Assignment 5

Reading through Read to Succeed Review and Action Plan: Recommendations (May 2009) a report from the Read to Succeed Review Committee for the Saskatoon Public School Division I noted the two main goals:

·      to improve reading performance, and

·      to gain the confidence and skills necessary to work at an independent level in the regular classroom setting.

During an interview with one of the Read to Succeed committee members, she stressed the ‘bigger picture,’ or aim of the Read to Succeed Program, specifically “building confidence and capability” in our students while connecting reading, writing and ways to find information and communicate.  I became curious about student confidence, mainly as students get older, how their confidence in reading (when it seems everyone else is good at it) fades as they see themselves compared to others. 

In Emily Calhoun’s book Teaching Beginning Reading and Writing: With the Picture Word Inductive Model (1999), she writes:

“A positive aspect in addressing the literacy challenge is that these older students, whatever their native language or home environment, bring more knowledge with them than 6-year-olds.  The older students are more mature; if they choose to engage, they can make rapid progress, moving ahead in reading and literacy much faster than the average 6-year-old,”  (p. 103).

I think the reasons for the success of the Read to Succeed program are:

·      students generate the words and information from…

·      they learn from each other (as well as from the teacher)

·      the concepts they already know and own about how language works are used to support instruction and are extended upon

Unlike other programs, which may concentrate or begin with student deficits, the Read to Succeed program appreciates and looks to what the student already knows.

This approach to learning which involves the expansion of and building on to what is already known, along with student-generated concepts and starting places is very successful.  Both the Gray Oral Reading Test (GORT) and the Fountas and Pinnel Benchmark Assessment System have shown double and triple student gains as well as an average growth of 1.3 Grade Level Equivalency (GLE).

The program must boost student self-confidence and self-esteem as well.  So wondering about the connection between motivation and confidence, and how one might measure or get a sense of how student attitude toward reading can change or improve, I did some investigating.  The first resource I found was a book titled, Improving Reading: Strategies and Resources by Jerry L. Johns and Susan Davis Lenski (2001).  Their survey titled, Motivation to Read Profile: Reading Survey was to be used as a starting point in planning as the teacher gained a sense of student attitude toward reading.  My initial survey used many of the questions from the Motivation to Read survey and consisted of 20 questions:

http://kwiksurveys.com/app/rendersurvey.asp?sid=z4n7czoojz9gyq7114783&refer=kwiksurveys%2Ecom

After giving some teachers (classroom and resource room teachers) the survey Ias well as the 809 assignment, I anticipated their feedback and suggestions.  I also found the Rhody Secondary Reading Attitude Assessment (http://employee.heartland.edu/icole/rhody/index.html) and circled some questions from that survey that I thought I could add. 

 These are some of the changes I made based on both the comments I received and the Rhody Secondary Reading Attitude survey:

a)  One of my ‘testers’ felt the survey was too long, and wondered where my open-ended questions were.  I omitted the first two questions since the teachers giving the test knew the students and therefore did not need the students to fill in their gender and age and began combing through questions which could be re-written as open-ended or scale-rated.

 b) Another teacher pointed out, “If they do not like reading and their friends do not like reading, I don’t think # 8 is relevant.”  Question #8 was,

I tell my friends that reading is

Really fun

Fun

OK

No fun at all

This was a good point, so I removed #8 and #3 and kept these two questions, pertaining to friends:

My friends think I am a

Very good reader

Good reader

An okay reader

A poor reader  and

My best friends think reading is

Great

Really good

Okay

Boring

These questions seemed to indicate whether the student had support from his or her peer group or if reading was something they ever talked about or participated in outside of school. 

c) It was also pointed out that kids usually get gift certificates to pick out their own book these days, and that the question, When someone gives me a book as a gift…I feel…might have been better stated, When I receive a book on a topic that I like…I feel…so I changed the question to If I got a gift certificate to buy a book, I would be…(I should have used “received” instead of “got!”  yikes!). 

d) Another issue I thought of during our discussion was that many students do not have their own bedroom or a bedroom at all to sleep in, so changing the question from You have a lot of books in your room at home to (Rhody survey) At home, I have…was more inclusive of all students. 

e) Another teacher pointed out the use of the word “fun,” and wondered if perhaps kids don’t equate fun to something more physical like a game.  The concept of reading as something that is interesting or enjoyable, was agreed upon, but I decided to use great, really good, okay and boring, since students would be filling out the survey, I wanted the vocabulary to consist of words students would use.

My final survey is comprised of twelve questions which given at the beginning of the Read to Succeed program, then mid way and at the end of each students’ year would help determine any changes in attitude and interest in the area of reading and competency.

 I liked the layout and design of the kwiksurvey website, however it did not allow for open ended questions.  When I wanted to reformat the style of question, I could not, as the free version only permitted multiple choice questions and would not allow a variety of question types.   The open-ended questions in the final survey look like multiple choices, which might be confusing.

http://kwiksurveys.com/s.asp?sid=zyx4cp7ur2qtkma115152

* As a final bit of advice, one of the teachers suggested reading the questions out loud, along with the students.  She pointed out that if they have difficulty with reading to start with, the survey may be stressful and I may not get accurate feedback.  “This isn’t a test to see how much they know, we want to know how they feel about reading, and themselves as readers.”   Another teacher pointed out that reading the questions out loud, might invite students to ask questions throughout as well…but the overall consensus of the group was that that was okay for better understanding of each question. 

* Even though my survey was designed with grade 3,4,5 and 6 students in mind, I thought that teachers would be the best ‘testers’ as they would have a sense of what I am hoping to gain through the survey and the best indicators of confidence and competence in reading.  I was curious about a student response, so I gave the survey to a neighbor who is in grade 5.  He thought it was fine, but on question #3 he drew a picture instead of writing words and on #6 he scribbled down…trilogy!!!  He also added the words “for money,” at the very end of the survey after checking off the box that read I would do another one.