Twenty-first century literacy includes a mixture of digital and print literacy skills and strategies. AutoTutor for Adult Reading Comprehension is a web-based intelligent tutoring system that is designed to help adult learners develop effective reading comprehension strategies. Lessons span basic reading skills (vocabulary, word parts),…

The purpose of this dissertation was to produce two manuscripts and a conference paper reporting on analyses of data from a survey that investigated the knowledge, beliefs, and self-perceptions of 236 teachers of students who are blind or visually impaired (TSBVIs) with regard to literacy instruction. The first manuscript investigated the…

The capacity to reason critically and negotiate ideas and differences lies at the heart of quality education. Through critical reasoning we construct, organise, and justify knowledge; and we create new ideas and practices. Despite the emphasis on teaching argumentative writing in school curricula, existing research consistently shows that arguing…

The purpose of this qualitative case study research was to explore the multifaceted motivations, perceptions and attitudes that influence digital literacy practices in a small group of study abroad faculty and how professional development can help inspire them to act to innovate their digital literacy practices within a study abroad context. The…

Several abilities outside literacy proper are associated with reading and spelling, both phenotypically and genetically, though our knowledge of multivariate genomic covariance structures is incomplete. Here, we introduce structural models describing genetic and residual influences between traits to study multivariate links across measures of…

This study examines best practices for secondary literacy intervention and instruction. It also exemplifies the ability of Arts Based Educational Research to give voice to struggling and striving high school readers. This dissertation encompasses three time horizons. The first was the crafting of a 'non-fiction fiction ' play (Goldenstein, 2013;…

How do literacy coaches function as policy actors? Using a case study of literacy coaches in a small, rural South Carolina school district, this dissertation explored the ways coaches act as policy actors, the policies coaches create, and how they institutionalize policy. This study focused on literacy coaches as policy actors. The South Carolina…

Like most young people, university students are adept in their use of communication technologies such as smartphones and apps. However, this technological savvy does not necessarily translate into news media literacy (NML), which "refers to the knowledge and motivations needed to identify and engage with journalism" (Maksl et al., 2015,…

Following experts' calls that information literacy interventions can inoculate against misleading political information, this study examines how students who have undergone an information literacy training evaluate political information one year after the classroom training. The intervention consisted of a one-semester information literacy course…

Statistics show that if a child is a low reader at the end of first grade, they are more likely to be a low reader by the end of fourth grade. The United States has enacted multiple educational initiatives to combat shortfalls that many children demonstrate in literacy, but the number of children reading on grade level in the elementary grades are…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore preschool teachers' beliefs about early reading and spelling instruction and how their attitudes toward Direct Instruction (DI) of Print Concept Knowledge (PCK) influenced the literacy skills of preschool students in a Southeastern Virginia school district. Vygotsky's social…

While research examining the literacy achievement of African American or sub-Saharan African students exists individually, there is little research that examines the two collectively, highlighting the shared paralleling influences in the achievement in literacy between African American and sub-Saharan African children as a whole. This narrative…

In this study, I examine the integration of aesthetic education, specifically the visual arts and music, into secondary education history courses. Through aesthetic education, I argue, students can become emotionally connected to the past and can develop their historical literacy, which has implications for academic achievement in high school…

Early literacy curriculum-based measures (CBMs) are widely used as universal screeners within multi-tiered systems of support in reading (MTSS-R) for (1) evaluating the overall effectiveness of the reading system and (2) assigning students to supplemental and intensive interventions. Evidence supporting CBM validity for these purposes have…

This study aims to validate a recent new media literacy (NML) instrument and investigating NML levels of Turkish preservice teachers. A refined NML framework formed the theoretical basis of the study. The data were collected from 972 preservice teachers enrolled in 11 teacher training programs in 5 public universities in Turkey. The language…