Addressing Literacy Problems Encountered by Year 3 Pupils with Learning Difficulties when Reading and Spelling Common Irregular Words

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Contents

Introduction                                                                                 1

The topic investigated                                                                         4

Background                                                                                 6

Analysis of chosen research                                                                 8

Implications for personal practice                                                        13

How the research findings were used                                                        14

Evaluation and suggestions for further work                                                15

Reflection                                                                                19

Bibliography                                                                                21

References                                                                                23

Appendices                                                                                25


Addressing Literacy Problems Encountered by Year 3 Pupils with Learning Difficulties when Reading and Spelling Common Irregular Words

Introduction: the relationship between research and practice  

Literacy is perhaps one of the most researched areas in education.  Despite this there is no consensus regarding the best way to help those experiencing difficulty.  Class teachers make decisions on a day-to-day basis, some informed by research literature, some by past experience, some by problem solving unique to a particular case.  Whilst researchers and teachers share the same interest in an educational problem their respective orientations differ.  Halsey (1982) rightly observed that traditional research values precision, control, replication and attempts to generalize from specific events.  Teaching, conversely, is concerned with action, translating generalizations into specific acts, dealing with particulars outside statistical probabilities.  

Hargreaves (1996) suggested that teaching is not a researched based profession and the ‘yawning gap between theory and practice’ persists today.  Research can inform practice, but because of self-imposed constraints render it too narrow to serve as a foundation for practice.  Much research is esoteric, or too general, seen as irrelevant by most practitioners.  As Hopkins maintained:

‘The traditional approach to educational research is not of much use to teachers ….. (Teachers and researchers) live in different intellectual worlds and so their meanings rarely connect.’

                                                                        (Hopkins, 2002: 37)

Clarke (1995) proposed specific solutions, advocating that research should offer information, inspiration, vision and support.  He argued that if research is carefully designed, findings are shared and practitioners are involved, teachers can use research to obtain information to evaluate local and specific questions.  They should find inspiration to improve pedagogy.  They might view that which is familiar in a new light through investigations of models, concepts and theories.  These arguments echo Stenhouse (1981) who called for researchers to justify themselves to teachers whom he proposed should be at the forefront of educational research.  Teachers need to ally themselves with researchers who support evidence and explanations of good practice if they are to receive and become effective consumers and evaluators of research.  

Professional responsibility demands that teachers should endeavour to consult research in selective and creative ways with a clear sense of applicability.  Commitment requires teachers to maintain and up-date their knowledge base, also to examine their own practice to generate functional knowledge of the phenomena they deal with.  In this respect, as Hopkins argues, classroom research provides an emancipatory alternative to traditional designs.  Through reviewing and extending strategies and skills practitioners become teacher-researchers, but the processes are different from those employed by larger scale research.  A concern about practice, after reflection, involves discovering how far theoretical ideas are applicable in context.  From this stance the teacher can develop findings that illuminate greater questions by rigorous attention to the detail of particular cases.  Quantitative methodologies are useful in illuminating aspects of the professional universe, but applicability is more likely to be found at the interpretive, qualitative and ethnographic end of the research spectrum.  

The topic investigated:

My interest in literacy research was prompted by the House of Commons Education and Skills Committee Report (2005) calling for a review of current prescriptions, an improvement in literacy rates by ensuring ‘suitable programmes are available to children who … require support’ and further research into the Literacy Strategy compared with other catch up programmes.

This had relevance for a current whole School initiative to raise levels of achievement in reading and writing.  In developing a focus that was viable, discrete and collaborative my intention was to examine the under achievement of Year 3 Learning Support pupils and their difficulties with high-frequency words, which they are expected to master by the end of Key Stage 1.  

My aim was to investigate why pupils experience on-going difficulty in order to develop more effective teaching practices.

To research theories relating to literacy difficulties and possible strategies, a literature search was carried out after discussion with colleagues regarding current practice and change.  I compiled a list of research terms: National Literacy Strategy; Key Stage 1 and 2 literacy; high-frequency words; improving reading and spelling; self-esteem and illiteracy; motivation.  Following an initial random search of the British Education Index database I refined the search terms using Boolean operators.  For example, ‘literacy’, which yielded 2224 matches, was amended to ‘spelling difficulties’ AND ‘primary school children’ OR ‘primary education’, for which 8 records were found.  Truncation symbols were used e.g. read? (39240 searches) and proximity searches were also carried out.  Searches were then organised by publication date, (Appendices, p.26).  

The process was time-consuming and problematic.  I was unable to access the University Library e-journals via Ingenta, or Blackwell Synergy despite using Athens login, although SwetsWise worked in some instances.  It was established that the Library holds only dated editions of certain journals whose currency might cast doubts on the usefulness of the research.  To overcome these difficulties an inter-library loan was requested.  However, without abstracts it was difficult to assess suitability, which resulted in random choices of literature.  Further searches were executed and the archives of  were also used.  Some papers were more pertinent; but for time constraints alternative material would have been selected for further inter-library loans.  Nonetheless, the group discussions and collaboration that arose from identifying mutual problems and assessing strategies are essential for the ‘teachers (to be) intimately

involved in the research process.’ (Stenhouse, cited in Rose, 2002: 45)

Background:

Research has indicated the effects of learning difficulties on the self (Margerison, 1996).  Yet curriculum plans, e.g. the National Literacy Strategy, are based on engineering strategies, neglecting emotional aspects of learning and failing to motivate struggling pupils.  

Five papers offered the potential to enlighten the needs of our pupils.  The most compelling, Spencer (2002), examines the link between English orthography and illiteracy.  Thus the problem of children’s difficulties led to me to investigate KS1 requirements, seeking interventions to address an inconsistent language and avoid negative affective stances.  I was keen to develop methods based on the enlightenment model that would promote both literacy and confidence.  

The NLS Teacher’s Handbook prescribes a rigid content and pedagogy, (Appendices, p.30).  Word level targets emphasise phonological competencies and require a demanding pace of delivery.  Spellings with different patterns are presented in lists, not in context, which is confusing.  Year 2 high-frequency words (Appendices, p.31) are taught in isolation and are particularly difficult to learn for those with working memory deficits.  

Wall (2003) examined the appropriateness of the curriculum and its content.  She

questioned the suitability of the structure for all and argued that the flexibility required

for SEN has evidently been lost, emphasising that:

‘There is significant evidence that individual children differ in their pedagogical needs.’

(Wyse, 2000, cited in Wall, 2003: 39)

Wall called for a whole-language approach and professional judgement to identify appropriate skills, concluding that it is essential for teachers to use knowledge and expertise to adapt content.

As this indicated KS1 provides an inadequate knowledge base for progress, research was needed to halt failure and assist our pupils return to mainstream.  A study of the ENABLE-Plus programme by Bowen and Yeoman (2002) offered potential solutions, (Figures 1a, 1b, Appendices, pp. 32, 33).  Devised as a small group reading intervention to boost pupils identified as failing, the programme involves teaching phonic skills and high-frequency words though direct instruction and modelling, using text-based work aiming for skill acquisition and fluency.  Furthermore, ‘building self-esteem … forms a central part of the training’ (p.172).  Anecdotal evidence showed ENABLE-Plus could make a difference: out of forty-three children, twenty-nine made accelerated progress in reading. 

This convinced me that approaches, imbued with understanding of how English operates are required to give children with difficulties the understanding and skills to access the complex English code.  Accordingly, the methodology of Phono-Graphix merited examination, (Figure 2, Appendices, p. 34).  Devised by McGuinness (1998), it was evaluated in Bristol by Dias and Juniper (2002).  This approach teaches basic skills in the order that children utilise their knowledge of sounds and eliminates conflicts with the logic of the code.  The authors conclude:

‘… skill knowledge … aids reading, whereas the mixed messages, or overloading of information in other approaches, slows the pace of literacy acquisition.’

(Dias and Juniper, 2002: 37)

Phono-Graphix is an American programme, thus I investigated a British ‘synthetic’ method.  Johnston and Watson (1997) studied Scottish schools, where a gradual, systematic approach to phonemic awareness is employed, with explicit instruction in blending and whole word teaching of sight vocabulary.  The study demonstrated that children taught to use a letter to sound correspondence and synthesizing increased in literacy skills.  Therefore, teaching must draw attention to the idiosyncrasies of English

Analysis of chosen research

Spencer, K ((2002) English Spelling and its contribution to illiteracy: word difficulty for common English words.  Reading, 36 (1), 16 – 25 (Appendices p.35)

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The author presented a study of English, which differs from other alphabetic languages as words have more letter combinations than sounds.  The potential audience appears to be teachers concerned with addressing the needs of pupils with literacy problems.  The context of the research was the use of ‘a deficient technology’.  In Spencer’s terms written English is an inefficient tool for communication because it is an imperfect code that does not conform to specific rules.  This impedes reading and writing, which:

‘Will incur additional costs … higher rates of illiteracy and more energy and time spent in learning.’ ...

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