Chapter 10 – School Parent Tutor Report/Case Studies

Case Study 2: Carlton South Primary School

Introduction:

Carlton South Primary School, established in 1923, is situated in a predominantly residential area of southern Sydney and encompasses a broad range of socioeconomic family situations.

The current school enrolment is 472 students, in 18 classes and this includes 69% NESB. The most predominant are Chinese (18%), Greek (10%) and Arabic (9%). The student population is quite transient with apron. 80 - 100 new students enrolling and a similar number leaving during the course of a year. For the past 5 years there has been a gradual increase in numbers, particularly in Kindergarten, with additional teachers being appointed each year.

The teaching staff includes 18 class teachers as well as specialist teachers for Reading Recovery, U.S. (1.2) and S.D. The S.D. allocation is .3 and I teach Wednesday and 1/2 day Thursday.

We became involved in this program, along with the three other schools, with the aim of providing increased literacy sessions for low progress readers particularly in view of the fact that the S.D. has only .3 allocation. As well as the Department's view of the changing role of the S.D. in the school, it became increasingly obvious that with such a limited allocation it was impossible to provide the necessary help to these low progress readers. In order to overcome this we needed to re-assess and this involved the obvious next step of enlisting the help of parent volunteers who could be trained to conduct reading groups with these children on a regular basis. Therefore the program would involve parent tutors working in the school 4 days per week with some children working in groups and others on individual programs.

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After discussion with class teachers and the Principal I decided to target Year 3 for the implementation of the Parent Tutor Program mainly because this was the grade with the greatest need in terms of literacy but also because our aim was to increase the skills of these children before they attempted the BST. The Year 3 teachers altered their timetables to enable the whole grade to have reading at the same time ic. 9:00am every morning. This meant that the tutors could come in and (Ideally) work with 3 groups from one Year 3 class and 5 children from the other 2 classes who needed individual programs. I further included two Year 5 students who were in desperate need of regular sessions on individual programs. As well, one of the parent tutors volunteered specifically to target one of these students. The eligibility of the students to undertake the program was determined by a series of assessment tasks as well as teacher recommendations and observations.

To summarise, 5 tutors each day (ideally, but didn't always happen!); 3 tutors working with groups of children listening to them read using Pause, Prompt and Praise and discussing the text orally and 2 tutors working with children on individual learning programs involving probes, sight words, reading for accuracy and fluency and reading a book at the instructional level and completing work sheets.

Step By Step Implementation:

The first meetings re the program left me with mixed feelings:-

After various assessment procedures we decided to start with Year 3 using the reading groups already in one of the classes plus 6 Year 3 children and 2 children from Year 5 who I put on individual programs. This seemed a manageable arrangement for the initial running of the scheme without putting too much stress on the class teacher and taking into account the fact that I am only at the school 2 days per week. Our motto was " start slowly".

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The staff at the school was a great help in the initial stages with things like covering my playground duty while I ran training days for the tutors etc.

With regards to assessment of children, I put all Year 3 children through the Wadding ton Diagnostic Test and then in collaboration with the class teachers we prioritised the most needy.

Later in the program (when the tests became available) I put all children on the program plus some low progress readers who were not on the program through the Star Supplementary Test of Achievement in Reading. This gave me a control group with which to gauge the success of the program.

In recruiting parent tutors I found the personal approach worked best. I went out into the playground at 2.30pm each day I was at school and approached parents waiting for their children. I explained the purpose of the program and asked for their help. Although this was slow and time consuming I got almost all of my initial tutors this way and one parent was most helpful in encouraging others. I also went to the Kindergarten Parent/Teacher night to enlist help there. The school newsletter only brought one response and the school secretary was able to enlist some by phoning and requesting help.

We commenced the program with 22 tutors spread over 5 days. (I would have preferred 4 days but didn't want to lose those who could only help on Friday.)

Our parent tutor training day was highly successful and we had almost 100% attendance. I gave out sheets with information for the tutors re Pause, Prompt and Praise etc. I discussed the Individual Learning Programs using overheads, but should have handed out a sample program and instructions and demonstrated it myself (I did this later.) I also showed the Pause, Prompt and Praise video (an excellent resource ) and discussed it.

 

An Early Issue:
I should have held the training session in the morning, as the hour in the afternoon wasn't long enough - the parents had lots of questions and we ran out of time.


The First Day:
This was a day when I am not normally at school but I went in as I felt it was my responsibility to get the program started. (I went in every day for the first week for 3/4 hour.).

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It ran fairly smoothly - much better than I thought it would! I should have thought more about where the groups would go - we'd decided on the playground and it was about -10 degrees!!! In hindsight, I corrected this for the next day.

Each tutor was given a folder with a pink instruction card, pencils, stickers and a notebook in which to communicate with me. I was one tutor short, so the Reading Recovery teacher changed her timetable to help me out.

The class folders had reading books and sticker books for each child in the group. I should have had a page so that tutors would know where the children were up to in the reader. I remedied this for day 2by adding a page saying " Reading Groups - Please begin reading at pa ge........" and the tutor each day would fill in the next page to be read. I spoke with the tutors afterwards and they were all keen and happy.

Day Two:
The children were waiting at the door of their classroom for their tutors with big smiles on their faces. Once again I was short of tutors, so they took 2 children each who were on individual programs and the Reading Recovery teacher took one class group and I took two class groups. Positions were much better and once again the tutors were happy.

Subsequent Days:
We have kept up a constant recruitment of tutors and have found that as a whole retired people have been the most reliable (grandparents and community members) although I'm fortunate to have an extremely reliable tutor whose children go to another school. Most tutors have stayed with the program although we have lost some and gained others.

In the early stages, when we were short of tutors, the school Principal, Assistant Principal and Reading Recovery teacher all assisted by taking a group whenever they could and I am very grateful to them for their help.

As the weeks progressed, we settled into a routine where we had reliable tutors and they and the children knew what was expected of them.

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At the end of each term, a thank you letter had been sent to each tutor and so far we have had one morning tea for them to express our thanks.

One of the early obstacles in the implementation of the program was our lack of
adequate reading resources. We now have the necessary books etc. and this will make the program easier to implement in future years.

 

Summary:

 

COMMENTARY ON CARLTON SOUTHS' READING PROGRAM:

The first unforeseen problem arose when we began the program and discovered that without the Rainbow Readers we were short on suitable reading resources for a group situation. Consequently I had to rely on the class teachers on Year 3 to find suitably leveled books and make up the work sheets for their groups.

We commenced using the "Exaggerations" series and then moved on to leveled books in the "Zippers" series. These books were suitable and the children enjoyed them but it was a lot of work for the teachers. The idea was to move on to the Rainbow Readers as soon as the books become available. This didn't eventuate in the group situation as:-

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The children working on Individual Programs with Parent Tutors were switched to the Rainbow Readers as soon as they were available.

The Exaggerations and Zipper programs worked successfully after the initial set-up period creating sufficient work sheets. My sincere thanks to the Year 3 teachers!

The Rainbow Reading Scheme has many advantages:-

When setting up a Parent Tutor program my recommendations would include:

If you have children on individual programs with tutors (I had 5 ) make sure you allow time in your schedule to cheek folders and keep work up to date. (It took me hour each Thursday afternoon, working flat out, to get my folders changed.)

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The children on Individual Programs also used the Multi lit Program (from Acquire University). Once again, an outstanding program but time consuming paper wise.

I recommend both the Rainbow Reading Scheme and the Multi lit Program as excellent resources for the program. As assessment tools I liked the Star Supplementary test of Achievement in Reading together with the placement tests that come in the Multilit package. If I used the Waddington test as an assessment again I would use the same test to get a truer indication of progress.

In 2002 when I set up the program I aim to:-

The program had a marked impact on students. The children couldn't wait for reading groups and would be waiting at the door with their chairs each morning for the tutors. They were very disappointed if tutors didn't turn up and all agreed that they "liked" reading to the tutors. They developed a rapport with their tutors and they became friends.

The children developed greater confidence and self-esteem and this was very evident when you observed children who at the beginning of the program had to be cajoled into reading orally couldn't be kept quiet at the end! They had become eager to read orally and to answer questions.

The children talked about reading and their tutors with other children and the latter would often come up to me in the playground or in the corridor to ask if they could participate.

The children's fluency improved and their reading showed greater pause, stress and intonation as a result of reading orally with a tutor 4 times a week.

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Academically, all children showed improvement as evident in the attached sheets (one a graph, one a table). However, more important than the results as far as I am concerned were the following points:

Costs Involved:

1. Multilit............................................$195.00

2. Rainbow Readers......................$6.95 per book, $12.95 per tape

3. Walkmans....................................$15.00 (approx.)

4. Star Assessment........................$50.00

5. Waddington..................................$49.95

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Assessment Tools:

Multilit - Placement tests to find starting point for children for probes and sight word practice. Pages of flash cards can be photocopied and there is an excellent video for training parents.

Star - excellent assessment tests. Tests word recognition, sentence comprehension paragraph comprehension and vocabulary range.

Advantage - clearly defined, provides stanine table and has two tests beginning and one for the end of the year.

Waddington - provides two tests that can be used and results can be diagnosed to give excellent results as to problem areas eg. cvc , decoding skills etc . a useful tool for analysing.

 

Conclusion:

The Parent Tutor Program is well worth implementing. The greatest difficulties were ensuring resources were available and recruiting and holding tutors. Suggest star6ng on a small scale and building from there. Results are rewarding and make the program worthwhile.

 

 

Individual Programs:

Raw scores for Star and Waddington Tests

Stanine scores in brackets.

Name	Star (May)	Star (Nov)	Wadd. (May)	Wadd. (Nov).
Hasley	16 (3)	22 (4)	30	39
Clare	18 (2)	21 (1)
Pablo	9 (1)	19 (1)
John	12 (2)	23 (4)	37	42
Sonny	22 (2)	25 (2)	31	37
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GROUP 1 - Tutor 4 days per week
Malek			28	36
Patrick	18 (3)	21 (3)	38	45
Wai			33	42
Cassandra	15 (3)	19 (3)	38	40
Amin			35	40
GROUP 2 - Tutor 3-4 days most weeks
Mathew			38	42
Tumasi	17 (3)	21 (3)	38	45
Stephen			43	45
Lauren	14 (3)	20 (3)
Jessica			41	47
GROUP 3 - Tutor 1 -2 days most weeks
Patricia			44	48
Stephanie			41	43
Danny			40	43
Alvaro			44	46
Dean			45	47
Jamie			39	47

 

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