Sample A: Cover Page of Thesis, Project, or Dissertation Proposal

oth English and Spanish. Approximately half of teachers (55.6%) had earned associate‘s
degrees, and an additional 22.2% reported a high school degree as their highest education
attained. Teachers reported an average of 10.83 years of experience (SD = 11.60, range =
0-39) with Head Start programs run in Pueblo, Colorado, and an average of 15.13 years
of experience (SD = 11.52, range = 2-40) in the field of early childhood education.
Children
Initially, a total of 130 children were included in the research. Throughout the
course of the study, 7 children withdrew from participation for a number of reasons. Five
children withdrew from the Head Start program in which the study took place. One child
transferred from a full-day classroom assigned to the intervention group to a full-day
classroom assigned to the book reading control group. One child transferred from a
morning half-day class assigned to the book reading control group to an afternoon half-
day class assigned to the book reading control group in which the maximum number of
children had already been recruited (A maximum of 5 children were recruited from each
morning and afternoon half-day class in order to maintain maximal participation
requirements for dialogic reading methods (see Whitehurst et al., 1994, 1999)). Because
including exclusively Spanish-speaking children in the study would have required
teachers to read storybooks twice (once in English and once in Spanish), children who
spoke solely Spanish were excluded from the research. Bilingual children were allowed
to participate provided that they spoke both Spanish and English in the homes as
determined by parent report on the demographic questionnaire. The final sample included
one hundred twenty-two 4- and 5-year-old children eligible for kindergarten entry during
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