Topic: Language and Literacy Development
Order Description
You are to write a short research paper reviewing research on one topic about LANGUAGE OR LITERACY DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDREN.

You should pick a research topic related to language or literacy development and bring an empirical journal article related to that topic of your choice to the instructor for approval.

You will then research that topic by finding at least 5 other related empirical journal articles.

The six journal articles you find will give information to support, refute, or qualify your main idea. These journal articles must be from Developmental, Education, or Psychology journals and must be reporting empirical findings (empirical journal articles will have a method section and a results section). Researched resources cannot be older than 2000.

The content of your literature review must include each of the following three components:
1) Introduction (1 to 2 Paragraphs)
The introduction will:
Describe how the research reported in the selected articles connects to language and/or literacy development and explains why the issue is relevant to language and/or literacy development. Take a position supporting, refuting, or qualifying the results of the studies presented in the selected readings, and support your position based on the evidence from the results of the empirical research articles you have researched. This thesis does not need to be complicated or entirely novel, but it should be stated very clearly and explicitly. The thesis paragraph should include an explicit statement of a thesis, and a concise overview of the argument you are making using the results of the research (including citations for at least 3 articles you use will use).

2) Body
In the body of your paper you should connect your ideas (major points) in a logical argument. Be sure to summarize the method and findings of at least 4 of the studies (in a separate paragraph or two) in your own words. Focus your discussion on how the results of the studies relate to the topic you are researching. Do not simply copy the abstracts. Avoid citing information from the introduction section (ideas that refer to other cited papers). For each study, clearly state how the study relates to what is said in your thesis. Then report the method used (what was done), the results (what was found), and the conclusions.
To help you frame your thinking:
• Consider what the research was intending to do.
• What was their methodology? Who were their participants? What age? Any special population? Were they in groups? What did they have to do? What did they measure? How?
• What was their finding (result)? (summarized in words and not using statistical jargon)
• Can you describe how it connects to your topic?
• What else should be considered?
Make sure you make the connections between the studies clear (connect the ideas with a sentence or two at the beginning or end of each paragraph).

3) Summary & conclusion
Write a summary paragraph. You summary will be very similar in style and content to your thesis paragraph. Include citations to at least 3 sources again.

Draw conclusions in your final paragraph. What have you learned and, if applicable, what other points merit further investigation?