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Non-Mainstream American English and First Grade Children's Language and Reading Skills Growth Catherine Ross Conlin

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Non-Mainstream American English and First Grade Children's Language and Reading Skills Growth Catherine Ross Conlin Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2009 Non-Mainstream American English and First Grade Children's Language and Reading Skills Growth Catherine Ross Conlin Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF COMMUNICATION NON-MAINSTREAM AMERICAN ENGLISH AND FIRST GRADE CHILDREN’S LANGUAGE AND READING SKILLS GROWTH By CATHERINE ROSS CONLIN A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Communication Disorders in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2009 Copyright © 2009 Catherine Anne Conlin All Rights Reserve The members of the committee approve the dissertation of Catherine Ross Conlin defended on May 26, 2009. __________________________________ Howard Goldstein Professor Co-Directing Dissertation __________________________________ Carol Connor Professor Co-Directing Dissertation ___________________________________ Stephanie Al Otaiba Outside Committee Member __________________________________ Shurita Thomas-Tate Committee Member Approved: ____________________________________________________ Juliann Woods, Chair, Department of Communication Disorders ____________________________________________________ Gary Heald, Dean, College of Communication The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members. ii To my husband and son, all my love forever. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The accomplishment of this dissertation and the degree it represents have been a dream of mine for twenty five years. It would not have been possible without the tremendous support and guidance of many people. First and foremost, I owe immeasurable thanks to Carol Connor for taking me on as her doctoral student in the third year of my program. Her professionalism, compassion and genuine care and concern for me as a student were unwavering. Her excellence as a researcher, educator, and mentor guided me through the challenge of completing this dissertation. She has provided me with a model of a professional scholar that I will take with me into my career and beyond. I am grateful to Howard Goldstein for his commitment to me and my program, for co-chairing my committee from afar, and offering consistent guidance and support. I am also grateful to Shurita Thomas-Tate for her expertise and thoughtful suggestions as a member of my committee, as well as numerous talks about handling the demands of graduate life. I am grateful to Stephanie Al Otaiba for her guidance and mentoring through my first teaching experience, as well as her service on my committee. While the demands of a doctoral program are many, this challenge would have been greater without the support of friends I have made along the way. In particular, I want to extend warmest gratitude to the following individuals: “The Girls” Liz Crawford, Elissa Arndt, and Kathleen Pierce, thank you for all the practice sessions, pep talks and encouraging emails, and your constant faith during the simultaneous pursuit of our dreams. I wish for each of you a career filled with happiness and satisfaction. To Laurie Swineford, thank you for your friendship and work ethic. You are a remarkable example of persevering though the challenge may be great. To Phyllis Underwood, thank you for your encouragement, and help with information and details about the ISI project. Jennifer Lucas, thank you for your help with data and details of the ISI project. To Sibel Kaya, thank you for your statistical knowledge, willingness to help, and sincere encouragement. To Stephanie Glasney and Monet Travis, thank you for your guidance with coding. For my husband Mark, your constant love and support made it possible for me to accomplish this goal. I love you forever. There are not enough words to express all that you have done to make this dream a reality for us. My love and gratitude will last a lifetime. iv For my son Lucas, may it always be remembered that “Lucas help mommy writing dissertation” is proof in your five-year-old print that you did. Your very existence spurred my motivation to accomplish this degree. I wish for you a life of happiness and learning. I love you forever. To my parents for your love, support and encouragement throughout every goal I have ever pursued, but especially for valuing education and teaching me the importance of perseverance. Thank you. I love you. v TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables ..............................................................................................vii List of Figures ............................................................................................ix Abstract ................................................................................................x 1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................1 2. METHODS ............................................................................................26 3. RESULTS ...............................................................................................34 4. DISCUSSION .........................................................................................57 APPENDICES ............................................................................................70 REFERENCES ..........................................................................................76 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ......................................................................84 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Ten prominent features of NMAE including: African American English (AAE) and Southern American English (SoAE) ............................................................................... 10 Table 2. School-wide demographics ..................................................................................................... 28 Table 3. Descriptive statistics for sample (n=694) by gender and ethnicity ......................................... 29 Table 4. Table 4: Total dialect use by First grade children on the Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation Screening Test (DELV-S) ..................................................................... 34 Table 5. Percentage of use of DELV-S Phonological Items by ethnicity from fall to spring...................................................................................................................................... 36 Table 6. Percentage of Dialect Variation within ethnic groups ............................................................ 37 Table 7. Percentage of Dialect use by ethnicity and gender ................................................................. 37 Table 8. Percentage of phonological feature use in the fall, by gender ................................................ 39 Table 9. Percentage of use of DELV-S Morphological Items by ethnicity from fall to spring...................................................................................................................................... 40 Table 10. Percentage of morphological feature use in the fall, by gender ............................................ 41 Table 11. HLM Descriptive statistics for modeling change in DVAR from fall to spring ................... 43 Table 12. Three level model of change in DVAR showing estimation of fixed effects (with robust standard errors ................................................................................................. 45 Table 13. Intraclass Correlations (ICC) and Descriptive Statistics for language and literacy Outcomes ................................................................................................................ 46 Table 14. Two level model of AK showing estimation of fixed effects (with robust standard errors) The outcome variable is Spring Academic Knowledge (AK) w score ..................................................................................................................................... 48 Table 15. Two level model of PV showing estimation of fixed effects (with robust standard errors). The outcome variable is Spring Picture Vocabulary (PV) w score ..................................................................................................................................... 49 Table 16. Spring PV and school SES outcomes with morphological feature use (with robust standard errors). The outcome variable is Spring Picture Vocabulary (PC) w score .......................................................................................................................... 50 vii Table 17. Two level model of Risk for Language Disorder (DELV-S Part II scores) showing estimation of fixed effects (with robust standard errors). The outcome variable is Spring DELV-S Part II Score .............................................................. 51 Table 18. Two level model of LW showing estimation of fixed effects (with robust standard errors). The outcome variable is Spring Letter Word Identification (LW) w score ....................................................................................................................... 51 Table 19. Spring LW outcome with morphological feature use (with robust standard errors). The outcome variable is Spring Letter Word Identification (LW) w score ..................................................................................................................................... 52 Table 20. Two level model of PC showing estimation of fixed effects (with robust standard errors)
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