Improving Literacy in the Primary School

R. P. Chamberlin, G. S. Haynes, E. C. Wragg, Prof E C Wragg

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134690930
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

One of the most important challenges teachers face is making sure children can read. It is an absolutely crucial skill, and current educational policy is giving it a very high priority. Based on one of the largest studies ever undertaken of what primary schools do to improve literacy, this book reports what Professor Ted Wragg and his research team found. The importance placed on literacy has never been greater. When children learn to read, they are laying the foundations for their entire educational future. Effective teachers can make a huge difference, as a poor start can hinder children throughout their schooling and beyond. By looking at what actually goes on in classrooms, this volume provides an invaluable insight into what happens to children and how their reading progresses. It shows how particular teachers manage the improvement of their pupils' reading levels, and also follows individual pupils through a school year. This is a very readbale account of a fascinating and crucial area of research that is highly topical. Every class teacher should read it.

1

STUDYING IMPROVEMENT

Introduction

How do schools improve the quality of their pupils’ achievements in a field like ‘literacy’? Can local education authorities still have an impact? What do head teachers do to raise standards? What is happening inside the classrooms of those teachers who succeed in increasing their pupils’ competence in reading beyond the average over a school year? Which individual children in a class improve, and what do they actually do?

These were a few of the questions we addressed in the Primary Improvement Project, a two-year research programme at Exeter University, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, in which we investigated the efforts being made to improve the standards of literacy, especially reading, in primary schools and classrooms. This book describes and analyses what we found.

For two decades or more there has been considerable interest in the accountability of schools and teachers. Life in the adult world seemed to be getting tougher as the twenty-first century approached. Employment opportunities, particularly in traditional jobs like those in manufacturing industry, declined sharply. Millions of unskilled jobs disappeared completely, as factory automation, alongside developments such as the fork lift truck, rendered obsolete the need for carrying, lifting and machine minding (Wragg 1997a). The millennium drew to its close, with parents, employers, taxpayers and pupils themselves beginning to expect more from the education service than in previous generations.

It is important, in these rapidly changing and ever more demanding conditions, to study the effectiveness of what primary schools are achieving, and this is what we set out to do. Such research can be riddled with pitfalls. Choose any aspect of the curriculum, let alone one so important as literacy, our particular focus, and the difficulties soon become apparent. Even defining what teachers and heads understand is covered by the term ‘literacy’ is far from being a straightforward matter, though we did attempt to tackle this, by actually asking them, during the research.

There has been extensive research, especially in the United States, into the ‘effectiveness’ of individual teachers. Studies of school effectiveness have also become a well-trodden field of enquiry. Research into literacy in general and the teaching of reading in particular is another huge area of research. Some of this is described in more detail in Chapter 2. What we wanted to do was straddle all three aspects by undertaking an intensive scrutiny of particular classrooms in different schools, with a sharp focus on what the pupils and teachers in them actually did to improve literacy.

Studying teacher and school effectiveness today is much harder than it would have been a century ago. In the nineteenth century teacher training institutions were known as ‘normal schools’, on the grounds that there was a single agreed ‘norm’ of teaching (Rich 1933). The pluralism of the twentieth century has led to a diversity of teaching styles and there is no clear research evidence that one approach is universally more ‘effective’ than another, since context, subject matter, pupil ability and prior experience will often influence both process and outcome. Indeed large-scale summaries of the relationship between process and product in classrooms have often stated precisely that.

Barr (1961) summarised several hundred American studies with different definitions of ‘effectiveness’, some based on test scores, others on observations of teaching by experts, or on the opinions of principals, fellow teachers or pupils. He concluded that teachers who were preferred by administrators or by pupils were not necessarily those whose pupils did well in tests. Doyle (1978) observed that reviewers of research into teacher effectiveness ‘have concluded, with remarkable regularity, that few consistent relationships between teacher variables and effectiveness criteria can be established’.

Even reviewers of the same studies have reached different conclusions about them, as Giaconia and Hedges (1985) pointed out in their synthesis of research findings on effectiveness. Some smaller-scale analysis has sometimes found advantages for one style of teaching over another. For example, Gage (1978, 1985) cited studies that tended to show a superiority of ‘traditional’ over ‘progressive’ methods so far as basic skills in the early years of schooling were concerned, and Kulik et al. (1979) reported a meta-analysis of American studies of the Keller Plan, a form of teaching involving pupils completing individual assignments, which showed higher learning gains among Keller Plan pupils than in control groups.

Despite the problems, disagreements and uncertainties, however, classroom research can attempt to analyse process and outcome in a way that will give insights into teaching and learning. These may not be universally applicable, but at least they offer some clues about aspects of practice that teachers may wish to consider changing. It is then up to individuals to decide to what extent other people’s research findings might apply to them. Unfortunately, as Hargreaves (1997) and others have argued, there is not always the strong relationship between educational research findings and teachers’ professional practice that might be found in other professions like medicine. That is not, however, an argument against doing good classroom research, more one for improving its quality, applicability, dissemination and impact.

One example of higher impact occurs in the United States, where Freiberg and his co-workers (Freiberg 1983, Freiberg et al. 1990, Freiberg and Driscoll 1992, Freiberg et al. 1995) have studied the effects of various classroom processes thought to be associated with pupil learning. In a number of action-oriented programmes they found that when teachers consistently applied certain class management principles, like creating an orderly environment, varying their strategies, supporting a climate of pupil reflection, providing greater opportunities for pupil self-discipline, and establishing closer links with parents and the community, there was more likely to be significantly greater pupil progress in reading, writing and mathematics.

There are no miracle programmes and the advantages reported in these smaller-scale analyses are often relatively slight, not strong enough to support the complete endorsement of one style of teaching or the abandonment of another. They are also frequently related to the particular context in which they occur. Nonetheless each can add a little to our understanding of what may work in certain circumstances. Teachers can then modify their own teaching in the light of what they have learned from others. Successful models are more likely to invade the consciousness of busy teachers than exhortations or vague generalisations. As Gage (1985) has pointed out, medical research into beta blockers and low-cholesterol diets found differences of only 2.5 and 1.7 per cent respectively in the mortality rates of the experimental and control groups, yet the US government implemented the findings immediately. Effectiveness research in education is problematic and difficult but still worthwhile.

In order to locate our research in a context, we decided to study schools in different parts of the country, to select classrooms in which we could observe teachers’ and children’s practice over the whole of a school year, and to pick out certain pupils for particular attention. We employed a multilateral strategy using a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods. This involved sending out questionnaires to a national sample of schools; interviewing heads, teachers, advisers, parents, pupils; observing lessons from the beginning of September to the end of July, with up to eight ‘target’ pupils in each class; testing pupils’ reading, and asking teachers to rate their progress, attitudes and behaviour.

We moved successively through these various layers of enquiry via a ‘zoom’ technique which allowed us to focus on the general and then on the individual. The four linked studies which made up our research are described in more detail below and in later chapters of this book, but briefly, for tim e be ing, t hey consisted of:

1 questionnaires sent to a national sample of 1,395 schools;

2 studies of local education authorities in general and Birmingham in particular;

3 recording and analysis of the processes, over a full school year, in the classrooms of thirty-five teachers in different parts of the country, from Reception class up to Year 6;

4 intensive observations of six individual children in each of these thirty-five case study classes (plus up to a further two pupils in each class who were thought by the teacher to be ‘improving’), to elicit which seemed to make good progress and which did not.

The chapters in this book describe the research we did in more detail. Below there is a description of what we set out to do and how we did it, while Chapter 2 reviews some of the research relevant to our enquiries. The following section reports the first of the various strands of the research. Chapter 3 reports the national questionnaire survey of 1,395 schools. Chapter 4 relates what four local authorities did to improve literacy. There is special attention to the city of Birmingham which invested a great deal of effort in its literacy programmes.

In the middle section of the book we move to individual school level. Chapter 5 analyses the interviews about the organisation of literacy in the school conducted with key players, like head teachers and language co-ordinators; Chapter 6 reports teachers’ accounts and observations of their beliefs and practices. Chapter 7 brings together information about the teaching of reading skills from lessons we observed, while Chapter 8 describes the role played by adults other than the teacher, like parents and classroom assistants. Chapter 9 describes case studies of six teachers in more detail.

Chapters 10 and 11 describe the pupils’ perspective, an element often ignored in educational research. Chapter 10 presents information on individual children, their performance and views about literacy, while Chapter 11 portrays in more detail a number of ‘target pupils’ and children who were regarded as ‘improvers’ by their teacher. Finally Chapter 12 summarises the outcomes and conclusions, and considers the implications of our research for both policy and practice.

‘Improvement’ and literacy

Even before actually investigating it, the very act of defining a commonly used word like ‘improvement’ is not as straightforward as it looks. Although we tested several hundred pupils at the beginning and end of the school year in the Leverhulme Primary Improvement Project, we used reading test scores as just one criterion of improvement. In our case studies there were individual children whose actual test scores moved up only a little, but who devoured every Roald Dahl book they could find and whose enthusiasm for, and understanding of, what they were reading deepened considerably.

‘Improvement’ is a notion which can be studied in general terms or with reference to one particular aspect of learning. In general studies of ‘effectiveness’ it is easy to diffuse the energy of one’s enquiry too widely, and in the end find that ‘head teachers make a difference’, or reach some other decontextualised conclusion. That is why we decided to focus on one especially vital aspect of the curriculum in the primary school, namely the field of ‘literacy’, and look in detail at what was happening in schools and classrooms to improve the level of children’s competence. As is often the case, close scrutiny of one aspect of education often throws light on other elements, and this project was no exception. One can learn a great deal about how local authorities, schools and classrooms operate generally through focusing on a specific area like literacy.

We thought carefully before deciding to investigate what people did in primary schools to ‘improve’ literacy in general and reading in particular. Literacy is an especially fruitful field to consider for a number of reasons. First of all it lies right at the heart of primary school work, often occupying a significant period of classroom time. Second, it is an area which is agreed to be important by both professional and lay people. Third, it underpins other areas of the curriculum, for without competence in literacy, children would find it hard to learn effectively.

‘Language’ and ‘literacy’ are together important domains in the whole of education, not only in the primary school, but in secondary education and beyond. Their importance has been underlined by, among numerous others, psychologists, sociologists and philosophers. ‘Die Grenzen meiner Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt’, wrote Wittgenstein (1922) in his Tractatus. It is a powerful statement, but unless you speak German its power and elegance will elude you. Translated into English, the sentence reads: ‘The limits of my language mean (or ‘indicate’) the limits of my world’. This assertion, though Wittgenstein modified his beliefs in later life, is a persuasive one, for without the written and spoken word, many functions and transactions we take for granted in adult life would not be possible.

Our society makes great use of audio-visual communication, but the written and spoken language still play a very significant part. In work, recreation and leisure, home and family life, the ability to read well in a variety of contexts, to write clearly and appropriately, and to speak to different individuals and groups, using an appropriate language register, remain vital components of an intelligent society. Being a citizen in the twenty-first century presupposes that members of society will be able to read about and understand their rights, entitlements and indeed their obligations to their fellows. Harrison and Nicoll (1984) analysed the reading competence needed to cope with the literacy of citizenship. They discovered that tabloid newspapers require the reading capability of the average 12 to 14 year old, while the broadsheet national papers need a significantly higher competence such as many adults would not have achieved.

They also found that a number of the more difficult information leaflets that people receive in their morning mail, or come across in public buildings, were about crucial rights, such as the availability of free glasses, or the procedures for complaining about inadequate hospital treatment. Those unable to read well would simply miss out on entitlements available to their more literate fellows. Anyone unable to read a work of literature or peruse the vast amounts of written information in our society, compose a letter, prepare and present a report, or understand and follow written instructions, may find that opportunities for further study, prospects for promotion, or even satisfying personal and social relationships, are diminished. In a fast-moving society poor levels of literacy can have dire consequences.

It is not only in adult life that inadequate competence in literacy can become debilitating. The primary years prepare children for secondary school, where they will have to understand more complex issues and concepts in several specialised fields. Language is learned at any age, but in primary schools words like ‘area’, ‘length’, ‘volume’, ‘litre’, ‘metre’, ‘square’ soon become central taken-for-granted terms in th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Studying improvement
• 2 Research into effectiveness, improvement and literacy
• 3 The national survey
• 4 The impact of the local education authority
• 5 The organisation of literacy in schools and classrooms
• 6 Teachers’ beliefs and classroom practice
• 7 Teaching reading skills
• 8 Support from parents, classroom assistants, librarians
• 9 Case studies of individual classrooms
• 10 The pupil perspective
• 11 Pupil case studies
• 12 Implications for policy and practice
• Bibliography
• Index