ACER eNews
Advancing Literacy Learning
Approaches to literacy teaching and learning in Year 1 can have effects that last at least until Year 3. Children exposed to particular kinds of literacy teaching not only make greater progress in Year 1, but also display higher levels of literacy achievement by the end of Year 3. These are among the findings of recent research into Literacy
Advance, a reform strategy of literacy teaching and learning introduced in 1997 by the Catholic Education Commission of Victoria.
Literacy Advance provided Victorian Catholic primary schools with the opportunity to choose from a range of approaches to literacy including the Children's Literacy Success Strategy (CLaSS) and an individual intervention program called Reading Recovery. Schools were required to incorporate several elements in their literacy program. Key elements included early intervention programs for students experiencing difficulties in the area of literacy, the appointment of a full or part-time literacy coordinator from within the school, the assessment and monitoring of all Year 1 students and the provision of home-school links or partnerships.
The Literacy Advance Research Project (LARP) evaluated the implementation of Literacy Advance and explored the influence of a range of school, classroom and student background variables on literacy development in the early years of school.
LARP involved more than 300 teachers and 4000 students for each of two cohorts in 150 schools. Children in the first cohort were followed from the beginning of Year 1 until they participated in the state-wide assessment program late in Year 3. LARP also followed the literacy learning of a second cohort of children who commenced Year 1 in 2000.
Research methods employed during the project included surveys of schools and teachers, case study visits to selected schools and the gathering of data about classroom practices using literacy logs completed by teachers, as well as portfolios of student work.
The study revealed marked changes in schools' approaches to literacy teaching in the past few years.
The percentage of schools adopting the Children's Literacy Success Strategy (ClaSS) increased from 11 to 60 per cent; schools with a literacy coordinator for two or more days a week increased from 18 to 50 per cent; and schools providing Reading Recovery for children in need of assistance increased from 50 to 80 per cent. The vast majority of classrooms provided a two-hour literacy block each morning.
According to the LARP report, the tracking of Literacy Advance over three years reveals a steady take up of its essential elements. Some elements of Literacy Advance were more readily adopted than others. Although the ClaSS approach embodied the key elements of Literacy Advance more clearly than other approaches, there was convergence over time.
Three years after Literacy Advance began, there was measurable improvement in students' reading proficiencies at the beginning of Year 1 and the benefits of approaches to teaching that were more explicitly embodied in the principles of Literacy Advance had endured through to Year 3.
The LARP project provides valuable insights into the nature of literacy development. As students progress from Year 1 to Year 3, the gap between the most and least able readers widens and the rate of progress slows (see graph). The study also provides useful insights into factors influencing literacy development. The amount of uninterrupted time for literacy learning was found to be positively related to children's progress, as was their engagement in reading. Children involved in ClaSS displayed greater progress than other children, and children participating in Reading Recovery made greater gains than their peers.
There also was evidence for the effectiveness of increased attention to literacy learning in the preparatory year of school, with children in 2000 commencing Year 1 about a quarter of a year in advance of children who commenced Year 1 in 1998.
The Literacy Advance Research Project was undertaken collaboratively by the Catholic Education Office Melbourne (on behalf of the Catholic Education Commission of Victoria), ACER and the Centre for Applied Educational Research at the University of Melbourne with funding from the Commonwealth government. Further information is available in the report Three Years On: A Study of Literacy Advance and its Effects Over Three Years by ACER researchers Dr John Ainley, Ms Marianne Fleming and Ms Margaret McGregor.
The report is available in PDF format on the Commonwealth Department of Education Science and Training website www.dest.gov.au
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