Patterns of literacy progress, achievement and the development of self-regulating young readers in a high decile school

Abstract

Researchers are in agreement that reading literacy development is a complex multifaceted construct of interrelated and interdependent component knowledge, strategies and skills. Such knowledge, skills and strategies continually develop over time and, for many, becomes automatic and efficient. The overall goal of reading literacy instruction is to develop flexibility and adaptability in students to draw from and use the whole range of possible component knowledge and cue sources interchangeably as strategies. This requires that students are supported to develop the capacity to become adaptive experts, being a reader who brings their current set of understandings to tasks and increasingly builds knowledge and skills within and across their current skill sets. A self-regulating reader is one who is expertly adaptive, monitoring and adjusting strategies and behaviours, whilst judging and adapting self-performance in relation to reading goals. A self-regulating reader is one who has developed a robust self-extending system of literacy expertise. Researchers agree that literacy related knowledge such as phonemic awareness, the alphabetic principle and basic sight word knowledge at school entry is a strong predictor of future reading achievement. In the study school, it was necessary to know why students were entering with high levels of such knowledge, but did not appear to be able to capitalise on that component knowledge by achieving above national expected levels of reading. This research aimed to explore, understand and describe how school entry literacy-related knowledge influenced reading level achievement in the first two years of school reading instruction and how students currently self-regulated the use of reading strategy knowledge. Emphasis was placed on the examination of whether, and how, students self-regulated their developing knowledge of reading strategies during monitoring and problem solving with text. Examination of teacher practices were used to ascertain how teachers developed student capacity to adaptively self-regulate the use of meaning, syntax and visual cue sources as reading strategies when engaging in monitoring and problem solving events, and if metacognitive pathways were developed during reading instruction. The participants in this study were two teachers and their students drawn from each year level of Year One and Year Two within a decile ten, co-educational, public primary school serving Years One to Six students located within a large New Zealand city. Data was collected in two phases. Phase one data examined 2014 Student Anniversary Testing results, containing school entry alphabet, basic sight word knowledge, alongside reading level achievement at Student Anniversary Testing time points in relation to National Standard expectations. Student 2014 Anniversary Testing results were summarised to show patterns across time by presenting data analysis in a series of figures and tables. Phase two data collection was through teacher and student interviews alongside guided reading lesson observations. Teacher and student interviews were coded by thematic responses and analysed using a qualitative constant comparison method. Teachers’ and students’ interactions and independent behaviours were analysed separately. The frequency of emerging types of reading strategies used during monitoring and problem solving events by students and teachers were identified and categorised, alongside any self-regulatory feedback students received. The overall findings of this study indicated that students did have the capacity to develop selfregulatory behaviours which were based on the instructional practices of teachers. Students’ reading strategy use was most often centred within the utilisation of visual cue sources when monitoring or problem solving during reading. An initial focus on decoding did not appear to support acceleration for learners, even those who entered school with high levels of alphabet knowledge and word knowledge. Metacognitive discussions were observed sparingly, and were of a less explicit nature. Students across all bands appeared to often seek and rely on teacher support or confirmation during numerous monitoring or problem solving demands. The establishment of National Standard expectations within the New Zealand context has increased school and teacher focus in meeting a set standard of achievement. Research surrounding teaching practices within schools where student achievement is in line with National Standard expectations is scarce. The findings from this research showed that students and teachers within achieving schools have their own set of reading literacy development and pedagogical content knowledge needs that are unique to their own contexts. In particular, this research has identified that teaching for self- regulation or independent problem solving might be troublesome for teachers. It appears likely that teachers need support to find ways to scaffold for independence and flexibility and to allow students to employ their existing expertise.