The Parents & Community Volunteers As Reading Tutors Project-2002:: Chapter 10

Socio-Economic:
The majority of our families would fall into the average to high income level but we have a significant group of single parent and single income families who would be in the lower income levels.

Experience of staff:
At least 75% of staff have more than 15 years experience another 15 % more than 1 0 years. We have had a targeted graduate join our staff each year for the last few years.

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Mobility of staff and students:
A very stable staff, retirement and promotion are the main reasons for change. Minimal movement of students, student numbers are static- as students leave they are very quickly replaced. A large percentage of this year's Year 6 have been there since kindergarten.

STLD allocation:
Has decreased to 0.2 ( for 2000-2001).

Other support allocation:
ESL allocation - 1. 6, Integration funding for 9 students (varied allocation)

We have had a very strong "Parent Helper" program in K-2 for many years, helping with a variety of school activities- eg 1:1 reading, maths groups, PE groups, art and craft activities etc, so a lot of parents were familiar with this type of program but not with the 3-6 grades.

Specific Nature Of The Program:

Starting Point:

The grades on which we decided to focus were Years 4 and 5. In Year 4 we had 2 parallel classes in which we had 7 students who were placed in Band One in literacy in the Basic Skills Test in 2000. We also had a significant number who were placed in Band Two and these children needed a program to improve their literacy skills. In Year 5 we had 2 classes, both of which had over 30 students. One class contained high/low achieving students, including a group of students with significant difficulties with reading, and the other contained medium achievers.

In both grades students had been placed in reading ability groups but they worked mainly at individual tasks which did not allow for a lot of oral reading and discussion at their reading level.

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The STLD teacher had been working with the lowest achieving students in both grades on a digraph program, and we had also purchased some levels of the "Rainbow Reading Program", which commenced in Term I. The STLD saw these students once a week to oversee the program (conference and change books, mark activities etc) and then it was the responsibility of the class teacher to ensure the repeated listening of the tapes and other follow up activities in group times. The class teacher found this quite time-consuming and difficult to ensure that they were following the tapes etc. We therefore felt a tutor would be an excellent help to ensure these tasks were done properly and to also be there to listen to the students practice reading the texts.

It was also felt that if we could run a tutor program where at least the lower achieving students (other than the "Rainbow Readers" groups) could practice their oral reading and discuss what they had read 3-4 times a week, then this would improve their fluency and comprehension.

Our basic aim therefore was to provide tutors for at least the 2-3 lowest groups in each class, i.e. the groups that needed to improve decoding, fluency and then comprehension skills, in order to bring them closer to their grade level in reading.

Brief summary of the program: (* Denotes a resource referred to in resources section).

Reading groups run Monday-Thursday from 9:30am-10:15am. The activities focus on reading fluency, comprehension and vocabulary development.

Students placed in reading ability groups.

4E
1 "Rainbow" group - STLD sees once a week to oversee Rainbow Readers and extra activity Digraph program* or "Let's Read"* and Parent tutor ensures each student listens to the tape, does some oral reading and works through the "Multilit"* word attack and sight word programs on the other 3 days.

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1 "Tristar" group - Parent tutor has this group each day working through the "Tristar"* Set B reading series. This involves oral reading around the group, oral comprehension questions and discussion of vocabulary etc. There are also individual worksheets which can be completed at other times.

The class teacher oversees this program.
3 higher groups who are working on SRA* laboratory at individual levels. They also have a novel or reader which once a week they read with the class teacher and have individual work. If a Tutor is available the students in these groups will read individually to them as well.

4D
1 Rainbow group - as above for 4E.
2 Tristar groups - as above.

5T (High/Low)
2 Rainbow groups - as above for 4E.
1 Tristar group - as for 4E starting off with Tristar books to see if they are suitable with view to moving to novels and other reading material.
3 high groups with the class teacher as for 4E with some extra comprehension and language sheets as a variety for fast workers

5K (Medium)
2 Tristar groups as for 5T
4 higher groups as for ST

This required at least 10 tutors, support teachers or teachers aids per day

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Step By Step Implementation Procedure:

After discussion with staff concerned we sent a letter home to the parents of Years 4 and 5 to outline the project and ask for volunteers. We received about 23 volunteers that way. We then put an advertisement in the "Connells Pointer" (newsletter) to see if we could gain parent volunteers from other grades. From there came another 10. We have a Parent Help program in K-2 which has about 70 volunteers so we were very happy with our response.

The STLD contacted these parents and organised a discussion and 2 training days, one before school and one during a school afternoon run by the STLD and the principal.

We gave each child the " Star Supplementary Test Of Achievement in Reading" (NZCER) and a one minute fluency test appropriate to their grade. This sorted them into reading groups -

The high achieving group who scored well on both test and needed to be challenged further in reading.		These groups would be doing SRA, novel reading at their level and other individual literacy tasks.
The next groups scored well in "Star" but room for improvement with their fluency.
The next groups scored well in the fluency but room for improvement in comprehension.

The next groups were a little below average in either or both of these areas.		These groups would have a tutor and participate in group reading of Tristars and discussion.

The next were the low Progress readers who had previously been targeted by the STLD.		These groups worked with the STLD with the "Rainbow" readers with Tutors supervising the repeated readings.

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By then we had put children in appropriate groups and worked out that we had enough tutors to start. This involved a lot of physical preparation such as photocopying all the Rainbow sheets, Tristar sheets, ordering SRA books, timetabling tutors, class teachers, support teachers and groups, selecting novels and all the appropriate material needed.

We knew it would be important to have everything on hand if tutors and students were to feel comfortable with the new routine.

Training involved familiarising tutors with the resources and what they would be expected to do, including the reward system and discipline problems that may arise. We also showed them the video "Pause, Prompt and Praise" from Macquarie University Special Education Centre's "Multilit" Kit. This very clearly showed effective strategies when working with low progress readers. A booklet containing all these things were also given to the tutors.

The tutors either worked:

With the low progress group, supervising them listening to the tape of their "Rainbow" reader or listening to them read. At first they also had some "Multilit " word attack exercises but time did not allow this to continue. The STLD had these groups once a week, in reading group time, to conference and mark the close and put them onto a new reader.
With the low average- average groups in a group situation reading a "Tristar"
reader or novel and discussing the text, listening to them read and modelling reading as well. Year 5 went to novels as the Tristars proved to be too easy.

Any tutors remaining listened to individuals in the other groups or to a group with a novel. This procedure basically stayed the same for all the groups, except for one class where the students in the lower groups changed from Rainbow to Tristar. It was emphasised that these books were at similar levels and it was good to have a change. It proved to be a good idea as some students on "Rainbow " got a little tired of it but those who had a break were happy to come back to them.

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Programs Used:

Strengths:

Low progress readers were not singled out, but had the recommended 4 sessions of structured learning sessions a week along with everyone in their class so there was no reluctance to do it.
Guaranteed regular time for reading skill development for everyone.
Class teacher or support teacher could get to all students to hear them read each week.
Reluctant readers were given good modelling by interested and motivated readers.

Weaknesses:

Reliance on volunteers for program to work
Some behaviour problems in low progress groups so tutors had to deal with them-had to be in class teacher sight.
As this was, for us, a large project which all started at once, it needed a coordinator and the STLD took that role. Tutors tended to come to her for assistance and queries from tapes that wouldn't work to suitability of texts. The STLD also had a group at this time and this was difficult to manage sometimes. It was a situation that couldn't be changed but in the future the coordinator probably should be not on a group to be available to help where necessary.
It did take a lot of time, organisation and communication and resources but it has been worth it.

Useful Strategies:

Stay organised with resources prepared ahead and students have folders with everything they need and monitors to organise and bring to reading groups.
Tutors know where next resources needed are, in case they need them (eg need to move onto next book in a series)
Students understand the procedure and are able to follow it even if there is a disruption (teacher away etc)
Frequent meetings/morning teas with tutors to ensure they were happy and confident and to air their problems and get their feedback. We lost only 3 or 4 tutors to work commitments but otherwise they were happy to keep coming back. We had a break at the end of term (last and first week) to give them a break and the teacher's time to settle or reorganise.

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Unforeseen problems:

Teacher is suddenly called away children and tutors know procedure so it can run itself
Tutors don't arrive - either alternative individual tasks or some trained Year 6 students who will come if called on. We trained about 8 Year 6 students and they came on a rotational basis so as not to miss much of their own work.
As tutors dropped out we also put adds in the local church papers and we had two very willing volunteers who I think will help us in the future.

Recommended Resources:

"Rainbow Readers" (Nelson)-a series of readers with tapes for repeated readings. Ranges from reading ages 6-12 years high interest level for low progress readers. Follow up activities including close, find a word, sequencing and comprehension questions.
"Multilit" Kit (Macquarie University Special Education Centre) with sight words, word attack skills, and reinforced reading program- "Pause, Prompt and Praise" video excellent for tutor training.
"Tristars"-by Margaret Clyne (Horwitz and Martin Educational) for middle years of primary.
2 sets of (A&B) 5 groups of 3 titles. Each triplet focuses on a similar topic or theme- 2 narrative 1 non fiction. For guided reading there are suggested questions for each chapter and parents found them most useful and lots of discussion came from them.
SRA Reading Laboratory a graded kit of reading skills development exercises which students can be in charge of and see their record of progress. Literature based reading activities. Students thoroughly enjoyed these activities-groups who weren't on it eagerly await their turn.

How Would You Do It Differently?:

Alternate groups more. Rainbow Readers could be used with higher groups and use individual programs or Tristars group reading with low progress groups as an alternative.
Keep a coordinator free to help with any problems or help out with groups with no tutor.
Rainbow conferencing done at a different time. STLD monitors the tutoring of the groups on Rainbows along with the tutors in one place.
This year our Year 5s were very large (30+) and we found that the sheer numbers made everyone moving to reading Groups at once very difficult. If doing this with classes this size (who would benefit the most) we may have to consider different classes at different times.

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What Impact Did The Project Have On Student Outcomes?:

Attitudinal:

We collected data from 120 student reading surveys sent out in November 2001 and found:

Increase in confidence - 94% of students surveyed felt that they had become more confident readers since the beginning of the year.
Only 6% felt they could read okay and 94% felt they could read well or very well.
Children are borrowing more books from the library- 89% said they liked borrowing either a little or a lot.
Reading aloud was not a favourite activity (67% didn't like it) but a majority (79%) liked reading by themselves which indicates a desire to read for pleasure.
96% indicated that they enjoy reading either a little or a lot.
It was noticed by the teachers that the children were enthusiastic about reading groups and most of them were organised and quite proud of their folders.

Academic:

We used the "Star" standardised test which gave a raw score which was then converted to a stanine. The raw score had to increase to maintain the same stanine as the testing went from April to November.
We found that most students stayed on the same stanine or moved either one up or down.
Our stanine results were (over 120 children in Years 4&5):

30% went down a stanine
47.5% stayed the same
17.5% went up 1 stanine
6% went up 2 stanines

Of those children who improve a stanine, 72% were in parent-tutored groups.
We had a control group and they had similar results but slightly less improvement. We found that the stanine results did not indicate if the children made any improvement so we also looked at the raw score and found some children had improved significantly on their previous raw score but their stanine did not change.

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We also compared the raw scores and found there was an overall improvement of 10.25% over all classes - 8. 5% in Year 5 and 12% in Year 4.

We also gave a fluency passage to get a "correct words" per minute fluency score. We used graded passages from the Blacktown District Learning Difficulties Assessment Package.
The same passage was given in April and November. Year 5 had an improvement of 16% and Year 4 did not vary a lot with a 2% improvement.

Overall there were some children who showed significant improvement academically and of these most of them had parent tutors working with them 3-4 times a week. These improvements were reflected in their school assessment. Others who stayed the same, however, still showed improvement in their class assessment.

We feel that after only 3 terms we couldn't expect marked improvement in everyone but there was a significant improvement in attitude towards reading which must be in place before you can see academic improvement.

Conclusions and recommendations regarding your project that might be useful to others:

Targeting children who are just below grade level with parent tutors reading with a group as our results seem to suggest this was successful as these groups made the most obvious gains.
Low-progress readers work on "Rainbow " readers or individualised programs on a one to one basis with tutors. Perhaps these could be alternated to give a break from these formats as the children seem to get a little bored with the same programs all the time.
As some children improved on the "Rainbow" readers they moved to the group reading programs as they saw this as progressing and improving.
Low progress readers would also benefit from group reading programs to develop their oral comprehension.
Some of our more confident readers used "Rainbow" readers for a short while and this boosted their confidence as they felt very good about reading the harder levels of "Rainbows".
SRA Reading Laboratories were very popular activities for the more able readers and for groups who didn't have regular tutors. It was levelled and self monitored and the lower groups saw it as a motivation to improve and to be able to use this program as well. We must ensure all students get to use it at some stage.
Our top groups crave to read aloud. They want to display their talent at oral reading and plays and poetry would be popular choices for these groups when they read to a teacher or a tutor. A regular session for the accomplished readers is also important.
This program has made the students aware and critical of our reading resources. It also put a big strain on our supply. We need to be prepared to continually update and add to our resources and include popular titles and authors.
Parent tutors provide valuable insight to teachers and regular discussions and updates are important. Regular morning teas and training sessions are important for this. They need support regarding discipline and keeping the groups motivated and interested- interesting books, lots of rewards and teacher back up whenever there is a problem.
Student, parent and tutor feedback showed that everyone sees it as an essential part of the reading program and should included from K-6.
First thing in the morning can be demanding for teachers but is a convenient time for tutors and the students are enthusiastic and fresh.
Teachers need to be organised, flexible and to be comfortable with outside helpers in the room.
Having the whole grade doing some sort of reading activity in groups at the same time, made the low progress readers comfortable with their activities as they did not feel different.

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Approximate Cost Of Funding Materials In Project:

Rainbow Reading Program (Lionerest Pty Ltd):
6 levels 12- 15 books and tapes per level plus teachers guides activities approx $2 1 00. We also had to purchase headphones and tape recorders to facilitate this program.

Tristars (Horwitz Martin Education) 3 Stages (A,B,C):
Each stage 15 titles comprising 5 groups of 3 titles or triplets-approx $1000 per stage

SRA Reading laboratories:
We used 1 lab per grade (2 classes shared) approx $800 per lab plus student books extra.

We used a lot of existing book sets and the school magazine as well.

Assessment Strategies:

For the purposes of assessing to compare from the beginning and the end of the program we used a standardised test -The Supplementary Test of Achievement in Reading (STAR) (-NZCER) which consists of four sub tests each of which assesses a different aspect of children's reading ability -

Word recognition-to decode words that are familiar in their spoken vocabulary, - sentence completion to see how well they read for meaning
Paragraph comprehension-cloze to assess reading comprehension
Vocabulary range to measure pupil's knowledge of word meanings.

It is designed for Years 3-5 (4-6 in NZ) and can be administered 3 times a year at any time of the year with stanines from raw scores for each time frame to show development. We used this test to generally see how they were comprehending written text.

Then to test fluency Oust how fast and accurately they were decoding ) we used the Blacktown District Learning Difficulties Assessment Package which provides graded pieces of text from years 1-6 and we administered the same piece of unseen text in April and then in November to compare their correct words per minute score.

We used this score in conjunction with the STAR stanine to give a picture of each student in Years 4 and 5 and, along with class assessment, grouped them accordingly.

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