Annual Monitoring of Reading Recovery: the Data for 2007

Conclusion

Students’ Gains in Reading and Writing by Gender and Ethnicity for Successfully Discontinued Students

Table 14 below shows students’ gains in all three measures mentioned above, for each gender and ethnic group. Overall, there were no differences by gender. This has been a consistent finding in previous reports.

Pasifika students and, to a lesser extent, Māori students who were successfully discontinued from Reading Recovery exhibited higher gains in all three measures compared to NZ European students. Please note that caution must be taken when interpreting these results as Pasifika and Māori students had lower entry scores on all three measures compared to NZ European students and, as a result, recorded greater gains¹.

Table 14: Gains in reading and writing for successfully discontinued students by ethnicity and gender^a

Table 14 Note:

a - Gain is calculated as the difference between the level/score at initial entry and when discontinued, divided by the number of students in that ethnic group.
b - Excludes students of ‘unknown’ ethnicity and those with missing ethnicity and/or gender information.
 

Entry and Exit Scores for Successfully Discontinued and Referred On Students, by Decile

Tables 15 and 16 show the average entry and exit scores for successfully discontinued and referred on students, according to school decile. A comparison between these tables shows that across all deciles and measures, successfully discontinued students had, on average, higher entry and exit scores compared to referred on students.

Additionally, as shown in Table 15, successfully discontinued students in lower decile schools had lower entry scores, on average, in all tests compared to those in higher decile schools. Exit scores for successfully discontinued students were fairly consistent (although students in lower decile schools tended to have lower exit scores in the Instructional Text Level and Burt Word Reading tests). This consistency is expected as students who had not reached the average band would not have been discontinued.

Table 15: Mean entry and exit scores for successfully discontinued students by decile

Table 15 Note:

a - Excludes students with missing decile information.
 

Unlike successfully discontinued students, referred on students from lower decile schools tended to have both lower entry and exit scores than students from higher decile schools (Table 16). This trend was observed across all three measures. It should be noted that referred on students from low decile schools also spent less time on average, in Reading Recovery, compared to referred on students from high decile schools (see Table 12).

Table 16: Mean entry and exit scores for referred on students by decile

Table 16 Note:

a - Excludes students with missing decile information. 

Instructional Text Level Entry and Exit Scores for Students Exiting Reading Recovery

In 2007, for the first time, entry and exit Instructional Text Level scores were recorded for all students regardless of their Reading Recovery outcome. As mentioned above, students exiting Reading Recovery could have either successfully discontinued their series of lessons, been referred on for further specialist support, been unable to continue their series of lessons (see Figure 2 for reasons) or have left the school before their lessons could be discontinued.

Figure 4 shows that successfully discontinued students entered and, as expected, exited Reading Recovery with higher scores on average than students of all other outcomes. Figure 4 also highlights the average gains made by other students, especially those that were referred on (an average increase of 8.6 points). Note that students who were to be carried over to 2008 have not been included as they cannot be considered to have ‘left’ Reading Recovery.

Figure 4: Exiting students’ average Instructional Text Level entry and exit scores by Reading Recovery outcome

Footnote

1. Note that students successfully discontinue their series of Reading Recovery lessons when they reach the ‘average band’ for reading levels in their classroom/school cohort. This has a ceiling effect on exit scores for all successfully completed students.