Summary

Background

Resource Teachers: Literacy (RT:Lits) are a specialist group of registered teachers who work with students in years 1 to 8 who are experiencing literacy difficulties. RT:Lits also provide support (for example, advice, modelling and demonstration) to teachers, parents and teacher aides connected with these students. An RT:Lit works for a designated cluster of schools, and is based at a host school. Each cluster has a Management Committee, of which the RT:Lit is a member. These committees develop local policies and manage the RT:Lit service to ensure the provision of RT:Lit services to the cluster schools.

At the beginning of 2001, the position of Resource Teachers of Reading (RTR) was replaced by that of RT:Lits. This in effect involved modifying the role to allow RT:Lits to focus on providing a greater level of support to teachers and other school staff rather than solely working with the students. In 2001, the number of RT:Lits increased gradually throughout the year from 68 to over 100. An account of the first year of work of RT:Lits, albeit an incomplete report in that teachers were being appointed throughout the year, is reported in Resource Teachers of Literacy: Information on Resource Teachers of Literacy (Annual Report 2001).

Resource Teachers: Literacy Annual Report 2002 was the first report on RT:Lits to contain data for an entire year. Where possible, comparisons will be made between the descriptions of work by RT:Lits in 2002 and 2003.

The role that RT:Lits perform will develop further with the intention that they will increasingly spend more time working with teachers and staff in the area of literacy difficulties and less time working with individual students. This transition period is expected to continue for a year or two. Accordingly, the nature of the information collected in the next few years will also change to reflect the evolving nature of the role of RT:Lits.

Methodology

In November 2003, the RT:Lit Annual Report questionnaires were sent to all RT:Lits to complete. The questionnaire format used in 2003 consisted of four parts:

Part A: Resource Teachers: Literacy covered all aspects of the work that RT:Lits undertake and the number of students enrolled in the programme in 2003;

Part B: Individual Tuition was completed for each student the RT:Lit worked with in 2003, gathering data on demographic characteristics (i.e., age, gender, ethnicity); literacy programme background, the support given, reading levels on entry to, and discharge from the programme and the student's programme status at the end of the year.

Part C: Direct Support for Small Groups of Students was introduced in 2002. This form records age, gender, ethnicity, the area of literacy the RT:Lit was providing support for, reading levels on entry to and exit from the programme, the number of sessions and the student's programme status at the end of the year.

Part D: Indirect Support for Named Students was introduced in 2003. This form was intended to record information on students who would have been assisted indirectly by the RT:Lit because of modelling, support or advice provided to the teacher or teacher aide during the year. Again, information was gathered on students' age, gender, ethnicity, literacy focus and reading levels at entry to and exit from the programme.

Completed reports were received from 108 (out of 109) RT:Lits. The following report summarises the data for 2003.

Readers will notice that in a number of tables there is a lack of information about some students (referred to as missing data). This can happen for a number of reasons: there may not be recorded information about that particular detail for a given student, school record-keeping practices may change when staff change, and there can sometimes be problems in interpretation of the question. At all times, data tables will specify how many pieces of information are missing.

Results and Discussion

The reader should note that 2003 was the second year in which data on the work of RT:Lits were available for the entire year. Comparisons will be made with 2002 data, and where appropriate, comparisons will also be made with 2001 data.

This report is divided into three main sections that contain analysis of information from Parts A, B and C of the annual return:

Section 1:  The Work of the Resource Teacher of Literacy

Section 2:  Students Who Received Individual Tuition

Section 3:  Students Directly Assisted in Small Groups

As a result of the range of interpretations made with regard to what was considered indirect support to students, the data from Part D have not been presented in this report. Consideration will be given to how this aspect of RT:Lits work can be captured in future reporting phases.