy is essential to success in education and employment, and in the modern world plays an important role in our daily communication and social participation. The value of literacy is increasingly being recognised and prioritised by government and the business sector in New Zealand. For children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), literacy learning presents a unique set of challenges. Research suggests that children with ASD are at high risk of poor literacy outcomes, which has implications for their educational success, employment outcomes and social relationships. Given the limited research into the early years of literacy development for children with ASD, this study aimed to explore how children with ASD are engaging with emergent literacy, the strategies that teachers are using to facilitate emergent literacy and the perceived challenges teachers face in supporting emergent literacy development for this group of children. A mixed methods research design was adopted using an online survey and face-to-face interviews with preschool teachers who had recent experience teaching a child with ASD. Five key findings emerged: (1) variability in teachers’ understanding of emergent literacy with embedded literacy learning opportunities being more prevalent than explicit instruction; (2) wide variability in levels of student engagement with emergent literacy opportunities and activities (3) wide range of strategies employed by teachers to support children's emergent literacy learning with high levels of personalisation to children's individual strengths and interests; (4) children's interest level and attention were perceived as the biggest challenge to their literacy development and (5) low levels of professional learning and development (PL&D) in emergent literacy and ASD despite high levels of interest in PL&D in these areas. Participants also identified the need for greater collaboration between speech language therapists and teachers to support the communication skills and emergent literacy development of children with ASD. This study highlights the need for greater professional support for teachers to overcome the challenges identified. This support is essential in order to maximise the literacy learning for children with ASD.
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    The effectiveness of a phonological-based intervention for students in their first year of school : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Literacy Education at Massey University, Hokowhitu, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2012) Wild, Sarah Anne
    New Zealand has a long tail of underachievement in reading with the results of international literacy surveys consistently showing that while some New Zealand students are among the best readers in the world, the gap between the best and poorest readers continues to widen. Research evidence indicates that a potential reason for the increasingly large gap is a lack of focus on the explicit teaching of phonologically-based decoding skills in the early years of school. The purpose of this study was to first determine the levels of alphabet knowledge and phonological awareness in a group of students at school entry and compare these levels to a group of slightly older students also in their first year of school. A second aim was to evaluate the efficacy of a nine-week explicit intervention that targeted phonologically-based skills for improving decoding ability. This study is a modified replication of a study conducted by Greaney and Arrow (2012). The study is a non-randomised, pretestintervention- posttest design with one control group. A total of 30 students were included in the study. The intervention group involved a new entrant class while the control group involved a year one class. All students were assessed using a range of phonologically-based assessments. The intervention group received the intervention in addition to their regular literacy programme while the control group only received their regular literacy programme. The results showed that the students within the intervention group entered school with a range of phonological awareness and alphabet knowledge. A key finding was that the students who had received the intervention significantly outperformed the control group on two measures of isolated decoding (the Burt word reading test and pseudoword reading) when pretest letter sound knowledge was controlled. The results of this study highlight the importance of using phonologically-based assessments with students as soon as they start school in order to identify those at risk and plan effective programmes to meet the needs of these students.
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    Storybook reading strategies and academic literate cultural capital : closing the literacy gap before it opens : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Education at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2012) Wells, Laura Jean
    While New Zealand reading achievement ranks highly in the international arena, the gap between high- and low-ability readers is far greater than that in most other countries. The lower-ability readers hail disproportionately from homes with low income, and their cultural capital often does not match the culture of their schools. They commonly have less academic literate cultural capital (ALCC), which encompasses skills, knowledge, values and attitudes that are related to conventional literacy. Prior to conventional literacy development, ALCC and emergent literacy skills are similar. Storybook reading is a beneficial parent-child activity which has been harnessed by intervention research as a vehicle through which to build on emergent literacy skills. Much print-referencing and dialogic reading-strategy research has been conducted, showing positive effects on children’s emergent reading development and therefore on their ALCC. The quasi-experimental study, on which this thesis is based, used two DVDs to educate parents from low-income areas about print-referencing and dialogic reading strategies. Thirty parent-child dyads were recruited through kindergartens which were geographically close to a decile one school. Fifteen dyads formed the intervention group, which was given two DVDs over a four week intervention period, and 15 dyads formed the control group. Data was collected before, during, and after the intervention from parents and their young children, using a mix of quantitative and qualitative measures. Parental reading behaviours and beliefs appeared to change as a result of the intervention; parents from the intervention group reported the use of more print-referencing behaviours during storybook reading than their control group counterparts. In particular, intervention parents made significantly more references to letter knowledge (LK). Most parents believed the intervention to have been beneficial to them and their children, and deemed the study material effective. Children from the intervention group reported more reading to occur post-intervention than it did preintervention. While the majority of their tested emergent literacy skills increased more than those of the control children after the study, the differences were not significant. The thesis concludes by recommending more research of a similar nature, taking into account several important changes. Additionally, it recommends qualitative research into the cultural capital of New Zealand’s ethnic minorities.