Does the gender of the teacher matter in the teaching of reading literacy? Teacher gender and pupil attainment in reading literacy in Hong Kong

A study of 148 primary school teachers and 4867 Grade 4 pupils in Hong Kong found no support for the proposal that boys learn to read better when taught by men teachers. In fact, it was found that both boys and girls learnt better when taught by women. Responses to a teacher questionnaire indicate significant differences in the preferred patterns of teaching favoured by male and female teachers. Responses from men teachers suggest they are more authoritarian, prefer to control pupils' learning, engage pupils in whole-class reading and like to read passages aloud while pupils follow the text. Responses from women teachers suggest they prefer to teach reading in groups, to group pupils according to reading ability, set tasks that suit pupils' stage of learning, allocate more time for pupils to read books and use the school library and encourage pupils to discover for themselves the meaning of new vocabulary encountered in text. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Inequality in language achievement growth? An investigation into the impact of pupil socio‐ethnic background and school socio‐ethnic composition

This paper investigates how pupils' growth trajectories in three language domains (reading fluency, spelling, and reading comprehension) are related to their own socioeconomic and ethnic background and to the socioeconomic and ethnic composition of their primary school. Using multilevel piecewise growth curve analysis, the growth trajectories of approximately 5000 pupils from 170 primary schools were estimated. The results indicate that a pupil's socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds have the largest impact on achievement and growth in reading comprehension and the smallest impact on reading fluency. Furthermore, school ethnic composition—but not socioeconomic composition—was related to pupils' achievement in all three language domains at the first measurement occasion, though none of the types of school composition was related to growth. The research findings therefore imply that to combat the deficits in language proficiency often found in ethnic minority pupils, priority should be given to investments in individual intervention programmes over policy plans to desegregate schools. Moreover, our study identifies the specific points in time during primary school at which intervention programmes are needed the most.     

Story Links: working with parents of pupils at risk of exclusion

This paper presents the results of the evaluation of the 20‐month Story Links project delivered by the University of Chichester in collaboration with the Centre for Therapeutic Storywriting and funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA). Story Links is a ten‐week intervention that involves pupils at risk of exclusion and with poor literacy, along with teachers and parents, in co‐creating stories that address the pupils' emotional and behavioural issues. These stories are then used to develop the pupils' reading skills. The theoretical background draws on Bowlby's concept of attachment and research that highlights the relationship between parental involvement and academic achievement. Analysis of the co‐created stories showed a high correlation between the story metaphor and the child's presenting of emotional issues as identified by the parents and professionals. The findings also showed a significant increase in parental involvement in their child's learning and improvement in both pupils' behaviour and pupils' attitudes to learning.     

Attitudes of Serbian and Slovenian student teachers towards causes of learning underachievement amongst Roma pupils

The task of initial teacher education is to prepare student teachers (ST) to accept responsibility for improving the education of all pupils, including Roma pupils. Thus, knowledge of ST's attitudes regarding such pupils at the onset of initial teacher education is a key for the creation of teacher education programmes that challenge implicit beliefs and biases. The main focus of this paper, therefore, is ST's perceptions concerning the causes of learning underachievement amongst Roma pupils and who is primarily responsible for these pupils' learning achievement. Research was conducted at the Faculty of Education at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia and the Teacher Training Faculty at the University of Belgrade in Serbia. The results suggest that ST do not consider themselves likely contributors to Roma pupils' learning achievement, which leads to an attitude of minimal responsibility. The majority of ST attribute Roma pupils' learning underachievement to their parents' disinterest in schooling, Roma pupils' lack of motivation, and their non-acceptance by peers. The implications of these findings for teacher education programmes are subsequently discussed.     

Reading on Screen: Exploring Issues in Reading for Information with CD-ROM

This article describes the insights gained by a group of primary teachers investigating the implications of CD-ROM for English with their KS2 pupils. As part of the IT in English project, they researched pupils' use of the CD-ROM and its effect on their learning. They developed effective strategies to help pupils cope with the reading demands and edit their own texts. Positive effects on critical reading, collaboration, and use of conventional information books were observed.     

Textual Cohesion and Effective Reading: A teaching strategy

The unfamiliarity of the language of books sometimes contributes to the limited effectiveness with which pupils read. An action research project was carried out with a group of primary school teachers and their pupils, who belong to minority ethnic groups, in order to develop a teaching strategy to help these pupils to attend to the cohesive elements of texts, alongside the conceptual content. The teachers selected texts for reading and discussion with their pupils and they included in the discussion some prepared questions aimed at recovering the meaning of cohesive devices in the texts. The teachers found that they developed their own awareness of the linguistic demands on pupils of the texts which they selected, and the responses of the pupils demonstrated the contribution of the cohesive elements of the texts to the interplay of the factors, linguistic and conceptual, which influence pupils' effective reading.     

Girls and Boys Like to Read and Write Different Texts

This study explored girls' and boys' (aged 10–11) attitudes towards reading and writing. Girls enjoyed reading significantly more than boys. Boys liked mostly comics and humorous books; adventure books were girls' favourites. Poetry did not appeal to pupils. Many boys did not enjoy typical school texts. Most pupils, especially boys, did not like to read aloud. Even many fluent and motivated readers felt embarrassed when doing it. Pupils' attitudes towards writing were more negative than those regarding reading. Boys were significantly more reluctant writers than girls. To interest boys the writing task should have a meaningful purpose or a communicative function. The results suggest that pupils' interest should be a key factor in the selection of reading material; otherwise, many students will avoid reading and may develop a lifelong aversion to it.     

Book reviews

The purpose of this study was to find out: (a) pupils' attitudes towards open-ended science investigations, and (b) the problems that pupils encounter when carrying out such investigations in groups. The study was conducted in a class of 39 primary 6 pupils of mixed ability who carried out four investigations. Data were based on pupils' responses on an attitude survey questionnaire, interviews, video tapes of pupils performing the investigations and field notes. The majority of the pupils liked conducting such investigations. Reasons for positive responses were that the pupils had the freedom to explore and devise their own procedures to find out things that they wanted to know about, they could work together and discuss with friends, the investigations were interesting and it was a valuable learning experience. Reasons for negative responses included the difficulty of coming up with good ideas to design the investigations, and group conflicts. The findings also indicate that group dynamics played an important role in influencing pupils' attitudes towards the investigations.     

Guided reading: young pupils' perspectives on classroom practice

Guided reading is widely perceived to be tricky in English primary schools; prior research has found difficulties with teacher interpretation and implementation. The study reported here suggests that to understand the problems associated with it we should also take into account pupils' perspectives on their guided reading lessons. In this case, the pupils were 4–7 years old. The special challenges of accessing young pupil perspectives were addressed through co‐authored drawings, a type of graphic elicitation. The drawings, together with other collected data, generated insights into pupil perceptions of literacy practices, of the role of friends and ability grouping in learning to read, and of their teachers' organisational challenges. A socio‐cultural analysis of these data indicates that these pupils were sensitive to the social and cultural contexts of their guided reading lessons. It may be that precise official advice for guided reading in England, originating in the National Literacy Strategy documents in 1999 and the Primary National Strategy documents in 2003 and 2008, has been insufficiently sensitive to the complex teaching and learning contexts of guided reading and that this discrepancy has contributed to the identified difficulties. The paper concludes that some rethinking of the literacy practice of guided reading would be valuable.     

A training programme on managing science class interactions: Its impact on teachers' practises and on their pupils' achievement

This research evaluates the impact of a training programme on trainee physics and chemistry teachers, focusing on the way pupils' explanations are dealt with during teacher-pupil interaction. The population is composed of 10 teachers and 303 pupils, from which the experimental sample was taken (8 teachers and 172 pupils). The qualitative analysis of the recordings of the sessions shows that teachers, after training, are more ready to take pupils' productions into account, use a greater number of appropriate arguments, and are more frequently aware of pupils' misconceptions. A quantitative analysis of the achievement of pupils whose teachers followed the complete programme indicates that pupil outcomes improve. The conditions required for this training to be effective are also explored.     

‘Bridging work’ and its role in improving progression and continuity: an example from science education

Science in English primary schools has been judged a success, yet few pupils make the progress in secondary schools that their performance at the end of primary school suggested. Projects where pupils start science work at the end of the primary school and complete it at the start of secondary school—known as bridging units—have been suggested as one solution. This article reports an evaluation of bridging work in science in the north‐east of England. Pupils' and teachers' views of bridging lessons were collected and data on pupils' performance before and after bridging lessons compared. Claims that pupils find this type of work repetitive and that their teachers would rather teach something else either side of transfer are challenged. Findings highlight areas that are still problematic, including the use made of transferred assessments and progression in pupils' abilities, to comment on relationships between variables and patterns in data. The future for bridging work is discussed.     

School Effectiveness and Teacher Effectiveness in Mathematics: Some Preliminary Findings from the Evaluation of the Mathematics Enhancement Programme (Primary)

In this study the effect of teacher behaviours and classroom organisation on pupils' progress in mathematics was studied in years 1, 3 and 5 of primary schools in the UK participating in a mathematics intervention programme. Data on a total of 78 teachers and 2,128 pupils was collected. Teacher behaviours were measured using a classroom observation instrument developed for the project, and pupils were tested in March and July of 1998 using a curriculum-appropriate Numeracy test developed by the National Foundation for Educational Research. Background data on pupils was also collected at both testing occasions. Using multilevel modelling techniques it was found that teacher behaviours were able to explain between 60% and 100% of pupils' progress on the Numeracy tests. Amount of time spent teaching the whole class was not related directly to pupils' progress, but structural equation models were tested in which time spent teaching the whole class was found to be related to effective teaching behaviours and thus indirectly to pupil progress. The implications of the study for British educational policies and for educational research more generally are discussed.     

Pupils' perspectives on the lived pedagogy of the classroom

This paper is based on a pedagogical action research initiative that explores what constitutes the ‘lived pedagogy’ of the classroom from the pupils' perspective. Photography and group interviews were utilised to allow pupils to express their perspectives. The results show that pupils considered situations meaningful when they were able to work, solve problems and create items together. The pupils appreciated situations in which they experienced a sense of belonging and could influence the use of time and space during the school day. The paper considers possibilities and challenges related to acknowledging pupils' voices in the lived pedagogy of the classroom.     

Pupils' perspectives on racism and differential treatment by teachers: On stragglers,the ill and being deviant

While British educational researchers have given considerable attention to issues of racism, little attention has been given to how pupils themselves perceive differential teacher treatment and how such views relate to pupils' claims of teacher racism and racial discrimination. This article employs ethnographic data gathered from one English and two Flemish (Belgian) secondary schools to investigate pupils' perceptions of teachers' differential treatment of pupils. All schools were multi‐ethnic in character and located in inner‐city areas. The analysis of the data suggests that three ideal types of pupils were perceived as legitimate recipients of a less or more favourable teacher treatment: the ill, stragglers and deviants. This study illustrates how pupils' claims about teacher racism and racial discrimination relate to conflicts between particular pupils and their teachers over the appropriateness of their status as ill, stragglers or deviants and related role expectations. The final section discusses implications of this study for future research on processes of racism and racial discrimination in educational settings.     

Writing the Unseen Poem: can the writing of poetry help to support pupils' engagement in the reading of poetry?

This article discusses a small scale project investigating the role of writing poetry in order to strengthen pupils' responses to reading and analysing poetry. This takes place within the context of preparation for a question on unseen poetry in a high stakes examination, in a contemporary climate where creative responses to poetry are reported to be less prevalent than analytical responses within an assessment‐focused curriculum. The project investigates strategies to inspire pupils to write their own poetry and to analyse the work of their peers in order to ‘put themselves in the shoes’ of the poet, supporting them in preparing for the examination question. It also involves teacher‐modelling of the writing and reading processes to support pupils in feeling part of a reading and writing community.     

Low-achieving (learning disabled) pupils in year 2 of the primary school in Hungary

We selected 60 low-achieving children from a sample of 263 pupils in Year 2 of the primary school in order to analyse the problems of learning disabilities. We explored two questions: whether teachers evaluate the pupils' school performances correctly; and what kind of relationship exists between the low-achieving pupils' cognitive abilities and their school performance. Methods used were questionnaires, pedagogical tests and traditional psychological tests. We obtained the following results: the teachers generally evaluate the pupils' school performance fairly well, but they are inclined to assume a close correlation between the achievements in different subjects, and the teachers' knowledge of the low-achieving children is more reliable regarding the group of pupils as a whole rather than each pupil individually; and the low-achieving pupils' cognitive learning abilities prove to be significantly weaker than their general intellectual abilities.     

Evaluating the teaching and learning experience for the child with dyslexia in special and mainstream settings in Ireland

This study examines and evaluates special provision for pupils with dyslexia in three different settings: reading schools, reading units and mainstream support. The research focused on the teaching and learning context for pupils with dyslexia, the support teacher, the mainstream teacher and the experience of the student. The main participants were teachers and tutors supporting pupils with dyslexia, and the parents of these children. Survey methods included questionnaires, focus group discussions, interviews and quantitative data on pupils' reading attainment. In addition, a total of six schools, two representing each model of support, were selected as case studies. This article reports part of a larger survey, which evaluated the effectiveness of three models of special provision for children with dyslexia in primary school. The study shows that there are academic and social benefits for the child with dyslexia who is enrolled in a special setting. However, placement in a reading school or reading unit per se does not guarantee that a child will ‘catch up’ with his or her peers. The findings reported a similarity in the methods and practices teachers use in both mainstream and special settings. The discussion suggests that if teachers are to ‘catch them before they fall’ there are serious questions that must be asked about how we are teaching basic literacy skills. The findings suggest an urgent need for a more balanced approach to teaching reading and writing.     

Why do teachers refer pupils for special education? An analysis of referral records

Abstract

We studied the referral for special education records of children and youth to identify the problems for which referrers said pupils needed help. Coders examined 382 forms used by two school systems and recorded demographic information and referrers' statements describing individual pupils' difficulties. We found that (a) 69% of the referrals were for boys, (b) regular classroom teachers alone initiated 74% of the referrals and contributed to another 5%, and (c) over two‐thirds of students referred were in earlier grade levels, particularly kindergarten (16%), first (26%), second (15%), or third grade (11%). Problems most likely to be described on referral forms were general academic problems (found on 35% of referrals), reading problems (31%), and attention problems (23%) other problems such as fearfulness (2%), visual‐perceptual difficulties (1%), and depression (1%) were rarely included. Factor analysis of the referral reasons revealed five common types of referrals, some of which interacted with gender and level of students. The factors described problems in written language, externalizing behavior, internalizing behavior, overactivity, and sensory problems. The results of this study should help focus preservice and inservice preparation of teachers in addressing problems that are likely to cause pupils to be referred. In addition, combined with other findings, the results indicate regular education teachers' level of tolerance for pupils' problems.     

Formal Teacher Competence and its Effect on Pupil Reading Achievement

The main aim of this study was to investigate the impact of formal teacher competence on pupils' reading achievement. The data comes from the Swedish participation in PIRLS 2001 in grade 3. Information was obtained from pupils (n = 5271) and teachers (n = 351). The analyses were conducted using 2-level structural equation modeling. Teacher competence was operationalized with multiple observed indicators and defined as a latent variable. Two measures of achievement were used: PIRLS 2001 reading test results and teacher judgement of pupil performance in the Swedish language. The results reveal that teacher competence was positively and similarly related to both achievement measures. No selection effects in terms of pupil socioeconomic status were found. The current study provides evidence for a strong impact of teacher competence on pupil reading achievement.