Additional information
| Publisher | Edge Enterprises, Inc. |
|---|---|
| Year Printed | 2009 |
| Includes | CD (Program also available on a flash drive for an additional charge of $6.00) |
Capitalization Strategies Digital Program for Students Flash Drive
Jean B. SchumakerShould “basketball team” be capitalized or not? What words should be capitalized in a title? What words should be capitalized in a quotation? Sometimes, questions like these can make one’s head spin! Not to worry! This computerized instructional program simplifies everything into four easy capitalization lessons that students can work through at their own pace. Students learn a simple poem that helps them remember the capitalization rules, and they learn a strategy for each rule. Included in the program are an instructor’s manual, the instructional program, and all the materials (e.g., pretest, posttest, handouts, worksheets, answer keys) needed for the program that can be printed out, if necessary. Nevertheless, students can print the materials themselves as needed at various points in the program if their computers are connected to a printer.
For the most part, students can work through the program independently since the program provides feedback on student performance during all computerized activities. An instructor is needed to score papers and provide feedback toward the end of each lesson when students must write sentences that demonstrate their use of the capitalization rules. Additionally, the instructor administers quizzes at certain points to check student understanding and provides “pass codes” that allow a student to progress from one part of the program to another once a rule has been mastered by the student. The program has been very successful in teaching students to find capitalization errors in others’ writing and to use capitalization rules well in their own writing. All ages can benefit, starting with fourth graders. With purchase of each digital program is a license to download it onto eight computers.
$36.00
Description
Research on the Capitalization Strategies CD for Students
Overview
The Capitalization Strategies CD is a computerized program for teaching students to apply the capitalization rules. This study was conducted with students with learning disabilities, including 34 middle-school students and 33 high-school students. A pretest-posttest control-group design was employed, with students randomly assigned to the experimental or control group. Students in the experimental group worked through the interactive computerized program independently. They took quizzes at various points during the program, which were scored by the teacher. They had to reach the mastery criterion in order to be allowed to progress to the next lesson or next portion of a lesson.
Results
Two tests were used. In one, students were required to insert capital letters into sentences where capital letters had been omitted. In the other test, students were required to demonstrate the use of the capitalization rules in their own writing. On the pretest where students had to insert capital letters, the whole group of experimental students correctly inserted 53% of the capital letters, and the whole group of control students correctly inserted 57% of the capital letters. On the posttest, the whole group of experimental students correctly inserted 87% of the capital letters, and the control students correctly inserted 58% of the capital letters. The experimental students’ results (M = 87%) compared favorably to the results of same-age comparison students without disabilities who inserted a mean of 70% of the capital letters correctly without instruction. The results of an ANCOVA indicated that there was a significant difference between the posttest scores of the two groups [F(1, 64) = 126.41, p < .0005], in favor of the experimental group. The effect size between the groups (partial eta squared) was .571, representing a very large effect. There were no differences in the way the middle-school students and high-school students responded to the program. (See Figure 1 for results for the middle-school and high-school students.)
On a test of student use of the strategies where students demonstrated their use of capital letters in their own writing, the whole group of experimental students earned an average of 44% of the points available on the pretest and 89% of the points on the posttest. The whole group of control students earned an average of 44% and 45% of the points on the pretest and posttest, respectively. An ANCOVA revealed a significant difference between the groups’ posttest scores [F[1, 63 ] = 19.15, p < .0005], in favor of the experimental group. The effect size (partial eta squared) was .693, representing a large effect size. There were no differences in the way the midde-school students and high-school students responded to the program. (See Figure 2 for results for the middle-school and high-school students.)
Conclusions
The Capitalization Strategies CD program is an effective means of teaching the capitalization strategies to students with LD. All students reached mastery on all the lessons in the program. Experimental students’ use of the strategies increased from pretest to posttest, and their posttest scores exceeded the scores of a same-age comparison group without LD. Experimental students’ posttest scores were significantly different from the posttest scores of the control students after the pretest scores were used as a covariate. Since no differences were found between middle-school and high-school students’ scores, the program appears to be equally effective for students at both school levels.
Reference
Schumaker, J. B., & Walsh, L. (2009). Effects of a hypermedia program on the punctuation and capitalization skills of students with learning disabilities. Phase II Final report for SBIR Grant #5 R44 HD043618-03.
About the Author
Jean B. Schumaker, Ph.D.
Affliations
- President
- Edge Enterprises, Inc.
- Lawrence, KS
- Retired Associate Director and Senior Research Scientist
- Certified SIM Professional Development Specialist
- University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning
- Lawrence, KS
- Professor Emeritus
- Department of Special Education
- University of Kansas
- Lawrence, KS
My Background and Interests
I grew up with a concern for children who need special help. One of my earliest experiences was organizing birthday parties for children with disabilities at the Matheny Medical and Educational Center in New Jersey. After the birthday parties were over and all the decorations had been cleaned up, I spent time with the children, putting them to bed, reading to and talking with them, and singing to them. Through those experiences and others as a camp counselor, I found that I loved being with children and teaching them. Eventually, I decided that I wanted to be a clinical psychologist, and I went to college and graduate school with that goal in mind. However, along the way, I got hooked on doing research! In particular, I got hooked on research related to ensuring that children learn. I’ve worked with children in schools, group homes, hospitals, and clinical settings. Across all those experiences, I’ve learned that all children can learn. I’ve learned that, if we hold high expectations for them and use special teaching methods, they usually meet those expectations. I continue to do research with the goal of helping teachers teach and students learn.
The Story Behind the Capitalization Strategies CD Program
I started developing instructional programs for writing skills in the 1970s when I was a graduate student at the University of Kansas. My graduate program required me to take part in an internship at the probation department of the Douglas County Juvenile Court in Kansas. I was assigned several cases of truant secondary students. In working with these students, I learned that they could not write. They told me that one of the reasons they avoided school was that they were embarrassed because they could not complete the work assigned to them. I also learned that there were no instructional programs available to teach them writing in an intensive way. I embarked on a journey of developing writing programs that continues to this day. Over the years, my colleagues and I have developed and tested programs for teaching students to write sentences, paragraphs, and themes, and to check their work for errors.
Nevertheless, even though these programs are very successful in teaching students the skills targeted for these programs, I realized that students still did not use many of the complex rules associated with the mechanics of writing, and that they were being required to apply those rules on state writing competency exams and college entrance exams. We began to work on the development of programs to teach students sophisticated rules associated with the mechanics of writing such as capitalization use. We also wondered whether we could teach students to apply these rules by teaching them cognitive strategies through the use of a computer program.
My Thoughts about Strategic Instruction
Strategic instruction is one of the few evidence-based instructional methods that have been shown to be effective in producing student improvement in learning and in academic performance. The study conducted on the Capitalization Strategies Program showed that a variety of students, including junior-high and senior-high students, students with disabilities, and students representing a variety of minority populations could learn to apply complex capitalization rules to edit someone else’s written work and within their own writing. Moreover, their performance exceeded the performance of normally achieving peers on capitalization tasks.
Teacher and Student Feedback on the Capitalization Strategies Program
Teachers and students have been very positive about this program. Teachers report that student not only learn to write by using the program, but that their reading skills improve as well. They report that navigating through the program is very intuitive and that students immediately are able to work through it with a minimum of instruction. Teachers have used the program in a variety of settings including general education English classes, resource rooms, and after-school programs with students as early as the fourth grade.
My Contact Information
Please contact me through Edge Enterprises, Inc.
(jschumaker@edgeenterprisesinc.com or 877-767-1487).
