Internship at Whitbourne Central High School to assist in reading program development : Grade Seven; a report

Baker, Mervin Lloyd (1973) Internship at Whitbourne Central High School to assist in reading program development : Grade Seven; a report. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

[English] PDF (Migrated (PDF/A Conversion) from original format: (application/pdf)) - Accepted Version Available under License - The author retains copyright ownership and moral rights in this thesis. Neither the thesis nor substantial extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's permission. Download (19MB) [English] PDF - Accepted Version Available under License - The author retains copyright ownership and moral rights in this thesis. Neither the thesis nor substantial extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's permission. (Original Version)

Abstract

This report presents a description of an internship in reading at Whitbourne Central High School. During the internship, the intern acted as a reading consultant in the school and worked primarily with the grade seven class and their English teacher who was principally responsible for the developmental reading program. The general aims of the internship were to improve the grade seven students' reading performance and to begin planning a more adequate reading program. -- Data were collected on the community, school, teaching staff, and grade seven students to help in the assessment of the problem. The data revealed that many of the students came from homes that do not place much value on reading. The teaching staff, although concerned about the reading problem, did not have any training or experience in the teaching of reading. The Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test,Form W,Level II was given to the grade seven class and the results indicated that most of the students were reading below their grade placement and that they were generally very weak in all the reading skills. An informal interest inventory given to the class showed that most of the students had very limited experiential backgrounds. -- A definition of reading and a description of an ideal reading program were developed to provide a standard against which to measure the conclusions derived from the assessment of collected data and to provide a rationale for implementing change. Using the models for reading and a reading program and the collected data, seven specific objectives were set for the internship under the headings: "Formation of Groups," "Provision of Appropriate Reading Materials," "Provision for Recreational Reading," "Implementation of a Skills Development Program," "Improving Functional Reading," "Language Arts Development," and "Planning for Future Program Development." -- Implementation of the specific objectives required the division of the grade seven class into two groups for literature periods, and the introduction of an alternate literature book designed for students having difficulty with reading. Recreational reading was encouraged, and materials geared to the reading ability and interest of the students were placed in the classroom library. Provision was made to give the students remedial instruction in basic reading skills with a specific emphasis on comprehension and vocabulary skills. All the teachers were provided with some inservice training in the teaching of reading and were encouraged to incorporate reading instruction into their content teaching. The intern assisted the staff in the initial planning for future reading program development. -- An assessment of the immediate impact of the internship indicated that the grade seven students had benefitted from the changes that had been introduced. The teachers stated that the internship had served to make them more aware of the problem, and to lay a basis for program development. They felt, however, that the real benefit to the school would occur in the next year.

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