Bachelor of Arts, Wittenberg University, 2024, Education

In this study, I analyzed the ways music can teach phonological awareness to contribute to student engagement and literacy achievement. In recent years, literacy achievement has fallen short. With phonological awareness skills contributing to the success of a reader, an improvement needs to be found. Through the completion of teacher interviews and assessing the different outcomes between phonological awareness lessons with and without music, I was able to determine that music has the capability to improve a student's literacy skills. These findings contribute to the field of education by highlighting the need for supplemental instruction and the power that music integration into core content areas can have for students. This study provides insights for future research that can be done in this field to achieve more positive educational outcomes.

Committee: Kristin Farley (Advisor); David Schubert (Committee Member); Michael Daiga (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Elementary Education; Music; Music Education; Reading Instruction

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2008, ED Physical Activities and Educational Services

Phonological awareness skills (i.e., phonemic awareness, rhyme awareness, awareness of alliteration, etc.) are important to the reading ability of all participants (National Early Literacy Panel, 2007; National Reading Panel, 2000). More specifically, these skills are critical to the success of participants defined as at risk for reading disabilities (Adams, 1990; Juel, 1988). This study analyzed the effects of explicit instruction in phonemic awareness, rhyme awareness and awareness of alliteration as well as instruction in discrimination of the differences among the skills and their relationships. This study also provided a basis for introducing a computerized format of the Get it, Got it, Go and to compare the results obtained from the computer-based version with the traditional format of the assessment. Results indicate that participants responded favorably to the explicit instruction through increased responding if they had evidence of the individual skills prior to the beginning of instruction and emergence of the skill and growth in responding after instruction started. The computerized format was also found to be a valid and reliable format of the Get it, Got it Go assessment instrument. Lastly, contributions of this study and future research are presented

Committee: Ralph Gardner, III PhD (Committee Chair); Gwendolyn Cartledge PhD (Committee Member); Sheila Alber-Morgan PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Educational Software