Advisory Committee Chair
Jerry Aldridge
Advisory Committee Members
Lois Christensen
Lynn Kirkland
Maryann Manning
Deborah Strevy
Document Type
Dissertation
Date of Award
2008
Degree Name by School
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) School of Education
Abstract
In the aftermath of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act (2002), reading teachers have been faced with new challenges and pressures, including reading curricula. Many schools have scrambled to purchase materials that are labeled as being scientifically researched (Vogt & Shearer, 2007). As a result of the influx of scripted reading programs, the educational field has been flooded with primarily quantitative research that was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of a specific program. In addition, much of this research regarding the effectiveness of scripted reading programs has been promoted by the publishing companies themselves. The reading teachers’ attitudes toward these programs have been silenced, thus far. This study sought to remedy these deficiencies by exploring five reading teachers’ attitudes toward scripted reading programs. A multiple case study was designed to answer the following questions: 1. How do reading teachers describe their attitudes regarding instruction within elementary schools using scripted reading programs in north and central Alabama? 2. How are teachers’ own philosophies of reading instruction reflected within a classroom that uses a scripted reading program? 3. What roles do the reading teachers and school administrators play in the selection and assurance of continued use of the scripted reading program? iv The five reading teachers were purposefully selected using homogenous sampling techniques. The site for the study, The Children’s Creative Learning Center: A Summer Enrichment Program, was purposefully chosen because individuals at the site would possess the identifying characteristic of being a reading teacher who had taught a scripted reading program for at least one year (Patton, 1990). In order to provide a thick, rich description (Geertz, 1973), the researcher used three primary methods of data collection: interviews, observations, and document analysis. The study began in July 2007 and continued through February 2008. The interviews were audio-taped and transcribed verbatim. The transcripts were coded and recoded. Four themes and fourteen subthemes were identified from the analysis of the data. These themes were developed into a narrative report that addressed the findings of the research questions.
Recommended Citation
Morgan, Holly G., "Reading Teachers' Attitudes Toward Scripted Reading Programs: A Multiple Case Study" (2008). All ETDs from UAB. 3766.
https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/etd-collection/3766