Ground-breaking solutions launched to lift kiwi kids’ literacy levels

Dr Alison Davis.

A focused new way of teaching aimed at vastly improving Kiwi students’ achievement in reading comprehension, and already used in some schools with great success, will be presented in a series of practical, interactive workshops throughout NZ, beginning this month.

The workshops, held in Invercargill, Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington, Upper Hutt, Hamilton, Auckland central and the North Shore, aim to help teachers and educators lessen the existing gap between NZ’s high and low achieving students in reading and comprehension.

Formulated by acclaimed literacy expert, educator, and author Dr Alison Davis, the nationwide workshops follow hot on the heels of her recently launched book Teaching Reading Comprehension.

This book is the result of many years observation, study, and doctoral research, focussing on how students become effective comprehenders of text and what impact teachers have on achievement.

During her years as a teacher, Dr Davis became fascinated with the reasons why some students found reading more challenging than others and why some teachers had difficulty teaching appropriate strategies to struggling students.

This interest and concern took Dr Davis back to university in search of answers. Through her doctoral research, she found that two key factors influence student achievement – that when students are taught to use comprehension strategies “metacognitively”, they become empowered to transfer their learning to new situations; and that teachers must use the assessment information they gather to ensure their teaching targets students’ individual needs.

As Dr Davis explains in Teaching Reading Comprehension, “the most effective instruction happens in the classroom of teachers who understand how to teach comprehension (along with decoding, vocabulary, and fluency) and who also use assessment information to base their teaching on the actual needs of their students. It is the use of both these strands that makes all the difference.”

The research that forms the basis of Dr Davis’s book was carried out over five years, during which the results “consistently showed a dramatic increase in achievement with both struggling and able readers.”

This happened across a wide variety of schools, teachers, and students.

“It was clear that what the teachers of readers were doing made all the difference,” says Dr Davis.

“They learned to use a “metacognitive” approach to comprehension instruction and they consistently engaged students in evaluating their own learning. They showed that they were able to take research into their daily practice and make a significant difference to the outcomes of their students.”

The understandings, learning, and solutions that Dr Davis has developed form the basis of the forthcoming series of workshops to be held across the country, targeted at all teachers and educators working in years three to eight.

In line with the interactive concept of the workshops, they will be run over two days – but a few weeks apart – so that attendees can practise the new approaches, review recommended research, prepare specific questions, and share case-study experiences from their own classrooms between the two workshop dates.

Attendees will have the opportunity to turn theory into practice and learn how to apply the principles of effective teaching to their own classrooms.

The workshops, being held in six major centres, began with Day One in Auckland in August, 2008. Day Two begins on 16th September, 2008, and rolls out in other locations over October and early November.

Dr Davis’s book and the workshops are sponsored by award winning educational publishers Learning Media Ltd.

“Effective teaching is at the heart of what we do,” says Learning Media’s CEO, Gillian Candler.

“Our challenge is to support teachers because what teachers do moment by moment is what really matters in education and effective teaching practice.

“Dr Davis’s book Teaching Reading Comprehension and follow-up workshops are ground-breaking resources which will provide huge support to teachers where they need it – in their individual classrooms facing a wide range of different needs and challenges on a day-to-day basis. It is also a timely reminder of the impact of teachers and targeted teaching on achievement levels.”