Date of Award

Fall 12-2011

Degree Type

Honors College Thesis

Department

Speech and Hearing Sciences

First Advisor

Jennifer Salgo

Advisor Department

Speech and Hearing Sciences

Abstract

Fourth grade is a critical time period because the reading style changes from learning to read to reading to learn. Studies have shown that if a student does not have proficient reading skills, they will struggle throughout the rest of school and have a higher risk of high school dropout (“Early Warning: Why Reading by the End of Third Grade Matters, 2010). The Southern dialect can have an effect on reading. Goodman and Buck (1997) have stated that “the speakers of the low-status dialects of English have much higher rates of reading failure than high status dialect readers” (p. 455). This undergraduate thesis examined the reading ability of five third-grade students in the South. Students were asked to read a text of approximately 300 words, while the researcher performed a miscue analysis. The results yielded a few patterns. Some of the students had issues with the words “griped” and “banzai.” The students all had trouble with words containing double consonants. Future studies on the Southern dialect and reading are warranted.

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