Outstanding Dissertation of the Year Award

The Outstanding Dissertation of the Year Award is a US$1,000 award supported by a grant from Scott Foresman. Summaries of winning dissertations are published each year in Reading Research Quarterly.

Dissertations in reading or related fields are eligible for the competition. Studies using any research approach (ethnographic, experimental, historical, survey, etc.) are encouraged. Each study is assessed in the light of this approach, the scholarly qualification of its report, and its significant contributions to knowledge within the reading field. The deadline for submission is October 1.

For additional information, contact the Research and Policy Division.

Award recipients

2007
Wendy Johnson Donnell
The effects of multisensory vowel instruction during word study for third grade students
Institution: University of Missouri, Kansas City
Chair: Tamera Murdock

2006
Leigh A. Hall
Anything but lazy: New understandings about struggling readers, teaching, and text
Institution: Michigan State University
Chair: Victoria Purcell-Gates

2005
Molly Fuller Collins
ESL preschoolers’ English vocabulary acquisition and story comprehension from storybook reading
Institution: Boston University
Chair: Judith A. Schickedanz

2004
Kristen D. Ritchey
The prediction of growth in reading subskills and the relationship of growth to literacy outcomes in kindergarten
Institution: University of Maryland
Chair: Deborah L. Speece

2003
Sharon A. Craig
The effects of an adapted interactive writing intervention on kindergarten children’s phonological awareness, spelling, and early reading development
Institution: University of Maryland
Chair: Mariam Jean Dreher

2002
Ledong Li
The role of phonology in reading Chinese single characters and two-character words with high, medium and low phonological regularities by Chinese grade 2 and grade 5 students
Institution: Oakland University
Chair: Ronald Cramer

2001
Stephanie Al Otaiba
Children who do not respond to early literacy intervention: A longitudinal study across kindergarten and first grade
Institution: Peabody College, Vanderbilt University
Chair: Douglass Fuchs

2001
Kathryn Glasswell
The patterning of difference: Teachers and children constructing development in writing
Institution: University of Auckland, New Zealand
Chair: Stuart McNaughton

2001
Pia Rebello Britto
Family literacy environments and children’s emerging literacy skills
Institution: Columbia University
Chair: Marla Brassard

2000
Nell K. Duke
For the rich it’s richer: Print experiences and environments offered to children in very low- and very high-SES first grade classrooms
Institution: Harvard University
Chair: Victoria Purcell-Gates

1999
Stephen R. Burgess
The influence of speech perception, oral language ability, the home literacy environment, and pre-reading knowledge on the growth of phonological sensitivity: A 1-year longitudinal investigation
Institution: Florida State University
Chair: Joseph K. Torgesen

1998
Lawrence R. Sipe
The construction of literary understanding by first- and second-graders in response to picture storybook read-aloud
Institution: Ohio State University
Chair: Janet Hickman

1997
Marné B. Isakson
Learning from practice: Supporting the literacy learning of reluctant and less proficient adolescent readers
Institution: Brigham Young University
Chair: David D. Williams

1996
Patricia M. Davis
Literacy acquisition, retention, and usage: A case study of the Machiguenga of the Peruvian Amazon
Institution: University of Texas at Austin
Chair: John A. Laska, Jr.

1995
Linda R. Ayres
The efficacy of three training conditions on phonological awareness of kindergarten children and the longitudinal effects of each on later reading acquisition
Institution:Oakland University
Chair: Ronald L. Cramer

1994
Janice F. Almasi
The nature of fourth graders’ sociocognitive conflicts in peer-led and teacher-led discussions of literature
Institution: University of Maryland
Chair: Linda Gambrell

1993
Julianne C. Turner
Situated motivation in literacy instruction
Institution: University of Michigan
Chair: Scott G. Paris

1992
Susan I. McMahon
Book Club: A case study of a group of fifth graders as they participate in a literature based reading program
Institution: Michigan State University
Chair: Taffy Raphael

1991
Douglas K. Hartman
Eight readers reading: The intertextual links of able readers using multiple passages
Institution: University of Illinois-Champaign
Chair: P. David Pearson

1990
Marlene Schommer
Students’ beliefs about the nature of knowledge: What are they and how do they affect comprehension?
Institution: California State University, Los Angeles
Chair: Richard C. Anderson

1989
Beth Spencer
The development of the young child’s concept of word: A longitudinal study
Institution: Emory University
Chair: Peter Afflerbach

1988
Anne E. Cunningham
Enhancing phonemic awareness and early reading achievement with metacognitive instruction
Institution: University of Michigan
Chair: Scott Paris

1987
Alison Preece
Young children’s productive narrative competence in conversational contents: Form, function and developmental change
Institution: University of British Columbia
Chair: Norma Mickelson

1986
Peter Afflerbach
The influence of prior knowledge on expert readers’ main idea construction process
Institution: Emory University
Chair: Peter Johnston

1985
Margaret Gentile McKeown
The acquisition of word meaning from context by children of high and low ability
Institution: University of Pittsburgh
Chair: Isabel Beck

1984
Nancy N. Spivey
Discourse synthesis: Constructing texts in reading and writing Institution: University of Texas at Austin
Chair: Charles R. Kline and Michael Strange

1983
Deborah P. Birkmire
Effect of the interaction of text structure, background knowledge and purpose on attention to text
Institution: University of Delaware
Chair: John Guthrie

1982
Peter H. Johnston
Prior knowledge and reading comprehension test bias
Institution: University of Illinois
Chair: George McConkie

1981
William A. Diehl
Functional literacy as a variable construct: An examination of attitudes, behaviors and strategies related to occupational literacy
Institution: Indiana University

1980
David Allen Hayes
The effect of text-embedded analogy upon comprehension and learning
Institution: University of Arizona

1979
Allan R. Hagerup-Neilsen
The role of macrostructures and linguistic connectives in comprehensing familiar and unfamiliar written discourse
Institution: University of Minnesota

1978
Tom Nicholson
The relative effects of different error types on children&’s understanding of connected discourse
Institution: University of Minnesota

1978
Victor Froese
The quality, direction, and distance of within sentence contextual constraints
Institution: University of Minnesota

1978
Beth De Fratis Evans
A study of what Chicano and Anglo children remember about the stories they read and hear
Institution: University of Colorado

1977
Nancy Marshall
The structure of semantic memory for text
Institution: Cornell University

1977
Paul Clements
The effects of staging on recall from prose
Institution: Cornell University

1976
Pamela Anne R. Terry
The effect of orthographic transformations upon speed and accuracy of semantic categorization
Institution: University of Minnesota

1976
Che Kan Leong
Spatial-temporal information processing in children with specific reading disability
Institution: University of Alberta

1976
Robert E. Judge
The effect of presentation mode and material difficulty on third and seventh graders’ use of phonemic and semantic attributes to encode words into long term memory
Institution: State University of New York at Albany

1976
Susan Dalfen Denberg
The interaction of picture and print in reading instruction
Institution: University of Toronto

1975
Jerome A. Niles
The use of featural and letter dependency information in word recognition by elementary school children
Institution: State University of New York at Albany

1975
Grace Velina Malicky
The effect of deletion produced structures on word identification and comprehension of beginning readers
Institution: University of Alberta

1975
Stella S.F. Liu
An investigation of oral reading miscues made by nonstandard dialect speaking black children
Institution: University of California, Berkeley

1975
Patricia Rawerts Dahl
A mastery based experimental program for teaching high speed word recognition skills
Institution: University of Minnesota

1974
Laurence Walker
A comparative study of selected reading and listening processes
Institution: University of Alberta

1974
Charles W. Peters
A comparison between the Frayer Model of concept attainment and the textbook approach to concept attainment
Institution: University of Wisconsin

1974
Fillmore K. Peltz
The effect upon comprehension of repatterning based upon students’ writing patterns
Institution: Hofstra University

1974
Ross Oliver M. Latham
Cognitive synthesis and the comprehension of written language
Institution: University of Alberta

1974
Raymond J. Horton
The construct validity of cloze procedure: An exploratory factor analysis of cloze, paragraph reading, and structure-of-intellect tests
Institution: Hofstra University

1974
Richard L. Allington
An evaluation of the use of color cues to focus attention in discrimination and paired-associate learning
Institution: Michigan State University

1973
Norma I. Mickelson
Associative verbal encoding (a/v/e): A measure of language performance and its relationship to reading achievement
Institution: University of Washington

1973
Joseph C. Kretschmer
Measuring reading comprehension
Institution: Ohio State University

1973
Carita A. Chapman
A test of hierarchical theory of reading comprehension
Institution: University of Chicago

1972
Barbara D. Stoodt
The relationship between memory processes in reading comprehension
Institution: Ohio State University

1972
Diane J. Sawyer
Intra-sentence grammatical constraints in readers’ samplings of the visual display
Institution: Cornell University

1972
Robert K. Jackson
An examination of the role of memory processes in reading comprehension
Institution: University of Alberta

1971
William T. Fagan
An investigation into the relationship of reading difficulty and the number and type of sentence transformations
Institution: University of Alberta

1970
Hildred I. Rawson
A study of the relationships and development of reading and cognition
Institution: University of Alberta

1969
Marguerite B. Bougere
Selected factors in oral language related to first grade reading achievement
Institution: University of Chicago

1968
Anne O. Stemmler
Reading of highly creative versus highly intelligent secondary students
Institution: University of Chicago

1967
Jean E. Robertson
An investigation of pupil understanding of connectives in reading
Institution: University of Alberta

Wilber S. Ames
A study of the process by which readers determine word meaning through the use of verbal context
Institution: University of Missouri

1965
Helen K. Smith
The response of good and poor readers when asked to read for different purposes
Institution: University of Chicago

1964
Robert B. Ruddell
An investigation of the effects of the similarity of oral and written patterns of language structure on reading comprehension
Institution: Indiana University