Dr. Keenjal Pattni-Shah (right)

The Frank Dilley Award is bestowed annually upon a Walden graduate whose dissertation is judged as meeting the highest standards of academic excellence.

Watch the video of Dr. Pattni-Shah presenting her research.

 
Recipient: Dr. Keenjal Pattni-Shah

Program: Ph.D. in Education

 
Dissertation Title: Bridging the Gap: Home-School Partnerships in Kindergarten

 
Nominator Comments: “The topic of Dr. Pattni-Shah’s dissertation addresses a growing need for information relating to the needs of young English language learners,” said Pattni-Shah’s dissertation committee chair, Dr. Amie Beckett. “Early intervention can effectively address achievement gaps in vulnerable populations. Dr. Shah's work documents ways that successful teachers have established partnerships with families to promote secure literacy foundations in young English language learners. Her work addresses the critical need for information on effective partnerships with immigrant parents when their children are still in kindergarten.” 

About the Dissertation: Through her research, Dr. Pattni-Shah explored how immigrant parents, whose diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds are largely unknown, interact with home-school partnerships to support kindergarten children’s development of vocabulary, the alphabetic principle, phonological awareness as well as the mechanisms through which these partnerships are established and facilitated.

Her grounded theory study focused on exploring how successful kindergarten teachers defined home-school partnerships with parents, the strategies the teachers used to communicate with parents, the ways these teachers reached out to parents to create and sustain partnerships and how the teachers used these partnerships to support children’s learning.

Awards Ceremony
Dr. Pattni-Shah accepted the 2009 Frank Dilley Award during Walden University’s Board of Directors Awards Dinner in Dallas Jan. 23. “I’m honored to be part of Walden,” Pattni-Shah said. “I tell all of my friends how wonderful Walden is, and it’s because of all the wonderful faculty and all the wonderful experiences I’ve had here.”

Rita Turner Award
For chairing Pattni-Shah’s dissertation committee, Dr. Amie Beckett, faculty member for the Ph.D. in Education program, received the Rita Turner Award.

Read more about the Frank Dilley Award and its past recipients.

February Ponder front page

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