Author: Sitwe B. Mkandawire

Source: Mkandawire, S. B. (2017). “Familiar Language Based Instruction versus Unfamiliar Language for the Teaching of Reading and Writing Literacy Skills: A Focus on Zambian Languages and English at Two Primary Schools in Lusaka.” Zambian Journal of Language Studies, 1(1), 53–82.

This study aimed to find out if pupils in Grade 1 who were learning literacy skills in a local language in government schools were participating more actively than those learning in English in private schools, and vice versa. Despite the pace of pupil participation level in early grade classes, the major problem in the Zambian education system has been low literacy levels and high dropouts. One factor for this might be the language of instruction that some pupils did not know so well. However, since 2013, pupils from Grades 1 to 4 started learning in one of the seven regional official Zambian languages in government public schools, while most private schools still use English from early grade classes.

The study

• This study aimed to find out if pupils in Grade 1 learning literacy skills in a local language would manage to learn better than those whose language of instruction was English at one government school and one private school.
• The research questions were the following:
  • What was the nature of the classes in the two schools?
  • To what extent did the medium of instruction at the two schools facilitate learning?
  • What was the level of class participation on the part of the pupils in class in the two schools?
  • What was the attitude of the pupils, parents, and teachers towards the use of the chosen medium of instruction in schools?
• Data was collected from sixty-seven participants from two primary schools. Forty-two participants were pupils, ten were parents, and fifteen were teachers (three of whom were in the position of head teacher).
• In another school, the language of instruction was mainly a local language, Cinyanja, while in another school, which was private, pupils were learning in English.
• Three methods were used to collect data: face-to-face interviews, focus group discussions, and lesson observation. The data collected was analysed using thematic analysis.

Implications

• Primary school teachers should be allowed to use multiple languages in classrooms to facilitate learning so that pupils can learn literacy skills faster.
• The limited capacity to participate in discussions in English can be seen also at the national level, where very few Zambians take part in discussions concerning social and political issues.
• Using an unfamiliar language such as English might be harmful to a child’s productive and mental processes as they do not participate actively in classes. By contrast, using a familiar language empowers the child to think, act, and process information faster.
• Children learn to value their cultural heritage when local languages can be used in education. The use of local languages also helps a sense of belonging and identity develop.

The article compared language ideologies among two groups of teachers: pre-service teachers in Norway and in-service teachers in Zambia. The study showed that, although teachers shared common challenges in handling multilingual classes present in both educational systems, their language ideologies were different, which affected the way they sought to overcome those challenges. Norwegian teachers preferred mostly monoglossic language ideologies, whereas Zambian teachers conveyed heteroglossic ideologies. These ideologies relate to local conditions, which are very different in Zambia and Norway.

Authors: Jonas Y. Iversen and Sitwe B. Mkandawire

Source: Iversen, J. Y. and Mkandawire S. B. (2020). “Comparing Language Ideologies In Multilingual Classrooms across Norway and Zambia.” Multilingual Margins, 7(3), 33–48. 

The study was motivated by the fact that both countries are facing challenges related to the multilingualism in early grade classrooms, even if the historical, political, and linguistic background of these two countries is very different. In Norway, the number of immigrants is reported to be increasing over the past decades, and there is a change towards a multilingual society. Zambia, on the other hand, has a long history of multilingualism, with seven official regional languages and many more unofficial languages. Soon after independence, Zambia adopted a monolingual education system as part of nation-building project where English (a colonial language) was used as a national language and the medium of instruction from Grade 1 to university; this was the policy from 1966 to 1999.

• Comparing language ideologies of different countries opens a possibility to learn from each other as well as to learn about one’s own culture.
• With the term language ecology, researchers are referring to the thinking about multilingualism that takes different dimensions of the relationships between languages into account. To be able to compare two countries, their language ecologies must first be defined.
• The dominant language ideology affects language policies in education as well as teachers’ actions when facing multilingualism. The way languages are managed in a society is never neutral nor apolitical. Language ideologies define the value of languages.
• Educational programmes founded on monoglossic language ideology legitimate monolingual linguistic practises, whereas educational programmes founded on heteroglossic language ideology support dynamic multilingual linguistic practises in the community (García, 2009).

The Study

• The aim was to find out how teachers from Norway and Zambia considered the role of multilingualism in their education systems and what kind of language ideologies we could find behind the teachers’ views.
• The data was collected in focus group interviews. Norwegian teachers were pre-service teachers, and Zambian teachers were in-service. In Norway, seven focus group interviews were conducted with twenty-four pre-service teachers in total from two teacher education institutions. From Zambia, there were thirty-six in-service primary school teachers who participated in the study.
• Participant utterances were analysed with the qualitative content analysis method. The content was divided into three main categories: the teachers’ comments on multilingualism as a challenge; comments on solutions to these challenges; and comments on language policies in education.
• Participant utterances were connected to either monoglossic or heteroglossic language ideologies. Then these language ideologies were considered in light of the language ecology of the given country.

The Implications

• The study shows that there are some similarities in the language ideologies of the two countries as both groups describe the same kind of challenges in multilingual classroom and idealise a classroom where everyone is able to communicate with others.
• In Norway, a clear line between the Norwegian ‘us’ and the multilingual ‘other’ was noticed. Student must have sufficient proficiency before being able to participate in Norwegian classes; they needed to be assimilated into the Norwegian language.
• Zambian in-service teachers seemed to accept a higher extent of multilingualism in their classrooms, and they were ready to use other languages present in class other than the official language of instruction in a flexible manner.
• It seems that Zambian in-service teachers were following a heteroglossic language ideology, which does not fit the government’s monoglossic language ideology, where one regional official language was expected to be used in class.
• Zambian in-service teachers’ willingness to use other languages as support or as a resource can be linked to the language ecology of the country. In Zambia, people are used to interacting with different languages in everyday life.
• The paper urged Norwegian pre-service teachers to learn from Zambian in-service teachers’ pragmatic ideology and openness towards multilingualism in the classrooms, a landmark concept that suggests the global north should tap knowledge from the global south.

In this article, it is demonstrated how the authors created a context in which digital storytelling was designed and implemented to teach multilingual middle school students in a summer program. Tasks and activities were designed to align with the four components of a multiliteracies pedagogy (i.e., situated practice, overt instruction, critical framing, and transformative practice) in order to engage the students in exploring their multiple literacies and identities by using multiple semiotic modes and resources (e.g., texts, images, and sounds). The digital storytelling lesson shows that multiliteracies practices can be a powerful venue for second-language learners and teachers.

Authors: Tuba Angay-Crowder, Jayoung Choi & Youngjoo Yi

Source: Angay-Crowder, T., Choi, J. & Yi, Y. (2013). In the classroom: Putting multiliteracies into practice: Digital storytelling for multilingual adolescents in a summer program. TESL Canada Journal, 30(2), doi: 10.18806/tesl.v30i2.1140

• In this article it is demonstrated how the theoretical concept of multiliteracies can be applied to a pedagogic practice.
• It is described how 12 adolescent multilingual students were engaged in the multiliteracies practice of digital storytelling (i.e., multimedia composing that consists of texts, images, and sounds to tell stories) during a summer program.
• The Digital Storytelling Class was designed in order a) to examine how a theoretical framework (i.e., multiliteracies) could be translated into teaching multilingual adolescents; and b) to create a context in which students could explore their multiple literacies and identities using multiple semiotic modes and resources.

Multiliteracies

• The term multiliteracies addresses the multiplicity of communication channels and media and the increasing saliency of cultural and linguistic diversity.
• The multiliteracies theory of pedagogy integrates four components: a) situated practice; b) overt instruction; c) critical framing; and d) transformed practice.
• Situated practice is an immersion in meaningful practices within a community of learners who are capable of playing multiple and different roles based on their background and experiences.
• Overt instruction includes active interventions on the part of the teacher and other experts that scaffold learning activities and allow the learners to gain explicit information.
• Through critical framing, which involves both cognitive and social dimensions of literacy pedagogy, students step back from what they have learned, critique their learning, and extend and apply their learning in new contexts.
• Transformed practice involves students’ transfer, reformulation, and redesign of existing texts and meaning-making practice from one context to another.

Digital storytelling

• Digital storytelling can provide students with rich opportunities a) to explore, express, and reflect on themselves; b) to enhance critical thinking; c) to foster academic achievement; and d) to build leadership skills.
• For multilingual adolescent students, digital storytelling can provide an opportunity to design multimodal narratives that represent and reflect on their sociocultural identities and their lives.

The study

The digital storytelling class took place in a traditional classroom and a computer lab for 90 minutes twice a week during a four-week summer program, and 12 students in Grades 7 and 8 were carefully selected to take part. All the students were children of immigrants and spoke a language other than English at home.

Designing and conducting the digital storytelling class

• The class was designed and conducted for a total of seven sessions.
• Building a foundation for digital storytelling (Sessions 1 and 2)
  • During the first week, situated practice and overt instruction were employed to teach the students ‘what digital storytelling is,’ ‘how it can be created,’ and ‘why students need to consider their purpose and audience in digital storytelling.’
  • In the first session, a needs analysis was conducted in which students reported their preferred out-of-school activities, their use of technology, and their L1 proficiency.
  • The students brainstormed potential topics for their digital stories based on initial conversations about their interests.
  • The students were challenged to reflect critically on their topic selection and to reframe their choices while raising questions that helped them think harder about whether their topics could serve their purposes and entertain their audience.
  • Also, overt instruction was offered that aimed to scaffold learning activities and give students explicit information about the nature of digital storytelling.
  • After an initial free writing phase, the students filled out a storyboard template while carefully considering multiple modes (e.g., narration, images, audio) for each slide so that they could express their meaning effectively and creatively in their digital stories.
• Writing narrative for digital storytelling (Sessions 3 and 4)
  • The second week centred on strengthening the students’ narratives of their digital stories.
  • A series of situated writing activities were implemented in class, such as responding to writing prompts, outlining a narrative, composing a structured essay based on their outlines, and participating in individual writing conferences.
  • For example, students were asked to respond to ‘What message do you want to convey to your audience?’
• Orchestrating text, image, and sound (Sessions 5 and 6)
  • The primary tasks during the third week involved selecting appropriate images and sound, modifying linguistic text, and recording a narration.
  • The students were lead to reflect critically on their process of composing, from writing print-based narratives to selecting and orchestrating both linguistic and non-linguistic modes for a digital story.
  • Students were asked questions such as, ‘What effect does this image or sound have on your overall meaning?’
  • Students’ insertion of narrative or text in their first or heritage language and their consultations about their projects with parents and other adults in their communities were indications of transformed practice at work.
• Reflecting, sharing, and celebrating (Session 7)
  • During the last week, students celebrated their final productions by reflecting on the whole process of creating digital stories and sharing their projects with an audience.
  • Students were asked questions such as ‘What was it like to make the project?’

Conclusions

• Engaging students in multiliteracies gives us some valuable insights into what counts as literacy learning and teaching and how we reframe literacy pedagogy in classrooms.
• Both conventional print-based and computer-based multimodal composing practices seem to help students expand their literacy repertoire and means of expression.
• Digital storytelling can develop students’ leadership skills as they work as a team, set goals, manage time and resources, and construct a positive identity.
• Providing specific guidance to students throughout the digital storytelling process and creating a collaborative environment in which both students and the teachers learn from one another are essential to an efficacious multiliteracies pedagogy.

This study investigated bidirectional links between the quality of teacher-child relationships and children’s interest and pre-academic skills in literacy and math and gender differences in them. Teacher-perceived conflict predicted lower interest and pre-academic skills in both literacy and math. Results were similar for boys and girls.

Authors: Eija Pakarinen, Marja-Kristiina Lerkkanen, Jaana Viljaranta & Antje von Suchodoletz

Source: Pakarinen, E., Lerkkanen, M.-K., Viljaranta, J. & von Suchodoletz, A. (2021). Investigating bidirectional links between the quality of teacher-child relationships and children’s interest and pre-academic skills in literacy and math. Child Development, 92(1), 388-407. DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13431

This study investigated bidirectional links between the quality of teacher-child relationships and children’s interest and pre-academic skills in literacy and math and gender differences in them. Participants were 461 Finnish kindergarteners (six-year-olds) and their teachers (n = 48). Teacher-perceived conflict predicted lower interest and pre-academic skills in both literacy and math. Results were similar for boys and girls. Implications for reducing conflictual patterns of relationships together with promoting other factors are discussed.

• Kindergarten represents a crucial context in which children develop school-related skills and patterns of engagement that form the basis for the development of later competencies important for academic success.
• Above and beyond children’s skills, previous literature has highlighted the benefits of positive teacher-child relationships for both academic and socio-emotional outcomes.

Teacher-child relationships

• Supportive relationships with teachers are defined by a combination of high levels of closeness and low levels of conflict.
• Close relationships with teachers are characterised by warmth, approachability, and open communication.
• In such relationships, children can use their teacher as a secure base from which to take advantage of the learning opportunities provided.
• Coercive relationships can be characterised as conflictive ones where tension and anger exist within the teacher-child relationship.
• Teacher-perceived conflict with children has been linked to less favourable outcomes, such as lower achievement and higher levels of problem behaviours.

Theoretical perspectives on teacher-child relationships and child outcomes

• Relationship-driven models are based on attachment theory, arguing that warm and supportive relationships between children and caregivers are crucial for favourable developmental outcomes.
• Self-determination theory (SDT) posits that individual propensity to seek challenges and enjoy mastering new learning unfolds when basic psychological needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness are met in the classroom.
• Child-driven models propose the opposite direction of influence, that is, children’s academic skills and interest in learning affect the quality of their relationships with their teachers.
• Bidirectional models are based on transactional theory, assuming that developmental outcomes are the product of a combination of an individual child’s characteristics and the experiences and aspects of their environment.

The study

The goal of the present study was to examine possible bidirectionality between teacher-child relationship quality measured by teacher-perceived closeness and conflict with individual children and child outcomes measured by the child’s interest and pre-academic skills in literacy and math.

Research questions:

1. Do closeness/conflict predict child outcomes (relationship-driven model), or do child outcomes predict closeness/conflict (child-driven model), or are closeness/conflict and child outcomes reciprocally related (bidirectional model)?
2. Does gender moderate the associations between teacher-child relationship quality and child outcomes?

The participants were 461 children (222 boys) enrolled in 48 kindergarten classrooms from 32 centres.

Conclusions

• The relationship-driven model best described the data for interest and pre-academic skills in literacy and math: teacher-perceived conflict predicted lower interest and skills in both literacy and math.
• The results were largely similar for boys and girls.
• It can be suggested that a relationship with one’s teacher without conflict and coercive interactions meets children’s needs for relatedness and belonging at school and therefore supports the development of their intrinsic motivation and achievement.
• It can also be suggested that teacher-perceived coercive interactions and negative emotions are harmful for children’s engagement in learning and diminish their interest in academic tasks.
• Because teachers may be more able to provide support, praise, and constructive feedback than to decrease conflict, interventions and teacher preparation programs should focus on building and fostering the positive aspects of a relationship with each child.
• Teacher education programs may benefit from educating teachers not only about academic content and pedagogical practices, but also about strategies that build supportive relationships with children.

The purpose of the study was to examine whether teacher’s individualised support affects students’ reading skills and interest in classrooms with different teaching styles. The results showed that relations between individualized support and students’ later reading comprehension skills and interest differed between classrooms with different teaching styles. While individualized support enhanced interest in reading in classrooms employing mixed child-centred and teacher-directed styles, it inhibited interest in classrooms with child-dominated styles.

Authors: Eve Kikas, Gintautas Silinskas, Anna-Liisa Jõgi & Piret Soodla

Source: Kikas, E., Silinskas, G., Jõgi, A.-L. & Soodla, P. (2016). Effects of teacher’s individualized support on children’s reading skills and interest in classrooms with different teaching styles. Learning and Individual Differences, 49, 270-277. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2016.05.015

The purpose of the study was to examine whether a teacher’s individualised support affects students’ reading skills and interest in classrooms with different teaching styles. The participants were 552 children (273 boys) and their 21 homeroom teachers. The results showed that relations between individualized support and students’ later reading comprehension skills and interest differed between classrooms with different teaching styles. While individualized support enhanced interest in reading in classrooms employing mixed child-centred and teacher-directed styles, it inhibited interest in classrooms with child-dominated styles. In the classrooms with child-dominated teaching styles, higher individualised support was related to lower reading comprehension skills.

• Outside of home, teachers constitute the most proximal environmental context for young children’s academic and motivational development, yet they differ in teaching practices, teaching styles, and how they individualise their teaching.
• While some studies have shown that increased individualised instruction has a positive impact on children’s skill development, others have not.
• Based on active, leading roles of teachers or children, three dimensions of teaching practices – child-centred, teacher-directed, and child-dominated – have been described.

Child-centred practices

• Teachers actively organise children’s learning activities.
• They consider children’s interests, allow children to construct their knowledge, and provide emotional support and encouragement.

Teacher-directed practices

• Teachers give detailed tasks and frequent feedback, praise children for correct answers rather than effort, and children have to usually follow teacher directions.

Child-dominated practices

• Teachers remain quite passive.
• They respond to children’s questions and interrupt only when violations of discipline occur, giving feedback when asked but rarely providing emotional support.

The study

This study examined whether the effects of individualised support for reading skills and interest differ depending on whether teachers utilise different teaching styles.

Hypotheses:

1. Individualised support in child-centred and mixed classrooms will have a positive effect on both skills and interest.
2. Individualised support in child-dominated classrooms will have a negative effect on all studied outcomes (reading fluency, comprehension, and interest).

The participants were 552 children from seven schools and 21 classrooms and their homeroom teachers.

Conclusions

• Classrooms with different teaching styles maintained different relations between individualised teacher support and students’ later reading comprehension skills and interest.
• Individualised teacher support did not have any significant effect on reading skills and interest when the child-centred style was used in the classroom.
• In the groups with teachers using the mixed teaching style combining child-centred and teacher-directed practices, individualised support was negatively related to students’ comprehension skills, but it had a supportive effect on their interest in reading.
• In the classrooms with child-dominated teaching styles, individualised support tended to predict lower interest and reading comprehension skills.
• Teachers should be encouraged to apply both child-centred (e.g. considering children’s interests when providing reading material, focusing on comprehension during reading activities, providing emotional support in reading activities) and teacher-directed (e.g. practicing reading accuracy and fluency) types of activities but avoid relying on child-dominated practices.

This study examined associations between classroom-level reading fluency, comprehension, interest in reading, and teaching practices. In classrooms with mostly child-centred methods, children showed better reading fluency, comprehension, and higher interest, whereas in classrooms with predominantly teacher-directed practices, children had lower reading comprehension at the end of grade 1.

Authors: Eve Kikas, Eija Pakarinen, Piret Soodla, Kätlin Peets & Marja-Kristiina Lerkkanen

Source: Kikas, E., Pakarinen, E., Soodla, P., Peets, K. & Lerkkanen, M.-K. (2018). Associations between reading skills, interest in reading, and teaching practices in first grade. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 62(6), 832-849. DOI: 10.1080/00313831.2017.1307272

This study examined associations between classroom-level reading fluency, comprehension, interest in reading, and teaching practices. Participants were 466 children from 21 classrooms. Teachers were more likely to use teacher-directed methods in classrooms where children had poorer initial reading fluency. In classrooms with mostly child-centred methods, children showed better reading fluency, comprehension, and higher interest, whereas in classrooms with predominantly teacher-directed practices, children had lower reading comprehension at the end of grade 1.

• It is widely accepted that teaching practices influence children’s learning and development.
• Numerous studies show the positive effects of child-centred (learner-centred) teaching practices on children’s academic skills and motivation; however, some studies have found beneficial effects from teacher-directed practices on the development of basic academic skills.
• Teachers do not uniquely influence children’s academic and motivational development, but children also affect the practices teachers use.

Child-centred and teacher-directed teaching practices

• Child-centred and teacher-directed practices differ in the degree to which teachers allow children to actively construct their knowledge (vs. teach basic skills), include children in various discipline-related decision processes (vs. set the rules), and engage in creating a positive social climate via individual support.
• While teacher-directed practices value frequent feedback on academic tasks, child-centred practices emphasize the importance of emotional support and encouragement.
• There are benefits of child-centred practices across the academic, motivational, and social domains of functioning at the individual as well as the classroom level.
• There is also evidence that teacher-directed practices can be beneficial in kindergarten and primary school, and/or for students with poorer academic skills when learning basic academic skills such as letter knowledge, decoding, and numeracy skills.
• However, there is evidence that teacher-directed practices may hinder motivation, including interest.

The influence of student characteristics on teaching practices

• Teachers are continuously required to make decisions about their instruction, classroom management, and support while considering the needs of students and the aims of teaching.
• For instance, Vygotsky (1978) emphasized that the most effective learning takes place in the zone of proximal development (ZPD); thus, teachers should modify their methods and tasks to correspond to children’s skill levels.
• Not only individual, but also collective student characteristics can influence the kinds of practices teachers use.
• However, which practices teachers use with individual children vs. the whole classroom may differ depending on teachers’ knowledge and beliefs.

The study

The aim of the present study was to examine associations between classroom-level reading fluency, comprehension, and interest in reading and teaching practices in first-grade classrooms.

Research questions:

1. Do classroom-level initial reading fluency and interest predict child-centred teaching practices, and do these practices in turn predict children’s reading skills and interest at the end of the school year?
2. Do classroom-level initial reading fluency and interest affect teacher-directed teaching practices, and do these practices affect children’s reading fluency, text comprehension, and interest at the end of the first school year?

The participants were 466 children (233 girls and 233 boys) from 21 first-grade classrooms from seven public schools with Estonian as the principal language. In Estonia, children usually attend schools based on proximity. All 21 first-grade teachers were female.

Conclusions

• The results showed that child-centred practices were related to higher reading skills and interest in reading at the end of grade 1.
• An effect was found for collective student characteristics on teacher-directed practices: in classrooms where children had poorer initial reading fluency, teachers relied more frequently on teacher-directed practices.
• Teacher-directed practices were in turn related to poorer reading comprehension at the end of grade 1.
• Child-centred teaching practices were associated with children’s better reading skills and interest in reading at the end of first grade, even after controlling for the initial levels of children’s reading fluency and interest.
• Thus, in classrooms where teachers generally encourage children’s active construction of knowledge, emphasize the discussions about rules and activities, and provide emotional support, children’s specific skills such as reading fluency and comprehension improve.
• It is possible that teachers who use child-centred methods expose children more frequently to varied types of texts and give children more possibilities to choose what to read, but also discuss the reading material and thereby promote children’s interest in reading.
• Teachers may prefer teacher-directed methods with children who have poorer academic skills because they believe in the effectiveness of such practices and it may make it easier for them to manage classroom situations.
• However, no beneficial effect of teacher-directed practices on reading fluency was found, and teacher-directed methods were related to lower-level reading comprehension at the end of first school year.
• Teachers should be encouraged to rely on child-centred teaching practices in the beginning of school when trying in improve children’s reading skills and interest in reading.
• This study also informs us about the negative effects of teacher-directed practices on reading comprehension and interest.
• These practices do not satisfy children’s basic needs for belongingness and autonomy, and instead seem to be inhibiting the development of more complicated skills like reading comprehension.
• Teachers should try to create classroom environments where children feel that their teachers are supportive and encouraging and that they are regarded as active participants in the teaching process.
• It is important for educators to make sure that young teachers are provided with a set of practical skills to best nurture children’s academic, motivational, and emotional needs and that they are not left alone when challenges arise in the classroom.

The aim of the study is to evaluate the reading and spelling skills of Finnish children in grades 1 and 2 receiving part-time special education from special education teachers for reading and spelling difficulties (RSD) and for RSD with other learning difficulties. The results showed that the reading and spelling skills of students with RSD lagged behind age level and that students with overlapping difficulties exhibited even slower development. Small group education and a moderate amount of part-time special education (approximately 38 h per year) predicted faster skill development.

Authors: Leena K. Holopainen, Noona H. Kiuru, Minna K. Mäkihonko & Marja-Kristiina Lerkkanen

Source: Holopainen, L.K., Kiuru, N.H., Mäkihonko, M.K. & Lerkkanen, M.-K. (2018). The role of part-time special education supporting students with reading and spelling difficulties from grade 1 to grade 2 in Finland. European Journal of Special Needs Education, 33(3), 316-333. DOI: 10.1080/08856257.2017.1312798

The aim of the study is to evaluate the reading and spelling skills of Finnish children in grades 1 and 2 receiving part-time special education from special education teachers for reading and spelling difficulties (RSD) and for RSD with other learning difficulties. Of 152 children involved in the study, 98 received part-time special education for RSD, and 54 did not have RSD and did not receive special education. The results showed that the reading and spelling skills of students with RSD lagged behind age level and that students with overlapping difficulties exhibited even slower development. Small group education and a moderate amount of part-time special education (approximately 38 h per year) predicted faster skill development, whereas individual and large amount of special education (more than 48 h per year) were related to slower skill development and broader difficulties.

• Reading acquisition primarily requires performance of the alphabetic principle formed by letter-sound knowledge and phonemic skills, followed by maintenance of the detected phoneme in short-term memory to a synthesis of all read phonemes and finally a recognition of word meaning after generating the phoneme sequence.
• Orthographic complexity also affects reading and spelling (RS) development.
• The acquisition of spelling procedures is also affected by the orthographic consistency of the language as well as features of the oral language and the linguistic structure complexity.
• The process of learning to read and spell is challenging for 5% to 18% of school-age children depending on the criteria chosen to define reading and spelling difficulties (RSD).
• Moreover, evidence suggests that about 40% of school-aged children with one developmental disorder will also suffer another developmental disorder.

Effective reading instruction for students with RSD

• Explicit and systematic instruction.
• Foundational skills such as phonemic awareness and phonics/word study are essential elements of instruction.
• Higher processing skills such as fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension are essential from the beginning of reading instruction.
• Students who have difficulties benefit from smaller group instruction (five or fewer students).

Overview of support systems for RSD

• Many studies show that students fail to progress in reading in different support settings, and even when gains in reading achievement are made, there is little evidence that these students meet grade-level expectations after years of special education services.
• According to Swanson (2008), reading instruction for students with LD is generally of low quality and includes little to no explicit instruction in phonics or comprehension strategies.
• The common belief is that students with RSD need instruction as a slower pace and not a greater amount of instruction.
• Students with RSD benefit from intensive interventions, and many of these students require such interventions for multiple years.

Finnish educational system

• Finnish comprehensive school starts at age seven.
• One school year includes 38 weeks.
• There is also one year of pre-primary education for six-year-old children (kindergarten) which creates a foundation (e.g. for literacy skills).
• Systematic phonics-based teaching of reading begins in grade 1.
• The development of syllable reading is important for reading fluency because two, three, four, and more multi-syllable words are frequent, and the number of one-syllable words is limited.
• In basic education, students do not need a formal diagnosis to receive special educational services.
• The most common form is part-time special education given by a special education teacher.
• It is a form of educational support in which students are in general education classes receiving support for 1 to 2 h per week from a special education teacher.
• Typically, it is put into practice in a small group (3 to 4 students at the same time) or individually.
• Usually, special education teaches reading and spelling simultaneously with phonics-based methods, motivating students by board games or computer programs.

The study

This study examined the development of RS skills among Finnish children in grades 1 and 2 who receive part-time special education for RSD from special education teachers.

Research questions:

1. Are there differences in the RS skills development of students in grades 1 and 2 who a) receive part-time special education for RSD and b) have no RSD and do not receive special education support? Is mean-level skill development different between children with only RSD and those with overlapping difficulties?
2. To what extent do the amount and the form of special education and the presence of only RSD or RSD and overlapping difficulties predict RS development among children who receive special education for RSD?

The participants of this study were 152 children (63 girls, 89 boys). In the present study, 98 children were identified as at risk for RSD already in kindergarten and received part-time special education for RSD in grade 1. Out of these children, 56 received special education only for RSD. For the present study, 54 intensively followed control children with no RSD risk from the same classrooms as the risk for RSD children and who received no special education were randomly selected. The special education teachers were asked to rate the students who had received part-time special education during the first grade. Students RS skills were assessed during the autumn of grade 1 (T1), the spring of grade 1 (T2), and the spring of grade 2 (T3).

Conclusions

• The results showed that students with RSD lagged their age level in reading skills during the follow-up period, but after two years, the control group had not achieved better spelling skills than those with RSD.
• Students with only RSD partly attained age-level RS skills, whereas students with other difficulties exhibited clearly slower development.
• Small-group interventions (3 to 4 students) and a medium amount of part-time special education predicted faster development in the RS skills of RSD students.
• With some students, the difficulties are broader and more persistent and they need more intensified or long-lasting support; 1 to 2 h a week at first grade is not enough.

This study investigated special educational needs (SEN) teachers’ assessment practices and the accuracy of their ratings of the students’ skill levels in reading fluency and reading comprehension. Results showed that SEN teachers used several assessment practices simultaneously but mostly relied on observations. Only two-thirds of low-performing students having difficulties in fluency or comprehension were identified.

Authors: Riitta Virinkoski, Marja-Kristiina Lerkkanen, Kenneth Eklund & Mikko Aro

Source: Virinkoski, R., Lerkkanen, M.-K., Eklund, K. & Aro, M. (2020). Special education teachers’ identification of students’ reading difficulties in grade 6. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, DOI: 10.1080/00313831.2020.1833241

This study investigated special educational needs (SEN) teachers’ (n = 29) assessment practices and the accuracy of their ratings of the students’ (n = 55) skill levels in reading fluency and reading comprehension. Results showed that SEN teachers used several assessment practices simultaneously but mostly relied on observations. The correlations between the teacher ratings and test scores were significant but moderate in fluency and weak in comprehension. Only two-thirds of low-performing students having difficulties in fluency or comprehension were identified.

• In addition to classroom teachers, special educational needs (SEN) teachers and remedial reading teachers play an essential role in evaluating students’ needs for reading support, identifying literacy difficulties, and providing individualised targeted support.
• This study focuses on Finnish SEN teachers and students receiving part-time special education in the sixth grade.
• Some students’ reading difficulties (RD) may not manifest themselves in the early school years but might emerge later and become persistent.
• Although identification of students’ RD during primary school has been widely studied, research on teachers’ assessment of RD and the accuracy of their assessments before students transition to lower secondary school (i.e. at the end of Grade 6 in the Finnish educational system) is still limited.

Teachers’ assessment practices

• Teachers use formative (or informal) assessments to collect data on student’s current skills or to improve student’s learning by implementing more personalised instruction.
• Assessment tools can be defined as high-stakes or low-stakes.
• The former is connected to the final assessment of how much the student has learned at a certain assessment point, usually in the end of an instructional segment (such as a semester).
• The latter refers to low-stakes continuous instruction comprising assessments before and during instruction.
• Generally, teachers’ assessment practices can be divided into tests, curriculum-based measures (CBMs), and qualitative assessments.
• Direct measures refer to tests.
• The accuracy of teachers’ ratings of reading fluency and comprehension through observation is low in comparison to the identification of low student reading performance using CBMs and standardised achievement tests.
• CBMs can be used in general, remedial, and special education to monitor students’ progress in overall school performance, for example.
• Using CBMs in conjunction with standardized procedures to track students’ reading development can lead to higher identification accuracy of struggling readers as well as improvements in reading achievement.

Assessment of reading fluency and comprehension

• One key factor in learning to read fluently is automatic word recognition, which develops through consistent practice, repetition, and reading a wide range of various texts.
• Reading fluency comprises decoding accuracy and automaticity, both of which are connected to reading comprehension.
• One common definition of reading fluency includes reading accuracy and rate, and reading fluency is usually operationalised as the number of correctly read items within a time limit.
• Reading comprehension requires word recognition (i.e. decoding), language comprehension, inference making, and information integration.
• Some examples of common measures to assess reading comprehension are silent reading tasks, either written or oral retell tasks, and picture matching tasks.
  

Associations between teacher ratings and test scores

• Sensitivity of an assessment tool (i.e. its accuracy in identifying students with problems) has usually been considered important so that support can be allocated to those students who need it most.
• Specificity refers to the accuracy of an assessment tool to correctly identify students who are not at risk.
• An acceptable level of classification accuracy for sensitivity is 90% or above and for specificity 80% or above.
• Despite relatively high overall correlations between teachers’ ratings and students’ actual test scores, teachers may systemically over- or underestimate students’ performances.
• Students with low academic performance are usually judged less accurately than typically performing students.

The study

The aim of the study was to investigate SEN teachers’ assessment practices and the accuracy of their ratings of reading fluency and reading comprehension in grade 6, before students’ transition to lower secondary school.

Research questions:

1. What kinds of assessment practices do SEN teachers use to evaluate students’ reading performances, and how do they rank different practices?
2. To what extent are SEN teachers’ ratings of sixth-grade students’ reading fluency and reading comprehension skills associated with students’ test scores for the same skills?
3. How accurate are SEN teachers’ perceptions of their students’ reading fluency and reading comprehension skill levels (low performing or typically performing) compared to the students’ test scores?

Teacher sample included 29 (90% male) SEN teachers. Student sample included 55 (65% male) sixth-grade students. Data collection was carried out during the spring term of grade 6.

Conclusions

• The most important assessment practices for SEN teachers were qualitative, such as observations and discussions.
• Achievement tests were not among the most important assessment practices, although they were widely used by the teachers, together with some other tools.
• All teachers used several assessment practices in parallel, but they mainly preferred indirect, qualitative assessment practices.
• Assessments based solely on observation are often inaccurate; instead, using various assessment practices together can improve the accuracy, especially when the standardized procedures are combined with CBMs.
• The correlation between the teachers’ rating and the test scores for reading fluency was moderate, but the correlation for reading comprehension was weak.
• The moderate and weak correlations between the teachers’ rating and the test scores found in this study are substantially lower, compare to those reported in many former studies.
• Teachers’ judgments of both reading fluency and reading comprehension were quite inaccurate compared to the test scores.
• The findings indicate that at least 30% of the sixth-grade students struggling with RD were unidentified.
• Specificity rate of reading fluency was rather high but below the optimal rate, indicating that 30% of the typically performing students were unidentified.
• Concerning reading comprehension, most students were incorrectly identified as low achievers, even though their test scores indicated typical performance.
• Teachers need reliable assessment tools throughout primary grades to monitor students’ reading progress systematically and continuously.
• Support decisions based mainly on teachers’ own perceptions and observations of students’ performances can lead to inaccurate assessments.
• One solution for better judgment accuracy could be a structured assessment tool designed for special education purposes enabling teachers to rank-order students’ reading performances and compare the rankings with reading test scores.

The aim of the study was to investigate what kinds of assessment practices classroom teachers and special educational needs (SEN) teachers use in assessing first grade students’ pre-reading skills (letter knowledge and phonological skills). Most classroom teachers used qualitative assessment and SEN teachers also relied on tests. The findings underline the importance for developing more specific and reliable assessment tools for pedagogical purposes.

Authors: Riitta Virinkoski, Marja-Kristiina Lerkkanen, Leena Holopainen, Kenneth Eklund & Mikko Aro

Source: Virinkoski, R., Lerkkanen, M.-K., Holopainen, L., Eklund, K. & Aro, M. (2018). Teachers’ ability to identify children at early risk for reading difficulties in grade 1. Early Childhood Education Journal, 46(5), 497-509. DOI: 10.1007/s10643-017-0883-5

The aim of the study was to investigate what kinds of assessment practices classroom teachers and special educational needs (SEN) teachers use in assessing first grade students’ pre-reading skills (letter knowledge and phonological skills). The data from two Finnish longitudinal studies were used: JLD sample (class teachers, n = 91; SEN teachers, n = 51; 200 students) and First Steps sample (class teachers, n = 136, SEN teachers, n = 34; 598 students). Most classroom teachers used qualitative assessment, and SEN teachers also relied on tests. Although teacher ratings correlated with the test scores, some children in need of extra support for their early reading development according to test scores remained unidentified. The findings underline the importance for developing more specific and reliable assessment tools for pedagogical purposes.

• Teachers play a key role in identifying the need for early support in reading skill development because they generally observe the first signs of reading difficulties (RD).
• The main purpose of teachers’ evaluations of students should be to produce accurate knowledge of the students’ skills in order to plan tailored instruction and support when necessary.
• Particularly, children with poor pre-reading skills who are potentially at risk for reading difficulties (RD) should be identified as early as possible.
• Prior studies have shown that screening batteries and standardized achievement tests predict those at risk for reading failure better than teachers’ evaluations based on, for example, rating scales, whereas teachers’ evaluations have tended to produce high false-negative rates.

Assessment of pre-reading skills by teachers

• To ensure accurate identification, the screening batteries should cover several skill areas related to developing reading skills, such as phonological skills, orthographic and letter knowledge, word reading ability, vocabulary, and syntactic ability.
• However, the accuracy of screening measures differs with respect to sensitivity and specificity.
• Sensitivity refers to the degree of true positives, meaning how accurately the measure identifies students at high risk for RD.
• Specificity refers to the degree of true negatives, or how accurately the measure identifies students at low risk for RD.
• Teachers’ assessment practices can be divided into three categories: tests comprising screening or individual test batteries (performance-based assessment), curriculum-based measures (CBM), and qualitative assessments such as observations in the classroom.
• CBM may be used to monitor students’ progression in an entire school or classroom, to track an individual’s progress toward end-of-year benchmarks or individualised education program goals.
• Teachers’ decisions seem to be sometimes based on situational or other irrelevant factors (e.g. gender, behaviour) instead of solely performance assessments.

Correspondence between teacher ratings and test scores

• In most studies, the correlations between teacher ratings and test scores have varied between 0.40 and 0.70.
• Teachers may, however, systematically over- or underestimate student performance.
• Flynn and Rahbar (1998) developed a theory-based screening instrument for teachers to assess reading competency, and their results suggest that teachers’ predictions of children at risk for RD can be improved by using rating instruments that include research-validated antecedents of reading with behavioural descriptions of low and high achievement.
• The best predictors of a pre-schoolers’ or kindergarteners’ later reading achievement when the child has a familial history of dyslexia have proven to be measures that require processing printed material together with oral language proficiency measures and performance-IQ measures.
• Compared to teacher ratings, standardized tests more accurately identify students who are potentially at risk for RD in future.

Learning to read in Finnish

• Finnish children attend kindergarten at age six, and reading instruction begins at age seven when they enter first grade.
• Upon entering school, letter knowledge seems to be one of the best predictors of reading and spelling accuracy in the Finnish language.
• The Finnish orthography is almost purely phonemic: the grapheme-phoneme correspondences are regular and symmetrical at the level of the single letter, and early reading instruction in Finnish almost uniformly rests upon synthetic phonics.
• Finnish students who struggle with reading do not typically have problems with reading accuracy but do experience persistent problems with reading fluency.
• In the case of RD, the forms of support are remedial teaching during or after school by the class teacher, part-time special education given by the SEN teacher individually or in small groups during school days, or co-teaching by the class teacher and the SEN teacher during normal literacy lessons.

The study

The aim of the study was to investigate teachers’ evaluation practices, and the sensitivity and specificity of their assessments or pre-reading skills, especially of children with the lowest achievement, and how the teacher ratings corresponded to the reading test scores at the beginning of the first grade.

Research questions:

1. Which assessment practices do class teachers and SEN teachers use to assess pre-reading skill (e.g. letter knowledge, phonological skills) at the beginning of grade 1?
2. Are teacher ratings associated with test scores in pre-reading skills?
3. How accurately do the teachers identify students’ pre-reading difficulties to test scores, and what are the sensitivity and specificity rates of their assessments?

The data for this study were drawn from two Finnish longitudinal studies: the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Dyslexia (JLD) and the First Steps study. The JLD data comprised 91 class teachers, 51 SEN teachers and 200 first-grade students. The First Steps data comprised 136 regular classroom teachers, 34 SEN teachers and 598 children.

Conclusions

• The results first showed that the class teachers mostly used one single assessment practice, whereas the SEN teachers often used a combination of several assessment practices.
• Second, it turned out the correlations between teacher ratings and test scores were mostly weak or moderate.
• For the JLD sample, there were differences between the accuracy of the class teachers’ and the SEN teachers’ ratings, and in the First Steps sample, the specificity rate was particularly low.
• Because most class teachers used only qualitative assessment, the collaboration between class teachers and SEN teachers on assessment issues is desirable, if not necessary.
• Early identification and intervention in specific deficit areas can improve students’ reading skill levels immediately as well as prevent later difficulties.
• The findings suggest that more attention should be paid to teacher training as well as developing reliable assessment tools for teachers.

The aim of the study was to analyse literacy instruction activities and their association with the reading performance of first graders in Estonia and Finland, two countries that have similar orthographies and education systems but differ in the onset of formal reading instruction. The results showed that there were more similarities than differences between the countries in literacy instruction activities. The results highlight the importance of responsiveness to students’ needs in early school years literacy instruction.

Authors: Jenni Ruotsalainen, Piret Soodla, Eija Räikkönen, Anna-Maija Poikkeus, Eve Kikas & Marja-Kristiina Lerkkanen

Source: Ruotsalainen, J., Soodla, P., Räikkönen, E., Poikkeus, A.-M., Kikas, E. & Lerkkanen, M.-K. (2020). Literacy instruction activities and their associations with first graders’ reading performance in two transparent orthographies. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, DOI: 10.1080/03057925.2020.1742093

The aim of the study was to analyse literacy instruction activities and their association with the reading performance of first graders in Estonia and Finland, two countries with similar orthographies and education systems but who differ in the onset of formal reading instruction. The results showed that there were more similarities than differences between the countries in literacy instruction activities. However, the slopes of reading performance development among Finnish beginning readers sharply differed from those of other readers in both countries with respect to the content of literacy instruction. The results highlight the importance of responsiveness to students’ needs in early school years literacy instruction.

• Reading proficiency requires the development of both decoding and comprehension skills as well as instructional practices that address both.
• Estonia and Finland have languages with transparent orthographies, and in both countries, students enter school at the age of seven.
• Their difference is that the onset of formal reading instruction takes place in kindergarten in Estonia but in first grade in Finland.
• Despite the later onset of instruction, Finnish students on average reach the same level of reading fluency and reading comprehension as their Estonian peers by the end of first grade.
• Instruction in first grade has been shown to have a greater impact on students’ reading skills than instruction in other grade levels.
• The need for balanced instructional practices that support both the development of students’ foundation-level code-focused (CF) skills of decoding and reading fluency and the broad advancement of meaning-focused (MF) comprehension skills has been widely acknowledged.
• Yet, analyses of the effects of specific instructional practices at these differentiated levels from classroom observations are rare.

Emerging literacy skills

• The Simple View of Reading (SVR; Gough and Tunmer, 1986), a widely used theoretical account on reading, suggests that reading comprehension is a composition of efficient decoding skills and linguistic comprehension.
• Linguistic comprehension and vocabulary develop through informal and formal exposure to interactions throughout one’s life, whereas acquiring the ability to decode words is a more rapid process where students must master a limited number of letter-sound combinations and the alphabetic principle.
• Typically, in transparent orthographies the acquisition of decoding skill takes place soon after reading instruction has begun.

Literacy instruction in first grade

• The sensitivity of the teacher to take a student’s skills into account and tailor the instruction has been shown to contribute to the development of reading skills.
• A heavier emphasis on the development of CF skills, for example through letter knowledge, phonological awareness and decoding tasks is commonly needed in the beginning of the first school year, whereas the focus may later shift towards incorporating more MF activities.
• The three dimensions of framework and observational coding scheme of literacy instruction:

1. Context (e.g. whole vs. small group instruction)
2. Management (e.g. teacher vs. child managed direction of attention)
3. Content of instruction
   

• The present study centres on the content of literacy instruction.
• CF activities aim at providing support for early decoding and spelling skills, such as blending phonemes or doing spelling exercises, and later practicing reading fluency.
• MF activities seek to support students’ comprehension skills via meaning-based discussions and reading comprehension tasks, for example.
• Because the Estonian and Finnish languages have highly transparent orthography (almost perfect phoneme-grapheme correspondence), reading instruction is phonics-based.
• After the first phonemes are introduced to students, phonemic assembly and progress toward full mastery of accurate decoding are relatively easy for beginning readers.

The study

The present study examines the instructional activities during literacy lessons in Estonia and Finland and their associations with students’ reading performance during the first school year.

Research questions:

1. How is literacy instruction implemented in the observed Estonian and Finnish classrooms in first grade spring?
2. How are the amounts of time used for CF vs. MF literacy instruction contents in Estonian and Finnish classrooms associated with the students’ reading performance (fluency and comprehension) in the spring of first grade? Are these associations similar for students with different entry-level reading fluency?

The participants consisted of 33 classroom teachers (21 from Estonia, 12 from Finland) and a total of 569 students from 33 first grade classrooms. Observations in the classrooms were carried out in first grade spring (April). The literacy lessons were coded with respect to the duration of the contents of instructional activities following the Individualising Student Instruction (ISI) classroom observation system developed by Connor et al. (2009). The codings assigned in each category were summarised under the broader categories of CF and MF activities and non-instructional activities. Students’ reading skills were assessed using group-administered tests in the classrooms in first grade autumn (reading fluency) and first grade spring (reading fluency and reading comprehension).

Conclusions

• More similarities than differences in literacy instruction between Estonia and Finland were found, but the analyses of the associations with students’ reading performance revealed some country-specific interaction effects.
• Estonian teachers spend more classroom time on listening and reading comprehension activities.
• Individualising practices when teaching basic literacy skills were found only in Finland.
• This pattern of findings appears to reflect teachers’ adapting their instructional strategies to the different phases of students’ formal literacy learning careers.
• The amount of either CF or MF activities did not associate with the level of reading fluency or comprehension among Estonian students, nor did it have any additional effect on students’ first grade spring performance when students’ entry-level reading fluency was considered.
• Among Finnish students, a high amount of CF activities was associated with higher levels of reading fluency and better reading comprehension among students with low entry-level reading fluency.
• Overall, students spent more time on MF activities than on CF activities in first grade spring.
• Yet, CF activities are important as there is variation in students’ reading performance and there are still students who are learning to decode in first grade spring and hence need support.
• In early years literacy instruction, students need ample support and exposure to literacy content and instruction adapted to their skill levels.
• This is especially important for readers with low reading fluency skill, who thus need more support with coding skills.