A 1999 report showed that causes of delays in student achievement were more complex than the teachers had previously thought. One was the low expectations teachers had of the students. In an effort to raise student achievement, Viscount School offered the teachers in-house professional development in literacy, “tailor-made” to the ...

Nga Iwi’s commitment to forming educative partnerships between the school and its community led it to change how it reported to parents on their children’s achievement. Specifically, the school wanted to report on achievement more accurately while ensuring that parents could understand the reports. They also wanted to report the ...

The researchers’ interviews of a sample of staff showed that after three years of using PAT, all staff could provide some examples of how they used the data, but some misunderstanding and reservations remained. Staff who had greater involvement in the analysis of the data were more confident in its ...

The researchers investigated the impact of a literacy intervention on reading and writing and the sustainability of the programme. Data on reading and writing achievement showed that while the latter was at national levels, the former was significantly below. It was concluded that the reading data collected by teachers were ...

This issue of set features case study articles on four South Auckland schools that have, in their different ways, taken up the challenge of significantly raising the literacy achievement levels of their students. In October 1998, Wyatt Creech, then Minister of Education, announced that by 2005 every child turning nine ...

The integrated learning system SuccessMaker is in many New Zealand schools. However, the author’s review of these systems concludes that few have proven effective in producing substantial gains in reading and language; gains in certain areas of maths do not appear to be transferred to other tasks; and system-generated progress ...

This article reviews some aspects of the concept of ‘learning style’, and appraises some evidence concerning its measurement. Bruce McMillan argues that while there is a common-sense basis for teachers’ use of the concept, there is no justification for the implication that the term represents a fixed and readily measurable ...

Guided reading is a key component of classroom literacy programmes in New Zealand. The Ministry of Education guidelines on how teachers should take guided reading sessions for emergent and early readers strongly emphasise the development of children’s understanding of the text. Ken Blaiklock questions the effectiveness of the guidelines, in ...

Evaluation of 44 projects in the Professional Development Funding Pool for 2000 has identified five ‘success factors’ for all schools working individually. These are project selection, planning, supportive ‘people’ structures, sustainable systems, and translating development into professional practice. Further factors were identified for successful professional development in secondary schools.

A research project showed that progress in a remedial reading programme for severely reading disabled adolescents was determined by the effects of their beliefs about ability and strategy effectiveness on their use of strategies to apply new letter-sound knowledge. Inflated beliefs about ability, and willingness to read extremely difficult text ...