Subject area literacy instruction in low SES secondary schools in New Zealand

Abstract

This paper presents findings of a study into patterns of literacy achievement and teaching in Year 12 biology, English and mathematics classes from 22 low socio-economic status (SES) secondary schools in New Zealand (NZ). We hypothesised that patterns of literacy teaching in specialised subject areas might contribute to well-documented inequities in education achievement for Māori (indigenous), Pacific Islands and low-SES students in NZ. We analysed participation and pass rates for sets of achievement standards that contribute to the standards based National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA), the main national school qualification (http://www.nzqa. govt.nz/qualifications-standards/qualifications/ncea/). These analyses showed that the rates at which students in the low-SES schools in the study participated in, and attained, key high literacy achievement standards were markedly lower than for schools nationally. Literacy instruction data were derived from observations of 104 teachers working with Year 12 (approximately 17 years old) students comprising 28 biology, 39 English and 37 mathematics teachers. Results from the classroom observations indicated that students had comparatively few opportunities to read longer, more complex subject-area texts and that instructional approaches commonly cited in the literature as effective in raising students' subject area literacy, strategy instruction and extended discussion, were infrequently observed in this study. Infrequent too were teaching about language features (such as nominalisation) in mathematics or biology lessons and teaching to develop students' critical literacy.