Literacy as a national priority
There has never been a time when, across the nation, educational policy makers and schools have been more focused on early literacy. There is an acute awareness that higher standards of literacy are needed in the emerging knowledge society. Reading and writing are even more important than in the past and the need for people to have highly developed reading and writing abilities is growing, not diminishing.
The schools described in this chapter have brought about substantial improvements in outcomes through innovative approaches to teaching and learning. Their stories are of vital importance to schools. They reveal the different ways of thinking of these schools, how they have gone about implementing change and, most importantly, the evidence that that they have been able to generate to demonstrate improvements in student literacy.
Changing views of literacy
Literacy has always been, and probably always will be, the primary function of schooling, particularly in the early years. For this reason, national reports on education have consistently drawn attention to the importance of ensuring high literacy standards in schools. Nonetheless, there has been a considerable shift in thinking over the past decade or so and in particular over the nineties regarding the best ways of ensuring high standards.
Within the Australian context, one of the first reports to signal a change in thinking about literacy was that of the Quality of Education Review Committee (QERC) (Karmel, 1985). The main thrust of this report was to suggest that schools and school systems needed to change their focus from an emphasis on educational inputs to an emphasis on outcomes. The QERC report also gave prominence to primary education and in particular to ensuring all students met minimum standards at an early age in literacy and numeracy.
In 1991, the Australian Language and Literacy Policy (Department of Employment, Education and Training, 1991) echoed the call for greater proficiency in English and effective literacy for all Australians, although from the funds allocated to the policy, only a small proportion was directed to early literacy (de Lemos & Harvey-Beavis, 1995).
A powerful statement regarding the importance of literacy and the magnitude of the challenge confronting schools was made in The Literacy Challenge, (House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training, 1993). This focused on strategies for early intervention in literacy.
...all students have the right to be literate when they leave school, regardless of their economic or social backgrounds... It is unacceptable that ten to twenty per cent of children finish primary school with literacy problems...It is crucial that children at risk of developing literacy problems are identified during the early years of schooling and that appropriate strategies are implemented (p. v).
To obtain a better picture of literacy standards, the Australian Council for Educational Research was contracted, in 1996, to undertake a national survey of the literacy attainments of students in Years 3 and 5. The first report (Masters & Forster, 1997a) documented the wide range of literacy achievement among Australian children and provided evidence for the existence of a `learning gap' of at least five years of schooling between the top and bottom ten per cent of students at Years 3 and 5. The second report (Masters & Forster, 1997b) presented evidence suggesting that about 30 per cent of students completing the national survey failed to reach the minimum standards set by the reading and writing benchmarks used in the study.
In the wake of these reports both the Commonwealth and State/Territory governments were active in the development of national and system-wide policies and plans for improving early literacy. In March 1997 Commonwealth and State/Territory Ministers agreed to develop national educational `benchmarks' as standards and endorsed a new national goal that "every child commencing school from 1998 will achieve a minimum acceptable literacy and numeracy standard within four years".
This goal was later incorporated into a broader statement known as the Adelaide Declaration on National Goals for Schooling in the Twenty-First Century (The National Goals for Schooling [1999]) endorsed by the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs. An important outcome of the agreement was an acceptance that all States and Territories would assess students' levels of literacy and numeracy against agreed benchmarks or standards, and publicly report on the outcomes of this assessment.
In 1998, the Commonwealth published Literacy for all: The challenge for Australian schools (Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs, 1998). It outlined a National Plan, which focused on the early years of schooling, and comprised elements concerning early intervention, benchmarks, monitoring and assessment, and professional development.
Support for early literacy in many school systems has taken the form of comprehensive support programmes for use by schools, such as Cornerstones (South Australia), First Steps (Western Australia), Flying Start (Tasmania), Getting the Foundations Right (New South Wales), Early Years Literacy Program (Victoria) and Year 2 Diagnostic Net (Queensland). These programmes employ a range of strategies and complement international programmes such as Reading Recovery (Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs, 1998).
Systems have also initiated substantial research and development programmes to underpin the provision of the support they provide. (See for example, Crévola & Hill, 1998a; 1998b; Ainley & Fleming, 2000). The research commissioned by systems is increasingly being directed towards the identification of factors associated with the relative effectiveness of different programmes and interventions, as measured by the literacy progress of students, in the context of large-scale implementation across many schools. In this respect, these studies share many of the features of the projects undertaken by schools in the IBPP, which are described below.
The Programmes in the 16 primary schools
Perhaps the most significant feature of the 16 schools was the extent to which they had implemented coherent, whole-school programmes or designs and `branded' approaches to literacy. This was a characteristic of 13 of the 16 schools. They included the four Victorian schools that had each implemented the Victorian government's Early Years Literacy Program based on research undertaken through the Early Literacy Research Project (ELRP) (Crévola & Hill, 1998a, 1998b; Hill & Crévola, 1999), a Queensland school that had implemented THRASS (Teaching Handwriting, Reading and Spelling Skills (Davies and Ritchie, 1996), another Queensland school that had developed a whole-school design based on the Total Systems Model of Mamary (1996), and a New South Wales school that had implemented aspects of both First Steps (Education Department of Western Australia, 1996) and SWELL (Center, Freeman & Robertson, 1996).
In addition, schools had developed their own whole-school designs borrowing from a range of sources. Reading Recovery (Clay, 1993b) had been implemented as a key element of programmes in seven of the 16 schools as a one-to-one accelerative programme for the lowest achieving students in their second year of schooling. In three of the schools, the key feature of the innovation had been the introduction of multi-age classes; while in another three schools there had been a specific focus on direct teaching of phonics. In most of the 16 schools, a range of methods of teaching were being employed within a predominantly `whole language' framework.
The follow-up case studies
Eight schools were selected for more intensive follow-up research. These schools were selected on the basis of evidence of improved learning and a whole school approach. Of the eight that had adopted a whole-school approach, four had used a design developed as part of the ELRP referred to above. As a framework for describing and comparing these eight schools, we make use of a design template developed by Hill and Crévola (1997). The Hill and Crévola design template identifies nine design elements as summarised diagrammatically in Figure 2.1.
Figure 2.1.Design template for a whole school approach to improving student learning outcomes (Hill & Crévola, 1997)
learning outcomes (Hill & Crévola, 1997)
Beliefs and understandings
In each of the eight schools, the development among staff of a set of shared beliefs and understandings about teaching and learning was seen as an important precondition for successful implementation of the school's innovation and ultimately for improved student literacy outcomes. In particular, teachers referred to the importance of having high expectations of all students and of not allowing their knowledge of students' home backgrounds to cause them to lower these expectations.
Before the programme began, teachers in Mount Ernest Primary School did not share and could not articulate common beliefs. The school used the Frameworks programme and the notion of multi-age grouping practices as a starting point to develop common beliefs. This led to a focus on building common beliefs and understandings among teachers. An extended debate about multi-age grouping practices helped to establish a focus on student individual needs and quality literature resources.
In Hampshire, East Park and Baden West Primary Schools, which all served educationally disadvantaged communities, considerable work was needed in the first year of the project to expose and confront a "Yes, but..." culture that tolerated low expectations of students. This culture was gradually replaced by an acceptance of the notion that, with time and support, almost all students are capable of achieving high standards. Much time was spent working through the implications of such a belief for the way in which the school operated and for teaching practices in classrooms.
In McFarlane Primary School, the success of the programme initially hinged on changing the beliefs of teachers from regarding the kindergarten year as being another year of pre-school to one in which students learnt how to read. As a result of the school's programme, a common belief was generated in the capacity of all students to be reading by the end of their first year of schooling. In Cloudy View Primary School, which had adopted an outcomes-focused approach, teachers reported that in 1994, teachers and students shared low expectations of student academic progress. Since implementing the innovation, both the teachers' and the students' expectations had increased dramatically. They expressed concern that frequent changeovers of staff had jeopardised the sustainability of the programme because new teachers had to be inducted into the beliefs and understandings of the school.
Leadership and coordination
Whole-school approaches depend substantially on the leadership provided by the principal and other members of the senior leadership team of the school, since only they are in the position to make sure that each of the elements is attended to and brought into alignment. Project coordinators who had day-to-day responsibility for managing the implementation of the innovation also exercised a great deal of leadership.
The principal of Green Beach Primary School expressed the view there were three critical features of successful leadership: accepting responsibility for student learning; not implementing change too quickly; and articulating a vision for the school that took into account all stakeholders and promoted the school as a community. The principal expressed a strong view that the pace of change in education was often too fast and that stress levels of teachers needed to be managed. The leader's role in this context was to seek ways to encourage improvement and to manage the change process to ensure successful implementation.
Staff in Hampshire Primary School emphasised the importance of having strong leaders to coordinate the implementation and monitoring of all the key elements of the project. The appointment of a project coordinator with expertise in literacy and who had the respect of the staff was seen as a crucial success factor. The coordinator worked in the early years classrooms, with the staff and with the whole school community. The coordinator was able to make links between all components of the initiative.
In Hampshire, East Park, Baden West and Weddin View Primary Schools, project coordinators were appointed with substantial time release to act as coaches, mentors and lead learners within the early years team. This was a new role, both for the coordinators themselves and for the teachers with whom they worked. In Mount Ernest Primary School, the teaching staff were divided into professional teams, each with a designated team leader. The team leaders and the principal formed the leadership team for the school. The school was organised to enable teams of teachers to be released from classroom teaching to facilitate team planning and communication.
While leadership is expected of persons in formal positions of authority, leadership is a quality that can be widely distributed. In East Park Primary School, the principal was considered a `key player' although leadership was seen to operate at all levels. Great importance was attached to the role of the coordinator whose task it was to knit the early years teachers into a cohesive professional learning team. Teachers, also, were encouraged to take responsibility for aspects of the programme, by providing advice and assistance as team members and interacting with the community. In Cloudy View Primary School, the school had a flat management structure to ensure that teachers were empowered and felt a sense of ownership of the programme.
Acceptance by the staff of the role exercised by a teacher `leader' does not always occur automatically. In McFarlane Primary School, the success of the programme was seen to have depended to a considerable extent on the support of the leadership team, a valuing of what the staff were doing and on ensuring that the programme was not imposed on staff, but allowed to evolve. In this school it had taken some time for the newly created `literacy coordinator' position to be accepted as authoritative.
Standards and targets
While high expectations were a feature of all of the eight follow-up schools, in six of these schools high expectations were reflected in explicit standards and associated targets.
In the case of Cloudy View Primary School, all student instructional reading material in the school had been levelled in gradations of difficulty and standards had been set, with three levels of assessment identified, namely `Approaching Requirement', `Meeting Requirement', or `Exceeding Requirement'. In Hampshire, East Park, Baden West and Weddin View Primary Schools, use had been made of standards and targets developed as part of ELRP. In the ELRP, standards were defined in terms of the text levels obtained by taking `running records' of students' reading ability using a set of 28 unseen graded texts. Two standards were identified, namely a `minimum standard' and a `target standard'. This was to ensure that the targets embodied a challenge for all schools and for all students and did not focus solely on the bottom end of the performance continuum. In McFarlane Primary School, there was an awareness of the ELRP standards and targets, but the school had developed its own and had set the target of ensuring that all students achieved the standards.
In each of the six schools that had specific standards and targets, staff commented on the importance of clear expectations and a goal to aim for that was challenging, but achievable.
It was critical to the implementation of the project to establish `benchmarks' as early as possible and the initial professional development sessions were designed to skill teachers and coordinators in the area . (East Park Primary School)
Monitoring and assessment
Monitoring and assessment are important in establishing starting points for teaching, in ensuring that teaching is at all times closely focused on student learning needs and to ascertain whether targets have been met.
In Green Beach Primary School, assessment and monitoring had been mostly ad hoc and qualitative. As a result of their involvement in the IBPP, the school has made use of the New South Wales Basic Skills Test information as a standardised monitoring and reporting tool. Mount Ernest Primary School also made use of Basic Skills Test information in reporting the outcomes of their innovation.
Cloudy View Primary School had an internal monitoring framework related to school-based benchmarks in reading and spelling. Since 1993, teachers had collected baseline data on reading levels. The leadership team commented that a major part of their role was monitoring individual student progress. Teachers monitored reading, spelling and number facts for each student every week. The leadership team monitored reading, spelling and number facts for students across all classes every term. Teachers encouraged students to keep a portfolio of work including examples of writing. Students were involved in self-evaluation, and student led conferences at parent-teacher meetings, as part of a deliberate strategy to encourage them to take responsibility for their own learning. In Hampshire, East Park and Baden West Primary Schools there were systematic programmes of beginning- and end-of-year assessment of students in place, using a series of teacher observations, including the six measures comprising An Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement (Clay, 1993a) and The Record of Oral Language: Biks and Gutches (Clay, Gill, Glynn, McNaughton & Salmon, 1983). These measures were selected for the diagnostic information they provided, their capacity to reveal students' strengths and weaknesses and to suggest foci for classroom teaching. In these schools, use was also made of the Burt Word Reading Test (Gilmore, Croft & Reid, 1981), the Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery (Woodcock, 1987), Spelling in Context (Peters & Smith, 1993) and the South Australia Spelling Test . In Weddin View Primary School, where the focus was on students in Years 3 and 4, use was made of running records from the Observation Survey , the Burt Word Reading Test, Spelling in Context and the Tests of Reading Comprehension (TORCH) (Mossenson, Hill & Masters, 1987). In addition, a writing sample was collected and assessed against the levels of the Curriculum and Standards Framework: English published by the Victorian Board of Studies (1995).
Teachers in these schools commented on the amount of time and effort devoted to monitoring and assessment, but were also quick to point out the benefits.
I know exactly what each one of my students can and can't do. I feel I can pinpoint exactly where they are at . (teacher, Baden West Primary School)
I don't know how I could have been an effective teacher without knowing what I now know about the level of each child...Because I regularly take running records I'm much more aware of where everyone is. You feel pretty bad if you give a child something to do that you know is too easy or too hard for them . (teacher, Weddin View Primary School)
In East Park Primary School, all teachers discussed the intensive and time- consuming monitoring system associated with the programme. The following comments were typical:
Looking back it was a big ask, but in hindsight this ongoing monitoring meant that you had a whole picture of a child's needs.
You learnt about the child as well as their needs.
Teachers noted that when they became more experienced, the time involved in closely monitoring students abated.
In conclusion, across the eight schools there was evidence of a belief in the importance of monitoring and assessment to inform teaching and learning.
Classroom teaching programme
Effective teaching of literacy is structured and focused on the learning needs of each student in the class. It calls for well-developed understandings of how students learn and of how students become literate. It requires teachers who are able to cater for the range of abilities in the class in both whole-class and small group settings and who can make use of a wide range of classroom practices and strategies in response to the needs of individual students.
In Green Beach Primary School, where the focus was on the use of drama to enhance literacy, classroom teaching strategies were at the heart of the school's innovation. Because there was a strong belief within the school that a clear relationship could be demonstrated between `enactment' or `taking on roles' (which is the essence of drama) and improved literacy skills, the school had adopted a mentoring approach to assisting all teachers to use drama strategies in the classroom.
In Mount Ernest Primary School, teachers employed a wide variety of teaching strategies within their multi-age classrooms that facilitated individualised learning. These included cooperative learning; goal setting; the `six thinking hats' programme; `have-a-go' spelling, reading and writing; negotiated curriculum; individual contracts and open-ended activities.
In Hampshire, East Park, Baden West and Weddin View Primary Schools and to a lesser extent Cloudy View Primary School, the same classroom teaching strategies were evident, as these were all schools that had been participants in the ELRP or, in the case of Cloudy View and Weddin View Primary Schools, had modelled their practices on the ELRP. Teachers used combinations of the strategies that included oral language; reading to students; shared reading and writing; independent reading and writing; language experience; and modelled writing.
In these schools, the classroom literacy programme consisted typically of a reading and a writing workshop conducted within a two-hour teaching block. Each session began and ended with a teacher-directed `whole class' focus. The main part of each workshop consisted of activities that had a `small-group' focus. This allowed for explicit teaching of instructional groups while the remainder of the class were engaged in self-regulated activities in learning centres. Trained volunteers were used, where possible, to assist the students to remain on task and to free the teacher for small group instruction. In this way, the expertise of the teacher was applied at the point of greatest need.
The structure of the two-hour literacy block was as follows.
- Whole class: shared reading (books, charts, poems and songs), modelled writing or shared writing to provide an initial teaching focus and allow specific teaching.
- Small group: for reading, explicit teaching of small groups of students using the strategies of reading to students, language experience and guided reading. Learning centres operated for the remainder of the class. For writing, the teaching strategies of language experience, interactive writing and guided writing took place while the remainder of the class were engaged in independent writing and other grammar and spelling activities.
- Whole class: students articulated what they had learnt and the teacher encouraged the development of the students' oral language.
The adoption of this whole-small-whole structure represented a considerable change for most of these schools.
Some teachers were hesitant about letting three groups of students work on their own while they concentrated on just 6-8 students during, say, a guided reading activity. These teachers admitted that they were initially sceptical that their children were capable of being self-directed learners. However, no one [now] considers it to be an issue . (Hampshire Primary School)
Learning centres were the subject of debate within the team as they `flew in the face' of accepted practice. Teachers had to `let go' of what they believed was correct. (East Park Primary School)
In adopting these changes, it was important that teachers constantly revisited their beliefs and understandings. At East Park Primary School teachers agreed that without strategies that fostered cooperative, independent and self-directed students the literacy programme was seriously compromised. The changes to teaching practices that they implemented were consistent with this belief.
Professional learning teams
In order to impact on teachers' beliefs and understandings and to establish a process for institutionalising a whole-school approach to early literacy, an effective approach to ongoing professional development that impacts broadly on staff within the school is essential. In all eight of the focus schools, a team approach to professional learning was in place and was a key, if not the most important, mechanism for bringing about change.
In Green Beach Primary School, a mentoring programme had been established that involved a university academic working one day per week for a semester with a small group of teachers in their classrooms. In addition, teachers were given some time release to work on planning and evaluation. In Hampshire, East Park and Baden West Primary Schools the professional learning team was central to the change process inherent in the ELRP. This team was the vehicle by which to facilitate the significant change in behaviour and growth in beliefs and understandings that would eventually result in embedded change to practice. Teachers attended four full days each year of off-site university-based professional development. The main purpose of these sessions was to provide the impetus for further thought and discussion. These were complemented by on-site professional development that took place daily within the context of the school. A team coordinator was appointed at each school with a significant time allocation to the role. The coordinator acted as a mentor and lead-learner and organised visits to teams in other schools, demonstration teaching, and classroom observations.
The team was the main vehicle for growing professionally. Team members took joint responsibility for all students supervised by all team members and also assumed responsibility for each other's professional growth. This represented a significant challenge to pre-existing concepts of professional development. Teachers were asked to extend their understanding of professional development to include sharing ideas, planning and teaching together, creating opportunities to learn from each other and problem solving together using the professional learning team as the central vehicle. It called for a bond of trust to be developed between the teachers and the coordinator as they worked together as a learning team. Classrooms were opened for collegiate sharing and modelling and teachers were encouraged to become `risk takers' as the climate of trust strengthened.
Additional professional development sessions were provided for coordinators to assist them develop a deeper understanding of literacy teaching and learning and explore issues related to their coaching and mentoring roles and to issues associated with implementation of the innovation. The coordinators established a process for updating their teams through written summaries that were then addressed at team meetings.
In McFarlane Primary School, the leader of the professional learning group worked initially with ten early primary school teachers. Being new to the school, there was some initial resistance to her role. This dissipated over time, however, and the professional learning team became extremely important to the change management process as members of the team took ownership of the ideas and the programme.
In Cloudy View Primary School, teachers were divided into three professional learning teams: early years, middle school and upper school. Although there was no release time for teams, a strong professional development programme for teachers was nevertheless established. This focused on meeting student individual needs and improving learning outcomes. It was the experience of the school that teachers can do a lot more if shown how. Performance appraisal for teachers involved self-evaluation against a standard set by the school and verification by others (leaders, parents, other teachers and students).
In Mount Ernest Primary School, ongoing professional development was a strong tradition of the school. The leadership team encouraged lots of professional reading for all teachers who were grouped into one of four professional teams. The school encouraged a serious focus on professional development in literacy (at the expense of other priorities). Teachers devoted their own time (2.5 hours for eight weeks in the first year of the reform) and paid $80 towards course costs for the initial professional development programme. The school organised and ran its own professional development activities rather than have teachers leave the school to undertake external courses.
School and class organisation
For classroom teaching to be effective schools need to carefully consider key aspects of school operation and classroom organisation. Each of the eight case study schools had implemented significant changes to school and class organisation arrangements.
In Green Beach Primary School small groups were used in all classrooms. Students were accustomed to forming activity groups and moving into different groups for different activities. The school day was divided into three blocks of which the first was generally devoted to literacy, although this varied from teacher to teacher.
Hampshire, East Park, Baden West and Weddin View Primary Schools instituted a daily, uninterrupted, two-hour block specifically devoted to the teaching of literacy. Attention had been given at the school level to policies for minimising interruptions to this two-hour block, such as avoiding withdrawing students from class, or organising assemblies, visits, public address announcements, and so on. Specialist programmes in the junior school had been timetabled so that they took place outside the literacy block. In most cases, these schools had taken the decision to cap class sizes in the first two years of schooling, which sometimes meant larger classes in the more senior grades.
The changes in class organisation in Hampshire, East Park, Baden West and Weddin View Primary Schools, described earlier, involved the establishment of a whole-small-whole structure, the forming of instructional groups and the establishment of learning centres.
McFarlane Primary School had made changes similar to those just described. Small-group organisation had been adopted in Years K-2 and by teachers of Years 5 and 6, however teachers of Years 3 and 4 had been less enthusiastic about small group structures. The school had implemented a 2-hour literacy block for all K-2 classes.
Cloudy View Primary School structured three blocks of learning during the day, with the first block being of two hours duration. At the class level, the main change was the introduction of multi-age classes in which use was made of a revolving small group organisation. Groups were created on the basis of outcome levels rather than age levels.
Multi-age classes were also a feature of Mount Ernest Primary School. The leadership team argued that the multi-age groupings were the catalyst to changing teaching and learning practices in the classroom. This had led to a series of organisational strategies in each classroom including revolving small groups.
Intervention and special assistance
Even with the best teaching, experience indicates that many students will need extra time and support if they are to reach minimum standards. This implies the provision of intervention programmes and special assistance to those students who begin to fall behind their peers and who are having difficulty in maintaining an adequate pace of learning.
Significantly, seven of the eight case study schools (all except Cloudy View Primary School) had implemented Reading Recovery as a one-to-one intervention programme for their most `at risk' Year 1 students. Research indicates that for those students who are most at risk, one-to-one intervention is most likely to be effective (Wasik & Slavin, 1993) and in these schools, the benefits of the programme were clearly perceived to justify its high cost.
Green Beach Primary School had a withdrawal programme for students requiring additional support in literacy. Teams of parents worked five days a week for six weeks assisting individual students. The school had a Learning Difficulties teacher who worked two days a week with Year 2-6 students and a Reading Recovery teacher who worked with Year 1 students. The Reading Recovery programme had run for six years with the same teacher and was a well-established programme. The school is in the process of training a new Reading Recovery teacher.
In Hampshire, East Park, Baden West and Weddin View Primary Schools Reading Recovery had been implemented as a mandatory element of ELRP to provide an accelerative programme for the lowest-achieving students in the second year of schooling. Unfortunately, resource constraints had meant that in previous years none of the schools had been able to provide a full coverage programme to all students deemed as requiring access to Reading Recovery . However, substantial additional systemic funds had recently been provided specifically to support Reading Recovery . For students in their third year of schooling who were continuing to experience difficulties, these schools had implemented individual learning improvement plans which set out short term goals to be achieved within a six to eight week period. A support group including the classroom teacher, the literacy coordinator, and the parents worked together towards meeting the specific goals.
McFarlane Primary School utilised Reading Recovery for students requiring special assistance. It found that as the effectiveness of their teaching improved in the students' first year of schooling and as the targets for students literacy skills were met, the number of students deemed to require access to the Reading Recovery programme decreased. The school's success in reducing demand for Reading Recovery had not led to a financial saving for the school. As the number of students needing Reading Recovery has decreased the State Education Department has decreased funding for Reading Recovery .
Cloudy View Primary School teachers assessed the reading level of every Year 1 student and identified those students needing extra support. The school did not have a Reading Recovery teacher, due to the lack of resources. However, it had deployed one specialist teacher and one teacher aide, for approximately every four classes, to work with students requiring extra assistance. These staff made some use of Reading Recovery strategies. The principal personally listened to every student read once a year. The principal and deputy provided help and support to teachers on a daily basis with strategies to meet individual student needs.
Mount Ernest Primary School had a learning support/learning difficulties programme. Teachers nominated students who required assistance in reading or writing. A team of five staff members worked four days a week to provide 30 minutes support each week to nominated students. In addition, the school ran a Reading Recovery programme. The school had three Reading Recovery trained teachers and another teacher was undertaking Reading Recovery training. The Reading Recovery programme was deemed to be effective, but the school felt that more resources were needed to follow up students after they left the Reading Recovery programme.
Home, school and community partnerships
There is a substantial amount of evidence to indicate that an effective school is one that is proactive and systematic about linking with the home, the previous school, other service providers and the wider community (Cairney et al., 1995; Epstein, 1991). The eight case study schools had programmes in place to establish these links.
Green Beach Primary School had a policy requiring all students to take work home each day. Parents were asked to check the work. Parents were also active in most classrooms and some training had been provided for parents. The school had forged links with a local club to develop an alliance for providing community programmes and fund raising.
At Hampshire, East Park, Baden West and Weddin View Primary Schools, a home school partnership was strongly valued and encouraged. Teachers and parents worked together to develop a shared view of literacy learning. Three of the schools had a `parent participation plan' that identified strategies for improving communication between the home and the school and provided opportunities for parents to participate in educational programmes. The classroom helpers programme provided training for parents to take an active role in assisting in the classroom, thus freeing the teacher to focus on the instruction of small groups of students. While key elements of a plan were in place in these schools, there was agreement that much more remained to be done to establish good links with the home.
McFarlane Primary School had clear views regarding the role of parents in teaching students to read. The school had started a guided reading programme for parents to try and ensure that what parents did aligned with what happened at the school. Students selected texts every morning to take home to read with their parents. They chose from texts that were two levels below those used at school so that they would not experience difficulties in reading at home, but could focus on practising learned behaviours and on improving fluency. There was also some parent participation in the classroom.
In Cloudy View Primary School, parents were involved in programme management committees at the school and also in assisting in classes. Two hundred and thirty parents (from 500 families) worked in classes on a regular basis. The school was welcoming of parents being at the school and had developed `info packs' for them on spelling and early reading. There was a homework policy that promoted reading at home every night.
Mount Ernest Primary School had a home reading programme for K-4 students based on the use of levelled texts. All students were expected to maintain a communication diary that the teacher initialled each day and which the student took home. Parental involvement in classrooms was limited with the greatest involvement being in K-2 classes.
Evidence of success
The eight case study schools were selected for follow-up because, in each case, they were able to provide evidence of significant positive outcomes attributable to the innovation. Generally this took the form of assessments of student learning which the school had used to compare the achievement of its students with those in other schools or with earlier cohorts of students in the same school.
For example, Green Beach Primary School was able to use Basic Skills Test data to demonstrate that the proportion of students attaining Skills Band 1 had increased each year by 5.5 to 8.0 per cent and that there had been dramatic improvements at Basic Skills Levels 3 and 4. Because the items comprising the Basic Skills Test change each year, the school had focused on data for common items, or items that were very similar to items contained in earlier versions of the test. Quantitative evidence of improved literacy outcomes was also supported by qualitative evidence gained from interviews with teachers and students.
Hampshire, East Park, and Baden West Primary Schools had participated in the ELRP for which there was substantial evidence of the achievements of schools. In the first year of implementation, effect sizes in excess of 0.6 of a standard deviation had been achieved by students in the first two years of school. Schools were able to provide evidence of the value they had added relative to other trial schools and a group of control or reference schools, after adjusting statistically for prior achievement and various student background characteristics (language spoken at home, socio-economic status, employment status, transience, family structure, gender). Of 50 schools, Hampshire Primary School ranked 13th, East Park Primary School 5th and Baden West Primary School 3rd in terms of the value they had added, indicating that within the ELRP, these schools had been among the most successful in improving literacy outcomes for their students. In Hampshire and East Park Primary Schools, little improvement occurred among their students in the first year of school. The greatest gains took place for these students in their second and third years of schooling, when their rates of progress exceeded that of students in the reference schools. In Baden West Primary School students made greater progress earlier and rates of progress were maintained across the three years of the project.
McFarlane Primary School presented evidence to indicate that in 1994 the school was in the bottom 20 per cent of schools in its region in terms of student achievement in literacy, but had since moved into the top 20 per cent. The school's research report indicated that in 1998, 84 per cent of Kindergarten students had attained Reading Level 5 by the end of the year. The average reading levels of the 22 lowest achieving Year 1 students had improved from 12 in 1996 to 15 in 1998. Furthermore, the number of Year 1 students requiring Reading Recovery had dropped from 33 students in 1992 to nine students in 1999. The school also had qualitative data in the form of teacher and student perceptions that provided evidence of improvement in a range of student outcomes.
Cloudy View Primary School provided extensive quantitative data to show improvements in the proportion of students reaching `benchmark' levels in reading, reductions in the number of students requiring additional support, and improvements in Year 6 test performance. Comparisons were provided with data from similar schools. The school had obtained information on student behaviour and community perceptions of the school that also indicated significant improvements over time.
The results of Weddin View Primary School on the Burt Word Test indicated that students at the school were operating at a level approximately two years ahead of their chronological age in terms of word recognition. Results on the Tests of Reading Comprehension (TORCH) also indicated students at the school were performing well above the grade norm in terms of reading comprehension.
In all eight schools, the tangible evidence of improvement was a source of considerable satisfaction to the staff involved. It motivated them to persist in ensuring full implementation of the innovation. Furthermore, the improvements in learning outcomes were often associated with improvements in student attitudes and behaviour, as illustrated by the following comments of teachers: My students are really improving more than I can ever remember before. What's more, behaviour in my class has become a non-issue . (teacher, Hampshire Primary School)
...they can read! For the first time ever I have a group of Grade 3s who, from the first day of the school year, can all read . (teacher, Baden West Primary School)