Use of formative assessment teaching practices to raise student achievement in reading
It is proposed that the use of formative assessment practices by some teachers was instrumental in raising Year 7, 8 and 9 student achievement in reading.
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The use of data and reports from the e-asTTle tool provided information to the teachers to support the teaching of gaps in student learning as well as identified learning needs.
The data from the beginning of the year and midyear assessments for the Year 7, 8 and 9 students in reading showed that students made progress in their learning over the study period. In reading, all year groups exceed the national expected shift. Year 7 students showed the smallest shift in learning, just 1 point above the expected national shift. Although the shift was a modest one compared to the 20 point shift in Year 8 (11 points about expectation) and the 53 point shift in Year 9 (51 points above expectation) it was still higher than expected national shift. Interpretation of the Year 9 shift should be done with caution for reasons outlined in the Results Chapter.
Future in-school analysis of the Year 9 results for the year would be wise to use end of year data for comparison before making any final conclusions about how much the students have shifted in their learning.
However, despite the concerns discussed above about some of the results, there is no doubt that across the year groups there was not just progress in learning, but a level of progress which exceeded the national expectations.
An unanticipated finding of the study was the ‘role reversal’ of student achievement in reading where the boys’ rate of progress was greater than the girls in Year 7, 8 and 9. The
boys’ accelerated progress is contrary to research findings which tend to view boys’ achievement in literacy as an “issue of boys’ failure and under-achievement relative to girls on literacy benchmarked testing measures” (Martino & Kehler, 2007, p. 407).The boys’
results are interesting as nationally and internationally girls tend to outperform boys in reading (Education Review Office, 2008; Ministry of Education, 2007).
The high rate of progress of the boys is possibly supported by several interventions trialled by the teachers during the study period. Year 8 teachers in the study school identified at the start of the year that the boys in the Year 8 cohort were disinterested and disengaged with reading. To counteract this disinterest the Year 8 teachers had endeavoured to provide resources and a reading programme that comprised of high interest materials and learning contexts specifically developed for boys.
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The Year 9 teachers, having also identified the same issue, used a culturally relevant and high interest reading text, matched with an audio book, which helped engage the boys in that year group.
The Ministry of Education (2007) stated “there is converging evidence that girls perform
better than boys, across all ethnic groupings, on all measures of reading and writing at all levels of schooling” and “in most other countries girls also significantly outperform boys in reading, so this is not just an issue for New Zealand” (p. 4). This is a thought-provoking development because only four years earlier Crooks (2003) had stated that there was strong evidence27 that boys and girls were achieving quite similarly in primary schooling in New Zealand.
Summary
Achievement of accelerated progress in reading is unlikely to have happened spontaneously. Such large shifts in student learning requires concerted effort from both teachers and students. The teacher survey responses clearly showed that some teachers were implementing culturally responsive, effective teaching practices; practices that incorporated evidence based teaching using explicit instruction of identified learning needs to students. Tunmer, Chapman, Greaney, Prochnow and Arrow (2013) noted strong evidence based support for explicit instruction in literacy. Key aspects of this practice were differentiated, scaffolded instruction with small-group, brief, hands-on activities supported by warm, responsive interactions with the teacher. This model is a good fit to the classroom practice and environment identified by some of the teachers in their responses to questions in the survey. Differentiated instruction, identified as the most effective strategy for reducing the literacy achievement gap (Tunmer et al., 2013) was identified as being used by some teachers in the study.
It is interesting to note research has identified the common characteristic of schools in which boys are achieving in literacy is where the focus on the gender of the student is not highlighted.
27 This evidence was based on the NEMP assessment results in 15 different subject areas over an eight-year
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Instead, studies showed that it is the strategies which reduce the creation of gender differences in the classroom which are the most effective in facilitating achievement for boys (Martino, 2008). The accelerated results of the boys across the Junior Department may, in part, be supported by teachers using evidence based strategies, focusing on the
student’s learning needs and not their gender.
Research has also shown that children from more advantaged, affluent backgrounds arrive
at schools with considerably more ‘literate cultural capital’ than children who come from
low-income and/or culturally diverse backgrounds (Tunmer et al., 2013, p. 21). Lack of exposure to early literacy experience leaves children from low-income backgrounds
“particularly susceptible to early reading difficulties because they often have not had the
preschool exposure to the kinds of language play activities … that promote the development
of crucial literacy-related skills” (Tunmer et al., 2013, p. 21). Many of the students at the
study school come from low-income background and most students enter the study school with low levels of literacy skills.
Although all year groups in the study showed accelerated progress in reading, the school’s
results when compared to other low-decile, diverse student schools were still behind.
Despite using “good pedagogy, relevant, intellectually demanding and engaging curriculum,
and develop(ing) respectful relationships” (Martino, 2008, p.3) the “long tail of under
achievement28” persists in the study school as an unwelcome reminder that more needs to
be done to raise student literacy achievement in the school to more acceptable levels (See Appendix A).