Nigel and Kevin

Nigel was the father of two children aged 12 and 10. His youngest child, Kevin (aged 10 years, 0 months) was a participant in the research. Kevin was in year 5 at school. Their household consisted of Nigel, his wife Michelle, and their two children, Shane (aged 12) and Kevin. Nigel was employed in a professional role. He had recently completed a PhD. The family had immigrated to New Zealand from South Africa approximately two years beforehand. Nigel reported that they were well settled in New Zealand and he viewed the family’s transition as positive. In particular, Nigel commented that the change of schooling systems had been beneficial. However, he also acknowledged many differences between the two systems of education:

Schooling in New Zealand is quite different... In New Zealand you get left to your own devices a lot more, at home you get set homework, reading this page to that page, do these maths sums. In New Zealand it’s pretty much your own pace at home. Back home there was two hours of

compulsory homework per night. In NZ homework is a weekly task so it is much more casual, if you don’t do it tonight, there’s always tomorrow. We had trouble to get boys into a routine to complete homework because it is so relaxed in New Zealand.

In this family, a considerable amount of time beyond school and work was taken up with sport. All three males were active participants in a team sport and Nigel and Shane were also involved in refereeing and other club activities. While Kevin played the same sport, he was less passionate about it than Nigel and Shane. Nigel reported that Kevin was passionate about animals. He linked this to Kevin’s early experiences in their country of origin but said that this interest had been maintained since coming to New Zealand. Kevin had an ambition to work with animals. Nigel labelled Kevin a daydreamer – he reported a lack of planning and organisation in various situations in the home. Nigel’s attitude toward this perception was one of humour and bewilderment.

Nigel described that their home “contained a library of books. They (the children) can go there and pick what they want, there is a big range,” which included fiction and non-fiction books at a wide range of reading levels. He also reported that both he and Michelle were keen readers. Nigel reported that he does “lots of different reading” including and beyond reading for work and study. The family took trips to the library regularly and they each chose books. Nigel reflected that there were no obvious signs that learning to read would be difficult for Kevin. Nigel believed that because Kevin had seen Shane learning to read this would have served as a model and that it would be “a very natural process for Kevin to also read.” However, Nigel also reported that Kevin was “slow to start reading, he wasn’t really interested.” When I asked Nigel to speculate about the cause of this, he replied, “I blame TV (laughs). He finds the pictures far more interesting.” This led Nigel to comment: “He’s a visual learner, he likes pictures. Even now when he reads he forms little pictures in his head of what is happening on the page.”

As a reader, Nigel reported that Kevin “is happy to read something he likes. He reads real quick but whether he understands everything is a different question. He usually gets the main story line. I quiz him on his reading but sometimes he skips over the detail.” Nigel stated that Kevin particularly enjoyed stories with a lot of humour: “Kevin loves Roald Dahl books and Jeremy Strong. Oh, and he

loves Star Wars.” Nigel believed Kevin was a selective reader, “He would not be interested in reading the newspaper but has recently been enjoying science books.” More recently he had shown an interest in instruction manuals, for example model making, and has made good use of these books at home. Nigel reported that he appeared to enjoy the satisfaction of being able to follow the instructions and make something. He also loved being read to.

4.2.1.1 Kevin’s Initial Assessment Data

At the beginning of this research Kevin had just had his 10th birthday. The assessments were carried out at Kevin’s school in a small meeting room. Only Kevin and I were in the room and we sat at a table together. We were not interrupted during the assessments. During the assessment process Kevin seemed somewhat nervous and smiled rarely. He worked in a slow, methodical manner through the tasks.

4.2.1.1.1 Attitude Survey

The survey showed that Kevin had a positive attitude towards reading at school and at home. However, there were a number of exceptions. Kevin reported disliking: reading a book on a rainy Saturday, reading for fun at home, starting a new book, reading during the holidays and reading out loud in class. When converted to numerical scores, this corresponds to an overall score of 61/80 with an individual score of 27/40 for recreational reading, and 34/40 for reading at school.

4.2.1.1.2 Running Record

I carried out an initial running record with Kevin at level 25, equivalent in reading age to 9-9.5 year old level. He read the text in a very expressive manner, putting appropriate emphasis on words to convey the story well. He responded

appropriately to the punctuation. He read this text with 99% accuracy. He made two errors, substituting the words ‘nibble’ for ‘nimble’ and ‘lovely’ for ‘luckily.’ When the errors and text are compared, both have similar letters, sounds and word shape. However, the meanings and word class are significantly different;

even so, Kevin did not attempt to correct his reading. Kevin was able to provide a well sequenced retelling of the story but gave limited detail. He correctly answered three out of five comprehension questions. He was able to answer literal questions but struggled with inferential questions and those which required him to bring his own experiences to the text.

Kevin agreed to read a more difficult text and so I gave him level 27 which corresponded to a reading age of 10-10.5 years. He read this text with 96% accuracy, making ten errors. He did not attempt to correct any of these errors. Two errors were inserted words where the text had no word. The remaining errors were all visually similar to the text but the substituted word did not maintain meaning. Kevin made no attempt to re-read, ask for assistance or correct the errors. Kevin could retell the story well. He correctly answered four out of five comprehension questions but two of these could have had further elaboration to answer fully. He was able to answer the inferential questions related to this text however the story was about a mongoose and snake and as Kevin had a deep interest in the animal world he may have had some prior knowledge which enabled him to make well considered generalisations.

4.2.1.1.3 Phonetic Assessment

Kevin completed the spelling test slowly with much deliberation. The

assessment showed he had accurate use of single consonants, short vowels, digraphs and blends and long vowel patterns. In the section on other vowel patterns he only got one correct ‘ar’. He got 11 correct, and made 13 errors in the section on syllables, word junctures, consonant doubling, prefixes and suffixes. He scored zero in the section which required him to use bases and root words. This result shows that Kevin had very sound phonetic skills in advance of what can be expected of a person his age.

4.2.1.1.4 My Assessment Conclusions

Based on the results of the above assessments I determined that Kevin was reading at an age appropriate level. However, he demonstrated a limited range

of strategies for decoding unknown words and he did not monitor or self-correct his reading. He was able to recount what he has read and generally make sense of it. However, he did not always remember details, did not use inference well, and did not always make a personal connection to the text. He had age

appropriate phonetic skills. He had a positive attitude towards reading.

Even though the results of this bank of assessments implied that Kevin’s reading was at an age appropriate skill level, his reading skills were not supported by a strong foundation of being able to apply a range of reading processes. Without targeted support, continued progress in reading may become difficult for Kevin to maintain in the future as the demands of reading become more challenging.