broader understanding of how children develop literacy, concludes a recent study

published in Educational Assessment.

Teachers' rationales for identifying children as at-risk for reading

difficulties often overlook student deficits revealed in standardized

assessments,report researchers Alison Bailey and Kathryn Drummond.

"After all, if teachers are going to deliver interventions, they must

diagnose children's deficits accurately (and usually quickly) to deliver

effective intervention," the researchers write. "However, in an environment that

focuses more on the content of reading rather than on guiding those who teach

reading, teachers may not have the necessary expertise to assess and remediate

reading weaknesses."

Administrators should encourage additional professional development in

literacy learning and assessment for teachers, the researchers conclude. More

training could help them make "finer-grained distinctions" across and within

reading, writing, speaking and listening. Reliable classroom-based assessments

should be developed to help teachers identify students with literacy problems.

"Teachers' own skills, particularly in differentiating phonemic awareness,

phonological processing, and phonics, may need to be developed before teachers

can recognize students' difficulties and give accurate information about

them,"the researchers write.

Literacy checklists can help teachers make more specific diagnoses and take

more appropriate action, particularly with cognition-related skills such as

comprehension.

Oral vocabulary deficits overlooked
In the study of 17 teachers

from five schools in Southern California, teachers were asked to give their

rationales for identifying kindergarten and first-grade students as at-risk for

literacy difficulties. Rationales were coded and then compared to how children

performed on more formal assessments such as the Woodcock Diagnostic Reading

Battery. The researchers found that teachers were "focusing on the right group

of students, if not always identifying all areas of weakness. In other words,

they sense that something is wrong, but cannot pinpoint the particular problem."

Teachers were more proactive in intervening with children who had

decoding problems, possibly reflecting their responsiveness to current research

and policy trends. But the students in the study had large deficits in

comprehension and oral vocabulary that few teachers mentioned in their

rationales, the researchers report.

"This potential oversight is cause for concern," they write, "particularly in

light of recent work by Buly and Valencia (2003) that shows the mandate to focus

on phonics instruction would not have served the 50% of students in their study

who fell below proficiency levels in reading due to comprehension and language

deficits.

In this study, the researchers also found that:
• 

Teachers' rationales for identifying students were often vague and not based on

assessments;
•  teachers' concept maps of early literacy almost always

included basic literacy skills (primary phonics) and phonological
awareness

(an oral language skill), but varied a great deal in including other literacy

skills;
•  selection of students was not influenced by gender, language

and grade level of student or teacher characteristics such as years of

experience; and
•  teachers' use of a literacy checklist (Literacy

Development Checklist) had a modest, but positive influence on identification.

Checklist
The checklist was developed by researchers to encourage

teachers to reflect on their students'performance across a comprehensive range

of literacy domains. Research has shown that a complex brew of skills, attitudes

and style of social interaction, characteristics of the home and learning

environment contribute to a successful literacy outcomes. The checklist, which

was used by 13 of 17 teachers in the study, can help teachers develop a more

detailed profile of students.

Understanding teacher decision-making in identifying at-risk children is

important because it will help develop more effective in-classroomn

interventions with accurate diagnoses of students' literacy problems. But it is

also important because of the potential long-term negative effects on children

who are identified as needing extra help, the researchers say.

Reasons most often cited by teachers in their rationales were: reading,

writing skills, oral language abilities, and student shyness and quietness.

Teachers were asked to document sources to explain why they selected certain

students, but few did so, relying instead on informal observation of student

performance and behavior. Teachers also sometimes were confused about the

terminology around literacy skills.

"Who Is at Risk and Why? Teachers' Reasons for Concern and Their

Understanding and Assessment of Early Literacy," by Alison Bailey and Kathryn

Drummond, Educational Assessment, Volume 11,Numbers 3 & 4, 2006, pps.

149-178.

Published in ERN December 2006 Volume 19 Number 9

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