Amanda Katko
November 30, 2011
Research in English Studies
Final Research Paper
Reading aloud to children has been said to be one of the best ways to prepare children for their future. “However, if we want toddlers to acquire a richer vocabulary then we need to turn to books. In stories and non-fiction texts, toddlers will experience a broad range of words, expressions, and patterns of language that are not used in everyday conversation language. This exposure to a rich seam of language will effortlessly extend your toddler’s command of language (Reid and Bentley 62).” In order to prepare our children for their academic future, we must read to them aloud as much as possible from as early on as possible. In English studies, reading aloud to children is significant. The earlier one acquires the skills needed to succeed in writing, reading, and comprehending, the better one’s skills are for their future. “Reading aloud to your child helps in many ways. It: establishes bonds of love, opens doors, becomes part of family heritage, it is fun, builds the desire to read, gives educational advantage, and develops the ability to read alone (Cullinan 24).”
By researching information pertaining to a child being read to aloud will answer the significant question of: how being read aloud to as a child contributes to literacy proficiency in a person's middle school years, high school years, and future? I would like to obtain different perspectives, input, ideas, and facts about whether or not a person who was read to as a child had success in his or her academic future. Many researchers believe that a parent reading aloud to children does improve many aspects of a person’s life in a person’s life. This research will answer that question.
For my first choice of methods, I will be using interviewing as my research method. Interviewing as a research method requires a personal understanding and flexibility as well as the capability to stay within the boundaries of the procedure. The interviewer must be able to understand the interviewee while at the same time remember that there are limits and must understand that interviewing is strictly professional. When a person interviews another, researchers must understand how the methods they choose to use impact on the results that are obtained. Selecting a research topic, finding appropriate interviewees, conducting effective interviewers, and interpreting the material appropriately is achieved and does not come ‘naturally’ as some people believe. It takes work to obtain specific answers and information. The interviewees involved are usually one-to-one versus group interviewers. Group interviews may obtain a wide range of views, require more resources and are time well-organized, but require a different set of interviewer skills from one-to-one interviewers. Group interviews require three to six people, and the skills can be acquired through practice and observation of others conducting interviews. Structured interviews involve schedules where all questions are pre given and asked in the same order and preferably in the same manner for every interviewee. Semi-structured interviews are less strict in format and involve an interview guide instead of an interview schedule. Unstructured interviews are the amount to which the questions are open or closed, and depending on what the interviewer wants to find out, interviewers may be more or less prearranged. When referring to the process, the interviewer must have a significant level of social and listening skills, since the interviewer asks, listens, and interacts.
There is a need to be at ease during an interview, so it is best when asking questions to not ask the vital questions anywhere in the beginning; use the beginning time of the interview to ease the interviewees. Normally interviews are recorded because note taking is disrupting; interviewees should take notes after the interviewer as soon as possible while the important information is fresh in the person’s mind.
For my interview, I plan on interviewing two people who are parents of children atleast 18 years of age, who has read to those children, and who know an adequate amount of information about their child’s elementary, middle, and secondary school grades and marks. When questioning these two people for my interview, I will ask the following questions plus more: how old was the child when you stopped reading to them?, what kind of material was read?, was their great emphasis on the story?, what kind of context?, was the reading in a group or individual?, who were the participants?, what were the readers and listener's feeling about the specific book and towards the event and material?, what was the level of participation from the listener/reader?, were questions asked during the book or after the book?, were questions aloud?, etcetera. Once I have obtained all of the information I needed from specific questions, I will ask the interviewee to tell me a story about a time that involved reading aloud to his or her child.
Not only will I interview two parents, but I will interview the two people who are the children of the two parents I interviewed. This way I can obtain information from more than one perspective. I will ask the interviewees questions depending on what they remember about being read to, since they were most likely young. I will also question them about their academic scores in elementary, middle, and secondary school. My thoughts are that much will not be remembered and that the truth will be altered, but those answers are just as good because the answers are from what a young child remembers which does affect the child’s academic future.
The location which I will be interviewing my four subjects is in their home. I feel that my subjects will be most comfortable in their home, not my home, or any other unfamiliar place. By choosing a place which causes the subjects to be at ease will increase my chances of obtaining the best and most accurate answers to my questions. I chose interviewing as one of the two methods that I will be using to obtain my information for my research question because I wanted to acquire actual information from a live person who had live experiences on my particular topic. Instead of going to the library to attain printed information from someone I do not know personally, I thought that it would be better to interview a person whom I know and who has experienced reading to his or her children and witnessing the success or troubles the child has encountered.
When it comes to interviewing, one must be aware and careful of ethical issues as a researcher because interviewing requires dealing with other people. One key issue is gaining trust of the interviewees so that they will talk openly. Once the interviewer obtains the interviewee’s trust, it is important not to break the trust. Another key issue is to be sure to ask the interviewer for consent to use their comments and information at the time of the interview.
I will be doing this research project to use when applying for a job for a ‘beginning of the school year’ job. Also, I would like to give this research project all of my attention and when interviewing my subjects, I do not want to interview when the two have school work, so I would want to do this research project when school is out for the summer. I would want to be hired for September, so I would want to have my research gathered for September. The time frame that I would like to accomplish this research project in is approximately three months, June, July and August.
For my second research method, I will be using discourse analysis. I will be taking apart and examining the transcript from my interview process with my four subjects. Discourse analysis will show unconscious elements of the transcripts obtained from the interview process. Discourse Analysis is a research method that is typically defined as the analysis of language further than a sentence. Each person analyzing the same sentence has their own viewpoint and perception on what it means and what is behind the sentence. My evaluation is entirely different from every other person evaluating the same transcript. Perceptions and points of view are important in Discourse Analysis. An important article in the book Discourse Analysis in the Classroom discussed four discourse analysis methods. The first approach was by Smith and is the social linguistic approach which focuses on language and interactional units, including message units, interactional units, and sets of interactional units. Goldman focuses on the cognitive approach which is looking at the transcript in terms of a model and how individuals use mental representations to recognize everything around them. The model is made up of a surface layer, a textbase, and a situation model. The third theorist Macbeth focuses on the ethnometholdological approach which is all about meanings, values, personal identities, what is right and wrong answers, etcetera. The last theorists Carter focuses on the micro-ethnographic approach which looked at how larger cultural stories influenced the classroom conversation and what it means that they do.
For my research, I would use the social linguistic approach and focus on the literary language. Once I finish interviewing my four subjects and attain the transcript, I will sit down and analyze two out of the four transcripts. I will take one transcript from each group: one ‘child’ and one ‘parent’. I will take each transcript apart and try to find the hidden meanings behind what was said. I will analyze the two transcripts in the comfort of my own home with no distractions.
My reasoning for using discourse analysis as a research method is because I am doing interviewing as my primary research method and when interviewing, something I can analyze comes out of it. Once I have my interview down on paper, I can break it down and look for hidden meanings between the lines. I will not be using any subjects or participants for this actual research method because they are not needed. They participants were needed for interviewing, but not to analyze the transcript.
The ethical concerns for discourse analysis involve similar issues to interviewing. The transcripts from the interviewing process are being used which are other people’s words and ideas. I must make sure that I am able to use and hand in the information I obtained. It is best to ask for consent from the subjects whose transcripts will be used. It is best to ask the subject if it is okay to discuss the transcript with others. I will have the subject sign a consent form that proves the subject gave me permission to use the information. I will make sure that no names are being used so that the subject does is not identifiable.
The timeframe that I have planned for discourse analysis is able a week. This research method should not take as long as interviewing as a research methods because I do not have to work with anyone or plan dates that are good for me and subject. It is mostly up to me and how long I take to analyze the two transcripts. I will give myself a week to successfully get as much information out of the transcripts and analyze them as best as I can. Again, I will be doing this research for a job offer, so I would want to finish before the summer ends.
In order to find out the actual thoughts and affects first hand from people who actually did the reading and witnessed success in their child’s future and people have were read to and experienced the success from books, it is best to use the research method of interviewing to research. Discourse analysis comes after the transcript from the interview is completed. Discourse analysis is what shows the unconscious elements of the transcript. Because reading aloud to children is so imperative when children are young, it should be done. “Recent brain research has revealed that the early years of life are more critical to a child’s development than we ever realized. Children’s brains are only twenty five percent developed at birth. From that moment, whenever the baby is fed, cuddled, played with, talked to, sung to, or read to, the other seventy-five percent of its brain begins to develop (Fox 13).”
Works Cited
Works Cited
Cullinan, Bernice E. Read To Me. New York: Scholastic Inc., 1975.
Fox, Mem. Reading Magic. New York: Harcourt, Inc., 2001.
Reid, Dee, and Diana Bentley. Helping Your Child to Read. London: Hodder Education, 2009. 62.
