Working Out What WorksWorking Out What Works (WOWW) Training and Resource Manual: A teacher professional development program designed to support teachers to improve literacy and numeracy outcomes for students with learning difficulties in Years 4, 5 and 6 (2nd edition)
Working Out What Works
Contributions to this Training and Resource Manual were written by: Kerry-Anne Hoad (Australian Council for Educational Research) John Munro (University of Melbourne) Cath Pearn (University of Melbourne) Nola Purdie and Louise Ellis (Australian Council for Educational Research) Katherine Rowe (Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne) Ken Rowe (Australian Council for Educational Research)
Second edition published 2007 by Australian Council for Educational Research 19 Prospect Hill Road, Camberwell, Victoria, 3124
© Commonwealth of Australia 2007
This work is copyright. It may be reproduced in whole or in part for study or for training purposes subject to the inclusion of an acknowledgement of the source and no commercial usage or sale. Reproduction for purposes other than those indicated above, requires the prior written permission from the Commonwealth. Requests and inquiries concerning reproduction and rights should be addressed to Commonwealth Copyright Administration, Attorney General’s Department, Robert Garran Offices, National Circuit, Barton ACT 2600 or posted at http://www.ag.gov.au/cca.
The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of the Australian Government Department of Education, Science and Training.
This project was funded by the Australian Government Department of Education, Science and Training under the National Projects element of the Literacy, Numeracy and Special Learning Needs Programme.
Edited by: Tony and Valina Rainer Sound Words Design and layout by: ACER Project Publishing Printed by: Courtney Colour Graphics
ISBN 978-0-86431-766-7
Notes: Throughout this Training and Resource Manual the person in the teaching role will be referred to as ‘she’ and the student will be referred to as ‘he’. This arbitrary decision has been made to avoid confusion and does not seek to ascribe gender predominance to either of these roles.
While every effort has been made to trace and acknowledge copyright, in some case copyright proved untraceable. Should any infringement have occurred ACER tenders their apologies and invite copyright owners to contact them at [email protected] .
Working Out What Works
Foreword .......................................................................................................... 1
Chapter 1 - Introduction ......................................................................... 5
1.1 Introduction to Working Out What Works (WOWW) ............................................... 7
1.2 Underlying Principles of the WOWW Program ............................................................. 9
1.3 Summary of Findings from the Literature Review ........................................................11
1.4 Direct Instruction.................................................................................................................13
Direct Instruction - what is it? ...................................................................................13
Direct Instruction - how is it taught? ........................................................................15
Direct Instruction - who is it for? ...............................................................................17
1.5 Strategy Instruction .............................................................................................................19
Strategy Instruction - what is it? ................................................................................19
Strategy Instruction - how is it taught? ....................................................................21
Strategy Instruction - who is it for? ............................................................................23
1.6 Combined or Eclectic Approach .......................................................................................25
Comparisons between Direct Instruction and Strategy Instruction ..................25
Combined or Eclectic Approach - what is it? ...........................................................27
Combined or Eclectic Approach - who is it for? .....................................................29
Chapter 2 - Resource Materials ....................................................... 31
2.1 Classroom Management .....................................................................................................31
The physical positioning of students in the classroom ...........................................32
The structure of teaching groups ................................................................................34
2.2 A Team Approach .................................................................................................................37
Additional staff support within the school ................................................................37
Parents and caregivers ...................................................................................................38
Establishing and using networks with other professionals ....................................40
2.3 Teacher Observations of how Students Learn Best.....................................................41
2.4 The Process of Acquiring Reading Skills ..........................................................................51
2.5 The Process of Acquiring Numeracy Skills .....................................................................63
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Contents
Working Out What Works
Chapter 3 - Intervention Program .................................................. 89
3.1 The WOWW Numeracy Intervention program...........................................................89
Direct Instruction component .....................................................................................89
Strategy Instruction component .................................................................................91
3.2 The WOWW Reading Intervention program ...............................................................93
Direct Instruction component .....................................................................................93
Strategy Instruction component .................................................................................97
3.3 The WOWW Spelling Intervention program ................................................................99
Direct Instruction component .....................................................................................99
Strategy Instruction component .............................................................................. 102
3.4 Working Out What Works long term .......................................................................... 107
Chapter 4 - The Findings .....................................................................109
4.1 The Project, Training and Data Collection ................................................................... 109
4.2 Key Findings from the Student Data ............................................................................. 113
4.3 Key Findings from the Case Studies .............................................................................. 119
4.4 Teachers’ Trials, Triumphs and Tips – the Reading program ..................................... 123
4.5 Teachers’ Trials, Triumphs and Tips – the Numeracy program ................................ 127
4.6 The Learning Support for Teachers ............................................................................... 131
4.7 The Future of WOWW ................................................................................................... 133
Appendices .................................................................................................135
Appendix 1 - Principles of Effective Professional Development........................................ 135
Appendix 2 - Examples of Learning Strategies ...................................................................... 139
Appendix 3 - Corrective Reading Program: Teacher Skill Form ....................................... 169
Appendix 4 - Auditory Processing Capacity and Assessment ............................................ 173
References ....................................................................................................175
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Contents
Working Out What Works Page 1
Three major principles underlie the
contents of this manual. First, young
Australians are the most valuable
resource for our nation’s social and
economic prosperity. Second, the
key to such prosperity at both the
individual and national level is the
provision of quality schooling. Third,
because teachers are the most valuable
resource available to schools, it is
vital that teachers be equipped with
evidence-based teaching practices that
are demonstrably effective in meeting
the developmental and learning needs of
all students – regardless of their ethnic
and socioeconomic backgrounds, and
whether or not they experience learning
difficulties.
Nowhere are these three principles
more important than for teaching
and learning in literacy and numeracy,
since being both literate and numerate
are foundational, not only for school-
based learning, but also for students’
psychosocial wellbeing, further education
and training, occupational success, as
well as for productive and fulfilling
participation in social and economic
activity. Moreover, the rapidly changing
nature of global communication systems,
including computer-based technologies,
demand competence in increasingly
complex multiliteracies, of which high
levels of literacy and numeracy skill are
essential.
Equipping young people to engage
productively in the knowledge
economy and in society more broadly
is fundamental to both individual and
national prosperity. This objective
depends primarily on two factors: (a)
students’ ability to read, write and
undertake mathematical computation;
and (b) the provision of quality teaching
delivered by teachers who have acquired
during their pre-service teacher
education and in-service professional
learning, evidence-based teaching
practices that are effective in meeting
the developmental and learning needs of
all students. Our young people and their
teachers require no less. Indeed, there
is a strong body of evidence indicating
that many cases of learning difficulty
and related under-achievement can be
attributed to inappropriate or insufficient
teaching, rather than to deficiencies
intrinsic to students such as cognitive,
affective and behavioural difficulties,
as well as their socioeconomic, socio-
cultural backgrounds and contexts (see:
Foreword
Page 2 Working Out What Works
Westwood, 2003a,b, 2006; Wheldall,
2006).
As with the first edition of the manual
for the Working Out What Works
(WOWW) Professional Development
Program (Hoad, Munro et al., 2005),
the second edition has been specifically
developed to meet these objectives.
The contents have been informed
by scholarly contributions from a
competent team of experienced
practitioners and researchers, including:
Drs Louise Ellis and Nola Purdie
who have provided a comprehensive
review of the local and international
evidence-based research literature
related to effective teaching strategies
that identifies the superiority of direct
(or explicit) instruction and strategy
instruction approaches to the teaching
of literacy and numeracy (Ellis, 2005;
Purdie & Ellis, 2005; see also: Farkota,
2003, 2005; Hattie, 2003, 2005); and
Kerry-Anne Hoad, Cath Pearn, and
Drs John Munro and Kathy Rowe,
each of whom have outlined essential,
practical elements of evidence-
based strategy instruction, numeracy
teaching, the teaching of reading, and
how children best learn, respectively.
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These contributions are supported by:
reported findings and
recommendations from the 2004-
2005 Australian Government’s
National Inquiry into the Teaching of
Literacy (Rowe, 2005a,b);
the contents of an award-winning
paper by Rowe, Pollard and Rowe
(2005), supported by a multimedia
teacher professional development and
assessment kit by Rowe, Pollard and
Rowe (2006);
the contents of an invited paper by
Rowe (2006); and
findings from the highly successful
“Third Wave” Project (Rowe,
Stephanou & Hoad, 2007).
Key findings from the “Third Wave”
Project, which used the first edition of
the WOWW manual, are reported in
Chapter 4.
In the interests of building evidence-
based professional learning capacity in
schools’ most valuable resources (i.e.,
teachers), and enhancing the learning
achievement progress in literacy and
numeracy of all students, I commend
the contents of this manual to all those
committed to the vital task of quality
teaching and learning provision.
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Working Out What Works Page 3
The valuable contributions by students
and teachers from the participating
schools in the “Third Wave” Project
are very much appreciated. Similarly
the financial support of the Australian
Government Department of Education,
Science and Training is gratefully
acknowledged.
Dr Ken Rowe
Research Director, Learning Processes
Research Program
Australian Council for Educational
Research
Page 4 Working Out What Works
Working Out What Works Page 5
(Kerry-Anne Hoad, ACER)
Robbie had somehow made it to Grade
5 without being able to read with
the fluency, or comprehension, of the
majority of the Grade 2 students at his
school. He had not been a candidate
for Reading Recovery but had accessed
some additional support from the school’s
support teacher in Grade 3. Slight
improvement was noted but the effects
did not endure and he continued to fall
behind his classmates. He was slightly
stronger in mathematics but still only at
the level of simple double digit addition
and subtraction. He was not disruptive
in the classroom and in a busy classroom
with a high proportion of very active boys
he sometimes went unnoticed. Robbie
seemed happy, he enjoyed group work
and his classmates willingly helped him.
Teachers commented that he was inclined
to daydream and was often disengaged
or disinterested in what was happening in
the classroom. His Grade 5 teacher was
keen to intervene to improve Robbie’s
reading and mathematics skills but in the
face of his complacent lack of motivation
and the demands of a busy classroom she
was not sure how to proceed.
Many teachers find themselves in
a similar situation. They want to
help but are unsure of how to begin
or what strategy might work best.
Upper primary teachers are often
confronted by students who, after five
or more years of formal schooling,
have developed a sense of themselves
as failures at reading and numeracy and
have stopped trying.
In Robbie’s case previous attempts to
‘help’ had been unsuccessful and he had
developed an entrenched belief about
his ability as a learner. He now believes
that he is too stupid to be able to learn
like his classmates. Since he ‘knows’ he
is stupid there seems no point in trying.
With a lack of belief that he can learn
and no motivation to try, school can
become torture.
Robbie avoids drawing attention to
himself in the classroom and distracts
himself by daydreaming. Some students’
avoidance strategies are less compliant
as they seek whatever peer approval,
and relief from boredom, they may
find in the role of class clown or class
troublemaker.
Introduction toWorking Out What Works (WOWW) 1.1
Page � Working Out What Works
By the time the student reaches upper
primary school beliefs and behaviours
are well established.
To challenge and reverse this belief,
the student will need to see himself as
a competent learner. To see himself
as a competent learner alongside his
classmates provides an even stronger
challenge to his entrenched belief that
he is a failure at school. An intervention
program conducted in the whole class
format where opportunities for success
are maximised provides the setting for
such a challenge.
This Professional Development Program
provides information for teachers on
intervention strategies which research
has found to be most effective with
students with learning difficulties. It
provides resources and support to
guide teachers to work out which of
these evidence-based interventions is
appropriate for their students and their
school context. It also provides the
training and the opportunity to trial
these interventions with their students.
The Working Out What Works
Professional Development program
recognises that all students are different,
all teachers are different and that all
school contexts are different. Despite
efforts to group children with learning
difficulties under medical or educational
labels and design interventions as a
consequence of the label, the evidence
of every teacher is that each student has
a unique blend of personality, learning
needs, social and emotional needs,
cultural orientation and behavioural
characteristics.
Therefore, it would be foolhardy to
suggest that one intervention approach
will fit all.
There are a plethora of intervention
strategies that come the way of
teachers keen to find an approach
or strategy to support students with
learning difficulties. While this program
emphasises the importance of fitting
the intervention strategy to the needs
of the student, with due consideration
to the many factors that render each
student and each situation unique, it also
emphasises the importance of selecting
intervention strategies which research
has found to be effective.
The interventions that have been shown,
by a strong body of research evidence,
1.1
Working Out What Works Page 7
(Purdie & Ellis, 2005), to be most
effective with students with learning
difficulties are Direct Instruction and
Strategy Instruction. An even stronger
effect on student learning outcomes
was reported when these two strategies
were used in combination. Within
these three proven approaches, namely,
Direct Instruction, Strategy Instruction
and Combined Direct Instruction
and Strategy Instruction, is a range
of materials, pre-designed programs,
strategy choices and implementation
choices which will provide for the
flexibility needed to support teachers to
successfully Work Out What Works for
their students in their context.
With the Working Out What Works
Professional Development Program
the teacher will become the expert
in designing and implementing the
intervention strategy that will be the
best fit for her students. The program
focuses on improving teachers’ skills and
confidence to:
Observe and understand how their
students learn;
Access support and information
from parents and other professionals
working with their students;
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Understand the process of acquiring
reading and numeracy skills;
Understand evidence-based
intervention strategies;
Trial evidence-based intervention
strategies in the classroom;
Reflect on consequent student
outcomes and adapt strategies
appropriately; and
Share their experience and expertise
with other teachers in a collegiate
professional learning team.
The Working Out What Works
Professional Development Program
has been developed from the findings
of the Literature Review funded by the
Australian Government Department
of Education, Science and Training
and conducted by Dr Nola Purdie
and Dr Louise Ellis of the Australian
Council for Educational Research. This
Literature Review considered the
empirical evidence identifying effective
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1.1
“Skilled and well
resourced teachers are
best placed to work out
what works for their
students.”
Page 8 Working Out What Works
interventions and teaching practices for
students with learning difficulties in years
4, 5 and 6. A full copy of this review can
be located at http://acer.edu.au/research/
programs/documents/literaturereview.pdf
1.1
Working Out What Works Page 9
(Kerry-Anne Hoad, ACER)
All students are different.
Students with learning difficulties will
require specific interventions.
There is no single effective
intervention approach that fits all
students with learning difficulties.
All students are capable of learning.
All teachers are different.
Teaching and teachers are the most
significant factor in student learning.
Successful selection of intervention
strategies relies on teacher
understanding of students and of a
range of evidence-based approaches.
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Underlying Principlesof the WOWW Program 1.2
“Shared beliefs are the
foundation of all effective
endeavours.”
Page 10 Working Out What Works
Working Out What Works Page 11
The full text of the Literature Review
by Purdie & Ellis (2005) is available at:
http://www.acer.edu.au/research/programs/
documents/literaturereview.pdf
The key issues and/or findings from the
Literature Review are:
Defining what is meant by a learning
difficulty is a contentious and difficult
endeavour in its own right.
In Australia, there is inconsistency in
definitions used, and this influences
both the processes by which students
are identified as having a learning
difficulty and the calculation of
prevalence rates.
Contemporary understandings of
what constitutes effective classroom
practice will influence the pedagogical
practices of teachers of students
with learning difficulties. The
prevailing educational philosophy
of constructivism has had a marked
influence on how teachers interpret
how they should teach students who
find it difficult to learn.
Claims about what constitutes
an effective pedagogical practice
should be strongly founded on the
evidence that accumulates from
rigorous research. There are several
approaches to synthesising research
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in a nominated area and each has
its own inherent strengths and
weaknesses. The current review of
the literature on interventions for
students with learning difficulties
relies largely, though not exclusively,
on well-designed meta-analyses which:
partialled out methodological
artefacts from the effect sizes, and
based their classification
procedures on the actual
procedures and components of
instruction used in the studies
reviewed.
The strongest evidence to be had
in support of a particular approach
or intervention for students with
learning difficulties is one which
demonstrates that students make
robust learning gains. Such gains are
generally evident in interventions that
involved either Explicit Instruction
in a relevant essential skill (Direct
Instruction, Content Enhancement
approaches) or ones that focused
on the development of cognitive,
metacognitive, or self-regulation
strategies (Strategy Instruction
approach). An eclectic approach,
whereby teachers combine, as
appropriate, elements from both
Explicit Instruction and Strategy
Instruction approaches may provide
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b)
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Summary of Findingsfrom the Literature Review 1.3
Page 12 Working Out What Works
students with the best opportunities
for success.
Despite the research evidence that
some interventions work better
than others, no one intervention or
approach can address the complex
nature of learning difficulties. Because
not all students and tasks are the
same, teachers must have a full
repertoire of strategies for helping
students learn; they must also have a
clear understanding of how and when
to implement each strategy
The second last point in these key issues
and findings provides the guidance for
the development of the intervention
program to be trailed by teachers as
part of the Working Out What Works
Professional Development Program.
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1.3
“A Combined Explicit
Instruction and Strategy
Instruction approach may
provide students with the
best opportunities for
success.”
Working Out What Works Page 13
Direct Instruction - what is it?(Purdie & Ellis, 2005)
Direct Instruction Approach
is described as “a systematic method
for presenting material in small
steps, pausing to check for student
understanding, and eliciting active
and successful participation from all
students” (Rosenshine, 1986, p. 60).
Direct Instruction is based on the theory
that learning can be greatly accelerated
if instructional presentations are clear,
rule out likely misinterpretations, and
facilitate generalisations (Northwest
Regional Education Laboratory, 2003).
The principles upon which this approach
is based include:
all children can learn;
the teaching of basic skills and their
application in higher-order skills is
essential to intelligent behaviour
and should be the main focus of an
instructional program; and
instruction with students with learning
difficulties must be highly structured
and permit large amounts of practice
(Block, Everson & Guskey, 1995;
Engelmann, 1999).
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Direct Instruction assumes that all
children can learn and, thus, failure in
student learning is viewed as a deficiency
in teacher instruction. The goal of
Direct Instruction is to develop “faultless
instruction” (Engelmann, 1980), that is,
sequences or routines for which there
is only one logical interpretation. The
approach may be considered student-
centred (Veenman, Denessen, van den
Oord & Naafs, 2003) and characterised
by explicit performance expectations,
systematic prompting, structured
practice, monitoring of achievement,
reinforcement and corrective feedback
(Jones, Wilson & Bhojwani, 1997).
Lessons follow a prescribed model-
lead-test format, whereby the teacher
first models a strategy, and guides the
students through examples. After
students are able to respond correctly
on several prompted trials, they are
urged to commence independent
practice. Typically, lessons close with
a review of what was learnt during the
lesson, as well as a brief preview of the
instructional objectives for the next
session. These teaching practices are
not content specific and can be applied
to any curriculum and any instructional
strategy (Stein, Carnine & Dixon, 1998).
Direct Instruction 1.4
Page 14 Working Out What Works
The features that distinguish Direct
Instruction from most other behavioural
approaches include:
the explicit teaching of “general case”
problem solving strategies wherever
possible;
an emphasis on small group
instruction as opposed to students
working alone;
a systematic technology of correction
procedures;
principles for cumulative review of
previously learned material; and
insistence on mastery of each step in
the learning process (Gersten, 1985).
If Direct Instruction is used appropriately
we are finding that there is as yet no
ceiling in sight for the progress possible.
This applies to maintaining children in
the regular classroom, continuing to
improve the skills of the more severely
handicapped child and in integrating
an increasing number of children into
effective participation in the regular
classroom. There is no other major
output of acceptable educational
research in Australia that has shown
the results obtained by this Direct
Instruction research. (Lockery & Maggs,
1982, pp. 286-287)
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
1.4
Working Out What Works Page 15
Direct Instruction - how is it taught?(Purdie & Ellis, 2005)
Descriptions of some of the most salient
features of Direct Instruction programs
are provided below.
1. Scripted presentations. Scripted lesson
plans are a hallmark of Direct Instruction
and are intended to control the quality
of instruction. It is anticipated that the
particular examples and sequences of
each lesson have been field tested with
other learners and have been designed
to maximise learning and minimise
confusion. The program developers
recognise that most teachers are
deficient in the training of instructional
design and thus are unlikely to select and
sequence teaching examples effectively
without explicit instructions. They
assume that without guidance, teachers
may use language that students do not
understand or that distracts students’
attention from examples. As a result,
Direct Instruction is based on the view
that teachers are more likely to use
effective instructional sequences when
given explicit scripts for using field-tested
procedures (Binder & Watkins, 1990).
2. Teach the essentials. The essentials are
determined from task analysis, whereby
the specific skills needed to accomplish
certain tasks are identified. These skills
are taught to students in an explicit,
step-by-step manner. Direct Instruction
is founded on the principle that
proficiency in reading and mathematics
can be achieved by analysis and teaching
of sub-skills in a cumulative framework.
(Hempenstall, 1996).
3. Small groups. Direct Instruction
lessons are typically taught with groups
of five to ten students. The approach
assumes that small group instruction
is more efficient than one-to-one
instruction and provides the opportunity
for more adult direction, attention,
feedback, and individualisation than large
group instruction (Binder & Watkins,
1990). Students are often grouped on
the basis of ability, which allows students
with advanced skills to progress quickly
and less advanced students to receive
the extra help and practice they need.
4. Rapid Pacing. Lessons are
characterised by rapid pacing and choral
group response punctuated by individual
turns. This approach is based on the
assumption that student with learning
1.4
Page 1� Working Out What Works
difficulties can catch up with their peers
if they are provided with more, not less,
teaching that involves the efficient use of
technology and time (Cotton & Savard,
1982).
5. Practice and Drill. Teachers guide
student practice by providing prompts,
checking for understanding, and
providing corrective feedback. The
amount of practice decreases as the
relevant skill is incorporated into more
complex skills. In addition, teachers
provide students with written exercises
for independent practice (Veenman,
Denessen, van den Oord & Naafs, 2003).
Students are encouraged to practise
a given task until mastery is attained
(Hempenstall, 1996).
1.4
“Direct Instruction
teaches students mastery
of skills and subskills.”
Working Out What Works Page 17
Direct Instruction - who is it for?(Kerry-Anne Hoad, ACER)
Direct Instruction is suitable for
students:
Who have low motivation to learn
independently;
Who have not achieved at a
functional level in reading, spelling or
numeracy;
Who will benefit from structured
practice of basic skills leading to more
complex skills;
Who respond well to a predictable
instruction format;
Who are able to concentrate for
short periods of time;
Who respond well to repeated
learning;
Who respond well when the
classroom, or the group, is well
organised, quiet and orderly;
Who respond well when information
is presented both auditorily and
visually, and
Who respond well to immediate
feedback and success.
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1.4
Page 18 Working Out What Works
Working Out What Works Page 19
Strategy Instruction - what is it? (Purdie & Ellis, 2005)
Strategy Instruction Approach
focuses on teaching techniques,
principles or rules that enable students
to learn, and to solve problems and
complete tasks independently.
Learning strategies may be broadly
classified as cognitive, metacognitive,
and self-regulatory in nature.
Cognitive strategies can be defined
as those that focus on developing
or enhancing particular task-related
skills, such as underlining, note taking,
rehearsal and summarising. They also
include strategies such as categorising,
chunking, using visual imagery or
mnemonics. As observed by Pintrich
(1999), these strategies can be applied
to simple memory tasks (for example,
recall of information, words, or lists)
or to more complex tasks that require
comprehension of the information (for
example, understanding a piece of text).
On the other hand, metacognitive
strategies are those that focus on the
self-management of learning, that is, on
planning, implementing, and monitoring
one’s learning efforts, and on the
conditional knowledge of when, where,
why, and how to use particular strategies
in their appropriate contexts (Hattie,
Biggs & Purdie, 1996; Pintrich, 2002).
Similarly, self-regulation strategies have
been defined in terms of self-generated
thoughts, feeling, and actions, which
are systematically oriented toward
the attainment of students’ own goals
(Zimmerman & Schunk, 1989).
Alexander, Graham and Harris (1998),
observed that although self-regulation
and metacognitive strategies have
several overlapping features (such as
the oversight, monitoring, or control
of one’s thinking), there are important
distinctions. Boekaerts (1996) defined
self-regulatory learners as “students
who are (meta)cognitively and
(meta)motivationally aware of what they
are doing and what needs to be done
to successfully attain self-defined or set
goals” (p. 102). Thus, self-regulation
pertains not only to the intentional
monitoring or management of one’s
cognitive performance, but also to the
regulation of one’s motivational or
Strategy Instruction 1.5
Page 20 Working Out What Works
affective state, behaviour, and social
environment.
In summary, Strategy Instruction
concentrates more on the learning of
generic or global strategies than on the
acquisition and retention of specific skills
(Dole, Duffy, Roehler & Pearson, 1991;
Swanson, 2001).
“Strategy Instruction
focuses on cognitive,
metacognitive and self-
regulatory learning
strategies.”
1.5
Working Out What Works Page 21
Strategy Instruction - how is it taught?(Purdie & Ellis, 2005)
Some of the instructional components
of Strategy Instruction include modelling
from teachers, step-by-step prompts or
multi-process instructions, reminders
to use certain strategies or procedures,
and provision by teacher of necessary
assistance only (Swanson & Hoskyn,
1998).
Instruction begins with the teacher
describing each step of a strategy,
providing a rationale for the steps, and
discussing how the steps are to be used
to cue important thinking behaviours.
Accordingly, during the initial stages of
instruction, the teacher commences
discussion on the parameters of
generalisation and the process of
enabling students to understand what
the strategy is and how it works. The
teacher models the strategy using
think-aloud, dialectal, and scaffolding
techniques and then guides the
students through a number of practice
examples. Gradually, there is a decrease
in teacher control as the students
become confident and competent with
the strategy. Throughout the teaching
process, the teacher directs students to
think about instances where the strategy
might be used, ways in which they can
remember to use the strategy, and how
to evaluate if the strategy has been
successful (van Kraayenoord, 2004).
Some of the most salient features, or
the how, of Strategy Instruction are
described below.
1. Present strategy in small steps.
Proponents of Strategy Instruction
have drawn on varying theoretical
assumptions about teaching and
learning associated with instructional
practices, and correspondingly, they
vary in the degree to which explicit
instruction of task-specific strategies is
emphasised (see Butler, 2003). Theorists
who have been heavily influenced by
cognitive-behavioural theories stress
the importance of explicit methods of
teaching, particularly in the early stages
of instruction. They advocate the
importance of presenting new strategies
to students in several small, concrete
steps. However, as the instruction
progresses and students move towards
mastery, there is a conscious and
marked shift to more implicit methods
to enhance the generalisation of strategy
1.5
Page 22 Working Out What Works
use, as well as adaptation, independent
design, and application of strategies by
the students themselves (Schumaker &
Deshler, 2003).
2. Modelling. Other Strategy Instruction
theorists have emphasised Vygotsky’s
socio-cultural models of teaching and
learning when describing learning and
teaching processes. They contend that
students become more strategic when
they internalise cognitive processes
that are first explained or modelled by
others (see Butler, 2003). Advocates of
this perspective stress the importance
of after teachers modelling using
think-aloud, dialectal, and scaffolding
techniques. Initially, the modelling
of a strategy should be simple and
straightforward, focusing mainly on the
surface features of the strategy (for
example, self-cueing performance of the
strategy steps). However, as the lesson
proceeds, teachers gradually reveal
more sophisticated cognitive processes
and increase their collaboration with
students through open dialogue (Ellis,
1993).
3. Guided student practice and
feedback. Researchers influenced from
sociocultural perspectives also emphasise
the imperative for teachers to monitor
students’ progress as they apply their
newly learned strategies to a range of
tasks in a variety of contexts. Students
are often encouraged to use overt
verbalisations to guide their own thinking
processes. The practice of encouraging
students to think-aloud also gives
teachers an opportunity to encourage
and reinforce appropriate use of
strategies, or to provide assistance when
necessary (van Kraayenoord, 2004).
Strategy Instruction
teaches students mastery
of strategies that they
draw on for a variety of
future learning tasks.”
1.5
Working Out What Works Page 23
Strategy Instruction - who is it for?(Kerry-Anne Hoad, ACER)
Strategy Instruction is suitable for
students:
For whom withdrawal from the
classroom for individual teaching
could have negative social/emotional
consequences;
Who are motivated to improve their
learning;
Who believe that they have the
personal control to improve their
learning;
Who would respond well to
developing, or regaining, personal
control over learning outcomes;
• Who have experienced a variety of
difficulties in their learning;
• Who are able to retain and recall a
variety of strategies;
Who are able to plan, evaluate and
regulate strategy use;
Who are able to accommodate the
flexibility of using the same strategies
in different circumstances;
Who are persistent when facing
difficulties;
Who respond well to encouragement
to persist with the strategy use; and
Who believe that success will follow
use of the strategy.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
1.5
Page 24 Working Out What Works
Working Out What Works Page 25
Comparisons between Direct Instruction and Strategy Instruction(Purdie & Ellis, 2005)
It is widely recognised that Strategy
Instruction is based on a different view
of the student than Direct Instruction.
Whereas Direct Instruction “assumes a
passive reader who has mastered a large
number of subskills and automatically
and routinely applies them to all
texts...[Strategy Instruction] assumes an
active reader who constructs meaning
through the interrogation of existing
and new knowledge and the flexible
use of strategies to foster, monitor,
regulate and master comprehension”
(Dole, Duffy, Roehler & Pearson, 1991,
p. 242). Furthermore, contrary to
Direct Instruction, which is seen to
focus primarily upon the acquisition
of foundational skills (a “bottom-up”
approach), Strategy Instruction aims to
develop students’ higher-order cognitive
abilities (a “top-down” approach).
Although Strategy and Direct Instruction
are based on different underlying
philosophies, they share a number of
similar techniques (Block, 1993; Dole et
al., 1991). Dole et al. (1991) summarised
the similarities of and differences
between the two approaches as follows:
Both emphasise explicit cues by
teachers about what is going to be
learned, guided practice of the to-
be-learned material, and application
to independent situations. However,
there are three major differences
There is no assumption that the
strategy will be broken down into
componential subskills. The strategy
is modeled, practiced, and applied to
the whole comprehension task
There is no single correct answer or
a single best way to apply a particular
strategy. The strategy is modeled in
a variety of ways and with different
tasks.
There is no feedback about the
correctness of applying a particular
strategy; rather the adaptability and
flexibility of strategies are emphasised.
(p. 252)
Strategy Instruction and Direct
Instruction have many commonalities.
Both approaches involve the active
presentation of information, clear
organisation, step-by-step progression
from subtopic to subtopic, use of
many examples, demonstrations, and
visual prompts...Clearly, however,
•
•
•
•
Combined or Eclectic Approach 1.�
Page 2� Working Out What Works
there are differences in focus...strategy
interventions focus on routines and
planful action and/or general principles
of handling information, whereas Direct
Instruction focuses on isolated skill
acquisition to support higher-order
processing...Thus, although Direct
Instruction has been associated with
the behavioral paradigms, cognitive
paradigms use some of the same
procedures. (Swanson, 2001 p. 12)
1.�
“Direct Instruction and
Strategy Instruction have
many commonalities
but differ in focus.
Together they offer
a complementary
approach.”
Working Out What Works Page 27
A Combined or Eclectic Approach - what is it?(Purdie & Ellis, 2005)
A number of researchers and
educational professionals worldwide
are now promoting the benefits of
employing teacher-directed approaches
in conjunction with student-directed
approaches in the classroom (for
example, Butler, Miller, Lee & Pierce,
2001; Harris & Graham, 1996; Harris
& Alexander, 1998; Spiegel, 1992;
Westwood, 1999, 2003a, 2003b).
Notably, these educators do not
endorse a laissez faire combination of
approaches, but rather a thoughtful,
carefully itegrated selection of validated
instructional components (Harris
& Alexander, 1998). For example,
Galton, Hargraves, Comber, Wall & Pell
(1999) have proposed that methods
of instruction that best suit the types
of learning involved in a lesson should
be adopted, and that in deciding such
matters the age, ability, and aptitude of
the students must be taken into account.
Accordingly, a teaching method should
be judged on fitness for purpose (Galton
et al., 1999).
The ultimate goal for teachers is to find
the best fit between the instructional
approach and task, and also between the
instructional approach and student.
An integrated approach to literacy
development is a decision-making
process through which the teacher
makes thoughtful choices each day
about the best way to help each child
become a better reader and writer.
An integrated approach is not
constrained by or reactive to a particular
philosophy. It is responsive to new
issues while maintaining what research
has already shown to be effective. It is
an approach that requires and frees a
teacher to be a reflective decision maker
and to fine-tune and modify what he or
she is doing each day in order to meet
the needs of each child.
Swanson (2001) concluded that
students with learning difficulties are
most positively influenced by teaching
approaches that combine essential
elements of both direct instruction and
strategy instruction:
“Effective instruction is neither a bottom-
up nor a top-down approach in isolation.
Lower-order and higher-order skills
interact to influence treatment outcomes.
1.�
Page 28 Working Out What Works
Clearly, performance at complex levels
(writing prose, inferring the meaning
of text) cannot occur without some
critical threshold of skills. Children with
LD [learning difficulties] vary in these
skills. What is clear from this synthesis,
however, is that varying degrees of
success across treatment domains draw
from treatments that focus on both high-
and low-order instruction (i.e., strategy
and direct instruction).” (p. 11)
Likewise, Vaughn, Gersten & Chard
(2000), in their synthesis of research
findings in the literacy domain, concluded
that an integration of bottom-up and
top-down instruction is valuable. These
researchers reminded us that, although it
is important to capitalise on the benefits
of explicit teaching, this does not mean
the abandonment of top-down teaching
that focuses on the development of
metacognitive skills.
1.�
“A combined or eclectic
approach selects elements
from both approaches
to suit the needs and
characteristics of their
students.”
Working Out What Works Page 29
A Combined or Eclectic Approach - who is it for?(Kerry-Anne Hoad, ACER)
A Combined or Eclectic Approach suits
students:
Whose long-term learning outcomes
will be best supported by harvesting
the immediate rewards and self
esteem benefits available in the
structured, skill- based, success-
orientated Direct Instruction; and
Who are able to use this personal
capital to invest in the acquisition
of Learning Strategies which, when
persistently employed, are flexible
across content and contexts to
produce independent learners.
•
•
1.�
Page 30 Working Out What Works
Working Out What Works Page 31
(Kerry-Anne Hoad, ACER)
Classroom management would be a
simple task if all students had the same
educational and social/emotional needs.
The diverse needs we can expect in
any given classroom makes classroom
management a much more complex
task. It is recognised that the needs of
the students who fall within the scope
of this project present only one facet of
the complexity that challenges classroom
teachers.
As effective teachers strive to meet the
individual needs of students they need to
consider how the physical environment
and the social environment can be
structured to maximise the student’s
opportunities to learn.
The two prime advantages of the
classroom are the teacher and the
other class members. The teacher
brings her expertise and experience to
the classroom to direct the instruction
and also to set the social context.
Students who feel that their teacher
cares for them and is interested in them
as people, as well as being interested
in their academic progress, tend to
perform better educationally and socially.
The other class members bring the
opportunities for collaborative learning
as well as the opportunities to develop
friendships.
For students with learning difficulties
the classroom environment often needs
to be consciously manipulated to allow
them maximum access to the educational
and social advantages available.
The key aspects of classroom
management which present for
immediate consideration are:
The physical positioning of students in
the classroom; and
The structure of teaching groups.
•
•
Classroom Management 2.1
“For students with
learning difficulties the
classroom environment
needs to be consciously
manipulated to maximise
learning opportunities.”
Page 32 Working Out What Works
The physical positioning of students in the classroom.
Students who have experienced
difficulties with basic literacy and
numeracy skill development over a
period of five or more years of formal
schooling are likely to have difficulties
with attention which are either inherent
or acquired as a result of persistent
classroom failure. Physical positioning of
these students is very important to their
opportunity to access the teaching and
learning available in the classroom.
When Rohan entered Grade 5 he was
well known at the school. He was
obvious in the playground where he was
renowned for having lots of energy and
was always eager for a new game or to
be the first to try a new piece of sports
equipment. Variety was indeed the spice
of life for Rohan. He didn’t stay at the
games for long however, and was often
a disruptive influence in others’ games.
His friendships changed frequently and
teachers on yard duty always had one
eye on where Rohan was as chaos often
followed. It seemed that every teacher
had a ‘Rohan story’ to share in the
staffroom. In the classroom, teachers
were as keen as Rohan himself was, to
send him on messages to the Principal’s
office or to another classroom as the
need arose. When the bell rang Rohan
was always the first out the door.
The Grade 5 teacher, knowing this,
decided to place Rohan near the door
to allow for his message running and his
easy exit at break times.
Placed near the door Rohan was able
to see and hear all hallway traffic, was
close to all movement in and out of the
classroom as well as the movement of
other students as they went to and from
their bags hanging in open lockers on the
wall beside him. Rohan was happy with
this placement as he had long ceased
to try to attend to what the teacher was
doing or saying to the class and so the
constant distractions were welcome.
Rohan’s attention difficulties created a
problem for him and for his teacher.
The placement near the door seemed
to be a good solution for both of them.
However, Rohan’s opportunity to access
the teacher, and consequently the
opportunity to learn, was minimised.
Students who have difficulty focusing
their attention on a particular stimulus
2.1
Working Out What Works Page 33
(in this case the teacher), maintaining
that focus, switching focus from one
stimulus to another and back again are
better positioned where the distractions
in the environment are limited.
Positioning near windows, or people
traffic areas are probably best avoided.
For these students a noisy classroom,
or one heavily adorned with colourful
and stimulating displays, may provide
an environment that is so stimulating as
to make focusing attention on a single
stimulus, such as the teacher, very
difficult.
Sometimes these students also need
support to keep their desk orderly and
free of distracting clutter.
For students with attention difficulties,
a classroom that is orderly and
predictable with an undemanding visual
and auditory environment and physical
positioning that minimises exposure to
external distractions provides the best
opportunity for learning.
Opportunities for learning will also
be optimised if the student is socially
comfortable in the classroom. Students
who have endured five or more years
of formal schooling without the rewards
of seeing their achievements keep up
with their classmates are likely to have
developed negative or apathetic attitudes
to school, a sense of failure as a student
and a sense of difference from other
students. Their desire to be the same
as others and be accepted by their
classmates can be very strong. They
may be very sensitive to anything that
appears to highlight their difference. In
a traditional classroom where desks face
the front a position in the front row,
directly under the gaze of the teacher
may not be welcomed by the student.
Similarly, a position in the far corner
might be very welcome by the student
but is not likely to support their access
to the teacher auditorily, visually or
emotionally. Opportunities to learn are
significantly affected by the student’s
positioning in the classroom.
Teacher observations of how the
student learns and an understanding of
what will support or detract from the
student’s ability to access the social,
as well as the teaching and learning,
opportunities available in the classroom
will guide decisions about physical
placement in the classroom.
2.1
Page 34 Working Out What Works
The structure of teaching groups
The specific interventions which are
necessary to advance the learning of
students with learning difficulties will be
conducted either in the context of the
whole class, individual work or small
group work with small groups arranged
on the basis of friendships, similar
ability or mixed ability. The teacher’s
observations of the student and her
understanding of the dynamics of her
class will support her decision making
regarding the structure of teaching
groups.
Students with learning difficulties have
frequently been withdrawn from the
class for individual work to ‘catch up’
with other students. While this has
often been done with a goal of allowing
the student to develop a relationship
with a person who can devote her full
attention to his social and educational
needs it has also emphasised the
student’s difference and isolated him
from his classmates and the social
and educational opportunities of an
interactive classroom. For this reason
individual withdrawal of students is
seldom recommended and is not
recommended for the Working Out
What Works Intervention Program
(Chapter 3).
Wherever possible the WOWW
Intervention Program will be
incorporated into whole class time.
This may be as part of a whole class
activity or as part of a small group, or
individual work, within the context
of the classroom. Small group work
within the context of the classroom
would be recommended at a period
when all students in the class are
engaged in small group work. Similarly,
individual work within the context of the
classroom would be recommended at
a period when all students are engaged
in individual work. The student is then
engaged in work in the same way as his
classmates.
The advantages of collaborative and
interactive learning have been well
documented. However, students with
learning difficulties do not always
welcome collaborative learning. For a
student whose reading and numeracy
skills are noticeably below those of
his classmates, collaborative learning
activities, especially in a mixed ability
group, often present a glaring reminder
2.1
Working Out What Works Page 35
of his difference. In some cases the
student in such a situation will exhibit
disruptive behaviour in an effort to
avoid a further exposition of his own
shortcomings. This often has the
ultimate effect of drawing the displeasure
of both the teacher and his classmates
and cementing his role as an outsider.
Similarly, in a classroom where students
are grouped around tables according to
ability levels, being a member of a static
group of low achievers may only serve
to highlight the student’s difference, in
his own eyes, if not, in the eyes of his
classmates.
A desirable arrangement would be one
where students are engaged in activities
with the whole class or grouped in
similar ability and mixed ability groups
for different activities. Flexible groups
allow all students to access the social
and educational benefits available
from the range of student abilities and
personalities.
One aspect of the WOWW Intervention
Program is an intensive reading program.
This program requires small group
participation and paired reading. As
well as reading aloud, listening is very
important to this intensive reading
program and as such would be best
supported in an environment where
there are minimal visual as well as
auditory distractions. For this aspect
of the intensive reading program it
is advisable that the small group be
withdrawn from the distractions of the
classroom.
An intensive reading program, such as
this, that provides a rich opportunity
for improvement in reading skills can
provide the group with its own positive
social environment. The social benefits,
which accrue as students increase their
self-efficacy in concert with their group
members, ameliorate any potential social
disadvantages of being withdrawn from
the whole class.
The WOWW Intervention Program will
encourage teachers to share ideas about
successful classroom management and
the challenges of accommodating a range
of student needs.
2.1
Page 3� Working Out What Works
Working Out What Works Page 37
(Kerry-Anne Hoad, ACER)
Additional staff support within the school
School support is very important to the
overall effectiveness of the intervention
program. Support from the school
leadership team will indicate to parents,
other teachers and students that
this program is considered valuable.
Commitment to providing resources
of staff time and materials, as well as
professional interest in the intervention
program by the school Principal and
leadership team, is an indication of the
value the school places on teacher effort
and student learning.
Additional staff support within the
school has many benefits. It provides a
colleague to discuss the program with,
to share and compare observations
about the students learning, to
contribute to planning decisions and
construction of strategy instruction
methods and materials. It also provides
the opportunity to conduct small
group work within the context of the
classroom or to team-teach the whole
class. If the additional staff member
is a trained teacher then there is the
opportunity for small group work to
be conducted outside of the classroom
while still leaving a trained teacher with
the class.
Vital to the use of additional staff support
is effective communication so that each
member of the team is fully aware of
the program and its implementation
guidelines. Consistency of
implementation is very important to the
successful delivery of a Direct Instruction
program and is also important in
the initial learning stages of Strategy
Instruction. Regular scheduled meetings
as well as unscheduled conversations
about the student’s learning will support
an effective team approach.
With two trained teachers it may be
possible to allocate the teaching of
the WOWW Numeracy Intervention
Program to one and the teaching of the
WOWW Reading Intervention Program
to the other. The student should feel
that both teachers are equally interested
in him as a person and as a learner.
The student’s attitude to learning and
his motivation to persist with the
intervention programs will be influenced
by his belief that his teachers care about
him and believe that he can succeed as a
learner.
A Team Approach 2.2
Page 38 Working Out What Works
Parents and caregivers
The parents or caregivers present as a
rich resource and a natural partner for
the teacher in the intervention program.
Regular channels of communication need
to be established and maintained.
Parents’ or caregivers’ depth of
knowledge and understanding of their
child is a resource that is of great value
to any collaborative effort aimed at the
student’s development. They are able to
let the teacher know about the student’s
feelings about school and feelings about
the program and how it is progressing.
They are able to let the teacher know
if the student is on any new or changed
medication, if he has a cold or a
temporary ear infection, for example.
They can also give the teacher some
information about the family that may
be helpful. For example, the student’s
parents or other family members may
also have experienced difficulties at
school. Some parents may seek to
normalise their child’s school experience
for him by telling him - “Grandpa could
never read. You are just like him” or
“Your father has always been hopeless at
maths. You are just like him.” If there is
a family history that serves to explain to
the student why he has difficulties with
literacy or numeracy this may reduce
his sense of personal control over his
learning and consequently reduce his
motivation to learn.
Parents are also a very good source
of knowledge about what rewards a
student or what may placate him in
times of distress or support his social
interactions.
These parents are often as sensitive
about school as their children. They
have endured five years or more
of receiving negative reports about
their child’s progress and ability
as a learner. Their self esteem as
parents may be affected. It may take
some time to establish a positive and
equal partnership. It is important to
recognise and show respect for the
parents’ skills and knowledge. This
may be done by seeking their advice
and listening to what they know about
their child. Sharing information about
the program and noting examples of
positive developments in the child’s
learning and attitude to school reinforces
parents’ connectedness with their child’s
learning. The benefits of establishing
positive fruitful partnerships with parents
2.2
Working Out What Works Page 39
are great. Teachers develop a new
understanding of the student. Parents
can support generalisation of learning
strategies. When students observe
their parents and their teacher working
together to support them it adds value
to the program in the student’s eyes and
also serves to raise his self-esteem.
At all times parents need to know that
their support and interest is welcomed
and respected. They need also to
know that their instructional support is
valued but not mandatory. Relationships
between the student and his parents
around learning may be fraught and
complex and expecting them to
implement a program at home may not
be comfortable for parent or student.
If parents wish to provide intervention
support at home they may wish to
implement a modelled reading program
that is different but complementary to
the program being delivered at school.
It is important to let the parents know
that the program should be short and
enjoyable. If it becomes conflictive it is
better to abandon it.
2.2
Page 40 Working Out What Works
Establishing and using networks with other professionals(Kerry-Anne Hoad, ACER)
There are a number of people
involved in every child’s education and
development. The effective teacher is
aware of, and able to utilise, the support
and expertise of the other people
involved in the student’s education
and development. Teachers may have
access to additional staff support within
the school, to parents and caregivers
as well as other professionals who are
familiar with the student. These people
represent a team who are all working
towards the common goal of this
student’s growth and development.
The initial step towards a team
approach to this student’s development
is identifying who that team is. If
the student is accessing support
from other professionals such as
medical practitioners, speech and
language pathologists, physiotherapists,
audiologists or others it would be useful
to have a list of these professionals.
The next step would be to seek and
share information (with parental
permission) with other members of the
team.
Once permission has been given
teachers may initiate contact with other
professionals supporting the student. An
initial letter of introduction and letting
them know of the intensive instruction
which you are going to begin with this
student is often a good way to initiate
contact. The letter could include
some brief background on why this
intervention was chosen, how it is to
be implemented and over what period
of time. It would be useful to seek any
information the particular professional
may have regarding their observations
of how this student prefers to receive
information, or learn, as well as the
goals they may have for the student in
this same time frame. The letter could
conclude with an undertaking to provide
an update on the student’s progress
and an offer to engage in further
communication regarding the student as
desired.
2.2
Working Out What Works Page 41
(Dr. Kathy Rowe, Royal Children’s Hospital,
Melbourne)
These observations focus on three
interrelated questions:
How do children learn?
What have teachers discovered about
how their students learn?
What resources/strategies were
useful?
ObjectivesTo provide an outline and framework
for thinking about how students learn.
To consider how students with
learning difficulties may learn and in
what modalities they might struggle to
learn.
To assist teachers with observing
and understanding strengths and
difficulties in the way such students
learn.
To learn how to use the information
they gain from observation, and to
use information from professionals
that might help them to find ways that
students learn best.
To consider common principles for
learning when there are difficulties.
To consider the implications for
learning given the various diagnoses.
1.
2.
3.
•
•
•
•
•
•
What constitutes a good teacher?“They care about me”
“They are enthusiastic about what they
are teaching”
“They are interested in whether I am
learning”
“They are fair”
How do children learn?This is a brief overview to provide a
structure for considering how students
may learn more easily and in what
modalities they may struggle to learn.
Ways of teaching using modalities
that students find easier or that can
accommodate the difficulties (that is,
keeping instructions short if they have
problems processing long instructions)
have more chance of success. We
do not expect a student who is vision
impaired to learn easily if we only
present visual information; we combine
it with other modalities. Similarly, for
a child with severe hearing impairment
we do not yell louder at them to ‘listen’,
we use other modalities in addition
to compensating for their hearing
impairment.
Teacher Observationsof how Students Learn Best 2.3
Page 42 Working Out What Works
What senses are used to learn?
AuditoryNeed to be able to hear.
Need to be able to hear if there is
competing noise (background noise
problem - ‘cocktail party syndrome’).
Approximately 10 per cent of children
can’t hear if there is background noise
- they have trouble hearing the words
in a song, holding a tune in a choir if
they can’t hear their own voice, or
get confused with noise. Usually they
can hear vowel sounds because they
are louder and lower in pitch than
many consonants. This has major
implications for spelling, for example,
CAT, BAT. It is important to consider
the effects of noisy classrooms, traffic
or air-conditioner noise, or ‘open
plan’ classes. These students need
to sit closer to the voice and learn
to watch the face to gain additional
clues. They often learn to ‘lip-read’.
Need to be able to ‘listen’.
Processing auditory information.
This can be likened to a doorway
that gradually widens through
childhood to allow more
information in. (See Appendix
4 Auditory Processing Capacity
••
•−
and Assessment; Rowe, Pollard &
Rowe, 2005, 2006).
It is the most common problem
contributing to difficulties with
learning but improves slowly with
time. It becomes a problem if we
are not aware of what is ‘normal’
for age and overload them with
information.
There are variations in the
normal development of children
- some students have a delay
in the rate of increase in the
amount of words or unrelated
information (digits) that can be
recalled. There are implications
for delivering information or
explanations or new concepts; for
reading; comprehension; spelling;
ordering information to write or
speak; numeracy; and also social
interaction.
It can be quite unrelated to
cognitive ability, although children
with borderline or mild ID usually
have difficulty. Many very able
children can have this difficulty.
There is a small group of children
who have a difficulty called central
auditory processing problem
and this overlaps with receptive
language difficulties.
−
−
−
−
2.3
Working Out What Works Page 43
Children who have difficulty with
processing auditory information
often have problems with linking
letters and sounds (phonemic
awareness)
Other children may have a functional
problem ‘listening’ and processing
auditory information that it can be
due to:
A concentration issue, for example,
AD/HD, anxiety, depression;
Poor understanding of language;
ESL;
Receptive language difficulty;
Lack of exposure to language,
maternal depression in the early
years, poor communication in
family;
Difficulty understanding the ‘meaning’
of words. Some children are very
‘literal’ in their understanding. Young
children usually are, but as they get
older they understand the meaning
‘behind’ the language, for example,
“pigs might fly” is taken at face
value and considered a ‘ridiculous’
statement by a child with Asperger’s
Disorder. Directions therefore need
to be very specific and unambiguous.
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•
To compensate for problems with
processing auditory information:
catch attention;
keep instructions short;
chunk information;
pause; and
wait for compliance.
Understand what is normal for the age,
as these strategies are helpful for all
children and boys in particular.
Once a student can recall five digits (in
standardised testing), then ‘adult length’
sentences, classroom information and
acquisition of literacy skills is much
easier.
VisualA student needs to be able to see:
Distance and close vision. Can they
see the black/white board or the
book?
The ‘big picture’ and to see the parts
in a context - not just small parts of
it, for example, calling a pillow on a
bed “ravioli” because it looked like
ravioli, but not seeing that it was
sitting on a bed so it was more likely
to be a pillow. Seeing components
of the picture “out of context” is
common with Aspergers. They often
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2.3
Page 44 Working Out What Works
have difficulty with puzzles by only
seeing the small pieces rather than
the whole.
The detail in a picture - children who
are impulsive (for whatever reason,
for example, ADHD), or anxious, are
often so rushed that the detail is not
noticed.
Identify the ‘direction’ of the letters
or words. For example, we will call
a chair a ‘chair’ irrespective of which
way it is facing or whether it is upside
down or ‘back to front’, but we
require letter and number symbols
to have a particular orientation. For
a letter such as ‘b’ changing the
orientation makes it ‘p’, ‘d’, ‘q’, or
‘w’ becomes ‘m’, ‘n’ becomes ‘u’, or
‘h’ becomes ‘y’ or ‘men’ becomes
‘new’. If this occurs after the age of
7 it represents a significant difficulty.
Some students can write left-to-right,
right-to-left, left-to-right upside-down,
or right-to-left upside-down with
equal ease, and read it as the same
word. Often such students find 3-D
art, anatomy or fluid mechanics easy,
as they can ‘flip’ objects in space easily
‘in their head’.
The information in a sequence in
order to be able to read. Some
students can only take in a small
amount of visual information, that is,
•
•
•
visual span is short. Implications are
that they can only ‘see’ a few letters
or words at a time and become
confused or ‘overloaded’. For
example, some will look at a page of
writing and say that they “can’t read
all that” implying that they can’t see
it in one go and therefore cannot
read it. This is a similar concept
to auditory processing except
that it is visual. There is a need
to compensate by showing a small
amount of information at a time.
MotorMost children need to practise physical
or motor activity many times to learn
it, and some learn other information by
moving, either by being ‘on the move’
or using movement linked with other
sensory input. Others learn by mimicking
patterns and watching how tasks are
done.
SensorySome learn by ‘touch’ or physical
manipulation, and this can be an added
modality when one of the other senses
is impaired, for example, vision, or
when there are difficulties with visual
perception, for example, writing on the
2.3
Working Out What Works Page 45
student’s back to confirm the direction
of letters.
For children who have difficulty with
processing information in more than one
area, for example, auditory and visual,
they can often learn by using associations
with motor sensations, colour and touch
combined with visual images and sound.
Others learn by association, that is,
linking words with pictures or letters
with colours or words in songs, using
mnemonics (every Indian goes home
tonight). Many of these other ways of
linking and organising information will be
considered in the ‘strategies for learning’
section.
Observation of studentsBy careful observation of a few simple
tasks you can gain a lot of information
about the way a child learns as well as
areas of difficulty.
By asking a child to select a book that
they are comfortable reading, or one
where they can recognise some words,
you can not only assess the level they
can read at, but also their perceived
skill level. You can identify any letter
or word reversals (or vertical flipping),
whether they only ‘see’ the first few
letters of the word, or whether they can
decode unfamiliar words, etc.
By asking a student to write a brief
sentence you can determine whether
there is phonetic spelling, letter or word
reversals, problems with words of a
certain length, inappropriate inclusion
of recently learnt phonemes, for
example, phish for ‘fish’. Some children
with sequencing and visual perceptual
problems can write ‘pid’ instead of ‘pig’
or ‘saud’ instead of ‘sand’.
By assessing auditory processing capacity
(digit span and sentence length) (see
Appendix 4) you can estimate of the
number of phonemes they can combine
and the number of words they can
recall accurately when being given verbal
instructions.
Observing the way students can manage
a jigsaw or block pattern can give you an
idea as to whether they have difficulty
with seeing the whole picture from the
parts, can notice visual detail, spatial
orientation and organisation.
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What to look for What does it mean Do I need extra information and who could provide it?
What do I do? Suggestions to try
Letter and word order reversals
In children >7 years of age - it indicates difficulty with sequencing.May also have auditory processing difficulties.
Do auditory processing (AP) assessment and check if they can hear.Check understanding of letter-sound links.Speech and language assessment may be helpful.
Keep instructions short, ‘chunk’ information, break down the components of word/sentence/task into smaller parts, use strategies to help with order and organising.Phonetic instruction often helps, but the ‘chunks’ should be short.
Digit span If scoring < 4 digits (spoken 1 sec apart) students will have problems holding and connecting sounds for reading and spelling.If students can recall 5 digits, they can usually manage much easier.
If strategies for difficulty with AP are not working, speech and language assessment, and/or psychological assessment could give more information.
Compensate for the fact that they can’t take in a lot of auditory information at one time. Keep it ‘short and sweet’. They may be very good visually.
Sentence length Poor ability to follow verbal instructions unless they are brief
As above
‘Flipping’ of letters and words or parts of words
If persisting after 7 years (or if very severe before)- visual perceptual problems - often called ‘dyslexia’
Check that they don’t also have difficulty with AP. Often have sequencing difficulties as well.
Use other modalities to link with visual -touch, sound, motor, other associations, ‘overlearning’. If AP is OK then they may learn better using auditory methods.
Reading the first few letters and guessing the rest of the word
Visual span Can be assessed by speech pathologists but will improve with time.
Reduce amount of visual information presented at any one time - using ‘windows’, covering the line just read, breaking words up, using colours for parts of words.
2.3
Working Out What Works Page 47
What to look for What does it mean Do I need extra information and who could provide it?
What do I do? Suggestions to try
Very ‘concrete’ and literal response to questions. Doesn’t understand jokes that play on words, ‘rule policeman’, likes things very structured.
May have problems with meaning (semantics) and function (pragmatics) of language.
Speech pathology assessment and possibly consideration of Aspergers.
Tends to have trouble with negotiating group work, prefer more solitary structured tasks and has difficulty seeing the whole picture (instead tends to see the detail out of context).Keep instructions very explicit without ambiguity.
Problems getting started, being organised, staying on task, easily distracted and very impulsive
Possibly has ADHD Paediatric assessment, and often a psychological assessment is helpful to assess information processing ability.
Medication can be helpful to stay ‘on task’. Often needs variety and frequent changes to keep interested eg computer learning games.
Both visual and auditory processing difficulties
These probably fit true ‘dyslexia’
Need both speech pathology and psychological assessment to confirm the diagnosis as these children often see themselves as ‘unintelligent’.
Needs a very creative approach using short auditory instructions, ‘chunked’ visual information combined with using other senses and an opportunity to ‘overlearn’ up to 30 times - rarely less than 7 times. It is very hard work for them, and those teaching them need to be patient. it is very rewarding when it ‘clicks’.
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Page 48 Working Out What Works
Recent findings about children’s brains:New pathways can form especially
when linked with ways that they can
learn more easily, for example, if there
are difficulties with auditory processing
but visual skills are good - link the two
together, but rely on the visual cues to
get the message across.
Even children with severe difficulties
can learn if the task is broken down
into smaller ‘chunks’ and opportunity
is given to ‘overlearn’. Often up to 30
rehearsals are required. Once it is ‘in’
it is usually remembered. We allow
children frequent opportunities to learn
motor skills without expecting them to
get it right after a couple of tries. For
example, a child with Cerebral Palsy
learning to put on a hat, throw a frisbie
or put a page in a folder needs the
task broken down into components,
and each part practiced before it is
put together. A child with visual and
auditory sequencing difficulties linking
sound and appearance of ‘a-l-l’ may need
up to 30 attempts before it becomes
automatic and can then be linked with
other letters.
It is more helpful to consider how the
individual learns rather than thinking
in terms of diagnoses. The diagnosis
can give some clues as to strategies
that may be helpful but there can be
wide variations. Each child is different,
and it is necessary to find out ways
each student can learn and ways that
it is difficult to learn, so that you can
compensate for the difficulty and link the
difficult way with the easier way, relying
on the strengths to get it across.
There are other ‘background’ issues
that will impact on the availability to
learn such as anxiety, distress, sense
of failure, unwillingness to take risks,
distractibility, interest, concentration,
social interactions (for whatever reason)
and whether they can work better by
themselves or in a group.
For specific diagnoses: For children with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)
Check whether they are easily
distractible and reduce the
distractions (visual, auditory, motor,
social, that is, working alone);
Check whether concentration is a
problem - often they need constant
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2.3
Working Out What Works Page 49
changes of activity to keep the
interest - ‘overlearning’ may be
completely inappropriate unless it is
a computer program that teaches the
same thing in lots of different ways;
Check whether they know what they
are meant to be doing;
Check whether they can sequence
information;
Check whether they are overloaded;
Are there auditory processing
problems or other specific learning
difficulties?
Usually they like gratification linked
closely to what they are doing ie.,
‘bribery and corruption schemes’
work well.
For children with Asperger’s Disorder
Check how much difficulty they have
with the subtleties of language, and
how clear and literal you need to be
in directions;
Check how much difficulty they have
in seeing the ‘big picture’ or the
context;
Check whether they prefer to work
alone and pace themselves;
Check how much difficulty they
have seeing something from another
person’s point of view;
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Check whether they need ‘factual’
story writing and whether it is always
on their current topic of interest;
Check whether the child doesn’t pick
up on social clues and whether the
conversation is quite out of context,
inappropriate or whether they persist
with their topic of interest until they
have finished;
Check whether they can produce
good work if they work from what
they know. Assistance may need to
be very explicit if the task requires
social perceptiveness.
For children with dyslexia, specific learning difficulties or speech and language difficulties
Check the modalities that the child
finds easiest to learn;
Find what activities and interests the
child has;
Check whether there are
concentration difficulties or
distractibility;
Confirm whether there are difficulties
processing auditory information
and use those strategies when
communicating;
Consider using several modalities at
the same time;
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Page 50 Working Out What Works
Consider using ‘overlearning’ in
whatever way acceptable.
If you cannot work out from observation
and trying various strategies which way
a child can learn, you may need to enlist
the aid of professionals such as a speech
pathologist or psychologist. If the child
has great difficulty with concentration,
impulsiveness distractibility and activity
levels, a paediatric assessment may
be useful. If ADHD is the problem,
medication to assist with concentration
can be very helpful and allow that child
to learn. You then have an opportunity
to be able to teach more effectively.
Once the child realises that you are
going to try and work out with them the
easiest way for them to learn because
you are expecting that they are going
to succeed, you will inevitably have
someone who will ‘walk over hot coals’
for you even though they might get very
frustrated with you.
When they get very frustrated because it
is ‘too difficult’ because they can’t get it
right - stop and back-off - but only stop
when you have achieved a success, even
if it is dropping back a level or two.
• Self esteem is a ‘realistic view of their
strengths and weaknesses’. They may
have an inflated view of their weaknesses
but they don’t want an inflated view
of their strengths. Their esteem will
improve when they have some evidence
of success and achievement, but they
need to know that you believe that
the effort is worth it (that is, you care
and you are interested in whether
they learn). Psychological testing
can be useful even if it is to prove to
the student that they are of normal
intelligence (that is, not ‘dumb’) and can
learn. By the time they have reached
grades 4-6 they are convinced that there
is something wrong with themselves,
since they are so far behind. Explain
why it has been hard for them to learn
in the past can be very helpful, especially
if it is an auditory processing problem.
Explaining that they need to catch
up what they missed hearing can be
helpful. This may also be very helpful for
children who have been ‘unavailable for
learning’ due to distress, abuse, family
social circumstances, illness etc.
2.3
Working Out What Works Page 51
(Dr. John Munro, University of Melbourne)
How do children learn to read? Few
questions, when asked of teachers,
parents or the community at large
are more likely to elicit debate (often
heated). Even the validity of the
question itself is sometimes doubted,
in comments illustrated by reading is
caught, not taught. An understanding
of the answer is necessary if one is to
implement effective reading instruction
and to assist those students who seem
to have difficulty ‘catching it’. In this
section we will examine the knowledge
people use when they read and how
they go about learning it.
What are the reading skills that readers acquire?What do you do when you read? You
can get an idea of the skills you use
when you read by reflecting on what you
do when you read text that is unusual
or unfamiliar. Have a go at reading the
following text. Your goal is to retell it.
As you read it, keep track of what you
need to do.
You may have heard a lot about strokes
that are grooved. The idea behind this
is actually very simple. The chance of
you moving like this increases every time
you move in a particular way. In hits yaw
earnlyou motor patterns that become
part of your play. Disengroovement
occurs during prolonged unuse.
Like other readers, you may have:
read parts of the text more than
once;
tried to link the text with what you
know by trying to work our its topic.
You probably found yourself early
in the reading trying to discover its
topic or theme. You may have used
this to predict other ideas that might
be mentioned. As you continued,
you may have matched the ideas you
encountered with what you expected.
tried to use your meaning of the
written words heard, strokes and
grooved to understand each sentence;
used the grammar of each sentence
to tell you the intended way in which
to link the ideas. In the first sentence,
the grammar tells who did the hearing
(you) and what might have been
heard. You know that the strokes
were not hearing.
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The Process of Acquiring Reading Skills 2.4
Page 52 Working Out What Works
used what you already know to link
strokes and groove. Seeing strokes
may have led you to predict grooved.
If you hadn’t already linked these
in your knowledge, you will form
a temporary link. When the text
challenges existing links, ‘alarm bells
ring’ and signal us to re-read and to
change how we are analysing the data.
tried to work out the questions that
each sentence answered;
tried to fit together or integrate the
ideas in different sentences;
tried to work out why the intention
of hits, and yaw in the fourth
sentence. They may not seem to
match either the grammar or context
of the sentence.
tried to make sense of the letter
string earnlyou because it doesn’t
match the letter patterns for words
you know. Sometimes when readers
don’t have a written label for a letter
string, they try saying it, to make ense
of it. Saying earnl may help you guess
that it sounds like learn and earnlyou
might be intended to be you learn.
made sense of the letter clusters
disengroovement or unuse. Although
you may not have seen or heard
them before, you can make analogies
between them and familiar words
such as disengagement and transfer
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•
the meanings and infer how to say
them. Often we make these analogies
without being aware that we are
doing it.
believed that you could read it.
Successful readers don’t usually
realise that this belief underpins their
reading. However, people who have
difficulty reading are well aware of
how their beliefs about how they
might be successful or not, and the
consequences of being seen as not
able to read, can impact significantly
on the reading performance.
These reflections indicate some of
skills that readers use in an integrated
and systematic way. Some of the skills
are applied to single words, some to
sentences, some to the text as a whole
and some to making links with existing
knowledge. You can see how they fit
with the areas of knowledge that reading
investigators have identified.
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Working Out What Works Page 53
Models of reading skills. One model of reading (Freebody & Luke,
1990) identifies four roles or areas of
skill that readers employ as text users:
as code breakers, by using their
knowledge of the relationship
between the spoken sounds in
language and the graphic code and
symbols used to represent those
sounds;
as meaning makers, by using their
knowledge of the meaning patterns
operating in written and spoken texts;
as text users, by using their
knowledge of the functions of various
kinds of literacy; and
as text analysts, by using knowledge
of the ways texts represent different
points of view.
A second model looks at what readers
do during text comprehension. This is
the construction-integration (CI) theory
of text comprehension (Kintsch, 1988;
Adam & Butler, 1999). It proposes that
readers comprehend written text by
identifying its propositions and linking
them with corresponding ideas in their
existing knowledge. They do this by
forming a literal comprehension of
each sentence as it is written;
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•
inferring meanings implied by each
sentence;
generating an impression of the
gist, summary or topic of the text
(Guindon & Kintsch, 1984; Lorch,
Lorch, & Mathews, 1985; Mross,
1989).
Kintsch believes that mature readers
build these propositions automatically
as they read. They use their knowledge
of written language conventions such as
syntax and morphography and explicit
markers such as topic sentences. Similar
‘levels of text processing’ models have
been proposed by Just & Carpenter
(1980) and Haberlandt (1988).
A third type of model identifies two
main areas of skill, decoding and
comprehension (Gough & Tunmer,
1986; Hoover & Gough 1990). It
proposes that these areas are relatively
independent of each other. It leads to
the possibility that some children can
read text accurately but not understand
it, while others may be able to
understand it but not read it accurately.
Decoding is often assessed by having
the children read individual words or
pseudo words and comprehension is
measured by assessing their listening
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2.4
Page 54 Working Out What Works
comprehension or their ability to
comprehend written text without
reading it aloud. The model has been
supported both by patterns in reading
and in teaching students who have
reading difficulties (Dermody & Speaker,
1995; Lysynchuk, Pressley & Vye, 1990).
Aaron, Joshi and Williams (1999) provide
a useful review of the support for this
model.
A preferred model of reading skills These models illustrate the range
of perspectives for understanding
the knowledge and skills required
for effective reading. When your
goal is to understand, diagnose and
remediate reading difficulties, you need
a framework that allows you to make
comparatively fine distinctions about
how a person reads and to do this
systematically. The above models
can be synthesised and extended to
include additional areas of knowledge
that influence reading. The following
elaborated model (Munro 2004, 1999a,
1996) is used:
Reading knowledge comprises at least
three aspects:
a knowledge of the conventions
of written text (that is, literacy
knowledge, such as letter patterns,
how sentences are written and how
ideas are organised in a written
story);
how to manage one’s reading activity
(that is, metacognitive knowledge);
and
oral language knowledge (for example,
what words mean, how they are said
and how to use grammar).
There are five types or knowledge
readers have about written text. When
they read they know:
how words are written, said and what
they mean (word level knowledge);
the meanings and grammar of written
sentences (sentence level knowledge);
how to link ideas across sentences
and with what they already know
(conceptual level knowledge);
a summary or main ideas in the text
(topic level knowledge); and
the intended purposes of the text,
for example, to persuade, to scare,
to teach, to show how a set of ideas
is interesting or useful (dispositional
level knowledge).
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Working Out What Works Page 55
A text may sometimes have words,
sentence types or ideas that are
unfamiliar to a reader. In these cases the
reader uses actions or reading strategies
to bridge between the text and what
they know. At the word level readers
read unfamiliar words by segmenting and
recoding them, at the sentence level they
may visualise or paraphrase sentences
read, at the conceptual level they may
predict or infer ideas or feelings, at the
topic level they may summarise and at
the dispositional level they may detect
the attitudes in a text.
Readers also have attitudinal knowledge
or beliefs about reading and themselves
as readers. They may believe that they
can be successful as readers and believe
that there is value in them working at
each level of the text. They may also
see reading as a valuable activity, worthy
of their engagement. They may, for
example, believe that it is useful to try to
detect a writer’s attitudes or values in a
text.
When reading a text, readers use these
areas of knowledge simultaneously.
They integrate them into a summary of
what the text says. When information
from different areas clash, for example,
2.4
when what they expected the text ‘to
say’ wasn’t ‘said’, they switch attention
to particular aspects of information
and to re-read or take other ‘remedial’
actions. The text is comprehended
when the accumulated evidence most
strongly supports one interpretation.
The amount of information readers can
handle at any time, or their ‘short-term
working memory’, is restricted. They
handle some of the areas automatically
while other aspects demand attention.
Those aspects that demand least
attention, that is, are more automatic,
require least capacity. Recognising
words by seeing their spelling pattern
uses less attention than converting the
spelling to sounds and then blending.
Using the meaning network to predict
meanings and confirming predictions
reduces the amount of short-term
working memory needed.
This review indicates that readers
use a range of reading skills that
operate at various levels of text in a
systematic, integrated way. They are
sometimes used automatically and on
other occasions with an investment
of attention. In the latter case they
are referred to as strategies rather
Page 5� Working Out What Works
2.4
than skills. A frequent goal of reading
education is that readers learn to use
them relatively automatically.
How do readers acquire these skills?There are several aspects to examining
this question. First, reading skills don’t
‘just happen’; they emerge from skills in
other areas of knowledge. Second, they
don’t ‘stay the same’. An able 8-year-old
reader uses word level reading skills that
are different from those used by an able
12-year-old or 16-year-old reader. An
examination of this question needs to
take account of these influences.
Reading skills emerge from knowledge in other areas. Readers build their literacy and
metacognitive knowledge from
knowledge in a range of other areas
(Aaron, Joshi & Williams, 1999). Oral
language knowledge, an ability to reason,
an ability to learn visual symbols and to
store them in memory, and knowledge
of how to learn are all relevant to
learning to read (Stothard, 1994).
To learn word level skills, children need to:
manipulate sound patterns in spoken
words (phonological and phonemic
awareness);
learn symbolic codes for letters
(orthographic processing);
build a vocabulary of word meanings;
recall the names and sounds of letter
clusters (rapid automatised naming
speed); and
learn how to use what they know
about some words to read others
(orthographic analogy learning).
(Berninger, Abbott, Thomson, & Raskind,
2001; Foorman, Francis, Fletcher & Lynn,
1996; Lyon, 1995; Munro, 2004, 2000,
1999a, 1999b; Rack, Snowling & Olson,
1992; Wolf, Bowers & Biddle, 2000).
They need to synthesise these skills.
To learn sentence level skills, children need to know how:
ideas are linked into sentences in
spoken language;
to use the word order or grammar;
and
to retain ideas in verbal short-term
working memory (for example, to
rehearse and to chunk knowledge).
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Working Out What Works Page 57
To build conceptual and topic level skills children need to:
link ideas into themes;
use the links to organise what they
know;
think ahead; and
summarise.
Dispositional level skills:Dispositional level skills involve
understanding how the social context
affects how ideas are communicated
(Dermody & Speaker, 1995; Lysynchuk,
Pressley & Vye, 1990; Munro, 2004,
2003, 2002a).
Self-management and control strategies:Self-management and control strategies
while reading develops from the skill
to direct and regulate one’s thinking in
other areas of endeavour, for example,
to decide when and why to take
particular actions during play, to evaluate
the effectiveness of one’s activity in
terms of achieving a particular goal or
purpose. Children learn to plan and
monitor their reading activity, review
their progress towards their goals and to
initiate corrective action when particular
behaviours don’t allow them to achieve
their goals (Asselin, 2004; Commander
••
••
& Smith, 1996; Horner & Shwery, 2002;
Lambert, 2000; Pintrich, 2002; Ruban,
McCoach, McGuire & Reis, 2003; Stone
& May, 2002; Vaidya, 1999; Weir, 1998 ).
Many children show a ‘natural’
propensity to learn to read. These are
the children who are often said to ‘catch
reading’. This isn’t accidental. These
students acquire enough of these areas
of knowledge and integrate them into
a ‘critical mass’ of knowledge that they
can use to learn about written text.
Different children may have different
‘mixes’ of these areas of knowledge but
still be able to learn the same reading
skills.
A key capacity here is an ‘analytic-
sequential’ learning style that allows
them to link the detailed aspects of the
written language code with matching
aspects of their oral language. Children
whose learning style is more ‘global
wholistic’ often find reading more
difficult to learn.
These areas of knowledge provide a type
of ‘reading readiness’ and contribute
to a foundation for reading skills at any
time. They are not, however, reading
readiness skills in the traditional sense
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Page 58 Working Out What Works
of providing ‘pre-literacy knowledge’.
In the 1950s-1970s, reading readiness
was conceptualised as the knowledge
and skills students were assumed to
need before they began to read. These
included visual perceptual skills, motor
co-ordination and spatial skills, oral
language and general reasoning skills.
Evidence for the extent to which these
skill areas actually predicted later reading
ability was indecisive.
In the present context, on the other
hand, reading readiness is assumed to
have on-going relevance as one develops
reading skills. Phonological skills
relevant to multisyllabic words and the
notion of the schwa, for example, are
necessary for learning to read words
of two or more syllables. Similarly, the
ability to relate two or three events
in oral language provides a base for
comprehending the grammar of written
sentences that have embedded temporal
and spatial clauses.
Developmental trends in reading readiness skills and knowledge Children’s knowledge in all of these
areas develops gradually. As their
phonological knowledge, for example,
develops, they move from playing with
rhyming patterns in words to segmenting
spoken words into onset and rime and
then into separate sounds. This trend
is linked closely with learning to read
words.
They first understand concepts in
perceptual ways, then linked with
concrete real-world references and
finally in an abstract way. Gradually they
learn new ways to think about concepts,
for example, to infer, to anticipate ideas,
to comprehend causal relationships,
generalisations and conditional
relationships. They learn grammar for
simple active voice sentences and later
more complex structures such as the
passive voice and sentences that have
subordinate clauses.
Their self management of reading
strategies and skills develops from
egocentric speech. The strategies
children first learn to use in reading
are ones they have already used in oral
communication. They use them initially
when cued or scaffolded and gradually
exercise self control.
2.4
Working Out What Works Page 59
Reading skills develop gradually As we noted earlier, reading skills at
each level gradually develop as students’
reading readiness and exposure to
written text changes. As an example
of this, we can look at how their word
level skills change.
Various developmental sequences for
learning to read words, for example,
have been proposed. Early stage
theories proposed that all developing
readers progress through the same
three broad stages of reading skill (for
example, Seymour & MacGregor, 1984);
first they use only some of the letters
in a word and perhaps its appearance
to read it (Adams, 1994; Ehri &
Robbins, 1992) (the logographic
stage);
next they use letter-sound decoding,
that is phonic or alphabetic skills (the
phonic or phonological stage); and
finally they read the word directly
(the orthographic stage).
These do not adequately explain
differences in reading or variation in the
types of words a reader can read at any
time. Some children, for example, begin
at the phonic stage (Stuart & Coltheart,
•
•
•
1988); they don’t use logographic reading
skills.
A second aspect of learning to read
words is how children use what they
know about some words to read
unfamiliar ones and therefore to add to
their orthographic knowledge. Goswami
(1999) proposed they move through
the following developmental sequence
making analogies between written
words; they
use onset and rime,
use the onset and part of the rime;
and
use phonemes and groups of
phonemes.
Their phonological knowledge initially
constrains the letter patterns they learn;
they learn the patterns that match the
rimes they know. Practice recoding
letter clusters to sounds successfully
provides a self-teaching mechanism for
gaining new word-specific letter patterns
knowledge (Share, 1995; Thompson,
Cottrell & Fletcher-Flinn, 1996).
Children first learn simple letter-sound
links and then larger letter clusters and
patterns that match specific words. This
learning is assisted by their phonemic
awareness, having them read increasingly
••
•
2.4
Page �0 Working Out What Works
complex words, their sensitivity to
how a context can constrain the words
used in prose, their preparedness to
try out alternative pronunciations and
supportive feedback. The frequency
with which they encounter a written
word affects how accurately they read
it (Laxon, Masterson & Moran, 1994).
At any time, they can read some words
directly and others using letter cluster-
sound recoding.
How are new links learnt? Young
readers modify their existing letter
cluster knowledge using a ‘self-teaching
mechanism’. When they first encounter
an unfamiliar written word, they use
various reading skills to read it; letter-
sound links they have learnt, how it
looks like words they know (analogy
cues) and its context (Thompson,
Cottrell & Fletcher-Flinn, 1996). As
they see it more often, the links
between the letters that comprise it
are strengthened and this stored letter
cluster is used to identify it. As a result,
they can bypass needing to use the
reading skills they used when they first
saw the word (Van Orden, Pennington
& Stone, 1990) and they learn the links
between phonological and orthographic
components for that word. What we
are seeing here is a transition in reading
skills at the word level as a reader’s
knowledge increases.
A similar developmental sequence
could be assembled to describe changes
in the reading strategies used at the
other levels of text. Throughout
this development it is useful to see
developing readers as ‘integrated
wholes’, learning to apply their reading
knowledge in a systematic way to
texts of increasing complexity. The
contemporary approach of describing
students’ reading skills in terms of
the types of texts they can read
comparatively independently is seen as
supporting this.
The acquisition of reading skills in all
areas is dependent on another set of
beliefs; whether the child believes she
or he can be a successful reader and
can learn to read (Pintrich, 2002). This
is the person’s self efficacy as a reader.
A positive self-efficacy is essential
for learning to read (Casteel, Isom &
Jordan, 2000; Henk & Melnick, 1998;
Zimmerman, 2000) and is correlated
with reading achievement (Chapman &
Tunmer, 2003). It influences children’s
motivation and preparedness to engage
in reading activity (Baker & Wigfield
1999; Linnenbrink & Pintrich, 2003;
2.4
Working Out What Works Page �1
Pajares, 2003), the reading goals they set
for themselves and how they evaluate
their on-going reading performance
(Schunk, 2003).
The process of acquiring reading skills What then can we say about the
process of acquiring reading skills?
This review has identified the types of
skills that readers use in an integrated
and systematic way. These are used
at various levels of the text in a
simultaneous, ‘parallel’ way. These are
sometimes used automatically and on
other occasions with an investment of
attention.
Several issues relating to how readers
acquire these skills were examined.
First, learning reading skills were linked
with learning skills in other areas of
knowledge, including psycholinguistic
and cognitive knowledge, the ability to
symbolise and the beliefs readers have
about reading and their ability to operate
as readers. Second, the reading skills
themselves change gradually, both in
parallel with changes in readers’ ‘reading
readiness’ knowledge and with exposure
to more complex texts, the development
of a self-teaching mechanism for
enhancing literacy knowledge and
effective corrective feedback.
In the past there has been a tendency
to focus more on separate reading skills
than on the reader acquiring them. The
emphasis needs to be on the use of the
skills and knowledge in an integrated
way by a reader. A model of reading
skill acquisition that sees readers on
a literacy learning journey, gradually
learning the knowledge and tools for
comprehending increasingly more
complex text needs to underpin reading
education.
One area of reading skill acquisition that
has been seriously under-developed
in the past is teaching readers to
integrate what they are learning about
a text as they read. This is more
than summarising. It involves reading
any text in a discerning and strategic
way. It is reasonable to expect that in
the information-rich age of the future,
teaching readers to elaborate and
innovate using what they read, map it
into a range of contexts and make links
with other areas of knowledge will be
more valued skills.
2.4
Page �2 Working Out What Works
Working Out What Works Page �3
(Cath Pearn, University of Melbourne)
Research studies by Gray and Tall (1994)
have shown that young children who are
successful with numeracy use different
types of strategies from those who are
struggling with numeracy. Students
struggling with numeracy, are usually
procedural thinkers dependent on the
procedure of counting and limited to the
‘count-all’ and ‘count-back’ procedures.
In summary, Gray & Tall (1994)
defined procedural thinking as being
demonstrated when:
... the numbers are used only as concrete
entities to be manipulated through a
counting process. The emphasis on
the procedure reduces the focus on the
relationship between input and output,
often leading to idiosyncratic extensions
of the counting procedure that may not
generalize. (p. 132).
As part of the Victorian Government
Department of Education and Training’s
Early Numeracy Research Project
(Clarke, Gervasoni, & Sullivan, 2000),
growth points were described for:
Counting
Place Value
Strategies for Addition and
Subtraction
•••
Strategies for Multiplication and
Division
Time
Length Measurement Framework
Mass Measurement Framework
Properties of Shape
Visualisation and Orientation
Growth points are described as
key ‘stepping stones’ along paths to
numerical understanding. According to
the research, growth points are useful
because they help teachers:
understand how children learn;
assess and monitor children’s growth
in understanding;
identifying children who are at risk;
identify the zone of proximal
development for children’s learning;
and
plan and target teaching so that we
can identify the experiences that
will most effectively help children to
reach the next growth point in their
numerical learning.
The Early Numeracy Research Project
growth points therefore provide
teachers with a useful framework
for reflecting on and evaluating the
strategies a child uses to solve numerical
problems. This information can be used
•
•••••
••
••
•
The Process of Acquiring Numeracy Skills 2.5
Page �4 Working Out What Works
as a starting point in planning future
instructional activities that meet the
learning needs of each child and provoke
and support children move towards the
next growth point in their learning.
Each growth point has six clearly defined
steps. The following table takes the six
steps on each of the first four growth
points, Counting, Place Value, Addition
and Subtraction and Multiplication and
Division, and provides an understanding
of the step, the incremental steps
towards achievement of that step and
some suggested activities or strategies to
support the student’s progression.
2.5
Working Out What Works Page �5
2.5
Gro
wth
Poi
nts
Incr
emen
tal s
teps
Sugg
este
d ac
tiviti
es o
r st
rate
gies
1. C
ount
ing
0.
Not
app
aren
t N
ot y
et a
ble
to s
tate
the
seq
uenc
e of
nu
mbe
r na
mes
to
20.
Whe
n ch
ildre
n st
art
to c
ount
the
y re
cite
the
ve
rbal
seq
uenc
e, e
ither
suc
cess
fully
or
with
pa
rtia
l suc
cess
but
do
not
real
ise
that
cou
ntin
g is
don
e fo
r a
purp
ose.
For
the
se s
tude
nts
coun
ting
is a
rec
itatio
n of
num
ber
nam
es a
nd is
de
pend
ent
on t
heir
mem
ory.
Sugg
este
d se
quen
ce fo
r ve
rbal
cou
ntin
g:C
ount
by
ones
forw
ards
to
5C
ount
by
ones
forw
ards
to
10N
umbe
r af
ter
(up
to 1
0)N
umbe
r be
fore
(up
to
10)
Num
ber
betw
een
(up
to 1
0)C
ount
by
ones
forw
ards
to
19
Num
ber
afte
r (u
p to
19)
Num
ber
befo
re (
up t
o 19
)N
umbe
r be
twee
n (u
p to
10)
• • • • • • • • •
Stud
ents
at
this
sta
ge n
eed
to b
e gi
ven
oppo
rtun
ities
to
coun
t bo
th v
erba
lly a
nd
phys
ical
obj
ects
.
Act
iviti
es c
ould
incl
ude:
Say
or s
ing
Nur
sery
and
Cou
ntin
g R
hym
es
and
song
s -
Baa
Baa
Blac
k Sh
eep,
Ten
Litt
le
Indi
ans
Cou
nt s
mal
l num
bers
of o
bjec
ts (
up t
o 5)
eyes
, han
ds, f
eet,
finge
rsfr
uit
in a
bow
llo
llies
on
thei
r pl
ate
pict
ures
on
a pa
ge o
f a p
ictu
re b
ook
Cha
nge
the
size
, typ
e or
col
our
of c
onta
iner
s e.
g. s
auce
rs, b
owls
, cup
s, p
last
ic c
onta
iner
s, a
nd
child
ren
see
thes
e as
a n
ew a
ctiv
ity.
glue
pic
ture
s cu
t fr
om m
agaz
ines
the
n co
unt
the
num
ber
of ..
., fo
r ex
ampl
e, “
anim
als”
or
...m
ake
num
ber
book
with
num
bers
1 -
5
(ext
end
as v
erba
l cou
nt r
ange
incr
ease
s)dr
aw s
mal
l num
bers
of o
bjec
ts. e
.g. S
ay t
o ch
ild: “
Dra
w 3
app
les”
. Aft
er c
hild
has
dra
wn
the
appl
es t
hen
coun
t th
em w
ith t
he c
hild
Ask
the
chi
ld t
o m
ove
a nu
mbe
r of
tim
esju
mp
thre
e tim
esw
alk
two
step
ssk
ip fi
ve t
imes
• •− − − −
• • • •− − −
Page �� Working Out What Works
Gro
wth
Poi
nts
Incr
emen
tal s
teps
Sugg
este
d ac
tiviti
es o
r st
rate
gies
liste
n an
d co
unt
how
man
y tim
es I:
clap
my
hand
scl
ick
my
finge
rsta
p m
y fin
gers
wat
ch a
nd c
ount
how
man
y tim
es I:
nod
my
head
touc
h m
y no
seta
p th
e ta
ble
•− − − − − − −
1.
Rot
e co
untin
g
Rot
e co
unts
the
num
ber
sequ
ence
to
at
leas
t 20
, but
is n
ot y
et a
ble
to r
elia
bly
coun
t a
colle
ctio
n of
tha
t si
ze.
Sugg
este
d se
quen
ce t
o de
velo
p ro
te a
nd
phys
ical
cou
ntin
gC
ount
by
ones
forw
ards
to
20C
ount
by
ones
bac
kwar
ds fr
om 1
0A
ccur
ate
phys
ical
cou
nt t
o 5
(one
-to-
one
corr
espo
nden
ce)
Acc
urat
e ph
ysic
al c
ount
to
10N
umbe
r af
ter
(up
to 2
0)N
umbe
r be
fore
(up
to
20)
Num
ber
betw
een
(up
to 2
0)C
ount
by
ones
forw
ards
to
30C
ount
by
ones
bac
kwar
ds fr
om 2
0A
ccur
ate
phys
ical
cou
nt t
o 12
N
umbe
r af
ter
(up
to 1
9)N
umbe
r be
fore
(up
to
19)
Num
ber
betw
een
(up
to 1
0)
• • • • • • • • • • • • •
Act
iviti
es s
houl
d in
clud
e:co
unt
verb
ally
forw
ards
and
bac
kwar
ds b
y on
es t
o in
crea
se t
he le
ngth
of k
now
n ve
rbal
se
quen
cese
quen
ce o
r or
der
num
ber
card
s w
ithin
kn
own
rang
em
ake
a gr
oup
of o
bjec
ts w
here
the
siz
e of
th
e gr
oup
is w
ithin
the
ir v
erba
l seq
uenc
e lim
its e
.g. u
sing
dic
e (o
r ca
rds)
the
n m
ake
the
num
ber
rolle
d or
cho
sen.
For
exa
mpl
e, t
he
dice
is r
olle
d an
d 5
(or
patt
ern
of 5
dot
s) is
sh
owin
g st
uden
t us
es c
ount
ers
to s
how
five
co
unte
rs.
coun
t gr
oup
of o
bjec
ts w
here
the
gro
up s
ize
is ju
st o
utsi
de t
heir
kno
wn
verb
al s
eque
nce
with
ass
ista
nce
from
mor
e kn
owle
dgea
ble
othe
r -
anot
her
stud
ent,
pare
nt, o
r te
ache
rus
e di
ce o
r ca
rds
to t
arge
t a
cert
ain
num
ber
e.g.
Rac
e to
10,
15,
20
etc
Dra
w a
gro
up o
f obj
ects
of s
peci
fied
size
e.
g. d
raw
7 e
leph
ants
, 10
bana
nas,
12
frog
s
• • • • • •
2.5
Working Out What Works Page �7
2.5
Gro
wth
Poi
nts
Incr
emen
tal s
teps
Sugg
este
d ac
tiviti
es o
r st
rate
gies
2.
Cou
ntin
g co
llect
ions
Con
fiden
tly c
ount
s a
colle
ctio
n of
aro
und
20 o
bjec
ts.
Sugg
este
d se
quen
ce t
o de
velo
p ro
te a
nd
phys
ical
cou
ntin
gC
ount
by
ones
forw
ards
to
40C
ount
by
ones
bac
kwar
ds fr
om 3
0A
ccur
ate
phys
ical
cou
nt w
ith t
een
num
bers
Cou
nt b
y on
es fo
rwar
ds t
o 50
Cou
nt b
y on
es b
ackw
ards
from
40
Acc
urat
e ph
ysic
al c
ount
to
20
• • • • • •
Act
iviti
es s
houl
d in
clud
e:co
unt
verb
ally
forw
ards
and
bac
kwar
ds b
y on
es t
o in
crea
se t
he le
ngth
of t
he k
now
n ve
rbal
seq
uenc
eex
tend
the
ran
ge fo
r th
e se
quen
cing
or
orde
ring
of n
umbe
r ca
rds
sequ
ence
con
secu
tive
num
bers
sequ
ence
ran
dom
num
bers
Wha
t’s M
issi
ng?
Tea
cher
pla
ces
sequ
ence
of
car
ds in
fron
t of
stu
dent
. Stu
dent
hid
es
eyes
whi
le t
each
er t
urns
car
d ov
er. S
tude
nt
says
wha
t nu
mbe
r is
mis
sing
, tur
ns c
ard
over
and
che
cks
whe
ther
res
pons
e is
co
rrec
t. R
epea
t w
ith 2
or
3U
njum
ble:
Stu
dent
s ar
e gi
ven
jum
bled
set
of
car
ds a
nd a
sked
to
put
card
s in
ord
er.
mak
e gr
oup
of o
bjec
ts w
here
the
tot
al s
ize
of t
he g
roup
is w
ithin
the
ir v
erba
l seq
uenc
e lim
its
• •
− − − −
•
3.
Cou
ntin
g by
1s
(forw
ard/
back
war
d,
incl
udin
g va
riab
le s
tart
ing
poin
ts; b
efor
e/af
ter)
Cou
nts
forw
ards
and
bac
kwar
ds fr
om
vari
ous
star
ting
poin
ts b
etw
een
1 an
d 10
0;
know
s nu
mbe
rs b
efor
e an
d af
ter
a gi
ven
num
ber.
Sugg
este
d se
quen
ce t
o co
nsol
idat
e co
unt
from
1-
100
Cou
nt b
y on
es fo
rwar
ds t
o 10
0C
ount
by
ones
bac
kwar
ds fr
om 5
0N
umbe
r af
ter
(up
to 5
0)N
umbe
r be
fore
(up
to
50)
Num
ber
betw
een
(up
to 5
0)C
ount
by
ones
forw
ards
to
mor
e th
an 1
00C
ount
by
ones
bac
kwar
ds fr
om 1
00N
umbe
r af
ter
(up
to 1
00)
Num
ber
befo
re (
up t
o 10
0)N
umbe
r be
twee
n (u
p to
100
)
• • • • • • • • • •
Ora
l cou
ntin
g by
one
s fo
rwar
ds a
nd
back
war
ds s
tart
ing
at a
ny p
oint
with
in t
he
rang
e 1
- 10
0A
hun
dred
s gr
id is
cut
into
str
ips
so t
hat
the
num
bers
are
hor
izon
tally
con
secu
tive
(Num
ber
Stri
p). T
he N
umbe
r St
rip
is a
gre
at
reso
urce
for
stud
ents
str
uggl
ing
to r
emem
ber
the
verb
al s
eque
nce.
Whe
n th
ese
stud
ents
co
unt
get
them
to
trac
k th
e nu
mbe
rs a
s th
ey
say
them
. Ask
stu
dent
s to
poi
nt t
o a
give
n nu
mbe
r th
en t
o sa
y th
e nu
mbe
r be
fore
and
af
ter;
tw
o nu
mbe
rs b
efor
e an
d af
ter…
• •
Page �8 Working Out What Works
Gro
wth
Poi
nts
Incr
emen
tal s
teps
Sugg
este
d ac
tiviti
es o
r st
rate
gies
The
Cou
ntin
g G
ame:
Tea
cher
giv
es t
he
star
ting
num
ber
and
stud
ents
wri
te d
own
as m
any
num
bers
as
they
can
bef
ore
bein
g st
oppe
d by
the
tea
cher
. Stu
dent
s ta
ke it
in
turn
s to
rea
d ou
t w
hat
they
hav
e w
ritt
en.
(Fas
t st
uden
ts c
an b
e ha
ndic
appe
d!)
Stud
ents
cho
ose
card
(fr
om 1
to
100)
and
co
mpl
ete
coun
ting
by o
nes
forw
ards
and
ba
ckw
ards
(ca
n be
ora
l or
wri
tten
)N
umbe
r Be
fore
: car
ds a
re s
huffl
ed (
1-10
0)
and
one
card
cho
sen.
Stu
dent
s ar
e as
ked
to
give
the
num
ber
befo
re t
he n
umbe
r ch
osen
.N
umbe
r A
fter
: as
prev
ious
act
ivity
• • • •
4.
Cou
ntin
g fr
om 0
by
2s, 5
s, a
nd 1
0s
Can
cou
nt fr
om 0
by
2s, 5
s, a
nd 1
0s t
o a
give
n ta
rget
.
Sugg
este
d se
quen
ceC
ount
forw
ards
by
tens
from
10
to 9
0C
ount
forw
ards
by
tens
from
10
to 1
00C
ount
bac
kwar
ds b
y te
ns fr
om 1
00 t
o 10
Cou
nt fo
rwar
ds b
y te
ns fr
om a
mul
tiple
of 1
0 to
100
(e.
g. s
tart
at
40 a
nd c
ount
by
tens
to
100)
Cou
nt b
ackw
ards
by
tens
from
a m
ultip
le o
f 10
to
10 (
e.g.
sta
rt a
t 80
and
cou
nt b
y te
ns
to 1
0)C
ount
forw
ards
by
tens
from
a m
ultip
le o
f 10
to m
ore
than
100
(e.
g. s
tart
at
40 a
nd c
ount
by
ten
s as
far
as y
ou c
an)
Cou
nt b
ackw
ards
by
tens
from
a m
ultip
le o
f 10
to
10 (
e.g.
sta
rt a
t 12
0 an
d co
unt
by t
ens
to 1
0)
• • • • • • •
Hun
dred
s G
rid:
W
hat’s
the
num
ber
that
is t
en m
ore
than
…?
Wha
t’s t
he n
umbe
r th
at is
ten
less
tha
n…?
Ask
stu
dent
s to
poi
nt t
o a
num
ber
e.g.
40
and
then
sho
w t
he n
umbe
r th
at is
ten
mor
e th
an 4
0.W
atch
to
see
if th
ey c
ount
by
ones
or
can
mov
e to
the
num
ber
in o
ne m
ove.
Say
“So
th
e nu
mbe
r te
n m
ore
than
40
is 5
0. W
hat
wou
ld t
he n
umbe
r be
tha
t is
ten
mor
e th
an
50?”
Col
our
all t
he n
umbe
rs o
n th
e H
undr
eds
Gri
d th
at y
ou s
ay w
hen
you
coun
t fo
rwar
ds
by t
ens
from
10
to 1
00. W
hat
did
you
notic
e? H
ow c
an y
ou u
se t
his
to c
ount
ba
ckw
ards
from
100
to
10?
Use
con
stan
t fu
nctio
n ke
y on
cal
cula
tor
to
add
by t
ens
from
mul
tiple
of t
en.
• • • • • •
2.5
Working Out What Works Page �9
2.5
Gro
wth
Poi
nts
Incr
emen
tal s
teps
Sugg
este
d ac
tiviti
es o
r st
rate
gies
Cou
nt
forw
ards
by
fives
to
50C
ount
forw
ards
by
fives
to
100
Cou
nt b
ackw
ards
by
fives
from
50
to 5
Cou
nt fo
rwar
ds b
y fiv
es fr
om a
mul
tiple
of 5
to
50
(e.g
. sta
rt a
t 25
and
cou
nt b
y 5s
to
50)
Cou
nt b
ackw
ards
by
5s fr
om a
mul
tiple
of
5 b
ack
to 5
(e.
g. s
tart
at
55 a
nd c
ount
ba
ckw
ards
by
5s t
o 5)
Cou
nt fo
rwar
ds b
y fiv
es fr
om a
mul
tiple
of
5 to
100
(e.
g. s
tart
at
45 a
nd c
ount
by
5s t
o 10
0)C
ount
bac
kwar
ds b
y fiv
es fr
om a
mul
tiple
of
5 b
ack
to 5
(e.
g. s
tart
at
95 a
nd c
ount
by
fives
to
15)
Cou
nt b
y tw
os t
o 20
Cou
nt b
y tw
os t
o 40
Cou
nt b
y tw
os t
o 10
0C
ount
bac
kwar
ds b
y tw
os fr
om 2
0 to
2C
ount
forw
ards
by
twos
from
a m
ultip
le o
f 2
to 4
0 (e
.g. s
tart
at
14 a
nd c
ount
by
twos
to
40)
Cou
nt b
ackw
ards
by
twos
from
a m
ultip
le o
f 2
to 2
(e.
g. s
tart
at
40 a
nd c
ount
by
twos
to
2)C
ount
forw
ards
by
twos
from
a m
ultip
le o
f 2
to 1
00 (
e.g.
sta
rt a
t 40
and
cou
nt b
y tw
os a
s fa
r as
you
can
)C
ount
bac
kwar
ds b
y tw
os fr
om a
mul
tiple
of
2 t
o 2
(e.g
. sta
rt a
t 52
and
cou
nt b
ack
by
twos
to
2)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Hun
dred
s G
rid:
W
hat’s
the
num
ber
that
is fi
ve m
ore
than
…?
Wha
t’s t
he n
umbe
r th
at is
five
less
tha
n…?
Ask
stu
dent
s to
poi
nt t
o a
num
ber
e.g.
45
and
then
sho
w t
he n
umbe
r th
at is
five
mor
e th
an 4
5. W
atch
to
see
if th
ey c
ount
by
ones
or
can
mov
e to
the
num
ber
in o
ne m
ove.
Sa
y “S
o th
e nu
mbe
r fiv
e m
ore
than
45
is 5
0.
Wha
t w
ould
the
num
ber
be t
hat
is fi
ve m
ore
than
50?
”C
olou
r al
l the
num
bers
on
the
Hun
dred
s G
rid
that
you
say
whe
n yo
u co
unt
forw
ards
by
five
s fr
om 5
to
50. W
hat
did
you
notic
e?
How
can
you
use
thi
s to
cou
nt b
ackw
ards
fr
om 5
0 to
5?
Col
our
all t
he n
umbe
rs o
n th
e H
undr
eds
Gri
d th
at y
ou s
ay w
hen
you
coun
t fo
rwar
ds
by fi
ves
from
50
to 1
00. W
hat
did
you
notic
e? H
ow c
an y
ou u
se t
his
to c
ount
ba
ckw
ards
from
100
to
50?
Use
con
stan
t fu
nctio
n ke
y on
cal
cula
tor
to
add
by fi
ves
from
mul
tiple
of f
ive.
Cou
ntin
g G
rid:
Dra
w g
rid
with
5 c
olum
ns
and
10 r
ows
and
ask
stud
ents
to
com
plet
e th
e gr
id.
1
2 3
4 5
6
7 …
…
Wha
t do
you
not
ice
abou
t yo
ur C
ount
ing
G
rid?
H
ow m
ight
thi
s gr
id h
elp
you
coun
t by
five
s?
• • • • • • •
Page 70 Working Out What Works
2.5G
row
th P
oint
sIn
crem
enta
l ste
psSu
gges
ted
activ
ities
or
stra
tegi
es
5.
Cou
ntin
g fr
om x
(w
here
x >
0) b
y 2s
, 5s,
an
d 10
s Giv
en a
non
-zer
o st
artin
g po
int,
can
coun
t by
2s,
5s,
and
10s
to
a gi
ven
targ
et.
Sugg
este
d se
quen
ceC
ount
forw
ards
by
tens
from
non
-mul
tiple
of
10 b
etw
een
10 a
nd 1
00C
ount
bac
kwar
ds b
y te
ns fr
om n
on-m
ultip
le
of 1
0 be
twee
n 10
0 an
d 10
Cou
nt fo
rwar
ds b
y te
ns fr
om a
non
-mul
tiple
of
10
to m
ore
than
100
(e.
g. s
tart
at
40 a
nd
coun
t by
ten
s to
130
)C
ount
bac
kwar
ds b
y te
ns fr
om a
non
-m
ultip
le o
f 10
to 1
0 (e
.g. s
tart
at
82 a
nd
coun
t ba
ck b
y te
ns t
o 2)
Cou
nt fo
rwar
ds b
y te
ns fr
om a
non
-mul
tiple
of
10
to m
ore
than
100
(e.
g. s
tart
at
40 a
nd
coun
t by
ten
s as
far
as y
ou c
an)
Cou
nt b
ackw
ards
by
tens
from
a n
on-
mul
tiple
of 1
0 to
10
(e.g
. sta
rt a
t 12
3 an
d co
unt
back
by
tens
to
13)
Cou
nt
forw
ards
by
fives
from
non
-mul
tiple
of
5 t
o m
ore
than
50
Cou
nt fo
rwar
ds b
y fiv
es fr
om n
on-m
ultip
le o
f 5
to m
ore
than
100
Cou
nt b
ackw
ards
by
fives
from
non
-mul
tiple
of
5
back
from
100
to
Cou
nt fo
rwar
ds b
y fiv
es fr
om a
non
-mul
tiple
of
5 t
o 10
0 (e
.g. s
tart
at
43 a
nd c
ount
by
fives
to
100)
Cou
nt b
ackw
ards
by
fives
from
a n
on-
mul
tiple
of 5
to
less
tha
n 10
(e.
g. s
tart
at
80
and
coun
t by
ten
s to
10)
• • • • • • • • • • •
The
pre
viou
s ac
tiviti
es c
an b
e ad
apte
d fo
r co
untin
g by
tw
os.
The
follo
win
g ac
tiviti
es c
an b
e ad
apte
d fo
r co
untin
g by
ten
s, fi
ves
or t
wos
from
non
-m
ultip
les
of t
hese
num
bers
.
Hun
dred
s G
rid:
W
hat’s
the
num
ber
that
is t
en m
ore
than
…?
e.g.
Wha
t is
the
num
ber
that
is t
en m
ore
than
17?
Wha
t’s t
he n
umbe
r th
at is
ten
less
tha
n…?
e.g.
Wha
t is
the
num
ber
that
is t
en le
ss t
han
53?
Ask
stu
dent
s to
poi
nt t
o a
num
ber
e.g.
47
and
then
sho
w t
he n
umbe
r th
at is
ten
mor
e th
an
47. W
atch
to
see
if th
ey c
ount
by
ones
or
can
mov
e to
the
num
ber
in o
ne m
ove.
Say
“So
the
nu
mbe
r te
n m
ore
than
47
is 5
7. W
hat
wou
ld
the
num
ber
be t
hat
is t
en m
ore
than
57?
” W
hat
wou
ld t
he n
umbe
r be
tha
t is
ten
less
th
an 5
7?C
olou
r al
l the
num
bers
on
the
Hun
dred
s G
rid
that
you
say
whe
n yo
u co
unt
forw
ards
by
ten
s fr
om 8
to
98. W
hat
did
you
notic
e?
How
can
you
use
thi
s to
cou
nt b
ackw
ards
by
tens
from
98
to 8
?U
se c
onst
ant
func
tion
key
on c
alcu
lato
r to
ad
d by
ten
s fr
om n
on-m
ultip
le o
f ten
.
• • • •
Working Out What Works Page 71
2.5
Gro
wth
Poi
nts
Incr
emen
tal s
teps
Sugg
este
d ac
tiviti
es o
r st
rate
gies
Cou
nt fo
rwar
ds b
y fiv
es fr
om a
non
-mul
tiple
of
5 t
o m
ore
than
100
(e.
g. s
tart
at
40 a
nd
coun
t by
ten
s as
far
as y
ou c
an)
Cou
nt b
ackw
ards
by
fives
from
a n
on-
mul
tiple
of 5
to
less
tha
n 10
(e.
g. s
tart
at
120
and
coun
t by
five
s to
10)
Cou
nt b
y tw
os fr
om n
on-m
ultip
le o
f 2 t
o m
ore
than
20
Cou
nt b
y tw
os fr
om n
on-m
ultip
le o
f 2 t
o m
ore
than
40
Cou
nt b
y tw
os fr
om n
on-m
ultip
le o
f 2 t
o 10
0C
ount
bac
kwar
ds b
y tw
os fr
om n
on-m
ultip
le
in r
ange
from
100
to
10C
ount
forw
ards
by
twos
from
a m
ultip
le o
f 2
to m
ore
than
100
(e.
g. s
tart
at
40 a
nd c
ount
by
tw
os t
o 10
0)C
ount
bac
kwar
ds b
y tw
os fr
om a
non
-m
ultip
le o
f 2 t
o le
ss t
han
10 (
e.g.
sta
rt a
t 80
an
d co
unt
by t
wos
to
10)
Cou
nt fo
rwar
ds b
y tw
os fr
om a
non
-mul
tiple
of
2 t
o m
ore
than
100
(e.
g. s
tart
at
40 a
nd
coun
t by
tw
os a
s fa
r as
you
can
)C
ount
bac
kwar
ds b
y tw
os fr
om a
non
-m
ultip
le o
f 2 t
o le
ss t
han
10 (
e.g.
sta
rt a
t 43
an
d co
unt
by t
wos
to
less
tha
n 10
)
• • • • • • • • • •
Cou
ntin
g G
rid:
Dra
w g
rid
with
5 c
olum
ns
and
10 r
ows
and
ask
stud
ents
to
com
plet
e th
e gr
id.
1
2 3
4 5
6
7 …
…
Wha
t do
you
not
ice
abou
t yo
ur C
ount
ing
G
rid?
H
ow m
ight
thi
s gr
id h
elp
you:
coun
t fo
rwar
ds b
y fiv
es s
tart
ing
at 8
? co
unt
back
war
ds b
y fiv
es fr
om 9
2?
•
− −
Page 72 Working Out What Works
2.5G
row
th P
oint
sIn
crem
enta
l ste
psSu
gges
ted
activ
ities
or
stra
tegi
es
6.
Exte
ndin
g an
d ap
plyi
ng c
ount
ing
skill
s Can
cou
nt fr
om a
non
-zer
o st
artin
g po
int
by a
ny s
ingl
e di
git
num
ber,
and
can
app
ly
coun
ting
skill
s in
pra
ctic
al t
asks
. A p
ossi
ble
exte
nsio
n to
the
EN
RP
grow
th
poin
ts is
Cou
ntin
g fr
om X
by
othe
r qu
antit
ies,
e.g
., fr
actio
ns, d
ecim
als
and
larg
er
who
le n
umbe
rs.
Suita
ble
activ
ities
for
this
leve
l can
be
foun
d in
res
ourc
es s
uch
as N
umbe
r Se
nse
(Alis
tair
M
cInt
osh
et a
l) w
hich
are
ava
ilabl
e at
mos
t sc
hool
boo
k su
pplie
rs.
2. P
lace
Val
ue
0.
Not
app
aren
t N
ot y
et a
ble
to r
ead,
wri
te, i
nter
pret
and
or
der
sing
le d
igit
num
bers
read
num
bers
1 -
5w
rite
num
bers
1 -
5m
ake
grou
ps (
1 -
5) o
f dis
cret
e ite
ms
e.g.
us
ing
coun
ters
• • •
coun
t gr
oups
of o
bjec
ts
(up
to 5
)m
ake
grou
ps o
f obj
ects
e.g
. usi
ng d
ice
(or
card
s) t
hen
mak
e th
e nu
mbe
r ro
lled
or
chos
en. F
or e
xam
ple:
The
dic
e is
rol
led
and
the
num
ber
five
(or
patt
ern
of 5
dot
s) is
sh
owin
g. C
hild
use
s co
unte
rs t
o sh
ow fi
ve
coun
ters
.se
quen
ce o
r or
der
num
ber
card
s 1
- 5
use
dice
or
card
s to
tar
get
a ce
rtai
n nu
mbe
r e.
g. R
ace
to 5
etc
• • • •
1.
Rea
ding
, wri
ting,
inte
rpre
ting,
and
ord
erin
g si
ngle
dig
it nu
mbe
rs
Can
rea
d, w
rite
, int
erpr
et a
nd o
rder
sin
gle
digi
t nu
mbe
rs.
read
num
bers
1 -
9•w
rite
num
bers
1 -
9m
ake
grou
ps o
f dis
cret
e ite
ms
e.g.
cou
nter
s up
to
9or
der
num
bers
1 -
5or
der
num
bers
1 -
9re
ad n
umbe
rs 0
- 9
wri
te n
umbe
rs 0
- 9
• • • • • • •
coun
t gr
oups
of o
bjec
ts
(up
to 9
)m
ake
grou
ps o
f obj
ects
e.g
. usi
ng d
ice
(or
card
s) t
hen
mak
e th
e nu
mbe
r ro
lled
or
chos
en. F
or e
xam
ple:
The
dic
e is
rol
led
and
the
num
ber
five
(or
patt
ern
of 9
dot
s) is
sh
owin
g. C
hild
use
s co
unte
rs t
o sh
ow n
ine
coun
ters
.se
quen
ce o
r or
der
num
ber
card
s 1
- 9
• • •
Working Out What Works Page 73
2.5
Gro
wth
Poi
nts
Incr
emen
tal s
teps
Sugg
este
d ac
tiviti
es o
r st
rate
gies
orde
r nu
mbe
rs 0
- 9
•us
e di
ce o
r ca
rds
to t
arge
t a
cert
ain
num
ber
e.g.
Rac
e to
9 e
tcse
quen
ce o
r or
der
num
ber
card
s 0
- 9
• •
2.
Rea
ding
, wri
ting,
inte
rpre
ting,
and
ord
erin
g tw
o-di
git
num
bers
Can
rea
d, w
rite
, int
erpr
et a
nd o
rder
tw
o-di
git
num
bers
.
read
num
bers
1 -
1 9
wri
te n
umbe
rs 1
- 1
9us
e di
scre
te it
ems
in b
undl
es o
f ten
s an
d on
es e
.g. i
cy-p
ole
stic
ks u
p to
19
(e.g
. 13
can
be 1
3 si
ngle
icy-
pole
stic
ks o
r 1
bund
le o
f 10
icy-
pole
stic
ks a
nd 3
sin
gle
stic
ksor
der
num
bers
1 -
19
read
num
bers
up
to m
ore
than
20
wri
te n
umbe
rs u
p to
mor
e th
an 2
0us
e di
scre
te it
ems
in b
undl
es o
f ten
s an
d on
es e
.g. i
cy-p
ole
stic
ks u
p to
mor
e th
an 2
0 (e
.g. 1
3 ca
n be
13
sing
le ic
y-po
le s
ticks
or
1 bu
ndle
of 1
0 ic
y-po
le s
ticks
and
3 s
ingl
e st
icks
orde
r nu
mbe
rs u
p to
mor
e th
an 2
0
read
num
bers
up
to m
ore
than
30
wri
te n
umbe
rs u
p to
mor
e th
an 3
0us
e di
scre
te it
ems
in b
undl
es o
f ten
s an
d on
es e
.g. i
cy-p
ole
stic
ks u
p to
mor
e th
an 3
0 (e
.g. 3
4 ca
n be
34
sing
le ic
y-po
le s
ticks
or
3 bu
ndle
s of
10
icy-
pole
stic
ks a
nd 4
sin
gle
stic
ksor
der
num
bers
up
to m
ore
than
30
read
num
bers
up
to m
ore
than
50
wri
te n
umbe
rs u
p to
mor
e th
an 5
0
• • • • • • • • • • • • • •
coun
t gr
oups
of o
bjec
ts (
up t
o 19
)m
ake
grou
ps o
f obj
ects
e.g
. usi
ng c
ards
(fr
om 0
- 1
9) m
ake
the
num
ber
chos
en. F
or
exam
ple:
Stu
dent
pic
ks a
car
d at
ran
dom
(fr
om 1
- 1
9) a
nd u
ses
coun
ters
to
show
the
nu
mbe
r.se
quen
ce o
r or
der
num
ber
card
s 1
- 19
use
dice
or
card
s to
tar
get
a ce
rtai
n nu
mbe
r e.
g. R
ace
to 9
etc
sequ
ence
or
orde
r nu
mbe
r ca
rds
0 -
19
coun
t gr
oups
or
bund
les
of o
bjec
ts
(up
to
30)
mak
e gr
oups
of o
bjec
ts e
.g. u
sing
car
ds
(from
0 -
30)
mak
e th
e nu
mbe
r ch
osen
. For
ex
ampl
e: S
tude
nt p
icks
a c
ard
at r
ando
m
(from
1 -
30)
and
use
s co
unte
rs t
o sh
ow t
he
num
ber.
sequ
ence
or
orde
r nu
mbe
r ca
rds
1 -
30us
e di
ce o
r ca
rds
to t
arge
t a
cert
ain
num
ber
e.g.
Rac
e to
20,
30
etc
sequ
ence
or
orde
r nu
mbe
r ca
rds
0 -
30
coun
t gr
oups
of i
ndiv
idua
l or
bund
les
of
obje
cts
(up
to
50)
• • • • • • • • • • •
Page 74 Working Out What Works
2.5G
row
th P
oint
sIn
crem
enta
l ste
psSu
gges
ted
activ
ities
or
stra
tegi
es
use
disc
rete
item
s in
bun
dles
of t
ens
and
ones
e.g
. icy
-pol
e st
icks
up
to m
ore
than
50
(e.g
. 43
can
be 4
3 si
ngle
icy-
pole
stic
ks o
r 4
bund
les
of 1
0 ic
y-po
le s
ticks
and
3 s
ingl
e st
icks
orde
r nu
mbe
rs u
p to
mor
e th
an 5
0
read
all
2 di
git
num
bers
w
rite
all
2 di
git
num
bers
use
disc
rete
item
s in
bun
dles
of t
ens
and
ones
e.g
. icy
-pol
e st
icks
for
all 2
dig
it nu
mbe
rs (
e.g.
13
can
be 1
3 si
ngle
icy-
pole
st
icks
or
1 bu
ndle
of 1
0 ic
y-po
le s
ticks
and
3
sing
le s
ticks
orde
r al
l 2 d
igit
num
bers
• • • • • •
mak
e gr
oups
of o
bjec
ts e
.g. u
sing
car
ds
(from
0 -
30)
mak
e th
e nu
mbe
r ch
osen
. For
ex
ampl
e: S
tude
nt p
icks
a c
ard
at r
ando
m
(from
0 -
50)
and
use
s ic
y-po
le s
ticks
(si
ngle
s &
bun
dles
and
sin
gles
) to
sho
w t
he n
umbe
r.
sequ
ence
or
orde
r nu
mbe
r ca
rds
0 -
50us
e di
ce o
r ca
rds
to t
arge
t a
cert
ain
num
ber
e.g.
Rac
e to
20,
30,
40,
50
etc
sequ
ence
or
orde
ring
num
ber
card
s 0
- 50
coun
t gr
oups
of i
ndiv
idua
l or
bund
les
of
obje
cts
for
all 2
-dig
it nu
mbe
rsm
ake
grou
ps o
f obj
ects
e.g
. usi
ng c
ards
(fr
om 0
- 9
9) m
ake
the
num
ber
chos
en. F
or
exam
ple:
Stu
dent
pic
ks a
car
d at
ran
dom
(fr
om 0
- 9
9) a
nd u
ses
icy-
pole
stic
ks (
sing
les
& b
undl
es a
nd s
ingl
es)
to s
how
the
num
ber.
sequ
ence
or
orde
r nu
mbe
r ca
rds
0 -
99us
e di
ce o
r ca
rds
to t
arge
t a
cert
ain
num
ber
e.g.
Nin
ety-
nine
or
Bust
!
• • • • • • • •
3.
Rea
ding
, wri
ting,
inte
rpre
ting,
and
ord
erin
g th
ree-
digi
t nu
mbe
rs
Can
rea
d, w
rite
, int
erpr
et a
nd o
rder
thr
ee-
digi
t nu
mbe
rs.
read
num
eral
s up
to
109
wri
te n
umer
als
up t
o 10
9us
e di
scre
te it
ems
in b
undl
es o
f ten
s an
d on
es e
.g. i
cy-p
ole
stic
ks u
p to
109
(e.
g.
103
can
be 1
03 s
ingl
e ic
y-po
le s
ticks
or
10
bund
les
of 1
0 ic
y-po
le s
ticks
and
3 s
ingl
e st
icks
orde
r nu
mbe
rs u
p to
109
read
num
bers
up
to 2
00w
rite
num
bers
up
to 2
00
• • • • • •
coun
t M
AB
flats
(10
0s),
long
s (1
0s)
and
ones
fo
r nu
mbe
rs u
p to
109
mak
e th
e nu
mbe
r ch
osen
(0
- 10
9) w
ith
MA
B. F
or e
xam
ple:
Stu
dent
pic
ks a
car
d at
ra
ndom
(fr
om 0
- 1
09)
and
uses
MA
B (fl
ats,
lo
ngs
and
ones
) to
sho
w t
he n
umbe
r.se
quen
ce o
r or
der
num
ber
card
s 0
- 10
9
coun
t M
AB
flats
(10
0s),
long
s (1
0s)
and
ones
fo
r n
umbe
rs u
p to
200
• • • •
Working Out What Works Page 75
2.5
Gro
wth
Poi
nts
Incr
emen
tal s
teps
Sugg
este
d ac
tiviti
es o
r st
rate
gies
use
disc
rete
item
s in
bun
dles
of t
ens
and
ones
e.g
. icy
-pol
e st
icks
up
to 2
00 (
e.g.
13
5 ca
n be
130
sin
gle
icy-
pole
stic
ks o
r 13
bu
ndle
s of
10
icy-
pole
stic
ks a
nd 5
sin
gle
stic
ks o
r 1
bund
le o
f 100
(10
bun
dles
of 1
0)
and
3 bu
ndle
s of
10
icy-
pole
stic
ks a
nd 5
si
ngle
stic
ks
orde
r nu
mbe
rs u
p to
200
use
MA
B to
mod
el n
umbe
rs u
p to
200
read
num
bers
up
to m
ore
than
300
wri
te n
umbe
rs u
p to
mor
e th
an 3
00us
e di
scre
te it
ems
in b
undl
es o
f ten
s an
d on
es e
.g. i
cy-p
ole
stic
ks u
p to
mor
e th
an 3
00
(e.g
. 34
0 ca
n be
340
sin
gle
icy-
pole
stic
ks o
r 34
bun
dles
of 1
0 ic
y-po
le s
ticks
and
4 s
ingl
e st
icks
or
3 bu
ndle
s of
100
(10
bun
dles
of 1
0)
and
4 bu
ndle
s of
10
icy-
pole
stic
ksor
der
num
bers
up
to m
ore
than
300
use
MA
B to
mod
el n
umbe
rs u
p to
300
read
num
bers
up
to m
ore
than
500
wri
te n
umbe
rs u
p to
mor
e th
an 5
00us
e M
AB
to m
odel
num
bers
up
to 5
00or
der
num
bers
up
to m
ore
than
500
read
all
3 di
git
num
bers
w
rite
all
3 di
git
num
bers
in s
ymbo
lsw
rite
all
3 di
git
num
bers
in w
ords
use
MA
B to
mod
el n
umbe
rs a
ll 3
digi
t nu
mbe
rsor
der
all 3
dig
it nu
mbe
rs
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
mak
e th
e nu
mbe
r ch
osen
(0
- 20
0) w
ith
MA
B. F
or e
xam
ple:
Stu
dent
pic
ks a
car
d at
ra
ndom
(fr
om 0
- 2
00)
and
uses
MA
B (fl
ats,
lo
ngs
and
ones
) to
sho
w t
he n
umbe
r.se
quen
ce o
r or
der
num
ber
card
s 0
- 20
0
coun
t M
AB
flats
(10
0s),
long
s (1
0s)
and
ones
fo
r n
umbe
rs u
p to
500
mak
e th
e nu
mbe
r ch
osen
(0
- 50
0) w
ith
MA
B. F
or e
xam
ple:
Stu
dent
pic
ks a
car
d at
ra
ndom
(fr
om 0
- 5
00)
and
uses
MA
B (fl
ats,
lo
ngs
and
ones
) to
sho
w t
he n
umbe
r.se
quen
ce o
r or
der
num
ber
card
s 0
- 50
0
coun
t M
AB
flats
(10
0s),
long
s (1
0s)
and
ones
fo
r al
l 3 d
igit
num
bers
mak
e th
e nu
mbe
r ch
osen
(0
- 99
9) w
ith
MA
B. F
or e
xam
ple:
Stu
dent
pic
ks a
car
d at
ra
ndom
( 0
- 9
99)
and
uses
MA
B (fl
ats,
long
s an
d on
es)
to s
how
the
num
ber.
sequ
ence
or
orde
r nu
mbe
r ca
rds
0 -
999
Use
Mon
tess
ori c
ards
to
show
3-d
igit
num
ber
then
mak
e w
ith M
AB
bloc
ks.
Use
Num
ber
expa
nder
s to
mak
e 3
digi
t nu
mbe
r th
en s
tude
nts
stan
d in
ord
er o
f the
ir
card
s.
• • • • • • • • • •
Page 7� Working Out What Works
Gro
wth
Poi
nts
Incr
emen
tal s
teps
Sugg
este
d ac
tiviti
es o
r st
rate
gies
4.
Rea
ding
, wri
ting,
inte
rpre
ting,
and
ord
erin
g nu
mbe
rs b
eyon
d 10
00
Can
rea
d, w
rite
, int
erpr
et a
nd o
rder
nu
mbe
rs b
eyon
d 10
00.
read
all
4 di
git
num
bers
w
rite
all
4 di
git
num
bers
in s
ymbo
lsw
rite
all
4 di
git
num
bers
in w
ords
use
MA
B to
mod
el n
umbe
rs u
p to
10,
000
orde
r nu
mbe
rs u
p to
10,
000
read
all
5 di
git
num
bers
w
rite
all
5 di
git
num
bers
in s
ymbo
lsw
rite
all
5 di
git
num
bers
in w
ords
use
MA
B to
mod
el n
umbe
rs u
p to
100
, 000
orde
r nu
mbe
rs u
p to
100
,000
• • • • • • • • • •
oral
ly r
ead
all 4
dig
it nu
mbe
rs
wri
te a
ll 4
digi
t nu
mbe
rs in
sym
bols
wri
ts a
ll 4
digi
t nu
mbe
rs in
wor
dsco
unt
give
n nu
mbe
r of
MA
B bl
ocks
(10
00s)
, fla
ts (
100s
), lo
ngs
(10s
) an
d on
es fo
r nu
mbe
rs
up t
o 10
,000
mak
e th
e nu
mbe
r ch
osen
up
to 1
0, 0
00 w
ith
MA
B. F
or e
xam
ple:
Stu
dent
pic
ks a
car
d at
ra
ndom
and
use
s M
AB
(flat
s, lo
ngs
and
ones
) to
sho
w t
he n
umbe
rse
quen
ce o
r or
der
num
ber
card
s up
to
10,0
00
oral
ly r
ead
all 5
dig
it nu
mbe
rs
wri
te a
ll 5
digi
t nu
mbe
rs in
sym
bols
wri
ts a
ll 5
digi
t nu
mbe
rs in
wor
dsco
unt
MA
B fla
ts (
100s
), lo
ngs
(10s
) an
d on
es
for
num
bers
up
to 1
0,00
0m
ake
the
num
ber
chos
en u
p to
100
, 000
with
M
AB.
For
exa
mpl
e: S
tude
nt p
icks
a c
ard
at
rand
om a
nd u
ses
MA
B (fl
ats,
long
s an
d on
es)
to s
how
the
num
ber.
sequ
ence
or
orde
r nu
mbe
r ca
rds
up t
o 10
0,00
0U
se M
onte
ssor
i car
ds t
o sh
ow 4
& 5
dig
it nu
mbe
r th
en m
ake
with
MA
B bl
ocks
.U
se N
umbe
r ex
pand
ers
to m
ake
4 &
5 d
igit
num
ber
then
stu
dent
s st
and
in o
rder
of t
heir
ca
rds.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • •
2.5
Working Out What Works Page 77
2.5
Gro
wth
Poi
nts
Incr
emen
tal s
teps
Sugg
este
d ac
tiviti
es o
r st
rate
gies
5.
Exte
ndin
g an
d ap
plyi
ng p
lace
val
ue
know
ledg
e Can
ext
end
and
appl
y kn
owle
dge
of p
lace
va
lue
in s
olvi
ng p
robl
ems.
Suita
ble
activ
ities
for
this
leve
l can
be
foun
d in
res
ourc
es s
uch
as N
umbe
r Se
nse
(Alis
tair
M
cInt
osh
et a
l) w
hich
are
ava
ilabl
e at
mos
t sc
hool
boo
k su
pplie
rs.
A p
ossi
ble
exte
nsio
n to
the
EN
RP
grow
th
poin
ts is
rea
ding
, wri
ting
and
inte
rpre
ting
num
ber
invo
lvin
g m
illio
ns, d
ecim
als
and
frac
tions
.
3.
Add
ition
and
Sub
trac
tion
0.
Not
App
aren
t N
ot y
et a
ble
to c
ombi
ne a
nd c
ount
tw
o co
llect
ions
of o
bjec
ts
To
be s
ucce
ssfu
l chi
ldre
n ne
ed t
o be
abl
e to
:co
unt
verb
ally
usi
ng t
he c
onve
ntio
nal
sequ
ence
of n
umbe
r na
mes
,gi
ve e
ach
obje
ct c
ount
ed a
num
ber
nam
e (o
ne-t
o-on
e co
rres
pond
ence
)re
cogn
ise
that
the
last
num
ber
said
is t
he
num
ber
in t
he s
et o
f obj
ects
cou
nted
trus
t th
eir
orig
inal
cou
nt (
Piag
et’s
co
nser
vatio
n of
num
ber)
• • • •
coun
t ve
rbal
ly t
o in
crea
se t
he le
ngth
of t
he
know
n ve
rbal
seq
uenc
eex
tend
the
ran
ge fo
r th
e se
quen
ce o
r or
der
of n
umbe
r ca
rds
coun
t a
grou
p of
obj
ects
whe
re t
he s
ize
of
the
grou
p is
with
in t
heir
ver
bal s
eque
nce
limits
use
Ten
s Fr
ames
to
show
var
iety
of
arra
ngem
ents
for
sam
e nu
mbe
rs.
For
exam
ple
5 ca
n be
see
n as
3 in
the
top
row
and
2 in
the
bo
ttom
row
• • • •
Page 78 Working Out What Works
2.5G
row
th P
oint
sIn
crem
enta
l ste
psSu
gges
ted
activ
ities
or
stra
tegi
es
or 5
in t
he t
op r
ow
or 4
in t
he t
op r
ow a
nd 1
in t
he b
otto
m r
ow
or …
1.
Cou
nt a
ll (t
wo
colle
ctio
ns)
Cou
nts
all t
o fin
d th
e to
tal o
f tw
o co
llect
ions
.
Unt
il st
uden
ts a
re c
onfid
ent
in c
ount
ing
one
colle
ctio
n ac
cura
tely
usi
ng t
he
conv
entio
nal n
umbe
r se
quen
ce a
nd o
ne-t
o-on
e co
rres
pond
ence
the
y w
ill b
e un
able
to
com
bine
col
lect
ions
. G
iven
tw
o co
llect
ions
stu
dent
s w
ill in
itial
ly
coun
t ea
ch o
f the
col
lect
ions
sep
arat
ely
befo
re t
ryin
g to
cou
nt t
he t
wo
colle
ctio
ns a
s a
who
le.
Initi
ally
thi
s co
unt
is u
nsuc
cess
ful b
ecau
se
they
bec
ome
tired
and
the
ir c
o-or
dina
tion
(one
-to-
one
corr
espo
nden
ce)
seem
s to
dro
p of
f. O
nce
they
cou
nt t
he t
wo
colle
ctio
ns a
s a
com
bine
d gr
oup
succ
essf
ully
the
y w
ill t
hen
atte
mpt
to
coun
t ob
ject
s th
at a
re h
idde
n by
tap
ping
or
nodd
ing
or s
ome
way
of
repr
esen
ting
thes
e ob
ject
s.
• • • •
Act
iviti
es s
houl
d in
clud
e:co
unt
verb
ally
to
incr
ease
the
leng
th o
f the
kn
own
verb
al s
eque
nce
exte
nd t
he r
ange
for
the
sequ
ence
or
orde
r of
num
ber
card
sco
unt
grou
ps o
f obj
ects
whe
re t
he t
otal
si
ze o
f the
tw
o gr
oups
is w
ithin
the
ir v
erba
l se
quen
ce li
mits
Use
dis
cret
e ite
ms
such
as
coun
ters
, she
lls,
leav
es, b
lock
s et
c to
mak
e th
e gr
oups
.St
uden
ts s
houl
d dr
aw t
wo
grou
ps o
f cou
nter
s an
d th
e to
tal (
Div
ide
piec
e of
pap
er in
hal
f an
d as
k st
uden
ts t
o sh
ow t
he g
roup
s on
one
ha
lf an
d dr
aw t
he g
roup
s on
the
oth
er)
use
Ten
s Fr
ames
to
add
two
num
bers
. Fo
r ex
ampl
e 5
and
3
can
be s
how
n as
5 in
the
top
row
an
d 3
in t
he b
otto
m r
ow a
nd c
hild
cou
nts
the
8 by
one
s (u
sual
ly t
ouch
ing
ever
y co
unte
r)
• • • • • •
Working Out What Works Page 79
2.5
Gro
wth
Poi
nts
Incr
emen
tal s
teps
Sugg
este
d ac
tiviti
es o
r st
rate
gies
or a
s 5
can
be s
how
n as
2 (
top
row
) +
3
(bot
tom
row
) an
d 3
mor
e in
bot
tom
row
gi
ves
8 (c
ount
by
ones
)
or …
To
add
larg
er n
umbe
rs e
.g. 9
and
7 c
hild
pl
aces
9 in
one
Ten
s Fr
ame
and
7 in
oth
er
and
coun
ts b
y on
es t
o de
term
ine
the
tota
l.
2.
Cou
nt o
n Cou
nts
on fr
om o
ne n
umbe
r to
find
the
to
tal o
f tw
o co
llect
ions
.
Stud
ent
coun
ts o
n fr
om w
hich
ever
num
ber
they
see
or
hear
firs
t. Fo
r ex
ampl
e, if
ask
ed
for
the
answ
er fo
r 6
+ 3
= t
hey
will
att
empt
to
cou
nt o
n fr
om t
he 6
. Ini
tially
thi
s is
thr
ee
coun
ts in
clud
ing
the
six.
For
exa
mpl
e, 6
, 7, 8
.
•T
o be
suc
cess
ful s
tude
nts
usin
g th
e ‘c
ount
-on’
st
rate
gy n
eed
to:
reco
gnis
e th
e co
mm
utat
ivity
of a
dditi
on. T
hat
is, t
hat
6 +
3 w
ill g
ive
the
sam
e an
swer
as
3 +
6
•
Page 80 Working Out What Works
Gro
wth
Poi
nts
Incr
emen
tal s
teps
Sugg
este
d ac
tiviti
es o
r st
rate
gies
Aft
er a
whi
le t
he t
hree
cou
nts
do n
ot
incl
ude
the
six
but
beco
mes
6 (
said
to
loca
te
them
selv
es),
7, 8
, 9. A
t th
is s
tage
giv
en
som
ethi
ng li
ke 3
+ 6
the
cou
nt w
ould
be
3, 4
, 5,
6, 7
, 8, 9
.It
is o
nly
whe
n st
uden
ts c
an s
ucce
ssfu
lly
coun
t on
from
the
firs
t nu
mbe
r an
d re
cogn
ise
the
com
mut
ativ
ity o
f add
ition
tha
t th
ey s
tart
cho
osin
g th
en “
coun
ting
on”
from
th
e la
rger
num
ber.
(I ha
ve s
een
man
y te
ache
rs t
ry t
o te
ach
thei
r st
uden
ts t
o co
unt
on fr
om t
he la
rger
num
ber
befo
re c
heck
ing
whe
ther
the
y co
uld
coun
t on
suc
cess
fully
from
the
‘fir
st n
umbe
r’. T
he
stud
ents
per
form
suc
cess
fully
whe
n w
orki
ng a
s a
who
le g
roup
with
tea
cher
sup
port
but
whe
n th
e st
uden
ts a
re le
ft t
o th
eir
own
devi
ces
they
re
vert
to
coun
t al
l or
gues
sing
)
visu
alis
e or
rep
rese
nt o
bjec
ts t
hat
are
hidd
en
• • •
use
the
‘cou
nt o
n’ s
trat
egy
from
the
larg
er o
r m
ost
effic
ient
num
ber.
mak
e gr
oups
of o
bjec
ts w
here
the
tot
al s
ize
of t
wo
or m
ore
grou
ps is
with
in t
heir
ver
bal
sequ
ence
lim
its e
.g. u
sing
dic
e (o
r ca
rds)
m
ake
the
num
ber
rolle
d or
cho
sen.
A
t th
is s
tage
stu
dent
s do
not
cou
nt e
ach
indi
vidu
al n
umbe
r as
the
y m
ove
them
selv
es
or t
heir
cou
nter
but
are
abl
e to
mov
e in
on
e ju
mp
whe
n pl
ayin
g ga
mes
. Gam
es c
ould
in
clud
e:us
ing
dice
or
card
s to
tar
get
a ce
rtai
n nu
mbe
r e.
g. R
ace
to 1
0, 1
5, 2
0 et
c.
Snak
es a
nd L
adde
rs
To
add
larg
er n
umbe
rs e
.g. 9
and
7 s
tude
nt
may
:pl
ace
9 in
one
Ten
s Fr
ame
and
7 in
oth
er b
ut
coun
t on
from
the
9 s
ayin
g 9,
10,
11,
12,
13,
14
, 15,
16
as t
hey
trac
k th
e 7
in t
he b
otto
m
row
rol
ling
thei
r ey
es o
r ta
ppin
g on
the
ir le
gs
or t
able
s to
kee
p tr
ack
that
onl
y 7
coun
ts
have
bee
n m
ade.
• • • • •
2.5
Working Out What Works Page 81
2.5
Gro
wth
Poi
nts
Incr
emen
tal s
teps
Sugg
este
d ac
tiviti
es o
r st
rate
gies
coun
t on
from
the
9 w
ithou
t an
y re
fere
nce
to p
hysi
cal o
bjec
ts. T
hey
keep
tra
ck o
f the
7
coun
ts a
s th
ey c
ount
in t
heir
hea
ds.
visu
alis
e or
rep
rese
nt o
bjec
ts t
hat
are
scre
ened
or
hidd
en
For
exam
ple:
Her
e ar
e 6
coun
ters
. Und
er
the
pape
r ar
e 3
mor
e. H
ow m
any
do I
have
al
toge
ther
?
• •
3.
Cou
nt b
ack/
coun
t do
wn
to/c
ount
up
from
Giv
en a
sub
trac
tion
situ
atio
n, c
hoos
es
appr
opri
atel
y fr
om s
trat
egie
s in
clud
ing
coun
t ba
ck, c
ount
dow
n to
and
cou
nt u
p fr
om.
Stud
ents
find
sub
trac
tion
very
diff
icul
t as
the
re
are
vari
ous
inte
rpre
tatio
ns o
f sub
trac
tion.
The
ea
sies
t is
the
“W
hat’s
left
?” S
trat
egy.
For
exam
ple
in t
he t
ask:
I h
ad 9
cak
es. I
gav
e 6
to m
y fr
iend
. How
man
y ca
kes
did
I hav
e le
ft?
A s
tude
nt u
sing
“W
hat’s
Lef
t “
wou
ld m
odel
th
e 9
cake
s us
ing
coun
ters
the
n re
mov
e 6
of
the
coun
ters
. To
find
the
solu
tion
stud
ents
co
unt
the
num
ber
of c
ount
ers
left
pro
babl
y to
uchi
ng e
ach
coun
ter
as t
hey
coun
t by
one
s.
For
the
Cou
nt B
ack/
Cou
nt d
own
stra
tegy
st
uden
ts n
eed
to b
e ab
le t
o co
unt
back
war
ds.
Whi
le t
his
is r
elat
ivel
y ea
sy w
ith s
mal
l num
bers
su
cces
s is
lim
ited
by t
he s
tude
nt’s
abi
lity
to
coun
t ba
ckw
ards
.
•
To
be s
ucce
ssfu
l stu
dent
s us
ing
the
‘cou
nt-
back
/cou
nt-d
own’
str
ateg
ies
need
to:
coun
t ve
rbal
ly fo
rwar
ds a
nd b
ackw
ards
from
va
riou
s st
artin
g po
ints
to
incr
ease
the
leng
th
of t
he k
now
n ve
rbal
seq
uenc
eex
tend
the
ran
ge fo
r th
e se
quen
cing
or
orde
ring
of n
umbe
r ca
rds
both
from
larg
est
to s
mal
lest
& s
mal
lest
to
larg
est
find
the
diffe
renc
e be
twee
n gr
oups
of o
bjec
ts
whe
re t
he s
ize
of e
ach
of t
he g
roup
s is
with
in
thei
r ve
rbal
seq
uenc
e lim
its
reco
gnis
e th
e co
mm
utat
ivity
of a
dditi
on a
nd
the
non-
com
mut
ativ
ity o
f sub
trac
tion
use
the
‘cou
nt o
n’ s
trat
egy
from
the
larg
er o
r m
ost
effic
ient
num
ber.
choo
se b
etw
een
coun
t ba
ck, c
ount
bac
k to
an
d co
unt
on fo
r su
btra
ctio
n de
pend
ing
on
the
size
of t
he n
umbe
rs
• • • • • •
Page 82 Working Out What Works
2.5G
row
th P
oint
sIn
crem
enta
l ste
psSu
gges
ted
activ
ities
or
stra
tegi
es
For
the
prev
ious
exa
mpl
e a
stud
ent
usin
g th
e C
ount
Bac
k /C
ount
dow
n st
rate
gy m
ay
put
out
9 co
unte
rs o
r m
ay t
alk
abou
t “s
eein
g it
my
brai
n” (
i.e. v
isua
lisin
g ei
ther
a g
roup
of
cou
nter
s or
Ten
s Fr
ame)
. The
y us
ually
sa
y th
e st
artin
g nu
mbe
r (u
sed
to lo
cate
th
emse
lves
) th
en c
ount
bac
kwar
ds k
eepi
ng
trac
k of
the
num
ber
of c
ount
s (s
omet
imes
w
ith t
heir
fing
ers)
. In
this
cas
e st
uden
ts
say
“9”
then
“8,
7, 6
, 5, 4
, 3. T
he a
nsw
er is
th
ree”
.
For
the
Cou
nt d
own
to/C
ount
bac
k to
str
ateg
y th
e st
uden
t is
det
erm
inin
g th
e di
ffere
nce
betw
een
two
num
bers
. St
uden
ts u
sing
thi
s st
rate
gy t
end
to w
ork
men
tally
(or
tal
k ab
out
visu
alis
ing
obje
cts)
. Fo
r ex
ampl
e fo
r th
e ta
sk 1
9 -
13 s
tude
nts
use
coun
ting
back
war
ds t
o co
unt
from
19
to
13: 1
9, 1
8, 1
7, 1
6, 1
5, 1
4, 1
3 w
hile
kee
ping
tr
ack
of t
he n
umbe
r of
num
bers
cou
nted
(in
th
is c
ase
6)If
the
stud
ent
can
choo
se t
he m
ost
appr
opri
ate
stra
tegy
for
the
task
e.g
. cou
nt
back
for
17 -
3 o
r co
unt
back
to
for
17
- 13
the
y th
en r
ealis
e th
at a
dditi
on a
nd
subt
ract
ion
are
inve
rse.
For
exa
mpl
e: “
I kno
w
that
13
take
aw
ay 1
1 is
2 b
ecau
se 1
1 an
d 2
is 1
3”.
• • •
At
this
sta
ge t
he e
xpec
tatio
n w
ould
be
that
ch
ildre
n do
not
hav
e to
cou
nt e
ach
indi
vidu
al
num
ber
as t
hey
mov
e th
emse
lves
or
thei
r co
unte
r bu
t ar
e ab
le t
o m
ove
eith
er b
ackw
ards
or
forw
ards
in o
ne ju
mp.
Fo
r ex
ampl
e, p
lay
gam
es li
ke S
nake
s an
d La
dder
s, L
udo,
and
ask
:W
ho m
oved
furt
her,
W
ho’s
clo
sest
to
one?
20?
H
ow m
any
do y
ou n
eed
to r
oll t
o ge
t to
…?
• • •
Working Out What Works Page 83
2.5
Gro
wth
Poi
nts
Incr
emen
tal s
teps
Sugg
este
d ac
tiviti
es o
r st
rate
gies
4.
Basi
c st
rate
gies
(do
uble
s, c
omm
utat
ivity
, ad
ding
10,
ten
s fa
cts,
oth
er k
now
n fa
cts)
Giv
en a
n ad
ditio
n or
sub
trac
tion
prob
lem
, st
rate
gies
suc
h as
dou
bles
, com
mut
ativ
ity,
addi
ng 1
0, t
ens
fact
s, a
nd o
ther
kno
wn
fact
s ar
e ev
iden
t.
Ten
s fa
cts:
5
+ 5
9
+ 1
8
+ 2
7
+ 3
6
+ 4
D
oubl
es:
1 +
1
2 +
2
3 +
3
4 +
4
5 +
5
10 +
10
Ten
s Fa
cts
4 +
6
3 +
7
2 +
8
1 +
9D
oubl
es:
6 +
6
7 +
7
8 +
8
9 +
Com
mut
ativ
ity 6
+ 3
is th
e sa
me
as 3
+ 6
Add
ing
10 w
ithou
t co
untin
g by
one
s.
• • • • • •
Act
iviti
es s
houl
d in
clud
e ta
sks
such
as:
How
are
6 +
3 a
nd 3
+ 6
the
sam
e? H
ow a
re
they
diff
eren
t? S
how
me!
Dou
bles
: Rol
l a d
ice
or p
ick
a ca
rd a
nd t
he
first
stu
dent
to
call
out
the
num
ber
that
is
doub
le t
he n
umbe
r sh
own
gets
a p
oint
. Fir
st
stud
ent
to g
ain
... p
oint
s is
the
win
ner!
Use
100
s gr
id t
o ad
d 10
. (D
oes
stud
ent
coun
t by
one
s or
can
the
y ad
d 10
in o
ne
jum
p? )
How
man
y w
ays
can
you
mak
e 10
?T
wo
num
bers
hav
e a
diffe
renc
e of
one
. Wha
t m
ight
the
num
bers
be?
Is 6
- 3
the
sam
e as
3 -
6?
How
do
you
know
? Sh
ow m
e.
• • • • • •
5.
Der
ived
str
ateg
ies
(nea
r do
uble
s, a
ddin
g 9,
bui
ld t
o ne
xt t
en, f
act
fam
ilies
, int
uitiv
e st
rate
gies
) Giv
en a
n ad
ditio
n or
sub
trac
tion
prob
lem
, st
rate
gies
suc
h as
nea
r do
uble
s, a
ddin
g 9,
bu
ild t
o ne
xt t
en, f
act
fam
ilies
and
intu
itive
st
rate
gies
are
evi
dent
.
Nea
r do
uble
s: e
.g. G
iven
7 +
6 I
can
add
6 +
6
+ 1
or
I can
add
7 +
7 a
nd t
ake
one
away
Add
9: G
iven
17
+ 9
I ca
n ad
d 10
and
tak
e on
e aw
ayBu
ild t
o ne
xt t
en: t
o ad
d 16
+ 7
I kn
ow 7
=
4 +
3 s
o I a
dd 4
to
16 t
o m
ake
20 t
hen
add
the
3Fa
ct fa
mili
es: I
f I k
now
3 +
9 =
12
then
I al
so
know
9 +
3 =
12
& 1
2 -
3 =
9 a
nd 1
2 -
9 =
3In
tuiti
ve s
trat
egie
s: A
re t
he s
trat
egie
s st
uden
ts h
ave
deve
lope
d fo
r th
emse
lves
. U
sual
ly d
iffer
ent
to t
hose
tau
ght
at s
choo
l.
• • • • •
Suita
ble
activ
ities
for
this
leve
l can
be
foun
d in
res
ourc
es s
uch
as N
umbe
r Se
nse
(Alis
tair
M
cInt
osh
et a
l) w
hich
are
ava
ilabl
e at
mos
t sc
hool
boo
k su
pplie
rs.
Page 84 Working Out What Works
2.5G
row
th P
oint
sIn
crem
enta
l ste
psSu
gges
ted
activ
ities
or
stra
tegi
es
6.
Exte
ndin
g an
d ap
plyi
ng a
dditi
on a
nd
subt
ract
ion
usin
g ba
sic,
der
ived
and
intu
itive
st
rate
gies
Giv
en a
ran
ge o
f tas
ks (
incl
udin
g m
ulti-
digi
t nu
mbe
rs),
can
solv
e th
em m
enta
lly,
usin
g th
e ap
prop
riat
e st
rate
gies
and
a c
lear
un
ders
tand
ing
of k
ey c
once
pts.
List
all
the
diffe
rent
str
ateg
ies
that
cou
ld b
e us
ed t
o so
lve:
39
+ 4
3 =
34
+ _
=
51
51 -
27
=R
ecor
d th
ese
stra
tegi
es o
n bl
ank
num
ber
lines
• •
4.
Mul
tiplic
atio
n an
d D
ivis
ion
0.
Not
App
aren
t N
ot y
et a
ble
to c
reat
e an
d co
unt
the
tota
l of
sev
eral
sm
all g
roup
s.
Sugg
este
d ac
tiviti
esSt
uden
ts a
t th
is le
vel p
roba
bly
need
ass
ista
nce
mak
ing
the
grou
ps a
nd t
hen
coun
ting
them
. St
uden
ts n
eed
ongo
ing
prac
tice
with
cou
ntin
g ba
ckw
ards
and
forw
ards
by
ones
and
num
bers
ot
her
than
one
.M
ake
two
smal
l gro
ups
usin
g co
unte
rs,
bloc
ks, s
hells
, far
m a
nim
als
...H
ow m
any
alto
geth
er?
Dra
w t
wo
smal
l gro
ups
(of b
ees,
flow
ers,
fr
ogs,
pet
s, a
nim
als
...)
How
man
y al
toge
ther
?M
ake
and
draw
sev
eral
sm
all g
roup
s.H
ow m
any
alto
geth
er?
• • •
1.
Cou
ntin
g gr
oup
item
s as
one
s To
find
the
tota
l in
a m
ultip
le g
roup
si
tuat
ion,
ref
ers
to in
divi
dual
item
s on
ly.
Stud
ents
at
this
leve
l can
mak
e an
d dr
aw t
he
grou
ps a
nd b
ut m
ay n
eed
assi
stan
ce c
ount
ing
them
. Suc
cess
will
dep
end
on t
heir
flue
ncy
with
th
e ve
rbal
seq
uenc
e. S
tude
nts
need
ong
oing
pr
actic
e w
ith c
ount
ing
back
war
ds a
nd fo
rwar
ds
by o
nes
and
num
bers
oth
er t
han
one.
Mak
e an
d dr
aw t
wo
smal
l gro
ups.
•
Working Out What Works Page 85
2.5
Gro
wth
Poi
nts
Incr
emen
tal s
teps
Sugg
este
d ac
tiviti
es o
r st
rate
gies
How
man
y al
toge
ther
?an
d dr
aw s
ever
al s
mal
l gro
ups.
H
ow m
any
alto
geth
er?
Rol
l tw
o 6-
side
d di
ce. O
ne d
ice
will
be
for
the
num
ber
of g
roup
s, t
he o
ther
for
the
num
ber
in e
ach
grou
p.Pl
ay t
he G
roup
s G
ame.
Tea
cher
cal
ls o
ut
(or
hold
s up
giv
en n
umbe
r of
fing
ers)
and
st
uden
ts h
ave
to m
ake
a gr
oup
of t
hat
size
.
• • •
2.
Mod
ellin
g m
ultip
licat
ion
and
divi
sion
(al
l ob
ject
s pe
rcei
ved)
M
odel
s al
l obj
ects
to
solv
e m
ultip
licat
ive
and
shar
ing
situ
atio
ns.
Stud
ents
mod
el a
ll m
ultip
licat
ion
and
divi
sion
ta
sks
with
con
cret
e m
ater
ials
and
use
s sk
ip
coun
ting
to d
eter
min
e th
e to
tal
Stud
ents
mod
el a
ll m
ultip
licat
ion
and
divi
sion
ta
sks
with
con
cret
e m
ater
ials
and
use
s kn
own
mul
tiplic
atio
n fa
cts
and
skip
cou
ntin
g to
det
erm
ine
the
tota
lSt
uden
ts m
odel
all
mul
tiplic
atio
n an
d di
visi
on t
asks
with
con
cret
e m
ater
ials
and
m
ultip
licat
ion
fact
s to
det
erm
ine
the
tota
l
• • •
Stud
ents
at
this
leve
l can
mak
e an
d dr
aw t
he
grou
ps a
nd u
se s
kip
coun
ting
to d
eter
min
e th
e to
tal.
Stud
ents
nee
d on
goin
g pr
actic
e w
ith
coun
ting
back
war
ds a
nd fo
rwar
ds b
y on
es a
nd
num
bers
oth
er t
han
one.
Mak
e an
d dr
aw g
roup
s.H
ow m
any
alto
geth
er?
Stud
ent
says
som
ethi
ng li
ke “
3, 6
, 9, 1
2, 1
5”M
ake
and
draw
gro
ups.
How
man
y al
toge
ther
?Sh
are
12 a
pple
s be
twee
n 4
peop
le.
Shar
e 12
cou
nter
s be
twee
n 3
Lego
dol
ls.
Mak
e ar
rays
with
sin
gle
colo
ured
cou
nter
s up
to
6 x
6Pl
ay t
he G
roup
s G
ame
(1).
Tea
cher
cal
ls o
ut
(or
hold
s up
giv
en n
umbe
r of
fing
ers)
and
st
uden
ts h
ave
to m
ake
a gr
oup
of t
hat
size
.Pl
ay t
he G
roup
s G
ame
(2).
Tea
cher
cal
ls o
ut
(or
hold
s up
giv
en n
umbe
r of
fing
ers)
and
st
uden
ts h
ave
to m
ake
that
num
ber
of g
roup
s.
• • • •
Page 8� Working Out What Works
2.5G
row
th P
oint
sIn
crem
enta
l ste
psSu
gges
ted
activ
ities
or
stra
tegi
es
3.
Abs
trac
ting
mul
tiplic
atio
n an
d di
visi
on
Solv
es m
ultip
licat
ion
and
divi
sion
pro
blem
s w
here
obj
ects
are
not
all
mod
elle
d or
pe
rcei
ved.
Stud
ents
mod
el s
ome
of t
he m
ultip
licat
ion
and
divi
sion
tas
ks w
ith c
oncr
ete
mat
eria
ls a
nd
uses
ski
p co
untin
g to
det
erm
ine
the
tota
l. E.
g.
to m
ake
6 gr
oups
of 5
the
stu
dent
may
pla
ce
out
6 co
unte
rs a
nd t
hen
touc
h ea
ch c
ount
er
as t
hey
coun
t by
five
s: 5
,10,
15, 2
0, 2
5, 3
0St
uden
ts m
odel
som
e of
the
mul
tiplic
atio
n an
d di
visi
on t
asks
with
con
cret
e m
ater
ials
an
d us
es s
kip
coun
ting
or m
ultip
licat
ion
fact
s to
det
erm
ine
the
tota
l. E.
g. t
o m
ake
9 gr
oups
of
5 t
he s
tude
nt m
ay p
lace
out
9 c
ount
ers
and
then
say
I kn
ow 5
gro
ups
of 5
are
25
then
tou
ch e
ach
of t
he fo
ur c
ount
ers
left
as
they
cou
nt b
y fiv
es: 2
5, 3
0, 3
5, 4
0, 4
5St
uden
ts m
odel
som
e of
the
mul
tiplic
atio
n an
d di
visi
on t
asks
with
con
cret
e m
ater
ials
an
d us
es m
ultip
licat
ion
fact
s to
det
erm
ine
the
tota
l. E.
g. t
o m
ake
9 gr
oups
of 5
the
stu
dent
m
ay p
lace
out
9 c
ount
ers
and
then
say
I kn
ow
9 gr
oups
of 5
are
45.
• • •
Stud
ents
at
this
leve
l onl
y ne
ed p
art
of t
he t
ask
mod
elle
d as
the
y ca
n th
en u
se o
ther
str
ateg
ies
to c
ompl
ete
the
task
Mak
e ar
rays
with
sin
gle
colo
ured
cou
nter
s up
to
6 x
6M
ake
arra
ys w
ith s
ingl
e co
lour
ed c
ount
ers
up
to 1
0 x
10U
se r
ecta
ngul
ar a
rray
s up
to
6 x
6U
se r
ecta
ngul
ar a
rray
s up
to
10 x
10
Cou
ntin
g gr
ids
Mul
tiplic
atio
n G
rids
(up
to
6 x
6)M
ultip
licat
ion
grid
s (u
p to
10
x 10
)Pl
ay g
ames
suc
h as
Mul
to (
2)Pl
ay t
he G
roup
s G
ame
(1).
Tea
cher
cal
ls o
ut
(or
hold
s up
giv
en n
umbe
r of
fing
ers)
and
st
uden
ts h
ave
to m
ake
a gr
oup
of t
hat
size
.Pl
ay t
he G
roup
s G
ame
(2).
Tea
cher
cal
ls
out
(or
hold
s up
giv
en n
umbe
r of
fing
ers)
an
d st
uden
ts h
ave
to m
ake
that
num
ber
of
grou
ps.
• • • • • • • • • •
4.
Basi
c, d
eriv
ed a
nd in
tuiti
ve s
trat
egie
s fo
r m
ultip
licat
ion
Can
sol
ve a
ran
ge o
f mul
tiplic
atio
n pr
oble
ms
usin
g st
rate
gies
suc
h as
com
mut
ativ
ity, s
kip
coun
ting
and
build
ing
up fr
om k
now
n fa
cts.
Stud
ents
use
a v
arie
ty o
f str
ateg
ies
to s
olve
m
ultip
licat
ion
and
divi
sion
tas
ks.
skip
cou
ntin
g: t
o w
ork
out
7 gr
oups
of
4: 4
, 8, 1
2, 1
6, 2
0, 2
4, 2
8 (k
eeps
tra
ck o
f th
e nu
mbe
r of
cou
nts
mad
e)co
mm
utat
ivity
: To
solv
e 5
grou
ps o
f 9
mig
ht u
se 9
gro
ups
of 5
bec
ause
the
y ca
n co
unt
by fi
ves.
Build
up
from
kno
wn
fact
s w
ould
incl
ude
thin
gs li
ke: t
o so
lve
40 x
6 I
know
4 x
6 is
24
so
I mul
tiply
by
10 t
o ge
t 24
0
•
− − −
Stud
ents
at
this
leve
l can
use
a v
arie
ty o
f st
rate
gies
to
com
plet
e m
ultip
licat
ion
task
s. A
t th
is s
tage
stu
dent
s sh
ould
be
able
to
mak
e,
draw
and
exp
lain
wor
k on
mul
tiplic
atio
n.
The
y pr
obab
ly h
ave
auto
mat
ic r
ecal
l of t
heir
m
ultip
licat
ion
tabl
es.
Mak
e ar
rays
with
sin
gle
colo
ured
cou
nter
s up
to
10
x 10
Mak
e ar
rays
with
sin
gle
colo
ured
cou
nter
s of
m
ore
than
10
x 10
Use
rec
tang
ular
arr
ays
of m
ore
than
10
x 10
• • •
Working Out What Works Page 87
2.5
Gro
wth
Poi
nts
Incr
emen
tal s
teps
Sugg
este
d ac
tiviti
es o
r st
rate
gies
Cou
ntin
g gr
ids
Mul
tiplic
atio
n gr
ids
(up
to 1
0 x
10 a
nd
beyo
nd)
Play
gam
es s
uch
as M
ulto
(1)
Play
the
Gro
ups
Gam
e (1
). T
each
er c
alls
out
(o
r ho
lds
up g
iven
num
ber
of fi
nger
s) a
nd
stud
ents
hav
e to
mak
e a
grou
p of
tha
t si
ze.
Play
the
Gro
ups
Gam
e (2
). T
each
er c
alls
ou
t (o
r ho
lds
up g
iven
num
ber
of fi
nger
s)
and
stud
ents
hav
e to
mak
e th
at n
umbe
r of
gr
oups
.
• • • • •
5.
Basi
c, d
eriv
ed a
nd in
tuiti
ve s
trat
egie
s fo
r di
visi
on
Can
sol
ve a
ran
ge o
f div
isio
n pr
oble
ms
usin
g st
rate
gies
suc
h as
fact
fam
ilies
and
bui
ldin
g up
from
kno
wn
fact
s.
Stud
ents
at
this
leve
l can
use
a v
arie
ty o
f st
rate
gies
to
com
plet
e di
visi
on t
asks
. At
this
st
age
stud
ents
sho
uld
be a
ble
to m
ake,
dra
w
and
expl
ain
wor
k on
div
isio
n. T
hey
prob
ably
ha
ve a
utom
atic
rec
all o
f the
ir m
ultip
licat
ion
tabl
es a
nd u
se t
hese
to
solv
e di
visi
on t
asks
.M
ake
arra
ys w
ith s
ingl
e co
lour
ed c
ount
ers
up
to 1
0 x
10. e
.g. H
ow m
any
... in
...?
Mak
e ar
rays
with
sin
gle
colo
ured
cou
nter
s of
mor
e th
an 1
0 x
10 e
.g. H
ow m
any
boxe
s w
ould
I ne
ed fo
r 10
8 eg
gs if
the
re a
re 1
2 eg
gs in
a b
ox?
Use
rec
tang
ular
arr
ays
of m
ore
than
10
x 10
Cou
ntin
g gr
ids
(up
to 2
00)
Mul
tiplic
atio
n gr
ids
(up
to 1
0 x
10 a
nd
beyo
nd)
Play
gam
es s
uch
as M
ulto
(1)
Play
the
Gro
ups
Gam
e (1
). T
each
er c
alls
out
(o
r ho
lds
up g
iven
num
ber
of fi
nger
s) a
nd
stud
ents
hav
e to
mak
e a
grou
p of
tha
t si
ze.
• • • • • • •
Page 88 Working Out What Works
Gro
wth
Poi
nts
Incr
emen
tal s
teps
Sugg
este
d ac
tiviti
es o
r st
rate
gies
Play
the
Gro
ups
Gam
e (2
). T
each
er c
alls
ou
t (o
r ho
lds
up g
iven
num
ber
of fi
nger
s)
and
stud
ents
hav
e to
mak
e th
at n
umbe
r of
gr
oups
.
•
6.
Exte
ndin
g an
d ap
plyi
ng m
ultip
licat
ion
and
divi
sion
Can
sol
ve a
ran
ge o
f mul
tiplic
atio
n an
d di
visi
on p
robl
ems
(incl
udin
g m
ulti-
digi
t nu
mbe
rs)
in p
ract
ical
con
text
s.
Suita
ble
activ
ities
for
this
leve
l can
be
foun
d in
res
ourc
es s
uch
as N
umbe
r Se
nse
(Alis
tair
M
cInt
osh
et a
l) w
hich
are
ava
ilabl
e at
mos
t sc
hool
boo
k su
pplie
rs.
2.5
Working Out What Works Page 89
(Kerry-Anne Hoad, ACER)
Direct Instruction Component of the Numeracy Intervention programThe Direct Instruction component
of WOWW Numeracy Intervention
program was provided by an Australian-
designed numeracy program that has
been successfully trialled over a period
of more than five years (Farkota 2003a).
It is a comprehensive numeracy program
that covers 20 different strands of
numeracy knowledge (Farkota 2003b).
The program covers:
Addition
Subtraction
Multiplication
Division
Number patterns
Equations and inverse operations
Whole number properties
Fractions
Decimals
Measurement
Space
Geometry
Average, percentage, ratio, chance
Numeracy language
Money
Time
Algebra
Visual perception
Data analysis, and
Problem solving.
Each pre-scripted lesson contains a
question on each of these strands and is
designed around the Australian National
Mathematics Curriculum Profile. The
program content is ideal for upper
primary and lower secondary. An
adapted version of the program will be
developed specifically for the WOWW
Numeracy Intervention program to
ensure content suitability for grade 4.
The lessons start at base level and
develop greater complexity as students
The WOWW Numeracy Intervention program 3.1
The WOWW intervention program is a combined, Direct Instruction and Strategy Instruction,
approach. This is consistent with the findings of the Literature Review that identified effective
practices for teaching students with learning difficulties in years 4, 5 and 6.
It comprises Numeracy Intervention, Reading Intervention and Spelling Intervention programs.
Page 90 Working Out What Works
move through the lessons. The initial
lessons assume nothing in terms of
student academic level and are able to
accommodate a very broad range of
student abilities within the Grade 4, 5
and 6 classroom. All students’ skills
are elevated, through this program,
regardless of their initial skills and
knowledge. It can be delivered in a
whole class format and so is ideal for
students for whom withdrawal from the
classroom is not desirable.
The program is designed for daily lessons
of 15-20 minutes with an additional 5-10
minutes for instant feedback, diagnosis
and correction procedures.
Timetabling decisions will be made
at the discretion of the school and
with consideration to other school
management issues. In many schools
this program is implemented in the first
period each day, for example, 9.00-9.30.
It often serves the dual purpose of a
focused numeracy session as well as a
structured settling period.
All lessons are pre-scripted and the
program has been developed in such a
way that teachers, regardless of their
level of numerical expertise, will find it
easy to implement.
The program is ideally suited to students
with learning difficulties as:
it does not require withdrawal from
the classroom;
it allows all students to work on the
same material simultaneously which
supports group identification and a
sense of inclusiveness;
it is delivered at a brisk pace to
reduce opportunities for ‘off task’
behaviour;
it provides immediate feedback and
correction;
it provides optimum success
opportunities;
it is provided in a controlled
environment where distractions are
eliminated or minimised;
it is presented both orally and visually;
it encourages students to focus and to
extend their attending behaviour; and
it increases students’ self-efficacy and
motivation to learn.
Specific training in Direct Instruction
techniques are required to implement
this program effectively.
•
•
•
•
•
•
••
•
3.1
Working Out What Works Page 91
Strategy Instruction Component of the Numeracy Intervention programThe Strategy Instruction component of
the WOWW Numeracy Intervention
program is centred on the specific
student’s needs. The student’s
knowledge, skills and existing strategies
will be the guide for the selection of new
strategies to be taught. The teacher will
work out what strategies are needed and
how they will be introduced, taught and
reinforced.
The selection, or design, of numeracy
learning strategies for each student will
be guided by:
student assessment results which
determine the student’s current skill
and knowledge level;
the teacher’s understanding of the
process of acquiring numeracy skills
(Chapter 2) and consequently where
errors are occurring and what
teaching steps are required;
the teacher’s observations of how
the student learns (Chapter 2) and
consequently how best to present
learning materials;
the teacher’s knowledge of available
learning strategies (Appendix 2); and
•
•
•
•
the teacher’s knowledge of how
to teach the learning strategy
(Chapter 2).
The Elementary Maths Mastery program
is succinct and complements rather
than replaces the teacher’s regular
numeracy program. This allows the
Strategy Instruction to be conducted
in the context of the teacher’s regular
numeracy program. Often this
regular numeracy program follows
on immediately after the Elementary
Maths Mastery program but this is not a
requirement and the regular numeracy
program may be timetabled for a
different period during the day.
The numeracy learning strategies
selected, or designed, for the student
with learning difficulties may also be
judged as useful for other students and
could therefore be incorporated into
whole class or small group numeracy
work. To support generalisation of the
numeracy learning strategy it is useful
to find opportunities for practice and
reinforcement across other curriculum
areas where numeracy knowledge is
required.
•
3.1
Page 92 Working Out What Works
Learning strategies can be taught
auditorily/orally as well as visually, using
auditory/oral supports such as rhythms
and rhymes or visual supports such as
classroom posters and pictures.
The Literature Review identified two
strategies that have been found to be
effective for students with learning
difficulties - advance organisation and
explicit practice:
Advance organisers provide students
with a mental scaffold with which to
build understanding of information.
Thus, providing statements about
the content to be learned provides
a structure to students for new
information, and for relating this new
information to information they already
possess.
Explicit practice focuses on activities
that relate to distributed review and
practice, repeated practice, sequenced
reviews, daily feedback, and/or weekly
reviews. In terms of explicit practice,
there is strong evidence to suggest that
distributed practice is more effective
for retention than the intensive practice
of newly-learned information that often
occurs in the early stages of learning (for
example, Dempster,1987).
It is recommended that these two
strategies be incorporated into the
strategy instruction component of this
intervention program to complement the
cognitive strategies selected.
3.1
Working Out What Works Page 93
(Kerry-Anne Hoad, ACER)
Direct Instruction component of the Reading Intervention programThe Direct Instruction component of the
WOWW Reading Intervention program
will be provided by a corrective reading
program whose effectiveness with
students with learning difficulties has
been well evidenced in both Australian
and international research studies.
Corrective Reading (Englemann,
Meyer, Carnine, Becker, Eisele &
Johnson 2001) covers both decoding
and comprehension programs, each
with its own student book, student
workbook, teacher’s guide and teacher’s
presentation book. Since the students
in this intervention program have
experienced persistent difficulties with
reading over five years or more the
decoding strand of the Corrective
Reading program has been selected for
trial. With familiarity with this program
and knowledge of their students and
their particular environment, teachers
may choose to trial the comprehension
strand after the completion of this trial
intervention program.
The decoding strand consists of four
programs each of which can be used
independently of the others. The four
programs are:
Decoding A
Decoding B1
Decoding B2 and
Decoding C.
Each program is a core program and
contains all the materials teachers
need and provides students with all the
practices they need to learn skills. Each
decoding program consists of 65 pre-
scripted lessons and so can be covered
in around 17 weeks - under two terms
in most States.
Lessons are designed to be delivered
in small groups of students at the same
level or one a one-to-one basis. Paired
reading is a feature of this program so a
small group would ideally consist of an
even number of students. Where the
instruction is on a one- to-one basis the
teacher can act as a student’s partner.
The Corrective Reading group can be
taught in the classroom while other small
groups are working on team projects if
necessary. However, since reading aloud
and listening are important elements of
The WOWWReading Intervention program 3.2
Page 94 Working Out What Works
the program a quiet environment free
from distractions is preferable. It may
therefore, be necessary to withdraw
the students to work together in their
small group. Withdrawal times must
be carefully considered to ensure that
it is not a de facto punishment due to
students missing out on a favourite class.
Withdrawal time can be enjoyable for
the students as the group forms into a
cohesive social group who experience
success together.
The lessons will take around 40-50
minutes and are recommended to be
taught five times a week. If lesson
frequency falls to three sessions a week
the rate of progress will be affected and
students may not have a chance to ‘catch
up’ as effectively as they would with daily
lessons.
In some circumstances the school and
family work in partnership with the
school providing one or two sessions
per week and the family providing two
or three sessions per week at home.
It is very important to the success of
this program that teachers follow the
script and the instructions consistently
and unerringly. As it is a prescribed
program and recalling and mastering
all the elements can be difficult, it is
recommended that teachers work
together with colleagues in the school,
or parents in partnership, to provide
peer support as they move towards
mastery. If there are two or more
teachers or instructors learning how
to implement the Corrective Reading
program it is very useful to work
together to remind and rehearse the
strategies used such as the signalling
and the wording. If there is only one
teacher learning and implementing the
Corrective Reading program she may
need to enlist the support of a colleague
within the school to observe and
support her mastery of the instruction
method. To facilitate this collegiate
support as teachers move towards
mastery of the Corrective Reading
implementation, a Teacher Skill Form
has been provided in Appendix 3. It is
recommended that teachers observe
their colleague implementing the
program and provide feedback as they
move towards mastery of the program.
Poor ‘treatment fidelity’ can seriously
undermine the success of the program.
‘Treatment fidelity’ refers to the
accuracy and consistency with which the
program is implemented.
3.2
Working Out What Works Page 95
Timetabling is at the discretion
of the classroom teacher but it is
recommended that the Corrective
Reading program be implemented at a
regular time each day.
A time when students are reasonably
fresh and able to concentrate is
desirable. Corrective Reading has often
been scheduled during the first period
after morning recess.
To place the student in the most
appropriate strand of the Corrective
Reading Program students complete a
brief decoding placement test before
commencing the program. Students
with learning difficulties in years 4, 5 and
6 are often found to be at the level of
Decoding B1. However, some students
may place at Decoding A or Decoding
B2.
Decoding A is appropriate for students
from grade 3 upwards who virtually lack
any decoding skills. These students may
recognise a few words but functionally
they are non-readers. They read so
haltingly that they cannot understand
what they read. Decoding A teaches
word attack skills such as phonemic
awareness, sound-symbol identification,
sounding out, regular and irregular
words and sentence reading.
Decoding B1 is appropriate for students
from grade 3 upwards who do not
read at an adequate rate and confuse
words. These students guess at words
and have trouble with words such as
what, that, a, and the when these
words appear in a sentence. Decoding
B1 teaches decoding strategies such as
letter and word discrimination, sound
and letter combinations, word endings,
story reading, literal and inferential
comprehension.
Decoding B2 is appropriate for students
in grade 4 upwards who have some
decoding problems, who do not read
at an adequate rate, who still tend to
confuse words with similar spellings,
and who tend to make word-guessing
mistakes. Decoding B2 teaches similar
skills as Decoding B1 but at a more
advanced level.
The program is ideally suited to students
with learning difficulties as:
it provides for small group work
where group learning as well as
individual learning is emphasised;
it can be delivered to a group of
students at a similar level who
can progress together and where
individual differences are within a
narrow range;
•
•
3.2
Page 9� Working Out What Works
it can be delivered to an individual
student in a one-to-one format;
it is delivered at a brisk pace to
reduce opportunities for ‘off task’
behaviour;
it provides immediate feedback and
correction;
it provides optimum success
opportunities;
it is provided in a controlled
environment where distractions are
eliminated or minimised;
it is presented both orally and visually;
and
it increases students’ self efficacy and
motivation to learn.
Specific training in Direct Instruction
techniques is required to implement this
program effectively.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
3.2
Working Out What Works Page 97
Strategy Instruction component of the Reading Intervention programThe Strategy Instruction component
of the WOWW Reading Intervention
program is centred on the specific
student’s needs. The student’s
knowledge, skills and existing strategies
will be the guide for the selection of new
strategies to be taught. The teacher will
work out what strategies are needed and
how they will be introduced, taught and
reinforced.
The Strategy Instruction component
of the WOWW Reading Intervention
program will rely on:
student assessment results which
determine the student’s current skill
and knowledge level;
the teacher’s understanding of the
process of acquiring reading skills
(Chapter 2) and consequently where
errors are occurring and what the
next step for the student is;
the teacher’s observations of how
the student learns (Chapter 2) and
consequently how best to present
learning materials;
the teacher’s knowledge of a range
of learning strategies available
(Appendix 2); and
•
•
•
•
the teacher’s knowledge of how
to teach the learning strategy
(Chapter 2).
The Corrective Reading program
takes 40-50 minutes at least four
times a week. When possible it is
recommended that the classroom
teacher conduct the Corrective Reading
program as it provides her with an ideal
opportunity to observe the student’s
approach to reading and the skills that
he demonstrates. This knowledge is
very useful to the selection or design
of appropriate learning strategies.
However, the lessons may be delivered
by parents at home to support the
school program. Teachers and parents
can work in partnership to deliver the
Corrective Reading Program and also to
consider appropriate learning strategies
for the student.
The selected learning strategies could
be introduced to the student, and
the whole intervention group, at the
end of the Corrective Reading lesson.
Alternatively, the teacher could use a
separate session or classroom time to
introduce the learning strategy to the
intervention group, allowing adequate
time for explanation, modelling and
•
3.2
Page 98 Working Out What Works
opportunities for practice. These
strategies can be practiced and
reinforced during the many opportunities
for reading that occur across all
curriculum areas. Learning strategies
are required at strategic moments in the
student’s learning. These moments are
not restricted to a particular subject area
or period on the timetable. Generalised
use is an important aspect of reinforcing
the strategy and developing the student
as an independent learner.
3.2
Working Out What Works Page 99
(Kerry-Anne Hoad, ACER)
Direct Instruction component of the Spelling Intervention programThe Direct Instruction component of
the WOWW Spelling Intervention
program will be provided by the Dixon
and Engelmann (1999) Spelling Mastery
program.
This is a strategy based Direct
Instruction program and utilises three
key strategic approaches to the teaching
of spelling – the phonemic, the whole
word and the morphemic approaches.
The combination of these three key
approaches is designed to maximise
the benefits and balance the limitations
of each approach. For upper primary
school each of these three approaches
is taught concurrently and review of
prior learning is built in throughout the
program.
Spelling Mastery is a program organised
over six levels and is suitable for
students from Grade1 – 6. The
progression through the Spelling Mastery
program from level A to Level F begins
with an emphasis on the sound-symbol
strategy of the phonemic approach then
combines with the whole word approach
to teach high-frequency irregularly
spelled words and moves towards an
emphasis on morphemic strategies of
building words through the combination
of prefixes, suffixes, word bases and
non-word bases.
The Spelling Mastery program
recommends that students are placed at
the appropriate level commensurate with
their skills as assessed by a Placement
Test which is included in the Teacher
Presentation Book. “An ideal of mastery
instruction is to place students at their
appropriate skill levels, which may
not correspond to their grade levels.”
(Dixon & Englemann, 1999). While this
is a recommendation of the program it is
also recognised that within existing class
structures this is sometimes impractical
and that the Placement Test can serve
as a guide to class groupings. Spelling
Mastery has been implemented very
successfully with small homogenous
groups as well as with whole class
groupings where the level (A – F) has
been determined by the majority rule.
Spelling Mastery lessons are designed
to be taught daily with lessons taking
approximately 20 minutes. For upper
The WOWWSpelling Intervention program 3.3
Page 100 Working Out What Works
primary school the Spelling Mastery
program consists of 120 lessons. Level
A, designed for Grade 1, has 60 lessons.
Lessons are delivered by the teacher
according to the script in the Teacher
Presentation Book and supported by
exercises in the Student Workbook.
The scripts are designed to keep the
instructional language consistent and the
presentation of material faultless.
Student responses can be delivered by
the whole class, part of the class or by
individuals in whatever way supports
the teacher to gain the most effective
diagnostic information on student skill
level. It is suggested that during whole
group responses teachers move through
the class to listen to individual student’s
responses. The Spelling Mastery
program recommends the use of signals
to prompt the whole group response.
Signals may include a pen tap, a click, an
expectant pause or whatever strategy
teachers choose to indicate to students
that a group response is required.
Corrections are an important element
of Spelling Mastery as they provide not
only immediate feedback for students
but also a correct model for future
performance. Whole group corrections
are designed to provide immediate
corrective feedback for those students
who need it as well as pre-correction
for some students and reinforcement for
others. A method for corrections that is
based on the teacher’s understanding of
the degree of difficulty for the students
is outlined in the Teacher Presentation
Book.
The key features of the delivery of the
Spelling Mastery program are:
Grouping – the Placement Test
provides an indication of the
appropriate level that will match the
students’ entry skills;
Script – the teacher presentation
book provides the teacher script for
each lesson;
Pace – this needs to be fast but not
rushed;
Success Criterion – 100% success is
required for each student at the end
of each lesson to ensure success with
later exercises;
Formative assessment – this is
achieved through listening to student
daily responses, noting students’
points if using a point system and
reviewing students’ results from the
test at the end of each 5 week cycle;
•
•
•
•
•
3.3
Working Out What Works Page 101
Correction strategies – these need
to be immediate, addressed to the
whole class and, based on difficulty of
the task, may involve a delayed test
strategy;
Signals – these need to indicate a
requirement for a group response but
the type of signal can be determined
by the teacher;
Student Motivation – this relies on
teacher attitude and interaction but
can be supported by a point system
or other student focussed motivators.
This program is ideally suited to students
with learning difficulties as well as other
students as:
it does not require withdrawal from
the classroom;
it allows students to work on the
same material simultaneously which
supports group identification and a
sense of inclusiveness;
it is delivered at a crisp pace to
reduce opportunities for “off task”
behaviours;
it provides immediate feedback and
correction;
it provides optimum success
opportunities;
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
it is provided in a controlled
environment where distractions are
eliminated or minimised;
it is presented both orally and visually;
it encourages students to focus and
to extend their attending behaviours;
and
it increases students’ self efficacy and
motivation to learn.
•
••
•
3.3
Page 102 Working Out What Works
Strategy Instruction Component of the Spelling Intervention ProgramThe Strategy Instruction component
of the WOWW Spelling Intervention
program is centered on supporting the
individual student to learn, use, recall
and evaluate strategies to help them to
spell in any context.
Strategy Instruction relies on teacher
knowledge of the student, teacher
knowledge of the content to be taught
and the teacher knowledge of a range of
strategies that might support students to
learn. While specific learning strategies
may be found in a number of prescribed
programs, successful Strategy Instruction
occurs when teachers are able to select
and teach strategies that respond to
their students’ learning needs.
The goal of Strategy Instruction is to
develop independent learners who have
strategies to support them to approach
the learning of content in a variety of
contexts. Strategies are processes, rules
or techniques to unlock content for
learners.
Strategy Instruction is generally
considered to incorporate three key
elements:
Self Regulatory Strategies
Metacognitive Strategies, and
Cognitive Strategies.
Self regulatory strategies support students
to manage their own learning, developing
independent learning skills through
preparing themselves emotionally,
physically and motivationally to approach
a learning task. Self regulatory strategies
include students setting the environment
to support their learning, choosing a
physical space to do their homework or
their reading that supports their learning
style, providing their own motivation
to learn “If I get five right then I can
watch TV/ go outside and play/ show the
teacher....”
Initially students will require guidance to
understand what works best to support
their learning, to feel motivated to
approach and to persist with a learning
task and to develop a positive sense of
themselves as successful learner.
3.3
Working Out What Works Page 103
Metacognitive strategies support students
to select an appropriate strategy, plan
how to use it, implement it and evaluate
its effectiveness and make changes
as necessary to facilitate successful
outcomes. Metacognitive strategies
also include students recognising when
a task is too hard and the application
of a strategy may be called for as well
as setting targets for their learning
and reviewing external and personal
feedback.
Cognitive strategies support students to
manage the process of learning specific
content. Spelling abounds with rules,
conventions and exceptions. To learn
spelling students must have a strategic
approach to learning and remembering
the rules, conventions and exceptions.
Spelling instruction therefore also
abounds with cognitive strategies to
learn these rules, conventions and
exceptions. Such strategies include:
Word lists,
Daily spelling drill,
Spelling lists for practise at home,
Look Say Cover Spell Check,
Writing practice,
Breaking words up into spellable chunks,
Mnemonics (PIECE of PIE, there is an
ACHE in TEACHER, tell that MISQUITO
to QUIT biting me),
Dictionary skills,
Finding words within words
(FOOTBALL, foot, all, ball),
Ask a friend,
Visualise the word,
Guess and check,
Rhyming sets (bough, plough),
Sound symbol recognition,
Developing a sight vocabulary of
frequently used words.
The plethora of strategic approaches to
spelling is an indication of two things:
There has not been one ‘standout’
approach that works consistently with
all students, and
Students are different and may
require different strategies to acquire
and retain spelling skills.
The Spelling Mastery Direct Instruction
program adopts three specific strategies
to teach spelling:
the sound-symbol strategy of the
phonemic approach,
the whole word strategy to teach
high-frequency irregularly spelled
words, and
1.
2.
•
•
3.3
Page 104 Working Out What Works
the morphemic strategy of building
words through the combination of
meaningful prefixes, suffixes, and
affixes.
Strategy Instruction and Direct
Instruction both utilise an explicit
approach to teaching. While Direct
Instruction generally focuses on the
teaching of content and Strategy
Instruction generally focuses on the
teaching of processes and techniques to
approach learning, there are similarities
in the teaching techniques.
In both Direct Instruction and Strategy
Instruction the teaching approach
includes:
Explicit description of what is to be
taught;
Step-by-step teaching;
Teacher modelling; and
Guided practice and feedback.
To complement this teaching approach
utilised in the WOWW Direct
Instruction component of the Spelling
Intervention program, the WOWW
Strategy Instruction component of the
Spelling Intervention Program will focus
on the following key elements of the
Strategy Instruction approach.
•
•
•••
A consideration of individual student’s
learning needs;
Generalisation of the strategy across
curriculum areas; and
Supported shift of control from
the teacher to the student for self
regulation, planning, implementing and
evaluating specific strategies.
1. A consideration of individual
student learning needs:
The Strategy Instruction approach
begins with individual student’s needs.
Strategies are designed to support a
student to approach a learning task
and to successfully complete it. The
selection of the appropriate strategy is
a response to the individual’s learning
needs.
The level of teacher support will also
vary according to the needs of the
student. Some students may need
greater support to self regulate their
learning – to monitor their physical
learning environment, their emotional
state or their motivational state. Some
students will need greater support to
think about their learning – to recognise
when a strategy is needed, to plan their
choice of strategies and to evaluate the
effectiveness of their choice. Some
1.
2.
3.
3.3
Working Out What Works Page 105
students may need strategies to be
presented in different ways – with an
emphasis on visual or auditory cues,
for example, or with an emphasis on
chunking information.
The teacher’s knowledge of her students
will guide the support and strategies
she provides for individual students to
manage their physical and emotional
environment as well as plan, use and
evaluate strategy use.
2. Generalisation of the strategy
across curriculum areas
Spelling, reading and writing are
inescapably linked. Spelling is a system
of encoding meaning through writing
and reading is a system of decoding
meaning. Both the encoding and
decoding of meaning is made difficult by
the abundance of rules in spelling and
the multitude of exceptions.
To write and read successfully students
need to learn and recall not only the
rules but the many exceptions.
The strategies taught to students
to assist this can be practiced in all
reading and writing exercises across the
curriculum. This will provide for rich
and varied opportunities for explicit
practice and distributed review and,
practice of the strategies across different
contexts. It will also support students
to develop metacognitive strategies as
they need to plan when they might need
to use a particular strategy and how they
might use it in a particular situation.
3. Supported shift of control from
the teacher to the student for self
regulation, planning, implementing
and evaluating specific strategies.
Since the ultimate goal of all Strategy
Instruction programs is to develop
independent learners the use of
support materials that can be accessed
independently by students is important.
After the initial teaching of a strategy,
the teacher provides opportunities for
independent distributed practice through
cross curricula reading and writing
activities and the provision of readily
accessible support materials.
Support materials such as Rules and
Exceptions posters, or Spelling Demons
posters, on classroom walls can be used
to support students to recall previous
learning and to select the appropriate
strategy for the situation. The use of
‘Jogger cards’ – hand held cards - to
3.3
jog student’s memories of rules and
exceptions also supports independent
selection, use and evaluation of
strategies.
The Strategy Instruction component
of the WOWW Spelling Intervention
program is designed to reinforce, extend
and complement the spelling strategies
taught in the Direct Instruction
component via the Spelling Mastery
program.
Page 10� Working Out What Works
3.3
(Kerry-Anne Hoad, ACER)
The Direct Instruction component
of this intervention program is a pre-
scripted and fully developed program
that requires the teacher to implement
it faithfully and monitor outcomes. It
is a teacher-driven and content-centred
model.
The Strategy Instruction component of
this intervention program is dependent
on teacher knowledge and skills to work
out what strategies to teach and how
to teach them. It provides flexibility for
the exercise of teacher judgment and
teacher expertise. It is a teacher-driven
and student-centred model.
The Purdie and Ellis Literature Review
(2005) found that these two models, in
combination, offer the most powerful
and positive outcomes for students.
Working Out What Works allows
teachers to trial these models and to
discover what works best for their
students in their context.
The process of Working Out What
Works will continue for teachers each
time they encounter students with
learning difficulties and the training and
resources provided by this program
should have enduring effects on teacher
expertise, teacher practice and student
outcomes.
“Teachers will be able
to draw on actual and
supported experience
with these approaches to
work out what works for
their existing and future
students.”
Working Out What Works Page 107
Working Out What Works long term 3.4
Page 108 Working Out What Works
Working Out What Works Page 109
(Dr. Ken Rowe, ACER)
The Australian Council for Educational
Research (ACER), has developed this
present teacher professional learning
WOWW Manual with funding support
from the Australian Government
Department of Education, Science and
Training (DEST). A brief description of
the national Project in which the first
edition of the WOWW program was
used, together with key findings, are of
interest to all stakeholders throughout
the educational community.
The ‘Third Wave’ Project – a brief description1
Beginning in June 2004, the purpose of
this Project was to conduct research
aimed at improving the literacy and
numeracy outcomes of students with
learning difficulties who are in Years
4, 5 and 6 in mainstream government,
Catholic and independent schools.2
That is, the Project was primarily
designed to identify, implement and
evaluate school-based, ‘third wave’
intervention programs and teaching
strategies that are demonstrably effective
in improving the literacy and numeracy
learning of students with learning
difficulties. The Project design and
methodology consisted of three parts,
each of which occurred in parallel to
ensure mutual support:
Part 1: Literature review, and
identification of participating
government, Catholic and
independent schools, and clusters;
Part 2: Development and
administration of data gathering tools,
including diagnostic/developmental
assessments of student achievement
progress in Reading and Numeracy
(calibrated against National
Benchmark standards for these
domains), based on the principles of
objective measurement (see Masters,
2004). 3
Part 3: Development,
implementation, and evaluation of
effective evidence-based ‘third-wave’
intervention strategies and related
professional development programs
that are demonstrably effective in
supporting school-based interventions
for students with learning difficulties.
Evaluation methods also included
qualitative Case Study visits to
selected schools undertaken during
March 2006.
•
•
•
The Project, Training and Data Collection 4.1
Page 110 Working Out What Works
The literature review of the available
evidence-based research literature was
conducted by ACER researchers Drs
Nola Purdie and Louise Ellis (Purdie &
Ellis, 2005), from which the first edition
of the WOWW Manual was produced
(i.e., Hoad, Munro et al., 2005). The
review clearly identified two major
strategies that consistently indicate larger
positive effects on students’ learning and
achievement progress than are obtained
from any other strategies alone or in
combination (i.e., Direct Instruction and
Strategy Instruction).4 Specific emphasis
on these teaching strategies was deemed
important on three counts: (a) their
‘effectiveness’ as teaching methods
are firmly grounded in findings from
evidence-based research, (b) they are
largely unknown to teachers (apart from
those familiar with the relevant published
research), and (c) with few exceptions,
current in-service teacher PD programs
in these strategies are not provided by
State/Territory education jurisdictions,
nor by most Australian higher education
providers of teacher education.
The project evaluation and data-
gathering methodology was based on a
pre-test/post-test design among a sample
of 56 participating schools: 35 intervention
schools and 21 reference schools,
with 694 students in the numeracy
component and 653 in the reading
component – across Years 4, 5, and 6
(or Years 5, 6 & 7 for QLD, SA and WA
schools). Intervention schools included
those whose teachers were provided
with professional development (PD)
in effective, evidence-based strategies
for ‘third wave’ students with learning
difficulties in Reading and Numeracy
during February/March 2005. For
comparative purposes, teachers from
participating reference schools did not
receive this PD during February/March
2005, but were provided with the same
PD during May 2006.
In each of the State capital cities:
Adelaide, Brisbane, Hobart, Melbourne,
Perth and Sydney, the whole-day
PD provided to intervention school
participants during February/March 2005
included training in Direct Instruction
(DI) and Strategy Instruction (SI). The
DI PD was supported by a specially
prepared DVD demonstrating delivery
of lessons using Elementary Math Mastery
(Farkota, 2003b) and Corrective Reading
(SRA, 2002). In addition to the specific
training provided in these teaching
methods, training was provided in
4.1
Working Out What Works Page 111
Strategy Instruction, How Children Best
Learn, and in Auditory Processing (Rowe,
Pollard & Rowe, 2005, 2006; Victoria
2001).5 The training was supplemented
by a comprehensive package of related
teaching manuals and support materials
for use in mainstream classrooms.
Pre-test/post-test data from students in
both intervention and reference schools
were collected in March 2005 and
again in September 2005. In addition
to the collection of repeated measures
of students’ achievements in Reading
and Numeracy, repeated measures of
students’ externalizing behaviours were
obtained for three domains: Sociable,
Attentive and Settled, from teacher-ratings
on the Rowe Behavioral Rating Inventories
12-Item Teacher Form (Rowe & Rowe,
1997, 1999). Repeated measures of
students’ experiences and attitudes
towards school were also collected for
three domains: Enjoyment, perceived
Curriculum Usefulness and Teacher
Responsiveness – employed in earlier
longitudinal studies (e.g., Rowe, 1997;
Rowe & Hill, 1998). Data analyses and
statistical modelling of have taken into
account the measurement, distributional
and structural properties of the
data. The results of key findings are
summarised in 4.2.
1 The DEST contract for the Project has been jointly directed by Ken Rowe (an ACER Research Director) and Andrew Stephanou (an ACER Senior Research Fellow), and managed by Kerry-Anne Hoad (Manager of ACER’s Centre for Professional Learning). The final report from the Project is available (see: Rowe, Stephanou & Hoad. 2007).
2 For the purposes of this Project, the ‘target group’ refers to students with learning difficulties located in mainstream schools in Years 4, 5 and 6 (or equivalent years) who do not meet national literacy and/or numeracy benchmark standards. Note that ‘first-wave’ teaching refers to regular classroom instruction, ‘second-wave’ refers to initial intervention for students experiencing learning difficulties, and ‘third-wave’ refers to intervention strategies for students continuing to under-achieve and/or experience learning difficulties during the middle years of schooling.
3 Masters, G.N. (2004). Objective measurement. In S. Alagumalai, D. Curtis, & N. Hungi (Eds.), Applied Rasch Measurement: A book of exemplars (Chapter 2). London: Springer-Kluwer Academic Publishers.
4 For recent expositions of Strategy Instruction, its practical applications and supporting research evidence, see: Ellis (2005, pp. 33-43); Purdie and Ellis (2005, pp. 28-31).
5 It is interesting to note that Recommendation 5 from the report of the parliamentary Enquiry Into the Education of Boys (Commonwealth of Australia, 2002, pp 107) reads:The Committee recommends that:(a) all State and Territory health authorities ensure that kindergarten children are fully tested for hearing and sight problems; and(b) the Commonwealth and State and Territory governments jointly fund the implementation of the strategies used in the
Victorian study on auditory processing in primary schools throughout Australia. Implementation should include:• professional development for all primary school teachers to raise awareness about the normal development of auditory
processing in children;• the provision of the relevant auditory screening tests and training to equip teachers to administer preliminary tests with
referral to specialised support where needed; and• professional development for teachers in practical classroom management and teaching strategies to address the needs
of children with auditory processing difficulties.
4.1
Page 112 Working Out What Works
Working Out What Works Page 113
intervention and reference school
students’ average Reading and Numeracy
achievements, at each of the target
Year levels. However, the findings
summarised in Figures 4.3 and 4.4
indicate that in September 2005 there
were significant improvements in the
achievements of students in intervention
schools compared with those in reference
schools (adjusted for their measured
achievements in March 2005).
These summaries provide graphical plots
of the adjusted mean-point estimates
of students’ measured achievements (in
intervention and reference schools) on
the constructed Reading and Numeracy
scales, bounded by 95% confidence
(Dr. Ken Rowe, ACER)
Student achievement growth
Following are key findings arising from
the analyses of students’ achievements
in the March and September 2005
assessments of Reading and Numeracy,
derived from fitting multivariate analysis
of variance (MANOVA) models to the
obtained data, using STATISTICA (StatSoft,
2005) – as summarised in Figures 4.1 to
4.4 and in Figure 4.5 presented below.
From Figures 4.1 and 4.2, the findings
indicate that in March 2005 there were
no significant differences between
Key Findings from the Student Data 4.2
Vertical bars denote 95% confidence intervals
Year 4 Year 5 Year 650
52
54
56
58
60
62
64
66
68
70
Rea
ding
Sco
re (
Mar
ch 2
005)
Reference Schools Intervention Schools
March 2005Average
Figure 4.1 Plot of mean-point estimates bounded by 95% confidence intervals forstudents’ Reading achievements in March 2005:
Intervention and Reference schools
Page 114 Working Out What Works
Intervention effect: F(1, 648) = 17.619, p = 0.00003(Adjusted for March 2005 Reading Score)
Vertical bars denote 95% confidence intervals
Reference Schools Intervention Schools57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
Ree
adin
g S
core
(S
epte
mbe
r 20
05)
March 2005Average
Sept 2005Average
Figure 4.3 Plot of mean-point estimates bounded by 95% confidence intervals forstudents’ Reading scores in September 2005, adjusted for their
March 2005 scores: Intervention and Reference schools
4.2
Vertical bars denote 0.95 confidence intervals
Year 4 Year 5 Year 662
64
66
68
70
72
74
76
78
80
Num
erac
y S
core
(M
arch
200
5) Reference Schools Intervention Schools
March 2005Average
Figure 4.2 Plot of mean-point estimates bounded by 95% confidence intervals forstudents’ Numeracy achievements in March 2005:
Intervention and Reference schools
Working Out What Works Page 115
differences between intervention and
reference school students’ average
Reading and Numeracy achievements, at
each of the target Year levels. However,
the findings summarised in Figures 4.3
and 4.4 indicate that in September 2005
there were significant improvements
in the achievements of students in
intervention schools compared with
those in reference schools (adjusted for
their measured achievements in March
2005). The findings indicate that (on
average), the professional learning, plus
its implementation and support provided
to intervention school teachers during and
subsequent to the 2005 State Training
Days, had significant positive effects on
learning difficulties students’ achievement
intervals. That is, a mean-point estimate
between its upper and lower intervals
is indicates that ‘we can be confident’
that the computed mean lies somewhere
between these intervals. In general,
to interpret the graphs, when the
confidence intervals for any pair of
plots overlap, the difference between
their mean-point estimates is not
statistically significant at the 95%
level (i.e., p > 0.05). Conversely, when
the confidence intervals for any pair of
plots do not overlap, the difference
between their means IS statistically
significant. (i.e., p ≤ 0.05).
Initial analyses of the data indicated that
in March 2005 there were no significant
Intervention effect: F(1, 688) = 7.419, p = 0.00662(Adjusted for Marach 2005 Numeracy Score)Vertical bars denote 95% confidence intervals
Reference Schools Intervention Schools70
71
72
73
74
75
76
Num
erac
y S
core
(S
epte
mbe
r 20
05)
March 2005Average
Sept 2005Average
Figure 4.4 Plot of mean-point estimates bounded by 95% confidence intervals for students’ Numeracy in September 2005, adjusted for their
March 2005 scores: Intervention and Reference schools
4.2
Page 11� Working Out What Works
progress in Reading and Numeracy.
Given the short duration between the
March and September 2005 assessment
periods (i.e., ~ 6 months), this result is
remarkable.
Student behaviour
In addition to students’ achievement
progress in Reading and Numeracy, three
measures of their ‘behaviours in the
classroom’ were obtained at the March
and September 2005 data-collection
stages. The three behaviour scales are:
Antisocial–Sociable; Inattentive–Attentive;
and Restless–Settled. For specific details
of the item content of and related
measurement properties of these
domains, see Rowe and Rowe (1999).
Figure 4.5 provides a summary of the
findings from fitting a multivariate
model to the computed behaviour scale
score data.
These findings indicate that the
behaviours of students in intervention
schools were significantly more
positive compared with the behaviours
of students in reference schools,
especially their attentive behaviours
in the classroom. Again, given the
short duration between the March and
September 2005 assessment periods (i.e.,
~ 6 months), these results have been
particularly encouraging.
Of particular interest from Figure 4.5
are the findings that the behaviours
of students in the intervention schools
improved between March and
September 2005, whereas the behaviours
of students in the reference schools
deteriorated – albeit not significantly
since the respective confidence intervals
overlap. Such findings, however, are
consistent with those derived from
a large body of both quantitative and
qualitative research which indicate
a strong overlap between students’
academic underachievement and their
externalizing behaviour problems (e.g.,
Cantwell & Baker, 1991; De Watt et
al., 2004; Hinshaw, 1992; Purdie, Hattie
& Carroll, 2002; Rowe, 1991; Rowe &
Rowe, 1992, 1999, 2000, 2002; Sanson et
al., 1996; Smart et al., 2005). That is, the
evidence indicates that repeated under-
achievement by students (especially in
literacy) is strongly related to increasing
disengagement at school, low self-
esteem, as well as disruptive
and dysfunctional externalizing
behaviours at school.
4.2
Working Out What Works Page 117
In brief, the findings summarised in
Figures 4.3, 4.4 and 4.5 indicate that
(on average), the professional learning
(together with its implementation and
support) provided to intervention school
teachers during and subsequent to the
2005 State Training Days had significant
positive effects on learning difficulties
students’ achievement progress in
Reading and Numeracy, as well as on their
behaviours in the classroom. Moreover,
these findings were consistent with the
qualitative information obtained from
Case Study visits to schools (see 4.3).
4.2
Intervention Effect: F(6, 524) = 5.645, p < 0.00001Vertical bars denote 95% confidence intervals
Beh
avio
ur S
cale
Sco
re
Reference Schools Intervention Schools2.0
2.2
2.4
2.6
2.8
3.0
3.2
3.4
3.6
3.8
4.0
4.2
Sociable (March) Attent (March) Settled (March) Sociable (Sept) Attent (Sept) Settled (Sept)
Figure 4.5 Plot of mean-point estimates bounded by 95% confidence intervals forstudents’ behaviour scale scores in September 2005, adjusted for their
March 2005 scores: Intervention and Reference schools
Page 118 Working Out What Works
Working Out What Works Page 119
(Dr. Ken Rowe, ACER)
Using systematic Observation and
Interview Schedules, Case Study visits
to schools were undertaken during
March 2006. The selection of schools
(including their teachers and students)
for these visits, were based on findings
arising from analyses of the two data
collection phases during 2005. That
is, the Case Studies focused on those
students (within teachers and schools)
whose measured learning achievements
had progressed ‘better-than-expected’
(or ‘worse-than-expected’), given their
initial achievements, attitudes, behaviours
and ‘intake/background’ characteristics,
and to estimate the effects of being in
an intervention school (compared with
being in a reference school) on students’
achievement progress in Reading
and Numeracy. These analyses were
undertaken by fitting multilevel, ‘value-
added’ models to the relevant data using
MLwiN (Rasbash et al., 2005).
This rigorous, empirical approach to the
selection of students within teachers
and schools for Case Study visits was
adopted to minimise the risk of selecting
locations of ‘effective practice’ based on
mere anecdotal reports in the absence
of empirical justification for their
selection. A brief summary of findings is
given below.
Teacher interviews. Typical of the
responses provided by teachers were:
The State Training have been VERY
helpful, especially the information
about auditory processing. So was
the training with Elementary Maths
Mastery, Corrective Reading and Strategy
Instruction. The WOWW manual has
been great for all teachers at our school
because the practical teaching strategies
in it DO WORK. I only wish this kind
of training had been given during my
teacher education at university. Also, it’s
a pity that this PD training is not provided
by the Education Department, because
ALL teachers need it.
We are very grateful for being able to
participate in this project. In only one
year, it has turned around our entire
school. The teachers are very pleased
about the progress we see in all children,
not just those with learning difficulties.
About 50% of the children at this school
come from indigenous backgrounds, and
we’ve seen major improvements in their:
• Attendance – attendance has
improved a lot!;
Key Findings from Case Studies 4.3
Page 120 Working Out What Works
• Listening skills – all children seem
to be better listeners because teachers
are a lot more aware of the need to
slow down their instructions, ‘chunk’
the information and wait for children to
respond;
• Engagement – children are better
behaved in the classroom and seem
to enjoy the structured lessons and de-
bugging challenges of EMM (Elementary
Math Mastery);
• Learning progress – we’ve seen
major improvements in children’s
learning progress in all areas, especially
in numeracy.
Following are the comments of a Deputy
Principal:
As a school we are very appreciative of
the opportunity to participate in your
‘Third Wave’ research project which also
provides additional resources to staff and
students. We believe our students have
shown significant improvements due to
the whole-school support approach and
the Professional Learning the staff have
been able to access. The program is
purposefully linked to meet students at
the point of need through planning and
data analysis as well as the recognition of
their social and emotional needs.
Below are the comments of another
Deputy Principal:
Thank you for the follow-up information
at the recent State Training Day.
What Worked. Overall, children’s
reading and numeracy levels have
progressed dramatically. We had some
students in Grades 5 & 6 who had been
negative and reluctant readers. It was
a thrill for us (and especially for the
students) to witness them take part in
a reading segment as part of our whole
school assembly at the end of 2005. This
would not have happened in Term One.
Another student in Grade 4 who was
‘benchmark level’ in Grade 3, is now only
about a year behind the average. She
loves reading and reads often. She’ll get
there in her own time with our continued
support. She has increased confidence,
and her work in spelling and writing has
also improved.
Why we are Continuing. The children
who were selected for this program are
the children who concern teachers year
after year. Other strategies have not
worked for them and they have had
many teachers try. In our school, many
of these students have come to our school
from elsewhere, or they might have
other ‘baggage’ from home. This ‘Third
Wave‘ program offers great support. The
program is predictable, regular and has
4.3
Working Out What Works Page 121
its built-in rewards where the children
can see their progress. The stories are
written so that children want to find out
what happens in the next instalment.
The research findings have supported
what we are doing, and the results are
evident. We are committed to continuing
with the program.
Student interviews. Following is
a brief summary of typical responses
arising from the interviews with
participating students:
‘I understand what the teacher is saying
and I know what I need to do. I feel
secure’ (Year 5 boy, under treatment for
ADHD);
‘I used to hate school, but now it’s fun.
I can read and do maths. I’m learning
heaps’ (Year 6 Indigenous boy);
‘I…feel…so…much…better…about…
my…self’ (Year 5 girl from a very low
SES family);
‘I came from another school where the
teachers didn’t know how to teach, but
the teachers at this school DO know how
to teach. I love reading and maths is fun’
(Year 6 Lebanese girl).
4.3
Page 122 Working Out What Works
Working Out What Works Page 123
(Kerry-Anne Hoad, ACER)
The comments and strategies in this
chapter have come directly from
teachers involved in the implementation
of the national ‘Third Wave’ intervention
Project. They are representative of
the range and content of trials, tips and
triumphs reported by teachers via:
the electronic Bulletin Board which
was setup to provide ongoing
communication between all teachers
and ACER researchers during the
program;
the State Training Days in February/
March 2005, June 2005 and May 2006;
school visits conducted during April
2006; and
direct contact from teachers to ACER
research staff during the Project.
Trials
‘Withdrawing children for the Corrective
Reading program was difficult. Initially
they did not want to go and we had to be
careful that they were not missing out on
something else that was really important
to them.’
‘We are a small school and did not have
the staff to do the Corrective Reading
program. We tried to use parents at
home to do it but some parents were
•
•
•
•
not confident readers themselves and
were not comfortable doing it. We had
to give up on the Corrective Reading but
we could do the maths as it was with the
whole class.’
‘When we did the placement test for
children in the Corrective Reading
program we had 1 student at a different
level from the others. We put him in the
group anyway but it did not work and he
became so frustrated that we decided to
take him out.’
‘It was working well but then one boy got
sick and was away for a week. When
he came back he was too far behind and
the others did not want to go back. We
tried to catch him up in other periods
but it was too hard to fit in as the group
kept moving ahead each day so he had
to drop out.’
‘We used support teachers to do the
Corrective Reading program with students
but they often had difficulty managing the
behaviour of the students – this became
a real issue.
The stories in the reading program are so
American that it put us off.’
The feedback from teachers on the
difficulties of the Corrective Reading
program were centered around:
the social issues of withdrawal;•
Teachers’ Trials, Triumphs and Tips – the Reading program 4.4
Page 124 Working Out What Works
the availability of staff to implement
the program;
behaviour management issues;
timetabling for withdrawal;
catering for student absences; and
the American content of the program.
In discussions, all teachers acknowledged
these difficulties. Most schools found
ways to address these difficulties that
worked for them. Some of these
strategies are mentioned by teachers in
the Triumphs and Tips section, outlined
below.
Triumphs and Tips
‘This reading program has really boosted
the confidence of these struggling kids.
They feel that they can read – and they
can! I have seen smiles on the faces of
kids that I have never seen smile before.
One kid has started reading everything
he sees. He has become a little ‘show
off’ and his Mum and Dad are delighted!’
‘We have provided recognition
through school assembly, where the kids
in the group were awarded a reading
skills prize and at class level where the
kids have read to the class and are
called on now in the same way as other
students – although I am careful not to
go beyond their level. The recognition has
•
••••
been really important. They feel better
about themselves and have a new status
in the school.’
‘In conducting the reading program the
school needs to work as a team to
achieve the best outcome for the children.
The learning environment, the time
allocated to the program, the size and
homogeneous grouping of the children
needs to be given priority. The children
need to be (in) the program during daily
literacy time and not during the time
other subjects are taught, so they don’t
feel penalised by missing out on other
learning.’
‘It is important to ensure children are
aware of their progress in a positive
-manner. All forms of positive
reinforcement are helpful.
The program needs to be linked
to the classroom program in an
integrated way and not something
that stands alone. A close working
relationship needs to be fostered
between the classroom teacher and the
Ed Support teacher.’
‘We used students in the upper
secondary section of the school
to conduct the Reading program. We
scheduled the lessons before school
or in the lunch break so that no-
one missed out on anything. We had
the teacher who had been trained in
4.4
Working Out What Works Page 125
the program there as well and moving
between the groups to offer support and
guidance. This worked really well for all
students as the senior girls loved doing
it and it became fun for everyone. The
children could not wait to come! Students
who were not in the program kept
‘dropping in’ and obviously wanted to be
a part of it as well.’
‘Doing the Corrective Reading every day
was too difficult for us to manage with
staff and other curriculum demands so
the children do it with the classroom
teachers once a week and with
their parents twice a week. This
works well as the parents feel involved
and develop a good understanding of
where their child is and what can help.
The children didn’t want to go at first as
they have had other programs ‘done to
them’ and they are ‘over’ intervention.
After the first two weeks they were eager
to go and if they miss a session now they
want to know when they can catch it up.
It has become a punishment if they can’t
go. The turn around in attitude has been
quite amazing.’
‘We used the new language – the
Americanisms – as a learning tool to
broaden the children’s vocabulary. We
have taken some of the words and used
them in whole class discussions – things
like the ‘taffy plant’ and the ‘tramp’.
They have provided a springboard for
some interesting cultural discussions
in SOSE. The children in the reading
program have felt good because they see
their work and their knowledge being
part of the whole class program – usually
they feel a bit behind the others but
using their reading words as a prompt for
whole class discussion puts them in the
centre. It has helped their self esteem
enormously.’
‘The support teachers who have
been taking this program love it. They
feel really effective and see the joy
and improvement in the children. They
needed training and support in the
beginning but now they are the ‘owners’
of the program and very proud owners
too.’
‘I had three boys who could not read and
were real behaviour problems. Once they
began the reading program they changed
and after two terms think they are really
good readers. At the end of the year they
all got up and read to the whole school
assembly. They were very proud of
themselves. They want to move on to the
blue book next year.’
‘It was important to get on top of any
behavioural issues in the group first.
These boys who were the poor readers
in grade 6 were also the ones with
challenging behaviour. Once we set the
4.4
Page 12� Working Out What Works
rules and kept the lesson running quite
fast they were better and then once they
saw that they could actually read the
work they didn’t muck about so much.
Students being away on extended holidays
or through illness has been a problem
but we now compromise. We take the
group back a little bit – the revision is
helpful for some anyway – we give the
student who was away an ‘extra’
after school or at lunchtime and we
ask his parents to do some extras
as well. It is not easy but it works if it is
important to the student. Some students
have done the program with their parents
while they were travelling.’
‘We loved the Strategy Instruction
posters. We introduce one
comprehension strategy every two
weeks and leave the posters up as a
reminder for children.’
4.4
Working Out What Works Page 127
(Kerry-Anne Hoad, ACER)
Trials
‘When we started with the EMM it was
taking almost 50 minutes. Doing this
left no time for other maths or other
curriculum.’
‘The clever students get frustrated with
the other students speed and their
mistakes.’
‘The students with significant learning
difficulties cannot keep their work on the
page – even when they draw columns it
is hard for them. They also get confused
with the speed of everything.’
‘When students are away sick they can’t
keep up because they have missed the
steps before. I can’t take the whole class
back for one student so it becomes very
difficult.’
‘The main difficulty is absent students. It
really messes up the lesson as once they
fall behind they can start to muck around
and distract others.’
‘The de-bugging takes ages and the
students who ‘got it’ get bored and
restless.’
‘Our school is very progressive with a
very involved parent group. At first the
parents were very anti the way the lesson
was being taught. They have come
around now that they see the results but
it threatened to derail the program in the
beginning.’
‘I simply could not teach in this way. It
contradicts everything I have learned and
it makes me feel very uncomfortable.
The program was too difficult for my
grade 4 students and even for some of
my Grade 5 students. I am only using it
with Grade 6.’
The feedback from teachers around the
difficulties of the Numeracy program
centred around:
Catering for student absences;
The time it took to deliver the
lessons initially;
The disparity of student’s entry skills
and knowledge;
The method of teaching;
The time the debugging takes, and
The difficulty of the content for grade
4 students.
In discussions, teachers shared their
concerns and also shared their tips
for what worked for them and their
students. Some of these strategies are
mentioned by teachers in the Triumphs
and Tips section outlined below.
••
•
•••
Teachers’ Trials, Triumphs and Tips – the Numeracy program 4.5
Page 128 Working Out What Works
Triumphs and Tips
‘The numeracy program develops the
children’s mathematic concepts, language
and skills in a gradual, consistent
way. Children who are capable
mathematicians may need to be
given additional challenges when
conducted as a whole class program
for them to feel they are working at
their level and are being challenged. The
program’s step-by-step development and
gradual progression with de-bugging helps
the children and teacher isolate learning
bugs and have them eradicated.’
‘The clear instructions make it
considerably easier for those with auditory
processing difficulties to cope – everything
is said in clear, consistent language.
The students love it, particularly the
immediate feedback of how they went
– which is given within the same lesson
period.’
‘You need to keep the delivery
‘snappy’ to maintain student
concentration. I found you couldn’t follow
the direct instruction session with another
‘intense’ lesson as the students were
tired, but found that scheduling direct
instruction before a recess break
was quite beneficial as the students
could then race around energetically and
come into class again ready to focus.
This is nothing new, but what is so
frustrating is the lack of uptake in
education circles. It’s good practice being
wasted.’
‘The EMM fits perfectly with the
curriculum I need to cover. I know it is
not designed for Grade 4 but we have
started using some of the strands in
Grade 4 and the students love it.’
‘We had a few student absences and that
made it difficult to keep everyone at the
same level. We decided to go back a
week. It worked well for everyone but
we can’t do this every time we have an
absent student. We are now asking
parents to cover the ‘lost ground’.
On a couple of occasions we have had
the integration aide do a couple of
catch up classes.’
‘It took me a while to get into the rhythm
to do the lesson in 20 minutes but I
got there. The kids had to get used to
the way it was delivered too. We all like
the fast pace now. The debugging is
done quickly – I just pick one student
for each ‘bug’ and that covers it for all
of them. We never debug question
20. As Rhonda says, they just have to
‘keep thinking about it’.’
‘The students doing the program love
it. The way it builds with each lesson
gives them the confidence that they can
attempt each new small step each day.
4.5
Working Out What Works Page 129
They know it will be based on what they
did yesterday and extend the learning one
more step. The success is built in and
gives the students growing self confidence
that they can do maths.’
‘I didn’t like the approach at all when
ACER gave us the training. I tried it
anyway and the results have convinced
me. I am going to use EMM next year
with my new grade 6. I would advise
anyone to give it a go and see if it
works for your students. It did for
mine.’
‘The EMM is the best thing I have done
with my students. They love it and it
works. We have students who hate
school and are serial absconders. Now
they come for the EMM lesson and then
disappear for the rest of the day! The
clarity and clear goals are what
appeals to them. They understand what
is required and enjoy the built in success.
This year the Elementary Math Mastery
program was moved into the senior
classroom – Years Five, Six and Seven
– and the whole class takes part in this.
Lessons follow sequentially and results
are recorded. From this, any problem
areas are highlighted and followed
through in maths lessons. Debugging
is important and I’m finding that this is
not quite as easy to do with the wide
range of classes in comparison to having
only one class involved in 2005. I find I
need to be very mobile during the
marking segment and pick up on
what the children might be reticent
to discuss. I’ve introduced a small add-
on to this section where I will ‘bug’
a question that I’ve noticed the
children have not brought up for
discussion.’
4.5
Page 130 Working Out What Works
Working Out What Works Page 131
The Learning Support for Teachers 4.�
(Kerry-Anne Hoad, ACER)
The professional learning model
provided ongoing learning support for
teachers through multiple strategies
to cater for different learning styles
and to accommodate contextual and
geographical considerations.
Teachers from all ‘intervention’ schools
attended three Training Days in their
State. Teachers from the ‘reference’
schools attended the final Training Day
in their State. The first State Training
Day in February/March 2005 introduced
teachers from the ‘intervention’ schools
to the program, provided training in
pedagogical practices; ‘walked through’
the kits of support materials and enabled
teachers to form Teacher Learning
Clusters for each region. The follow-
up State Training Day in June 2005
enabled the ACER research team to
refresh teachers’ understanding of
the intervention approaches, share
experiences and address concerns about
implementation of the program and
issues for individual students. The final
State Training Day in May 2006 allowed
teachers to discuss the results achieved
by their students, their ongoing delivery
of the program and to share their
knowledge and experience with teachers
from the reference schools.
To support the application of the training
provided during the State Training Days,
teachers formed self-selected Teacher
Learning Cluster (TLCs). These TLCs
provided ongoing support and knowledge-
sharing between teachers in the same
region. The TLCs met monthly and
were coordinated by a Teacher Learning
Cluster Coordinator from the group. An
agenda for each group was posted on
the Bulletin Board and minutes from the
meetings were also posted on the Bulletin
board to facilitate the broader sharing of
experience and expertise. The meetings
were especially valuable to teachers in the
initial stages of the research project when
teachers were learning new approaches
and were seeking collegial feedback and
support, but became less important later
in the program as they gained skills and
confidence. Teachers who have become
familiar with one another through
the program also initiated informal
contact with one another to maintain
collaborative communication, a step that
augurs well for a continuation of teacher-
to-teacher professional learning beyond
the life of the project.
Page 132 Working Out What Works
By any criteria, the Bulletin Board – which
closed in September 2005 – offered a
most useful way for teachers to share
experiences and seek support and
guidance from staff at ACER and one
another. There were 159 registered
users; 142 posted articles on thirty-
seven different discussion topics, with
105 replies; more than one post per
day on average; and a total of 1,852
views on the discussion topics. Bulletin
Board discussions focussed on student
assessments, implementation of the
Elementary Maths Mastery and Corrective
Reading programs, as well as the content
of Teacher Learning Cluster Meetings.
Teachers responded well to this range
of professional learning strategies and
feedback included the following comments:
‘The State Training Days were really
useful. It was the best training we have
had in this State for a long time. To
have quality training and to be given the
resources to implement the programs
immediately is fantastic. I can’t wait to
try this out.’
‘The Teacher Learning Clusters give us an
opportunity to talk about local concerns
and to talk with others who understand the
programs that we are implementing. I was
getting frustrated with how long the EMM
was taking but when I heard that others
had encountered the same thing and were
now getting faster I felt much better.’
‘We are a long way away from other
schools and it has been great to be able
to get on to the Bulletin Board and write
something about my concerns and then
to get the responses from teachers from
everywhere who had felt the same or had
some ideas about what I could try. It was
good to see that Kerry-Anne and Rhonda
were there to reply to any specific queries
straight away as well.’
Key elements of the professional learning
support that teachers commented on
were:
The expertise of the trainers and the
team-approach to the training;
That the training came to their State;
The information about Auditory
Processing provided by Dr Kathy Rowe;
The support of funding to release
people for training;
The benefits of having the resource
materials provided immediately;
The opportunity to talk with other
teachers at the TLC meetings;
The benefits of sharing concerns and
strategies with other teachers at the
TLCs and also on the Bulletin Board;
and
The chance to talk with Dr Ken
Rowe about students’ results.
•
••
•
•
•
•
•
4.�
Working Out What Works Page 133
(Kerry-Anne Hoad, ACER)
Teachers have reported gains in student
confidence and self esteem that are
evident beyond the gains reported
in assessments results. These gains
observed by teachers, combined with the
gains reflected in the assessment results,
have given teachers the confidence and
the skills to include these strategies in
their repertoire of effective pedagogical
practices. This will provide valuable
support for teachers in their continuing
task of Working Out What Works for
their students. This comment from a
Grade 5 teacher in Western Australia
reflects the many comments heard from
teachers at the final State Training Days
in 2006.
‘Both the literacy and numeracy programs
are worthwhile and valuable. They
are suitable to some children’s learning
styles more than others, depending on
the child’s capabilities. It has been a
valuable and rewarding experience to
have been part of the program, and it we
hope to continue this with a whole-school
awareness.’
The Future of WOWW 4.7
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Principles of Effective Professional Development(National Partnership for Excellence and
Accountability in Teaching. Washington DC)
1. The content of professional
development (PD) focuses on what
students are to learn and how to
address the different problems students
may have in learning the material.
The content of professional development
is critically important to its effectiveness.
While the content varies with the goals
of the school, the content of professional
development should deal directly with
what students are expected to learn and
the instructional strategies that research
and experience have shown are effective.
2. Professional development should be
based on analyses of the differences
between (a) actual student performance
and (b) goals and standards for student
learning.
Professional development that is based
on analysis of student learning helps
teachers close the gap between actual
student performance and goals for student
learning. Goals for student learning
also provide a basis for defining what
teachers need to learn and a yardstick for
improving professional development.
3. Professional development should
involve teachers in the identification
of what they need to learn and in the
development of the learning experiences
in which they will be involved.
Adherence to this principle ensures that
professional development is relevant.
When teachers help design their own
learning, they are likely to feel a greater
sense of involvement in the professional
development experience. Teachers are
most likely to use what they learn when
professional development is focused
on solving problems in their particular
contexts.
4. Professional development should be
primarily school-based and built into the
day-to-day work of teaching.
Teachers learn from their work. Learning
how to teach more effectively on the
basis of experience requires that such
learning be planned for and evaluated.
Learning needs arise and should be met
in real contexts.
Curriculum development, assessment,
and decision making processes are all
occasions for learning. When built into
these routine practices, professional
development powerfully addresses real
needs.
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5. Professional development should be
organised around collaborative problem
solving.
Without collaborative problem solving,
individual change is possible, but school
change is not. Collaborative problem-
solving activities allow educators to
work together to identify both problems
and solutions. Activities may include
interdisciplinary teaming, curriculum
development and critique, collaborative
action research, and study groups.
6. Professional development should
be continuous and on-going, involving
follow-up and support for further
learning-including support from
sources external to the school that can
provide necessary resources and new
perspectives.
Adoption and implementation of
effective practices requires continued
learning. Therefore the design of
professional development must provide
time to apply new ideas and, sometimes,
must draw on additional outside
expertise. Such follow-up and support
ensures that professional development
contributes to real change and
continuous improvement.
7. Professional development should
incorporate evaluation of multiple
sources of information on (a) outcomes
for students and (b) the instruction
and other processes that are involved
in implementing the lessons learned
through professional development.
When done well, evaluation of
professional development yields
important lessons for refining
professional development. Without
such evaluation, future opportunities for
teachers to learn may not be productive.
Multiple sources of information should
be used, including teacher portfolios,
observations of teachers, peer
evaluations, and student performance.
Lessons become most clear when
evaluators collect data during different
stages of the change process.
8. Professional development should
provide opportunities to gain an
understanding of the theory underlying
the knowledge and skills being learned.
Because beliefs filter knowledge and guide
behaviour, professional development must
address teachers’ beliefs, experiences, and
habits. Furthermore, specific knowledge
and skills that work in one setting,
sometimes do not work in others. When
teachers have a good understanding of
Appendix 1
Working Out What Works Page 137
the theory behind particular practices and
programs, they can adapt the strategy
they learned about to the circumstances
in which the teacher is trying to use it.
9. Professional development should be
connected to a comprehensive change
process focused on improving student
learning.
Improving teacher capabilities without
changing the conditions that influence the
opportunities to use these capabilities is
often counter-productive. These conditions
include time and opportunities to try new
practices, adequate funding, technical
assistance, and sustained central office
follow through. Thus, unless professional
development is designed as part of a
larger change process, it is not likely to be
effective.
Appendix 1
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Examples of Learning Strategies. A. Excerpt from:
Ostoja, N. (1997). Effective Teaching
Strategies for Students Experiencing
Learning Difficulties in Upper Primary
and Secondary School. In D. Greaves
& P. Jeffery (Eds) Learning Difficulties,
Disabilities and Resource Teaching
- Selected papers from the Australian
Resource Educators’ Association 1996
Conference. Melbourne: AREA.
The TheoryMany educators have theorised that, put
simply, learning and memory problems
for low achieving students involves a lack
of an organised structure or network for
storing incoming information (Anderson,
1984; Derry, 1990; Torgeson, 1985).
In combination with a lack of effective
strategies to retrieve this information,
students give poor performances on
memory tasks as a result.
Possible SolutionsThe good news is that students can be
taught to use effective strategies (Cole
& Chan, 1990; Mastropieri, Scruggs,
Whittaker & Bakken, 1994). When
being taught new information in the
classroom students can be assisted
with storing this new information in a
structured and organised way which
will facilitate retrieval at a later date.
Many of the strategies involve assisting
students to organize information.
Summarising is another strategy that
will assist students with learning
problems (Pressley. Johnson, Symons,
McGoldrick &Kurita, 1989). The add,
zoom, flashback and squeeze strategy
and reflective writing are examples of
teaching techniques that involve students
in summarising information. Linking
prior knowledge from previous learning
to new information being taught at
school assists students in making sense
of this new information (Derry, 1990;
Sullivan, Mastropieri & Scruggs, 1995).
This is especially so in the secondary
school setting where the nature of the
learning situation is not logical (that is,
subjects and teachers alter throughout
the day) and the information presented
may appear unfamiliar, abstract and
muddled to students. It is vital to teach
these students to actively link prior
knowledge to new information. The
two point strategy, twenty questions
and the caption strategy and the add,
zoom, flashback, and squeeze strategy
are examples of assisting students to
Appendix 2
Page 140 Working Out What Works
activate prior knowledge and link prior
knowledge to new learning.
Imagery and MemoryMnemonics are techniques to improve
memory. As previously stated, students
with learning problems have been shown
to perform poorly on memory tasks
(Male, 1996; Scruggs & Mastropieri,
1990; Torgesen, 1985). Paivio (1995)
has been researching memory and the
role of imagery for decades and has
concluded that imagery has a powerful
effect on memory. This effect has
been demonstrated numerous times
in research this century (Paivio). Both
the strategies creating graphics and
interacting images involve imagery. A
point to note is that concerns about
a decrease in comprehension due to
the focus on mnemonic strategies have
been dispelled. Research has shown
that mnemonic instruction facilitates,
rather than inhibits comprehension
(Mastropieri, Scruggs, Whittaker &
Bakken, 1994).
The Strategies1. Two Point Strategy
Students are to think of all they know
about the topic to be covered.
a)
Students underline their two most
important points.
In small groups, the students discuss
their two most important points and
come to a consensus on two points
for the group.
The spokesman for the group tells
the teacher the two most important
points for that group and the teacher
writes all the groups’ points on
the blackboard in the form of a
structured overview.
2. Caption Strategy
(adapted from Whitehead, 1992)
This strategy and its variations assist
students to explore and record what
they know. It encourages discussion
using the students’ own words.
Students form groups of 4 or 5.
Students examine a number of
pictures.
In each group, they write a make-
believe title for each picture.
Each group feeds back their answers
and justifies their answers to the
whole class.
b)
c)
d)
a)
b)
c)
d)
Appendix 2
Working Out What Works Page 141
3. Creating Graphics
(adapted from Morris & Stewart-Dore,
1984)
One way of assisting students in
comprehending graphics and to aid
in comprehension of text is to have
students create graphics themselves
from the text. The completed chart,
diagram, table, or graph can then be
used as a revision tool at the completion
of the topic.
For example, students work in small
groups of two to four to create a chart
or graph for the following information:
Milk and butter are an important source
of Vitamin A. Other sources include
fish-liver oils and certain vegetables
- carrots, tomatoes and dark green
leafy vegetables are particularly valuable
sources. Vitamin D is also found in
fish-liver oil, butter, cheese, milk, and
eggs. Vitamin C is found in fresh fruit
and vegetables. Wholemeal bread, yeast,
liver, and dairy foods contain Vitamin B.
4. Add, Zoom, Flashback, and
Squeeze Strategy
(adapted from Whitehead, 1992)
The strategy enables students to share
and expand what they know. If the
students have a great deal of knowledge
on the topic, use this strategy before
starting the topic. If the students do not
have existing knowledge of a topic, then
use this strategy as a revision.
Teachers can use this strategy to
informally assess students’ current
knowledge.
Students form groups of 6 - 8.
The first student begins by recalling
what s/he knows about a topic and
when s/he decides, s/he stops and
calls on another student to either
“add”, “zoom”, “flashback”, or
“squeeze”.
Add is an invitation to continue recalling
the topic.
Zoom is an invitation to “zoom in”
or add detail to the previous speaker’s
contribution.
Flashback allows the next speaker to
return to any point in the recall.
Squeeze is an invitation to summarise
all that has been said in a sentence or
two.
Introduce one component at a time
before students attempt it in groups.
5. Twenty Questions
The idea with this strategy is to develop
questioning and answering skills and to
a)
b)
Appendix 2
Page 142 Working Out What Works
provide opportunities for students to
discuss a concept relating to the current
topic. This will assist the students in
understanding the topic and is suitable
as a revision exercise. It develops
listening skills and provides opportunities
for reflection. In addition, the teacher
can informally assess the students’
comprehension of the topic.
Students form groups of 4 or 5. Each
group has one “concept person” and
one “questioner”.
The teacher gives the “concept
person” in each group a card stating a
concept.
The remaining group members
develop two questions. The
“questioner’ asks the questions of
the “concept person” who can only
answer “yes” or “no”.
If the group cannot identify the
concept at this stage (one guess only)
they develop four questions for the
“questioner” to ask of the “concept
person”. Then a second guess is
allowed. Six questions are asked
then another guess is allowed. Eight
questions are asked then the fourth
and final guess occurs.
The aim is to guess the concept
before the twenty questions are
asked.
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
6. Mnemonics - Interacting Images
(adapted from Matlin, 1983)
A mnemonic is a technique to
improve memory. Interacting images is
appropriate when there are lists of pairs
of words to be learnt. This occurs in
schools more frequently than at first
realized. The point, though, is that
imagery has a very powerful effect on
memory.
Basically, there are 3 points about this
technique.
The first one is to visualise the words.
The second is to have the images
interacting with each other.
The third point is to make it bizarre.
If the images are silly, weird, or funny,
the chance of remembering the words
is increased.
7. Reflective Writing.
Reflective writing involves students
reflecting on what they have learnt
in a lesson. It provides them with an
opportunity to recall information and
sort out this information into their
own words. It aids comprehension and
memory. Teachers are then provided
with an informal basis for assessing
whether the students have retained and
a)
b)
c)
Appendix 2
Working Out What Works Page 143
understood the information taught in the
lesson.
B. An excerpt from:
Chan, L.K.S. (1997). Designing Strategy
Instruction Programs for Students with
Learning Difficulties. In D Greaves &
P. Jeffery (Eds). Learning Difficulties,
Disabilities and Resource Teaching
- selected papers from the Australian
Resource Educators’ Association 1996
Conference. pp 113-127. Melbourne:
AREA.
The Strategies taught in the English/
Reading intervention include:
Reading comprehension strategies of
predicting, use of prior knowledge,
selecting key sentences, summarizing,
making use of logical structure,
skimming, self-questioning;
Writing strategies of planning,
drafting, structuring information,
editing, revising; and
General Learning strategies of
planning and goal-setting, keeping
records, monitoring and self-
evaluating, seeking social assistance,
and environmental structuring.
Strategy posters, activity sheets,
strategy record sheets, strategy diaries
a)
b)
c)
are all used to maximize student
active engagement in learning and
using strategies. During the weekly
intensive strategy lessons, advantages
of using the strategy are discussed
as well as when and how to use it.
The relationship between strategy
use and successful performance is
highlighted. The cognitive modeling,
whole class discussion, small group
interactive dialogues were employed to
demonstrate and practice the use of
strategies with the normal English class
program.
In the Mathematics intervention, a
standards metacognitive strategy was
used in combination with a variety of
specific cognitive strategies for different
Mathematics topics. The metacognitive
strategy involves students asking
themselves questions and answering
them while doing the computation to:
Clarify the problem;
Remind themselves of the important
rules;
Direct themselves to complete the
appropriate maths routine;
Remind themselves to estimate and
check;
Reinforce themselves that they have
done a good job; and
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
Appendix 2
Page 144 Working Out What Works
Remind themselves that they did well
because they used a good strategy,
and because they used the strategy
effectively.
f)
Appendix 2
Working Out What Works Page 145
Literacy Learning Strategies
Summarising
What should a summary be like?
A summary should be:
Informative
Brief
In your own words
The topic in a nutshell.
How can I summarise?
Underline key words
Find the keywords by asking
yourself: who, what, when.
Where, why and how?
Rate the sentences in each paragraph
Ask yourself if the paragraph
makes sense without this
sentence.
If not this is a very important
sentence - include the information
in your summary.
Make notes of the key ideas
Keep your notes brief
Don’t use full sentences
Keep to the main facts
Use your own words
••••
•
•
•
••••
Appendix 2
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Summary worksheet
“Licked” by Paul Jennings
A good summary is:
Short brief, concise
Written in your own words
Contains all the main ideas
•••
A good summary should answer six questions about the story:
WhoWhereWhenWhyWhatHow
••••••
Appendix 2
My summary of “Licked”
A main idea/question about “Licked”
Page 148 Working Out What Works
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On the Road to Understanding
Predicting
What is the paragraph likely to be about?
Clarifying
Is there anything I do not understand?
Questioning
What questions can I ask myself about the paragraph?
Summarising
What is the paragraph mainly about?
•
•
•
•
Appendix 2
Predicting
What is the paragraph likely to be about?
Clarifying
Is there anything I do not understand?
Questioning
What questions can I ask myself about the paragraph?
Summarising
What is the paragraph mainly about?
•
•
•
•
Page 150 Working Out What Works
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A Map for Reading
Purpose or Goal Information Strategies
Why am I reading this?What is my Goal?
What information do I want from this?
How should I read this to achieve my goal?
1. Pleasure or entertainment.
Plot or story
Read normallyRead right through once.Make pictures in mind. Predicting
2. Understanding.
Main or key questionsCharactersSettingAuthor’s purpose
PredictingClarifyingQuestioningSummarising
3. Seeking Information. Specific Details
Use table of contents and/or indexScan headings and/or pictures
4. Preparing for tests or exams
To remember specific points
Reading and rereadingNote takingSummarisingRetellingSelf-questioning
Appendix 2
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Strategy DiaryName: School:
A Map for Reading
What have you read at school this week?
Why did you read it? What was your goal?
What information did you want from it?
How did you read it? What strategies did you use to achieve your goal?
What have you read at school this week?
Why did you read it? What was your goal?
What information did you want from it?
How did you read it? What strategies did you use to achieve your goal?
What have you read at school this week?
Why did you read it? What was your goal?
What information did you want from it?
How did you read it? What strategies did you use to achieve your goal?
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Plan your Route to Success
What do I want to do?What is my goal?
How could I do it?Let’s make a plan.
What do I know?
What do I need to know?
Where can I find the information?
What do I have to do?
How long do I have?
Is my plan working?Yes: Complete the plan
No: Try something else
How could I change my plan?
What additional information do I need?
Do I know enough now?
Is my plan working now?
Did I achieve my goal?Did my plan work?
Appendix 2
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Plans and Goals: Worksheet
What do I want to do? What is my goal?
How could I do it? Let’s make a plan.What do I know?
What do I need to know?
Where can I find the information?
What do I have to do?
How long do I have to complete my plan?
Is my plan working?What sort of questions should I be asking myself?
Did I achieve my goal? Did my plan work?After finishing any assignment or project ask your self the following questions:
Did I collect enough information? Did I answer the question/keep to the topic and/
or follow instructions? Did I complete my assignment on time? Am I happy with
my work?
Appendix 2
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Working Out What Works Page 159
Steps to Success in Editing
Does it have a good introduction,
middle and end.
Should I add some more details?
Are my thoughts in the right
order?
Read each sentence. Is it
complete?
Are the first letters of each
sentences and proper nouns
capitalized?
Is there punctuation at the end of
each sentence?
Check spelling.
Is there any part that is hard to
understand?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Appendix 2
Steps to Success in Revising
Read the first draft of your essay
Find the sentence that tells what
you believe. Is it clear?
Add two more reasons why you
believe it.
Scan each sentence. Does it
make sense? Is it connected to
your belief? Can you add more?
Correct punctuation and spelling
mistakes.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Writing Strategies
1. Think and Brainstorm
Select a topic:
What do you want to say?
What do you know about the topic?
Access resources and generate
notes.
2. Plan
How should you cover the topic?
Organise notes is a logical order
3. Write the Essay
Follow the plan
Change the plan if necessary
4. Edit and Revise
5.Publish
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Numeracy Learning Strategies
DIVISION INVOLVING FRACTIONS
1. What do I have to do? I have to divide a fraction by another
2. What do I have to remember a) To divide by a fraction, invert the fraction and multiply ( multiply by the reciprocal)
b) If there are mixed numerals, simplify first by changing them to improper fractions
3. What should I do first? If there are mixed numerals write them as improper fractions.
4. How can I do that? Multiply the whole number by the denominator and add it to the numerator to get the new numerator.
5. What should I do next? Invert the fraction after the + sign
6. How can I do that? Rewrite the whole number sentence again inverting the fraction after the + sign, and replacing the + sign with the x sign.
7. What should I do next? Multiply the two new fractions using the ‘multiplication of fractions’ strategy.
8. How can I do that? Simplify the fractions before I multiply if appropriate. Multiply the numerators and then the denominators. Simplify the fraction again if appropriate.
9. Does it look right? Check every stepCheck calculationCheck if the fraction can be simplified any further.
10. How do I feel? I feel great. I’ve worked out the answer correctly because I’ve used the strategy effectively.
Appendix 2
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Working Out What Works Page 1�3
DIVISION INVOLVING FRACTIONS
Give the simplest answer: 3 1/3 ÷ 1 1/4
1. What do I have to do? I have to divide a fraction by another
2. What do I have to remember c) To divide by a fraction, invert the fraction and multiply (multiply by the reciprocal)
d) If there are mixed numerals, simplify first by changing them to improper fractions
3. What should I do first? If there are mixed numerals write them as improper fractions.
4. How can I do that?Multiply the whole number by the
denominator and add it to the numerator to get the new numerator.
3 1/3 ÷ 11/4 = 10/3 ÷ 5/4
5. What should I do next? Invert the fraction after the ÷ sign
6. How can I do that?Rewrite the whole number sentence again inverting the fraction after the ÷ sign, and
replacing the ÷ sign with the X sign.10/3 ÷ 5/4 = 10/3 × 4/5
7. What should I do next? Multiply the two new fractions using the ‘multiplication of fractions’ strategy.
8. How can I do that?Simplify the fractions before I multiply if appropriate. Multiply the numerators and then the denominators. Simplify the
fraction again if appropriate.10/3 × 4/5 = 2/3 × 4/1 = 8/3 = 22/3
9. Does it look right? Check every stepCheck calculationCheck if the fraction can be simplified any further.
10. How do I feel? I feel great. I’ve worked out the answer correctly because I’ve used the strategy effectively.
Appendix 2
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MEASUREMENT - PERIMETER (SOLVING PROBLEMS)
1. What do I have to do? I have to solve the problem Let me read the problem carefully
2. What do I have to remember To restate the problem in my own wordsa) What am I asked to find?b) What am I given?
3. What should I do first? Identify subgoals and plan the steps.
4. How can I do that? Draw a diagram or make a chart.
5. What should I do next? Estimate what the answer is likely to be.
6. How can I do that? “The answer must be greater than... orThe answer cannot be greater than.....”
7. What should I do next? Do the calculation.
8. How can I do that? Set out the solution clearly step by step.
9. Does it look right? Check every stepCheck calculationDoes the answer make sense?
10. How do I feel? I feel great. I’ve solved the problem correctly because I’ve used the strategy effectively.
Appendix 2
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MEASUREMENT - PERIMETER (SOLVING PROBLEMS)
A concrete path is constructed around a rectangular lawn that is 16 m long and 10 m
wide. If the path is 1m wide what is the perimeter around the outside of the path?
1. What do I have to do? I have to solve the problemLet me read the problem carefully
2. What do I have to remember To restate the problem in my own wordsc) What am I asked to find?
The perimeter around the outside of the path
d) What am I given? The lawn is 10m X 16m. The path goes around the lawn and is 1m wide.
3. What should I do first? Identify subgoals and plan the steps.
4. How can I do that? Draw a diagram or make a chart.
Path 1m wide
Lawn 10 m X 16 m
5. What should I do next? Estimate what the answer is likely to be.
6. How can I do that? “The answer must be greater than...
52m
7. What should I do next? Do the calculation.
8. How can I do that? Set out the solution clearly step by step.
Length around outside of path =16 + 2 = 18mWidth around outside of path=10 + 2= 12mPerimeter around outside of path =2 × (18 + 12) = 2 × 30m = 60m
9. Does it look right? Check every stepCheck calculationDoes the answer make sense?
10. How do I feel? I feel great. I’ve solved the problem correctly because I’ve used the strategy effectively.
Appendix 2
Page 1�8 Working Out What Works
Working Out What Works Page 1�9
Appendix 3
Corrective Reading Program: Teacher Skill Form Kerry Hempenstall, RMIT
Comments
Teacher displays evidence of having read and practised the script ahead of time.
4. consistently well done3. mostly well done 2. uneven1. mostly not happening
Teacher gets into the lesson quickly (without unnecessary discussion or rehearsal), and maintains an undistracted task focus.
4. consistently well done 3. mostly well done 2. uneven1. mostly not happening
Teacher follows the script closely during group instruction.
4. consistently well done 3. mostly well done 2. uneven1. mostly not happening
Teacher uses praise when children follow the rules, and when children perform especially well. For example, when they are seated appropriately, do a difficult exercise with no mistakes, respond well to error correction, try harder than during the previous exercise, etc.
4. consistently well done 3. mostly well done 2. uneven1. mostly not happening
Teacher does all of the prescribed exercises.
4. consistently well done 3. mostly well done 2. uneven1. mostly not happening
Teacher assigns points quickly and appropriately.
4. consistently well done 3. mostly well done 2. uneven1. mostly not happeningnot applicable
When signals such as clapping are required, teacher claps in time and at a reasonable pace. Visual signals such as a board point-touch signal are well timed, not occurring whilst speaking.
4. consistently well done 3. mostly well done 2. uneven1. mostly not happeningnot applicable
Teacher moves at a brisk, but not too fast, pace.
4. consistently well done 3. mostly well done 2. uneven1. mostly not happening
Teacher ensures children remain alert. For example, by praising desirable behaviour. “You’re answering together, I like that”.
4. consistently well done 3. mostly well done 2. uneven1. mostly not happening
Page 170 Working Out What Works
Comments
Teacher good humouredly challenges children. For example, “I know you really can do it. I bet you can do these 5 rows without even one mistake.”
4. consistently well done 3. mostly well done 2. uneven1. mostly not happeningnot applicable
Teacher ensures all children can see the book or board when necessary. For example, not blocking the words with teacher’s own hand.
4. consistently well done 3. mostly well done 2. uneven1. mostly not happeningnot applicable
Teacher follows the “Pause” instruction in the manual. For example, “Say (pause) happen with this ending.”
4. consistently well done 3. mostly well done 2. uneven1. mostly not happeningnot applicable
Teacher responds if a rule is broken during the lesson, reminding children. “I need to hear you say the word clearly with your hand away from your mouth. Now let’s do that row again.” And later on, “I like the way you’re saying the word so clearly.”
4. consistently well done 3. mostly well done 2. uneven1. mostly not happeningnot applicable
Teacher attends to the “Repeat until firm” instruction. If one or more children make a weak response, the teacher does the task again, making sure they are FIRM before going on
4. consistently well done 3. mostly well done 2. uneven1. mostly not happeningnot applicable
Teacher makes use of delayed tests to check-on and to firm-up items that were weak earlier. “Let’s do those ain words again. They’re hard. But we can do it.”
4. consistently well done 3. mostly well done 2. uneven1. mostly not happeningnot applicable
Teacher employs the designated “Error Correction” procedure.
4. consistently well done 3. mostly well done 2. uneven1. mostly not happeningnot applicable
Teacher corrects every error immediately, rather than waiting for the child to self-correct. Teacher returns to the beginning of the row or sentence as the manual indicates.
4. consistently well done 3. mostly well done 2. uneven1. mostly not happeningnot applicable
Appendix 3
Working Out What Works Page 171
Appendix 3
Comments
Teacher performs the corrections quickly and with good humour - without any signs of frustration.
4. consistently well done 3. mostly well done 2. uneven1. mostly not happeningnot applicable
Teacher is able to present the tasks without making sounding-out errors or other conspicuous errors. Sounding out and saying it the fast way are well modelled.
4. consistently well done 3. mostly well done 2. uneven1. mostly not happening
Teacher ensures that the Reading Checkouts are properly completed when the peer system is in use, and keeps accurate records of students’ rate and accuracy.
4. consistently well done 3. mostly well done 2. uneven1. mostly not happeningnot applicable
Teacher puts vim, vigour and enthusiasm into the presentation.
4. consistently well done 3. mostly well done 2. uneven1. mostly not happeningnot applicable
Total: Add the numbers in the middle column to obtain the maximum available score (M). Add the numbers in the last column to obtain the total score achieved (A). Divide M by A and multiply by 100 to establish the Teacher Mastery Score (TMS) The aim is to achieve a Mastery Score above 90% (SRA, 2001).
Page 172 Working Out What Works
Working Out What Works Page 173
Appendix 4
Auditory Processing Capacity and Assessment.(Dr. Kathy Rowe, Royal Children’s Hospital)
Auditory processing capacity is the
ability to take in and recall accurately
what is heard.
This ability is a developmental process
that gradually improves throughout
childhood. Children vary in their
rate of development of this skill. It is
important for those communicating with
children to be aware of this, because
it has significant implications for how
information is presented.
It is measured by using a recorded
presentation of both sentences and digits
of increasing length. Children listen to
the sentences or series of digits and
repeat accurately what they hear.
Repetition of sentences of increasing
length indicates their ability to
understand what they hear, including
instructions and explanations. The
ability to repeat digits indicates how well
children process information in order,
for example phonemes or sounds that
make up a word. This ability is also
strongly associated with spelling ability
(as this requires remembering letters
in a sequence), and also the ability to
structure information in order, such as
in writing an essay or presenting oral
information. It is therefore important
for all aspects of literacy as well as basic
classroom communication.
If those teaching children take this
into account, children improve in their
learning and behaviour. Children with
many different conditions such as
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder,
speech and language disorders, central
auditory processing difficulties, mild
intellectual difficulty, unfamiliarity with
English, or an isolated problem in a
child with normal intelligence, or even
children who are very stressed, can all
experience difficulty with processing
auditory information. This assessment
does not make a diagnosis; it assesses
how the child is functioning.
It is expected that the average child
at school entry can recall 3 digits and
a 9-word sentence. A good ‘rule of
thumb’ is: average (both mean and
median) sentence length recall is: (age
in years + 4) up to the age of 10 years.
For example, a 7-year old, on average,
Page 174 Working Out What Works
can recall an 11- word sentence. If a
child cannot recall a sentence length
equal to (age in years + 3) i.e., a 7-year
old cannot recall a 10-word sentence
(~20% of that age group), they are at
high risk for literacy underachievement
and being considered inattentive in class.
Beyond 10 years the improvement in
sentence length recall increases one
word each 2 years (on average). The
average adult can recall 15-16 word
sentences accurately and can recall 5
digits accurately. It was thought that
children developed this capacity much
sooner, so that by the age of 8 years
they could recall ‘adult-length’ sentences,
However, recent data indicates that this
is not reached (on average) until upper
primary or early secondary school. This,
therefore, has major implications for
classroom communication.
This assessment is available in a kit that
contains 2 CD’s and a booklet (Rowe,
Pollard & Rowe, 2006).
The first CD is for children from
school entry to 4th year of schooling,
or for use with older children with
significant problems.
The second CD is for children from
4th year to 10th year of schooling.
•
•
Allow 5-7 minutes per student to
administer the assessment.
Each CD should be viewed on a
computer and contains:
Recorded sentences and digits for
children that can be played using a
CD player (or from the computer);
Score sheets to print off;
Instructions for administering the
assessment;
Video clip examples;
Norms from more than 12,000
students, and indicators for children
at risk;
Classroom tips – implications and
practical strategies for classroom
management; and
Research findings to support the use
of the kit (see Rowe, Pollard & Rowe,
2005).
Further information can be obtained
from: www.auditoryprocessingkit.com.au
•
••
••
•
•
Appendix 4
Working Out What Works Page 175
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