literacy and assessment

7/31/2019 Literacy and Assessment

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Introduction

Few would disagree that it is of paramount importance that children achieve good

levels of literacy in modern society. At an individual level, literacy has a profound

effect on overall quality of life, self-identity, and the capacity to function in an ever

more complex world; and at a macro-level, the success of society depends on a well-

educated, highly literate and adaptable workforce (Riley, 2001). Improving literacy

learning has been a dominant theme ever since the development of statutory

education over the last one hundred years or so. However, with the recent advent of

the digital age and the need for skilful use of information communications technology,

the importance of children becoming proficient with literacy skills is becoming ever

more pressing.

As part of their ambitious school improvement programme Government implemented

the National Literacy Strategy (NLS) in English primary schools in 1998. The aim of

the NLS was to raise literacy standards in primary schools, and improving literacy

was seen as the key to raising educational levels generally across the curriculum. In

the Introduction to the NLS Framework for Teaching (Department for Education

and Employment [DfEE], 1998) the reader is informed that Literacy is at the heart ofthe drive to raise standards in schools (p. 2). Improving literacy was to be achieved

by implementing a major programme of reform of literacy teaching. The NLS

introduced an approach to literacy that, according to Office for Standards in

Education (Ofsted) reports, was not consistently or uniformly in use in schools;

namely, a move away from individualised methods to whole-class and group

teaching; making more links between reading and writing; introducing more

systematic use of phonics; and a strong emphasis on more direct or explicit teaching

of literacy skills (Beard, 1990, 2000). Although aspects of the NLS have beenwelcomed, including the focus on whole-school strategies (Frater, 2000), the

literature critiquing the NLS is beginning to grow. Mroz et al. (2000) raise concerns

that teachers have been pressurised into using more directive forms of teaching that

reduce opportunities for pupils to question or explore ideas in depth. They argue that

some of the styles of teaching prescribed in the NLS are at odds with social

constructivist theories of learning that emphasise the importance of pupils playing an

active part in their learning.


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This, it is argued, results in interactions between teachers and pupils that are

cognitively undemanding, where pupils are often mere listeners or respondents

(Mroz et al., 2000, p. 387). Evidence that the NLS, with its emphasis on pace and

speed, may militate against cognitively rich interactions between teachers and pupils

comes from observational research conducted by English et al. (2002). These

authors found that since the introduction of the NLS some teachers appeared to ask

fewer challenging questions and had fewer sustained interactions with pupils.

Another criticism relates to the lack of emphasis given to meaning in the theoretical

model of reading outlined in NLS documents, which, it is argued, is fundamental to

the process of reading being purposeful and rewarding for children. Indeed, Riley

(2001) points to the cursory manner in which reading is theorised in the NLS

documentation, giving teachers only a superficial insight into the complex field of

literacy acquisition. Wyse (2003) argues that the pedagogic strategies of the NLS

Framework for Teaching do not rest on adequate empirical evidence, and that the

causes of any improvement are therefore ambiguous, a point also made in the

evaluations by Earl and colleagues from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

(Earl et al., 2000, 2001, 2003). The debate about whether the pedagogies of the NLS

should be expected to bring about improvements in literacy continues (e.g. Hiebart,

2000; Beard, 2003), and there is further debate about whether there is good

evidence of real improvements.

The success of the Governments pressure to improve the standards achieved by

school pupils is often assessed by looking for rises in the performance of children as

measured on Standardised Assessment Tasks (SATs) at the end of each Key Stage

4, S. Meadows et al. of education. The evidence is mixed. A government report on

the NLS (Ofsted, 2002) provides an overview of the first four years of its

implementation, and includes a summary of the standards attained by pupils. In

1998, 64% of 11-year-olds achieved level 4 in English, and by 2000 this rose to 75%.Ofsted reports on literacy standards (Ofsted, 2003; 2004) indicates that although

government targets for primary English have still not been met, there is some

evidence of a slight improvement in the results for pupils in Years 3, 4 and 5 in the

2004 national tests (after a period when results had been static). Despite primary

literacy targets not being met, Ofsted has maintained that the NLS has had a

significant impact on pupils literacy levels. This assertion has been questioned. Not

all commentators are willing to take this claim as evidence of real improvement in

pupils achievement. Those dismissing the reality of improvement on SATs use a

number of arguments against them (Smith et al., 1999; Davies, 2000; Gold, 2002).


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One basic concern is about the independence of the teaching and assessment

processes. SATs are administered in school by class teachers, the people who have

been responsible for teaching the pupils being assessed, and thus are vulnerable to

charges of bias in the direction of judging pupils performance more favourably than it

objectively deserves. Furthermore, schools are judged on their pupils success rate

on SATs and claims have been made that schools have submitted falsified records in

order to boost figures for league tables. Additionally, there have been suggestions

that SATs measure a rather limited amount of learning as related to the NLS.

Improvement might have been brought about through the introduction ofhigh stakes

tests, resulting in teachers teaching exactly what the test requires, in which case the

pupils improved performance might be limited to the tests rather than reflecting real

improvements in the quality of pupils learning (Black et al., 2002).

Reading Readiness Intervention at a Birmingham school

Peel Street Primary School has existed since 1874 and moved to its present building

in 1973. There are 430 children on roll aged 3-ll years, some of whom are

accommodated in mobile classrooms the main building now being too small to house

rising numbers. The 60 place Nursery is in a separate building adjacent to the main

school. In 2009 43% of children were eligible for free school meals and 142 werenamed on the Special Needs Register. Housing in the area consists mostly of pre-

war, terraced and semi-detached dwellings with a high proportion of multi-occupancy.

There is a significant ethnic population, accounting for a growing proportion of the

child population, with a predominance of Muslim families (65% of Peel Street pupils

are Asian, 10% African Caribbean). The headteacher had been in post for seven

years at the beginning of the project. She had in that time, made. significant changes

and improvements in the school and was keen for the school to develop its

community links. The school had a teacher responsible for Community Education

and Home/School Liaison and three language support teachers funded by Section

11. Peel Street Primary had been a school quick to take on new ideas and initiatives

and in many ways was at the forefront of innovation within the Borough, winning

awards for Curriculum Development (Jerwood) and Management (British Standards

5750), while also implementing home-school contracts and participating in the

GRASP (Getting Results And Solving Problems) project, sponsored by the Comino

Foundation. In spite of the lively ambience however, the attainment of pupils in terms

of reading scores and other standardised measures was low. The Key Stage I SATs


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results for 2008 suggest a long 'tail' at the lower end of the spectrum. In Year 6,49%

of pupils achieved a standardised score of less than 90 n the NFER group reading

test and on transfer to the High School,the majority were found to be confident,

happy and outgoing but lacking the essential skills required to access the curriculum

at secondary level. The fact that many pupils entered the school with a very limited

acquisition of the English language was thought by staff to be a significant issue in

the debate about standards. In many cases, English was not used at all in the home;

while most children became fluent in English relatively quickly once attending school,

their parents, particularly mothers, often had a very limited grasp of the language

which meant that for effective home-school liaison, the services of an interpreter

were often required. The school had bi-lingual staff who translated letters and notices

into community languages but this had limited effect since many families were from

poor farming districts in Pakistan and had not been taught to read at all. Home visits

revealed a dearth of toys and opportunities for play in many homes, and a total

absence of books. The prevailing attitude of parents was that education was the

business of schools and not really anything to do with them and they were often

resistant to pleas for their help and support in term of sharing games and books or

coming into school. Another obstacle to progress was the practice of families taking

extended holidays in Pakistan, often for six months at a time; this frustrated teachers

who found that on returning, children had often forgotten much of what they had

already learned, particularly in literacy terms.

The implementation of the National Curriculum had proved to be a very heavy burden

for many staff: not only had it demanded teachers' time and energy in familiarising

themselves with its content, but the record keeping and assessment requirements

were onerous, with teachers regularly working twelve-hour days in order to "stay on

top", The reward for the most hard working and conscientious of these teachers who

strived to take it all on board, is that every document has been changed at leastonce, in some cases two or three times and by 1996 the arrangements for teaching,

recording and assessing the National Curriculum bore little resemblance to the

original.

Apart from the physical and mental pressure on teachers was the issue of their

absence from the classroom. The implementation of the National Curriculum

necessitated a great deal of extra in-service training which took staff out of their

classrooms and away from their pupils, resulting in some


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cases, in lack of stability and continuity for children. When a teacher was in the

classroom, there were so many demands on her time, so many areas of the

curriculum to be covered, that the teaching of reading suffered in terms of status and

consequently in the amount of time allocated to it.

"I feel I'm failing the children in my class. I used to spend much more time reading

with them, individually and in groups, but now there just isn't the time. The curriculum

is too crowded for Key Stage One children, too much to fit in, and their reading and

writing is suffering as a consequence".( Experienced KS I teacher, Peel St. )

Teachers in the Peel Street School confessed to a lack of confidence in their ability to

teach reading. During INSET sessions they commented on the lack of training

received in college and explained that their current methodology was based on a

combination of how they learned to read themselves and how they had seen others

teaching while on teaching practice for example. They perceived a need for some in-

depth professional development but found it difficult to make the time to attend

relevant courses when there was so much going on in terms of the National

Curriculum and other areas of school development.

There was also an issue in the primary schools of insufficient numbers of books atthe appropriate level for beginning readers; this made it difficult for them to

consolidate their skills and apply them over a range of texts. The narrow range of

books at Peel Street school, which consisted mainly of a 'reading scheme', also

contributed to the children's lack of ability to cope with different kinds of books. Staff

commented that a pupils could be progressing very nicely through the graded

scheme books, reading fluently and accurately but would be unable to read a library

book of similar reading level.Peel Street, with its multi-ethnic intake had then

abandoned this rather dated reading scheme because of its inappropriateness and

opted instead for a 'real reading' approach. Some of the more established teachers

had been resistant to this change and felt threatened by the new approach and the

extra work it seemed to demand. They felt that the lack of parental support was a

serious obstacle to the success of this approach and, at the start of the project, there

were insufficient books of a suitably easy level to give struggling readers the support

and confidence they needed. The LEA reading screening for the years 2004-2008

showed low attainment for a high proportion of children at Peel Street (50% of pupils

scored a Reading Quotient (RQ) of 85 or below on the NFER Group ReadingTest).


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For Peel Street, the introduction of the Reading Recovery programme (as part of a

range of strategies employed to improve standards of reading ) provided

opportunities not only to make effective provision for a group of six-year olds who

were not making adequate progress with their reading, but also to re-examine the

policies and practice for teaching reading throughout the school. The government's

decision to allocate millions of pounds to a reading intervention designed to be used

only with Year I and Year 2 children did have some positive effect. However, a

reading screening at the local St John's High school showed that 75% of Year 7

pupils demonstrated below-average reading performance: 27% scored RQ s of less

than 85 . The prospect of this situation improving in the future as a result of the

successful implementation of the Reading Recovery Programme in primary schools

proved to be of little comfort.

The Intervention

It was considered that three times per week might be an average minimum time

which a parent from a more advantaged background could spend on storytime with

their children. The stories were taped, rather than read by the member of nursery

staff, in order that in the time available, a more intensive and controlled measure ofstory exposure could be undertaken on an auditory basis. The modifications made in

terms of active student response and explicit control of the rate of instruction were

broadly in line with the recommendations found in Carnine et al., 2004. The

Intervention consisted of exposure to a succession of taped children's stories, three

times per week, for a period of three months. A senior member of the nursery staff

undertook the Intervention, which took place after lunch, when many of the younger

children took a rest. The study does give tentative claim to the fact that for

disadvantaged pre-school population, a structured, auditory interaction based upon

taped story sessions with an adult, can lead to reading readiness benefits namely in

the area of auditory attention skills for disadvantaged boys. This is very much backed

up in the literature and can be viewed as a stage in the development of whole

language skills (Minskoff, 2005).

Each subject, in the experimental groups, for each sex, was given five minutes

taped-story exposure three times per week. The subject was taken individually from

their particular nursery room into the same room in which Pre-Intervention measures


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were undertaken. The senior nursery member of staff was a very familiar person in

the child's everyday life and, as such, was viewed as a 'mother substitute' for the

purposes of the investigation. The child was seated adjacent to the member of staff

with the tape-recorder placed on the table in front of the child. The following

instructions were given to the child:

"(NAME) I would like you to listen carefully to this story.

When it is finished I want to ask you some questions to

find out if you were listening carefully. The story is

called . . ........

The aim of the Intervention was to encourage the development of listening skills

(particularly with regard to disadvantaged boys) as part of the pre-school reservoir of

activities, reinforced via leisure activities. On the basis of the literature findings, it

would appear that disadvantaged boys are handicapped with regard to verbal and

auditory skills and that often, their pre-school play and leisure activities exacerbate

such weaknesses. Boys would tend to prefer activity centred around large muscle

movement pursuits and as such, the amount of verbal stimulation derived, via the

parents, in terms of storytime, appears to be minimised. In an attempt to compensate

for such absence of verbal and auditory stimulation an Intervention Programmeaimed at improving listening skills and requisite attention span was envisaged. It was

hypothesised that such a Programme would improve auditory skills in the

experimental boys' group (with little or no difference noted with regard to the girls'

experimental group). It was further hypothesised that the control groups would show

little difference with regard to Pre- and Post-Intervention perceptual profiles and

attention span indices and ratings. A follow-up study of the experimental and control

groups after one term and one year in school would seek to prove the efficiency of

the Intervention Programme. After the fashion of a parent-child story session, there

was no formal record of the children's responses with regard to the questions asked

by the nursery nurse. The investigator's aim was to provide a pleasurable

interchange between the nursery nurse and child, but, with the child required to

engage his/her attention in order to answer the questions.

In this way it was hoped:

a) Story time could be associated with a pleasurable, individual period of attention.


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b) The child's listening skills, with regard to the auditory presentation of material

would be improved

c)The child would acquire the habit of reducing its activity level at story time as recall

of material was required.

With regard to a) each child was given an individual period of attention which was

presented as informally and pleasurably as was permitted. The sessions were

treated as 'fun' and not in any, way as a direct teaching situation. For many children

in the sample population, the opportunity for individual attention exposure was a

reward situation and many children in the sample population were demanding of

adult attention. For the experimental groups, it was hypothesised that a short period

of three months with regular sessions of auditory input (at the expense, in the case of

the boys, of normal play activities) would improve auditory listening skills.

Additionally, the knowledge that the children were required to recall information from

their story, it was hypothesised, would reduce activity level and increase attention

individuals. Although children were not scored on the Intervention exposure, children

were given much praise when they answered correctly. If the child answered

incorrectly the nursery nurse would inform the child of his/her mistake and encouragethe child in a second attempt with additional help and cues. It was not thought

appropriate for these nurse-child sessions to be a rigorous chronicle of the child's

attention recall (this would be the case in the Post-Intervention scores), rather, the

sessions were to be viewed as a pleasurable pre-school leisure activity in which the

habit of 'listening' on a reduced activity basis was incidentally learned

Conclusion

The intervention described in this paper describes a preliminary step in reading

preparedness, that of increasing auditory comprehension as a precursor to a whole

reading approach. At later stages of the Reading Recovery Programme at Peel

Street School we have moved to specific reading improvement measures with the

same year group from six months onwards of starting the project. These have

included

buying new books, story tapes, games and computer software. The power of

attractive, new, interesting books as a motivator for pupils to read was


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witnessed time and again by teachers and parents. The story tapes provided

access to high quality children's literature, well-read, for those pupils who

could not read it for themselves. The games and software provided different

approaches to practising reading which were fun and possibly less

threatening for some children, than reading aloud from a book.

introducing children and their parents to the public library. This was a new

experience for the majority of children and their parents. Many parents had

not realised that the use of the library is free.

providing professional training for staff on the teaching of reading, including

assessment and recording techniques

developing shared reading and paired reading programmes.

using workshops and re-written booklets to explain to parents how reading is

taught in school and how they could help their children at home.

special focus events to encourage children to read, eg. book trails, quizzes

and competitions, new reading diaries and merit certificates, book fayres,

invited readers, authors and poets.

extra individual help for pupils who were slow to progress with reading.

The cumulative effect of these initiatives was to raise the profile of reading generally

and raise awareness among everyone concerned- staff, governors, parents and

children, regarding the schools' objectives to improve standards.


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References

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