How Do New Zealand Teachers Assess Children’s Oral Language and Literacy Skills at School Entry?

Cameron, Tracy A.; Carroll, Jane; Taumoepeau, Mele; Schaughency, Elizabeth

doi:10.1007/s40841-019-00133-4

Cited by 14 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Such findings are consistent with previous evaluations of the alignment of OTJs and children’s book level at age 6 (MoE, 2010b). In the first year of school, teachers commonly use observations of children’s oral reading (e.g., running records) to determine instructional book level (T. A. Cameron et al, 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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School-entry skills and early skill trajectories predict reading after 1 year.

Cameron¹,

Schaughency²,

Taumoepeau³

et al. 2023

School Psychology

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Oral language and early literacy skills are theorized to provide the foundation for reading acquisition. To understand these relations, methods are needed that depict dynamic skill development in the context of reading acquisition. We modeled contributions of school-entry skills and early skill trajectories to later reading with 105 5-year-old children beginning primary school and formal literacy instruction in New Zealand. Children were assessed at school-entry (Preschool Early Literacy Indicators), followed every fourth school week over their first 6 months of school (five probes of First Sound Fluency, Letter Sound Fluency, and New Zealand Word Identification Fluency: Year 1), and after 1 year of school (researcheradministered and school-used indices of literacy-related skills and reading progress). Modified latent change score (mLCS) modeling was used to describe skill development from repeated progress-monitoring data. Ordinal regression and structural equation modeling (path analyses) indicated skills at school-entry and early learning trajectories, indexed by mLCS, predicted children's early literacy progress. Results have implications for research and screening in beginning reading, supporting school-entry screening and progress monitoring of early literacy skills in beginning reading acquisition. Impact and ImplicationsThis study demonstrated the contributions of school-entry screening and repeated assessment of early literacy and word reading skills across children's first 6 months of school and reading instruction to later reading progress. Analyses identified consistencies and nuances in contributors to later reading outcomes. Results support school-entry screening and progress monitoring of early literacy skills for early identification and instructional intervention.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To understand skill development over time and respond to children’s educational needs, educators need tools that reflect growth (Clemens et al, 2018; Fuchs, 2004). Literacy progress in the first year of school in NZ is currently monitored via instructional book level (T. A. Cameron et al, 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

School-entry skills and early skill trajectories predict reading after 1 year.

Cameron¹,

Schaughency²,

Taumoepeau³

et al. 2023

School Psychology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Book level. NZ teachers typically derive children's instructional book level via running records (94%; Cameron, Carroll, Taumoepeau, & Schaughency, 2019). Guidelines for conducting running records are provided by the MoE ( 2000), with instructional level operationalized as seen text which can be read with greater than 90% accuracy (e.g., MoE, 2009).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Describing patterns of early literacy skill development in the first year of school and reading instruction in a New Zealand sample.

et al. 2020

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This study describes trajectories of early literacy skill development of 99 children (n ϭ 55 boys) in their first year of primary school in New Zealand (NZ). Children were assessed twice weekly for 8 weeks on Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS; Good & Kaminski, 2011) First Sound Fluency (FSF) and AIMSweb Letter Sound Fluency (LSF;Shinn & Shinn, 2002), with other early literacy and beginning reading skills assessed before and after progress monitoring. FSF and LSF growth trajectories were modeled separately. Multilevel modeling indicated improved performance; however, growth mixture modeling indicated 3 growth trajectories (i.e., latent classes; FSF and LSF, respectively): typical (77.6% of children, 65.7%), developing (10.8%, 14.6%), and limited progress (11.6%, 19.7%). Beginning of year screening was sometimes associated with latent class membership, whereas latent class membership differentiated mid-and year-end literacy skills. Results support progress monitoring of early literacy skills within the NZ context to aid earlier identification of children at-risk for difficulties with reading acquisition. Impact and ImplicationsThis study demonstrated that monitoring children's progress on early literacy skills over one term can reflect skill development in the first year of school. Although most children's performance improved over time, this study identified distinct growth trajectories, finding some children with low initial performance who showed limited progress. This research supports screening and progress monitoring for earlier identification and provision of supports to children experiencing challenges with reading acquisition.

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“…Despite this usefulness, it is not common practice for teachers to routinely and systematically monitor children's oral language (Malec et al, 2017 ; Cameron et al, 2019 ). There is a paucity of research exploring teacher use of systematic language sampling in kindergarten/new entrant classrooms, and even less research into the development of technologies to support this.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is a paucity of research exploring teacher use of systematic language sampling in kindergarten/new entrant classrooms, and even less research into the development of technologies to support this. Cameron et al ( 2019 ) report on teachers' desire for tools to assess children's oral language, but time and knowledge are also cited as barriers to use.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Evolution of an Innovative Online Task to Monitor Children's Oral Narrative Development

et al. 2022

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Oral narrative abilities are an important measure of children's language competency and have predictive value for children's later academic performance. Research and development underway in New Zealand is advancing an innovative online oral narrative task. This task uses audio recordings of children's story retells, speech-to-text software and language analysis to record, transcribe, analyse and present oral narrative and listening comprehension data back to class teachers. The task has been designed for class teachers' use with the support of SLP or literacy specialists in data interpretation. Teachers are upskilled and supported in order to interpret these data and implement teaching practices for students through online professional learning and development modules, within the context of a broader evidence-based approach to early literacy instruction. This article describes the development of this innovative, culturally relevant, online tool for monitoring children's oral narrative ability and listening comprehension in their first year of school. Three phases of development are outlined, showing the progression of the tool from a researcher-administered task during controlled research trials, to wide-scale implementation with thousands of students throughout New Zealand. The current iteration of the tool uses an automatic speech-recognition system with specifically trained transcription models and support from research assistants to check transcription, then code and analyse the oral narrative. This reduces transcription and analysis time to ~7 min, with a word error rate of around 20%. Future development plans to increase the accuracy of automatic transcription and embed basic language analysis into the tool, with the aim of removing the need for support from research assistants.

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How Do New Zealand Teachers Assess Children’s Oral Language and Literacy Skills at School Entry?

Cited by 14 publications

References 14 publications

School-entry skills and early skill trajectories predict reading after 1 year.

School-entry skills and early skill trajectories predict reading after 1 year.

Describing patterns of early literacy skill development in the first year of school and reading instruction in a New Zealand sample.

The Evolution of an Innovative Online Task to Monitor Children's Oral Narrative Development

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