In the News

Community Real Estate Development Program - Class of 2008

With twenty-six students coming from Duval, Hillsborough, Orange, Pasco, Pinellas and Sarasota Counties, the Community Real Estate Development (CRED) Program at USF reaches current and potential affordable housing developers throughout central Florida. [more]

Summer 2008 Research Internships in Positive Youth Development

In 2003, the USF Collaborative began a summer internship program to involve local teens in gathering information and making recommendations on how communities can create more resilient youth. This internship is made possible through gifts in memory of Amy Kohlberg Quinlan, former faculty member in the Department of Child and Family Studies, Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute and a contribution by the USF Honors College. For the second year in a row, the focus of this summer’s 2008 research internship centers on positive youth development in the community. [more]

Building Preschooler’s Vocabulary Acquisition and Understanding of Scientific Concepts from Participation in Repeated Read-Aloud Events Involving Informational Picture Books: A Community Partners Project [read more about it]

This project's foundation is built on studies that have shown that children effectively learn new vocabulary through the repeated reading aloud of fictional storybooks. Ms. Leung addresses the problem of an insufficient focus on reading-aloud of nonfiction books, which is needed for children to achieve success in content areas such as science and social studies. She also addresses the gap in reading experiences between low and middle class children. Prior to first grade, children from middle-income families average between 1000 to 1700 hours of picture book reading experiences, compared to children from low-income families who average only 25 hours of such reading experiences.

 The aims of the study are to investigate the effects of reading-aloud informational picture books on a scientific topic, light and color, to 38 children ages 3 - 5 that attend the Family Village Child Development Center in St. Petersburg, Florida. Children's vocabulary growth is measured using four types of assessment:

o Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test o Expressive Vocabulary Test o Re-telling of book content o Target vocabulary assessment.

 Three informational picture books were selected: What is a Rainbow? All the Colors of the Rainbow, and The Wonder of Light. Hands-on activities follow the readings of the books, such as a demonstration of a prism and color wheel, and will include the concept of refraction and examples of substances that are opaque, transparent and translucent.

 This project provides an opportunity for faculty from literacy and science to improve pre-school children's learning of scientific concepts. This project will serve as a pilot project to apply for future funding from the National Science Foundation.