- Email: [email protected]
The Niue literacy experiment
International Journal of Educational Research 35 (2001) 137–146
Chapter 1
The Niue literacy experiment Peter De’Ath* Lake Brunner School, Westland, New Zealand
Abstract In the mid-1970s a major change was introduced in the teaching of English as a second language at the primary level on Niue Island in the South Pacific. At that time the government’s education system consisted of seven primary schools and one high school administered by a small Education Department. Prior to the change, English had been taught through a structural linguistic approach, which was almost universal in the South Pacific. Central to the change was the Shared Book Experience, a teaching method widely used in New Zealand schools. Used in conjunction with a large supply of suitable storybooks, it was seen as a promising vehicle for instruction to improve the ESL learning outcomes for Year 3 pupils. This chapter sets out a justification for using the Shared Book procedures, the strategies that were implemented, and the evaluation procedures used to test the effectiveness of the change. Results showed that Year 3 pupils taught by the new method made significant gains in reading comprehension, word recognition and oral English, when compared with similar children taught with the structural approach. # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction The island of Niue is situated in the South Pacific, between Tonga and the Cook Islands. The people of Niue are Polynesian and they speak their vernacular language, Niuean, at home, but learn English as a second language at school. During the 1970s there were seven primary schools and one high school in the government system. From 1976 to 1978 the author served as Director of Education in Niue, and during that period introduced changes in the way English was taught in the primary school. Central to the changes was the use of the Shared Book Experience (or Shared Reading), a method of instruction which was based on a completely different
*Corresponding address: Postal Centre, The Schoolhouse, Koe Street, Moana, Westland, New Zealand. E-mail address: [email protected] (P. De’Ath). 0883-0355/01/$ - see front matter # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 8 8 3 - 0 3 5 5 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 1 1 - 8
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philosophy from the Tate Oral English Program which had been the prevailing method of introducing most South Pacific pupils to English.
2. The Shared Book Experience The Shared Book Experience developed as a response to a need that arose in Auckland, New Zealand in the 1960’s, when school rolls began to include many Polynesian children whose first languages were indigenous. Teachers were expected to teach these children together with Caucasian children whose first language was English, and other children using a Maori dialect of English. Auckland educators were not prepared for such diverse class compositions. Neither the curriculum nor the teaching resources were adequate for meeting the needs of all these pupils at once. The teachers were not bilingual. The only language available for instruction was English. One practical solution to the problem evolved around reading high-interest stories to children as a means of introducing them to new language. The desire to follow the stories motivated them to become active participants in the readings. This involvement intensified if the children could see the text and illustrations throughout the reading. Some teachers therefore enlarged high quality children’s stories into ‘‘Big Books’’ with large print, which could be seen by all the pupils in a group. Working with a routine somewhat similar to bedtime story reading, a resourceful teacher could find many opportunities to initiate discussion about the story (oral language development), encourage prediction and recall (reading comprehension) and draw attention to new words or ways of saying things (vocabulary and syntax). These reading sessions were very enjoyable, language rich and interactive. Revisiting the stories several times increased the developmental benefits for children. With each repetition they became more familiar with the language. A well-organized government advisory service to schools spread the Shared Book Experience rapidly throughout New Zealand. Although the method had its beginnings generally with children whose first language was not English, it was found to have application for teaching reading to all pupils. It was not, however, until the later part of the decade that any formal justification was attempted. Holdaway (1979), a gifted reading adviser in Auckland, gave the method greater respectability when he defined a developmental model, with its roots in the characteristics of bedtime story readings with very young children. Like the bedtime story, Shared Reading occurs in a non-threatening, relaxed atmosphere where there is sufficient security for children to take risks. They experience enjoyment and feelings of achievement, and there are many opportunities for discussion. As Holdaway described it, children chime in with the reading whenever they wish, as they become familiar with the text. They can make predictions, especially if the story contains repetitive structures and phrases. Because the children hear the story and at the same time see the text, the need for tight control of vocabulary in the book is
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diminished. Familiarity with the story often leads to dramatic play, and the use of book language beyond the readings, as children casually play with their new knowledge. Opportunities for such activities frequently occur within the classroom as a follow-up to the shared readings. The teacher engages children in talk about the story, in acting it out, drawing and labelling favorite parts, rewriting and modifying it, and in direct instruction about vocabulary meanings, spelling and punctuation. Their involvement with exciting stories has a developmental side effect. They learn much about how language works, both directly and indirectly, and they imitate in speech what they are learning from the print. The text is incorruptible, providing a perfect model of the second language. While Shared Reading begins with the teacher reading TO the children, the procedure quickly moves to the teacher reading WITH them, as they join in with the familiar and memorable parts of successive readings. Ultimately, the story is read BY the children, quite independent of the teacher. Several decades later, Shared Reading is still a universally popular method in New Zealand schools, and Holdaway remains the most frequently quoted authority on it. Little has been added. More recent writers simply confirm his model. Thus, in 1996 a New Zealand Ministry of Education curriculum support publication stated: ‘‘The support given by Shared Reading ensures that the students can appreciate the text as a whole and can enjoy, and learn from, material that they may not yet be able to read,’’ (Ministry of Education, 1996, p. 78). Smith and Elley (1997) draw attention to the progression from dependent to independent reading achieved through the sharing of books with teachers: ‘‘In true Vygotskian fashion, the teacher provides the ‘scaffolding’ at the outset but gradually withdraws it as children become familiar with the book’’ (p. 33). They go on to elaborate upon some of the identifiable yet incidental outcomes effected by the procedure. Children, they say, develop an appreciation of: directionality, concepts about the structure of stories, picture cues related to text, new vocabulary, letter-to sound relations, prediction possibilities and, very relevant to the Niue experiment, new sentence structures. The method has spread to many other countries. In America, Slaughter (1993), lists further benefits, relevant to this study, when she writes: ‘‘A teacher may encounter children who have no acquaintance with books, who have very limited speaking vocabularies or who have no apparent knowledge of letters or words. The Shared Book experience and the activities it prompts help these children develop their basic vocabularies and oral language skills’’ (p. 6). She also draws attention to the excellent auditory memory of young children which comes into effect in Shared Reading, and notes the many opportunities that are created for all components of language}listening, speaking, reading and writing}to benefit simultaneously. Children listen out of interest, they ask questions for clarification, they comment on what they hear, they read the text to see what happens, and they draw and rewrite favorite parts of the story. In this sense, Shared Reading parallels natural language acquisition in very young children. All language modes are used naturally, and interchangeably, and in response to felt needs, rather than in contrived situations.
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3. ESL teaching on Niue until 1977 The characteristics of the Shared Book Experience, as outlined above, stand in sharp contrast to the structuralist approach being used to teach ESL on Niue prior to 1977. The Tate Oral English Program (Tate, 1967) was introduced in Year 1 with English reading commencing in Year 3. The whole scheme was rigidly controlled. Teachers taught the language, structure by structure, the pupils chanting in unison what the teacher dictated. The teachers were required to teach directly from a manual, as a safeguard against the transmission of their own oral language errors. To a great extent all children could say exactly the same things in English. They were bound by structures they had learned when they tried to communicate in English. As an example, a consultant during the evaluation asked a child, ‘‘How old are you?’’ The child answered, ‘‘I am very well thank you.’’ The Tate Program appeared to lack most of the characteristics desired for natural language acquisition and generally failed to motivate the children toward independent learning. The text of the English reading books was confined to the structures previously taught in oral English lessons. The stories were weak on plot, and they restricted the opportunity to meet and explore the colorful language of children’s literature. Against this backdrop it appeared to the author that much could be gained with a change of procedure. Working with a Year 3 class in 1977, the reading component of the Tate Program was replaced with Shared Book procedures in a pilot study, using a set of original stories in natural language text.
4. The Niue experiment As Niue’s Director of Education from 1976 to 1978, the author was well placed to introduce such a change. He had served as a Reading Adviser in New Zealand schools, and had taught many Polynesian pupils learning English as a second language elsewhere in the South Pacific To provide suitable literature for the Shared Book project, a set of 48 natural language little booklets was written by the present author. The whole series was referred to as the ‘‘Fiafia Stories’’. ‘‘Fiafia’’ translates to ‘‘fun’’ or ‘‘happiness’’ in English. Each story could be read at one sitting and all involved situations familiar to Niuean children}(Fishing, Naughty Pigs, the School Bus, the Village Well. . .). Humor featured in many of the stories and the books were illustrated with photographs or drawings by a local artist. The series was graded into twelve levels with four stories at each level. It was envisaged that beyond the 48 story books children would be able to read a wider range of commercially produced material. The grading was not severe. Vocabulary, limited at first, was increased at each level and sentence structure became more complex as pupils proceeded through the series. Most of the books were handmade in landscape A4 format with enlarged print. This design suited Shared Book
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methodology. The 1977 pilot project afforded the opportunity for adjustment of the materials in readiness for the full trial in 1978. Year 3 children had a background of Tate Oral English from Years 1 and 2, and most were literate in their own language. They brought some rudimentary knowledge of English and reading experience in Niuean to their Year 3 program. The teacher in the pilot school was trained in the Shared Book procedures and taught how to use Fiafia Stories. She was also taught a variety of follow-up and extension exercises, based on the stories. Progress throughout the year was monitored by members of the Education Department’s Curriculum Unit. A deviation from normal Tate procedures permitted the teacher to discuss unfamiliar vocabulary in Niuean language, provided that discussion returned to English before moving on in the story. Toward the end of the year the trial was evaluated informally, and there seemed to be sufficient evidence that the change had been beneficial. It was therefore decided to implement the new procedures for all Year 3 pupils for 1978. The Year 3 teachers from the island’s six remaining schools were brought together for a two-week training workshop, and the Institute of Education at the University of the South Pacific was invited to make a formal evaluation of the program. 5. The design of the evaluation Elley (1980) documented the evaluation of the project. The intent of the evaluation, and the main research question, was to determine which program, the Tate Oral English with associated readers, or the ‘‘Fiafia Stories’’ with Shared Reading, was more beneficial for Year 3 pupils. Since nearly all Year 3 pupils on the island were instructed using the Fiafia stories in 1978, it was not possible to have a simple experimental-control group contrast design. It was decided, therefore, to assess the language performance of Year 4 pupils at the beginning of both 1978 and 1979. The 1978 cohort in Year 4 had spent the previous year learning from the Tate Program while the 1979 cohort had learned from the Fiafia Stories. The two successive cohorts of pupils were considered equivalent in all important respects. Both were assessed at the same age (mean=8.5 years). Both groups spoke vernacular language at home and English at school. Time spent on the reading program at school in 1978 was standardized to the time given to reading in 1977. All six teachers were locally trained Niueans, using English as their second language. Four of them taught Year 3 in both years, while the other two taught for a part of 1978 and were replaced by relief teachers during the year}thereby diluting the effect of the program for their pupils. Though all the teachers had undertaken a special training course, the method was definitely quite new for them, and frustrating delays in the arrival of materials and the experience of teaching without a manual would probably have offset any ‘‘Hawthorne Effect’’ for the second cohort. There were no other known significant influences affecting the children’s performance. However, it should be noted that throughout the two years of the
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project, the island was experiencing a steady outflow of emigrants to New Zealand. This trend could have favored the results achieved by those in the Tate Program as migrants tend to be the more perceptive and adventurous members of a population. Otherwise, there was no evidence to suggest that either cohort would be intellectually superior to the other.
6. The testing program The tests used in the evaluation were chosen to fit the expected outcomes of both programs. They involved reading comprehension, vocabulary growth and oral language. 1. Reading comprehension was stressed in the rationale for both the Fiafia and the Tate Reading programs. Therefore a test of 35 multi-choice sentence comprehension questions, devised and trialed in other Pacific territories was adapted by Elley (1980) and used with both cohorts. Pupils had to complete a short sentence with one of four words, only one of which made sense, and was grammatically correct. The test showed a correlation of 0.78 with the word recognition test described below. The pupils were tested in small groups by a Niuean education adviser after they had tried sufficient practice examples to ensure that they could perform confidently. The actual test scores ranged from 1 to 29, out of 35 questions. 2. Word recognition is widely believed to be a by-product of reading development, and a popular indicator of it. While both the Tate and Fiafia programs acknowledge the primacy of comprehension, they also assumed that the recognition of words is an essential component. Therefore, a 50-word test of word recognition was developed, requiring pupils to read isolated words aloud to the tester. The test was designed to be fair to both programs. Twentyfive of the words were drawn from the first four Tate readers, while the other 25 were drawn from the first ten levels of the Fiafia stories. The words were arranged approximately in order of difficulty beginning with phonetically regular words (hop, look, me, not, and) while the later words were more difficult (weight, machine, breathe, lightning). Every second child in each of the Year 4 cohorts was tested individually. The scores ranged from 0 to 48 out of 50. 3. Oral Language. One hypothesis underpinning the Fiafia Stories was that their natural language and the scope offered for authentic discussion by the Shared Reading approach would have an incidental effect upon the children’s control of oral language. A test of sentence repetition adapted from one developed by Clay, Gill, Glynn, McNaughton and Solomon (1976) was used to examine this hypothesis. The test required the subject to repeat sentences verbatim, as dictated by the tester. The sentences increased in structural complexity as the test proceeded. The rationale for this procedure is that pupils will only cope with the items so long as the structures are within their normal range of usage and
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comprehension. Once an item goes beyond that point they begin to make mistakes in their repetitions. Such a test seemed highly relevant for the comparison of teaching strategies under review. Clay’s original test of 28 items was revised to accommodate vocabulary and experiences more suited to Niuean children without altering the structures.The test was administered individually to all pupils who had not taken the word recognition test. Scores ranged from 0 to 28 out of a possible 28.
7. Results The test results for the children using the Tate Program in 1977 revealed a large number of weaknesses in oral and written English. Despite up to three years of oral English instruction and one year with the Tate Readers, 40 pupils out of the sample of 89 could not read simple sentences with understanding. Nearly all their scores on the Reading Comprehension test were at or below chance level (25%). A few scored more highly than this, but of these all but one had spent time living in New Zealand. The mean for all the Tate pupils was 10.45, out of 35. The word recognition test was similarly disappointing (mean 14.85, out of 50). Individual words that pupils scored highly on bore little relationship to their frequency of use in English (e.g., hop showed 48 % correct, compared with me, at 8%). The mean for the sentence repetition test was even lower, comparatively, at 6.5 out of 28. Once the sentences were lengthened beyond six or seven words the pupils could not retain the structure in short term memory. Overall performance by this cohort indicated that their development in English in relation to the time devoted to it was not encouraging. In contrast, the results from the ‘‘Fiafia’’ sample, tested the following year, indicated that they had profited considerably from the changes to their instructional program. Table 1 details the comparative scores per school, with totals for both years. For the Fiafia group, the reading comprehension test showed a mean of 14.02, and the difference was clearly significant statistically (t=3.40, p50.01). Expressed in
Table 1 Reading comprehension means & SDs for each school, Tate and Fiafia Programsa Tate (1978)
Fiafia (1979)
School
Mean
SD
N
Mean
SD
1 2 3 4 5 6
11.96 11.19 8.00 8.60 11.60 8.56
5.16 3.36 3.62 4.36 3.89 3.86
23 16 9 5 20 16
22.93 12.00 7.80 11.00 10.43 11.00
4.70 2.93 2.23 0.82 1.95 4.99
18 7 5 3 14 15
Total
10.54
5.30
89
14.02
6.63
62
a
N
Adapted from Elley (1980, Table 1), by permission of New Zealand Council for Educational Research.
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Table 2 Word recognition means & SDs for each school, Tate and Fiafia Programsa Tate (1978)
Fiafia (1979)
School
Mean
SD
N
Mean
SD
1 2 3 4 5 6
21.00 14.47 13.50 16.33 9.00 13.89
10.29 9.77 8.36 1.25 5.59 9.58
12 9 6 3 10 9
43.22 25.75 25.30 29.00 19.29 26.25
4.05 10.47 5.31 5.10 6.32 14.01
9 4 3 3 7 8
14.85
12.00
49
29.41
12.39
34
Total a
N
Adapted from Elley (1980, Table 2), by permission of New Zealand Council for Educational Research.
Table 3 Oral sentence repetition means & SDs for each school, Tate and Fiafia Programsa Tate (1978)
Fiafia (1979)
School
Mean
SD
N
Mean
SD
1 2 3 4 5 6
9.27 5.67 8.00 4.50 3.78 6.67
5.12 4.52 5.35 1.50 5.68 4.11
11 8 3 2 9 6
16.33 8.67 9.50 9.33 7.00 9.86
7.15 2.62 3.50 0.94 4.07 5.36
9 3 2 3 7 7
Total
6.51
5.00
39
10.90
6.30
31
a
N
Adapted from Elley (1980, Table 3), by permission of New Zealand Council for Educational Research.
another way, the ‘‘effect size’’, which shows the size of the difference, relative to the SD of the control group, was 0.63. Schools 3 and 5, whose teachers had left during the year, showed disappointing results, no higher than the control group, but these were easily offset by the remainder. The Word Recognition scores for the Fiafia group showed a dramatic increase with a mean of 29.41, compared with 14.85 in the previous year. Again the difference was highly significant (t=5.31, p50.001). The effect size was unusually high, at 1.21 (Table 2). For the Fiafia cohort, the overall mean (10.90) resulting from the sentence repetition test represented a gain of 67.43%. Again the difference was clearly significant (t=3.11; p50.01) , and the effect size was again very high, at 0.88 (Table 3). Sex differences in the scores of all tests and for both cohorts were also examined. This analysis showed that girls scored more highly than boys in all three tests, and the difference was significant in the case of reading comprehension and word
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recognition. (t=2.57 and 2.38, respectively). Both sexes scored more highly in the Fiafia Program than in Tate.
8. Discussion The Fiafia Program contributed strongly to an improvement in all three aspects of English when compared with the Tate Reading Program. Children using the Fiafia stories knew more sight words, were superior in reading comprehension and could repeat orally more complex sentence structures. Furthermore, there was ample anecdotal evidence to show that they enjoyed working with the stories and the Shared Book procedure. The magnitude of the improvement was impressive. So often benefits accruing from a change in learning program are masked by variables beyond the control of the researcher. In this case contaminating external variables were minimal. The teachers had no vested interest in making the change succeed. Indeed, the new program required more effort than the neatly prescribed and familiar Tate Program. Some characteristics of the new procedure could be credited with its success. Its theoretical orientation provided a richer language environment. Opportunities to meet new structures occurred naturally, while pupils were actively striving for meaning. The fear that children may learn something wrongly had often stifled those opportunities in the Tate program. The Shared Book Experience may have improved on a technique regularly employed in the other program. Whereas Tate had required the children to repeat structures many times to achieve mastery, in the Shared Book method, repetition occurred as children reread the books. This feature could have developed more enthusiasm in the children. The teacher at School No.1 made frequent use of Shared Book Experiences, creating many enlarged books herself. Teachers at Schools 3 and 5, by contrast, made little use of the procedure. Results were lower for these schools when compared with School No 1. This contrast suggests that the greater use of the Shared Book procedure increased the children’s opportunity for mastery learning. The Fiafia stories themselves no doubt contributed to the children’s successes. The story quality, the inclusion of familiar experiences and the touches of humor or excitement were all motivating factors, when compared with the unexciting stories in the Tate Readers. There may well have been other theoretical or practical explanations for the success of the Fiafia program. In a previous article (De Ath, 1980), this author expressed the view that the experiment succeeded because an environment was created where the language was used in all its forms. Motivation to use the language was high. The classroom environment fostered success. The receiving and conveying of meaning were more important than oral drills. Furthermore, the children were not inhibited by the policy of teaching only one structure at a time. They had many opportunities to practice the skill of guessing at meaning, a policy that was discouraged in the Tate Program.
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The Niue experiment stands as a forerunner for many similar projects in the South Pacific, and internationally, which have occurred since. Despite the simple nature of the materials that were created and the minimal training of the teachers involved, it is clear that very significant improvements occurred in the children’s mastery of English.
References Clay, M. M., Gill, M., Glynn, T., McNaughton, T., & Solomon, K. (1976). Record of oral language. Wellington: NZ Educational Institute. De Ath, P. (1980). The shared book experience and ESL, Directions 4. Suva, Fiji. Institute of Education, University of the South Pacific. Elley, W. B. (1980). A comparison of content-interest and structuralist reading programs in Niue primary schools. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies, 15(1), 39–53. Holdaway, D. (1979). The foundations of literacy. Sydney: Ashton Scholastic. Ministry of Education (1996). The learner as a reader. Wellington: Learning Media. Slaughter, J. P. (1993). Beyond story-books: Young children and the shared book experience. Newark, Delaware: International Reading Association. Smith, J., & Elley, W. B. (1997). How children learn to read. Auckland: Addison Wesley Longman. Tate, G. M. (1967). Teaching structure: A teachers handbook. Wellington: A.H. & A.W. Reed.
Peter De Ath is Principal of Lake Brunner School, on the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand. From 1976 to 1978, he served as Director of Education in Niue, where he introduced the innovation described here. He had previously held a senior position in the Cook Islands, and was a Government Advisor on Reading in New Zealand schools. He has published in the area of reading and spelling. His contact address is: c/o Postal Centre, The Schoolhouse, Koe Street, Moana, Westland, New Zealand. E-mail: [email protected]
Chapter 1
The Niue literacy experiment Peter De’Ath* Lake Brunner School, Westland, New Zealand
Abstract In the mid-1970s a major change was introduced in the teaching of English as a second language at the primary level on Niue Island in the South Pacific. At that time the government’s education system consisted of seven primary schools and one high school administered by a small Education Department. Prior to the change, English had been taught through a structural linguistic approach, which was almost universal in the South Pacific. Central to the change was the Shared Book Experience, a teaching method widely used in New Zealand schools. Used in conjunction with a large supply of suitable storybooks, it was seen as a promising vehicle for instruction to improve the ESL learning outcomes for Year 3 pupils. This chapter sets out a justification for using the Shared Book procedures, the strategies that were implemented, and the evaluation procedures used to test the effectiveness of the change. Results showed that Year 3 pupils taught by the new method made significant gains in reading comprehension, word recognition and oral English, when compared with similar children taught with the structural approach. # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction The island of Niue is situated in the South Pacific, between Tonga and the Cook Islands. The people of Niue are Polynesian and they speak their vernacular language, Niuean, at home, but learn English as a second language at school. During the 1970s there were seven primary schools and one high school in the government system. From 1976 to 1978 the author served as Director of Education in Niue, and during that period introduced changes in the way English was taught in the primary school. Central to the changes was the use of the Shared Book Experience (or Shared Reading), a method of instruction which was based on a completely different
*Corresponding address: Postal Centre, The Schoolhouse, Koe Street, Moana, Westland, New Zealand. E-mail address: [email protected] (P. De’Ath). 0883-0355/01/$ - see front matter # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 8 8 3 - 0 3 5 5 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 1 1 - 8
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philosophy from the Tate Oral English Program which had been the prevailing method of introducing most South Pacific pupils to English.
2. The Shared Book Experience The Shared Book Experience developed as a response to a need that arose in Auckland, New Zealand in the 1960’s, when school rolls began to include many Polynesian children whose first languages were indigenous. Teachers were expected to teach these children together with Caucasian children whose first language was English, and other children using a Maori dialect of English. Auckland educators were not prepared for such diverse class compositions. Neither the curriculum nor the teaching resources were adequate for meeting the needs of all these pupils at once. The teachers were not bilingual. The only language available for instruction was English. One practical solution to the problem evolved around reading high-interest stories to children as a means of introducing them to new language. The desire to follow the stories motivated them to become active participants in the readings. This involvement intensified if the children could see the text and illustrations throughout the reading. Some teachers therefore enlarged high quality children’s stories into ‘‘Big Books’’ with large print, which could be seen by all the pupils in a group. Working with a routine somewhat similar to bedtime story reading, a resourceful teacher could find many opportunities to initiate discussion about the story (oral language development), encourage prediction and recall (reading comprehension) and draw attention to new words or ways of saying things (vocabulary and syntax). These reading sessions were very enjoyable, language rich and interactive. Revisiting the stories several times increased the developmental benefits for children. With each repetition they became more familiar with the language. A well-organized government advisory service to schools spread the Shared Book Experience rapidly throughout New Zealand. Although the method had its beginnings generally with children whose first language was not English, it was found to have application for teaching reading to all pupils. It was not, however, until the later part of the decade that any formal justification was attempted. Holdaway (1979), a gifted reading adviser in Auckland, gave the method greater respectability when he defined a developmental model, with its roots in the characteristics of bedtime story readings with very young children. Like the bedtime story, Shared Reading occurs in a non-threatening, relaxed atmosphere where there is sufficient security for children to take risks. They experience enjoyment and feelings of achievement, and there are many opportunities for discussion. As Holdaway described it, children chime in with the reading whenever they wish, as they become familiar with the text. They can make predictions, especially if the story contains repetitive structures and phrases. Because the children hear the story and at the same time see the text, the need for tight control of vocabulary in the book is
P. De’Ath / Int. J. Educ. Res. 35 (2001) 137–146
139
diminished. Familiarity with the story often leads to dramatic play, and the use of book language beyond the readings, as children casually play with their new knowledge. Opportunities for such activities frequently occur within the classroom as a follow-up to the shared readings. The teacher engages children in talk about the story, in acting it out, drawing and labelling favorite parts, rewriting and modifying it, and in direct instruction about vocabulary meanings, spelling and punctuation. Their involvement with exciting stories has a developmental side effect. They learn much about how language works, both directly and indirectly, and they imitate in speech what they are learning from the print. The text is incorruptible, providing a perfect model of the second language. While Shared Reading begins with the teacher reading TO the children, the procedure quickly moves to the teacher reading WITH them, as they join in with the familiar and memorable parts of successive readings. Ultimately, the story is read BY the children, quite independent of the teacher. Several decades later, Shared Reading is still a universally popular method in New Zealand schools, and Holdaway remains the most frequently quoted authority on it. Little has been added. More recent writers simply confirm his model. Thus, in 1996 a New Zealand Ministry of Education curriculum support publication stated: ‘‘The support given by Shared Reading ensures that the students can appreciate the text as a whole and can enjoy, and learn from, material that they may not yet be able to read,’’ (Ministry of Education, 1996, p. 78). Smith and Elley (1997) draw attention to the progression from dependent to independent reading achieved through the sharing of books with teachers: ‘‘In true Vygotskian fashion, the teacher provides the ‘scaffolding’ at the outset but gradually withdraws it as children become familiar with the book’’ (p. 33). They go on to elaborate upon some of the identifiable yet incidental outcomes effected by the procedure. Children, they say, develop an appreciation of: directionality, concepts about the structure of stories, picture cues related to text, new vocabulary, letter-to sound relations, prediction possibilities and, very relevant to the Niue experiment, new sentence structures. The method has spread to many other countries. In America, Slaughter (1993), lists further benefits, relevant to this study, when she writes: ‘‘A teacher may encounter children who have no acquaintance with books, who have very limited speaking vocabularies or who have no apparent knowledge of letters or words. The Shared Book experience and the activities it prompts help these children develop their basic vocabularies and oral language skills’’ (p. 6). She also draws attention to the excellent auditory memory of young children which comes into effect in Shared Reading, and notes the many opportunities that are created for all components of language}listening, speaking, reading and writing}to benefit simultaneously. Children listen out of interest, they ask questions for clarification, they comment on what they hear, they read the text to see what happens, and they draw and rewrite favorite parts of the story. In this sense, Shared Reading parallels natural language acquisition in very young children. All language modes are used naturally, and interchangeably, and in response to felt needs, rather than in contrived situations.
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3. ESL teaching on Niue until 1977 The characteristics of the Shared Book Experience, as outlined above, stand in sharp contrast to the structuralist approach being used to teach ESL on Niue prior to 1977. The Tate Oral English Program (Tate, 1967) was introduced in Year 1 with English reading commencing in Year 3. The whole scheme was rigidly controlled. Teachers taught the language, structure by structure, the pupils chanting in unison what the teacher dictated. The teachers were required to teach directly from a manual, as a safeguard against the transmission of their own oral language errors. To a great extent all children could say exactly the same things in English. They were bound by structures they had learned when they tried to communicate in English. As an example, a consultant during the evaluation asked a child, ‘‘How old are you?’’ The child answered, ‘‘I am very well thank you.’’ The Tate Program appeared to lack most of the characteristics desired for natural language acquisition and generally failed to motivate the children toward independent learning. The text of the English reading books was confined to the structures previously taught in oral English lessons. The stories were weak on plot, and they restricted the opportunity to meet and explore the colorful language of children’s literature. Against this backdrop it appeared to the author that much could be gained with a change of procedure. Working with a Year 3 class in 1977, the reading component of the Tate Program was replaced with Shared Book procedures in a pilot study, using a set of original stories in natural language text.
4. The Niue experiment As Niue’s Director of Education from 1976 to 1978, the author was well placed to introduce such a change. He had served as a Reading Adviser in New Zealand schools, and had taught many Polynesian pupils learning English as a second language elsewhere in the South Pacific To provide suitable literature for the Shared Book project, a set of 48 natural language little booklets was written by the present author. The whole series was referred to as the ‘‘Fiafia Stories’’. ‘‘Fiafia’’ translates to ‘‘fun’’ or ‘‘happiness’’ in English. Each story could be read at one sitting and all involved situations familiar to Niuean children}(Fishing, Naughty Pigs, the School Bus, the Village Well. . .). Humor featured in many of the stories and the books were illustrated with photographs or drawings by a local artist. The series was graded into twelve levels with four stories at each level. It was envisaged that beyond the 48 story books children would be able to read a wider range of commercially produced material. The grading was not severe. Vocabulary, limited at first, was increased at each level and sentence structure became more complex as pupils proceeded through the series. Most of the books were handmade in landscape A4 format with enlarged print. This design suited Shared Book
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methodology. The 1977 pilot project afforded the opportunity for adjustment of the materials in readiness for the full trial in 1978. Year 3 children had a background of Tate Oral English from Years 1 and 2, and most were literate in their own language. They brought some rudimentary knowledge of English and reading experience in Niuean to their Year 3 program. The teacher in the pilot school was trained in the Shared Book procedures and taught how to use Fiafia Stories. She was also taught a variety of follow-up and extension exercises, based on the stories. Progress throughout the year was monitored by members of the Education Department’s Curriculum Unit. A deviation from normal Tate procedures permitted the teacher to discuss unfamiliar vocabulary in Niuean language, provided that discussion returned to English before moving on in the story. Toward the end of the year the trial was evaluated informally, and there seemed to be sufficient evidence that the change had been beneficial. It was therefore decided to implement the new procedures for all Year 3 pupils for 1978. The Year 3 teachers from the island’s six remaining schools were brought together for a two-week training workshop, and the Institute of Education at the University of the South Pacific was invited to make a formal evaluation of the program. 5. The design of the evaluation Elley (1980) documented the evaluation of the project. The intent of the evaluation, and the main research question, was to determine which program, the Tate Oral English with associated readers, or the ‘‘Fiafia Stories’’ with Shared Reading, was more beneficial for Year 3 pupils. Since nearly all Year 3 pupils on the island were instructed using the Fiafia stories in 1978, it was not possible to have a simple experimental-control group contrast design. It was decided, therefore, to assess the language performance of Year 4 pupils at the beginning of both 1978 and 1979. The 1978 cohort in Year 4 had spent the previous year learning from the Tate Program while the 1979 cohort had learned from the Fiafia Stories. The two successive cohorts of pupils were considered equivalent in all important respects. Both were assessed at the same age (mean=8.5 years). Both groups spoke vernacular language at home and English at school. Time spent on the reading program at school in 1978 was standardized to the time given to reading in 1977. All six teachers were locally trained Niueans, using English as their second language. Four of them taught Year 3 in both years, while the other two taught for a part of 1978 and were replaced by relief teachers during the year}thereby diluting the effect of the program for their pupils. Though all the teachers had undertaken a special training course, the method was definitely quite new for them, and frustrating delays in the arrival of materials and the experience of teaching without a manual would probably have offset any ‘‘Hawthorne Effect’’ for the second cohort. There were no other known significant influences affecting the children’s performance. However, it should be noted that throughout the two years of the
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project, the island was experiencing a steady outflow of emigrants to New Zealand. This trend could have favored the results achieved by those in the Tate Program as migrants tend to be the more perceptive and adventurous members of a population. Otherwise, there was no evidence to suggest that either cohort would be intellectually superior to the other.
6. The testing program The tests used in the evaluation were chosen to fit the expected outcomes of both programs. They involved reading comprehension, vocabulary growth and oral language. 1. Reading comprehension was stressed in the rationale for both the Fiafia and the Tate Reading programs. Therefore a test of 35 multi-choice sentence comprehension questions, devised and trialed in other Pacific territories was adapted by Elley (1980) and used with both cohorts. Pupils had to complete a short sentence with one of four words, only one of which made sense, and was grammatically correct. The test showed a correlation of 0.78 with the word recognition test described below. The pupils were tested in small groups by a Niuean education adviser after they had tried sufficient practice examples to ensure that they could perform confidently. The actual test scores ranged from 1 to 29, out of 35 questions. 2. Word recognition is widely believed to be a by-product of reading development, and a popular indicator of it. While both the Tate and Fiafia programs acknowledge the primacy of comprehension, they also assumed that the recognition of words is an essential component. Therefore, a 50-word test of word recognition was developed, requiring pupils to read isolated words aloud to the tester. The test was designed to be fair to both programs. Twentyfive of the words were drawn from the first four Tate readers, while the other 25 were drawn from the first ten levels of the Fiafia stories. The words were arranged approximately in order of difficulty beginning with phonetically regular words (hop, look, me, not, and) while the later words were more difficult (weight, machine, breathe, lightning). Every second child in each of the Year 4 cohorts was tested individually. The scores ranged from 0 to 48 out of 50. 3. Oral Language. One hypothesis underpinning the Fiafia Stories was that their natural language and the scope offered for authentic discussion by the Shared Reading approach would have an incidental effect upon the children’s control of oral language. A test of sentence repetition adapted from one developed by Clay, Gill, Glynn, McNaughton and Solomon (1976) was used to examine this hypothesis. The test required the subject to repeat sentences verbatim, as dictated by the tester. The sentences increased in structural complexity as the test proceeded. The rationale for this procedure is that pupils will only cope with the items so long as the structures are within their normal range of usage and
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comprehension. Once an item goes beyond that point they begin to make mistakes in their repetitions. Such a test seemed highly relevant for the comparison of teaching strategies under review. Clay’s original test of 28 items was revised to accommodate vocabulary and experiences more suited to Niuean children without altering the structures.The test was administered individually to all pupils who had not taken the word recognition test. Scores ranged from 0 to 28 out of a possible 28.
7. Results The test results for the children using the Tate Program in 1977 revealed a large number of weaknesses in oral and written English. Despite up to three years of oral English instruction and one year with the Tate Readers, 40 pupils out of the sample of 89 could not read simple sentences with understanding. Nearly all their scores on the Reading Comprehension test were at or below chance level (25%). A few scored more highly than this, but of these all but one had spent time living in New Zealand. The mean for all the Tate pupils was 10.45, out of 35. The word recognition test was similarly disappointing (mean 14.85, out of 50). Individual words that pupils scored highly on bore little relationship to their frequency of use in English (e.g., hop showed 48 % correct, compared with me, at 8%). The mean for the sentence repetition test was even lower, comparatively, at 6.5 out of 28. Once the sentences were lengthened beyond six or seven words the pupils could not retain the structure in short term memory. Overall performance by this cohort indicated that their development in English in relation to the time devoted to it was not encouraging. In contrast, the results from the ‘‘Fiafia’’ sample, tested the following year, indicated that they had profited considerably from the changes to their instructional program. Table 1 details the comparative scores per school, with totals for both years. For the Fiafia group, the reading comprehension test showed a mean of 14.02, and the difference was clearly significant statistically (t=3.40, p50.01). Expressed in
Table 1 Reading comprehension means & SDs for each school, Tate and Fiafia Programsa Tate (1978)
Fiafia (1979)
School
Mean
SD
N
Mean
SD
1 2 3 4 5 6
11.96 11.19 8.00 8.60 11.60 8.56
5.16 3.36 3.62 4.36 3.89 3.86
23 16 9 5 20 16
22.93 12.00 7.80 11.00 10.43 11.00
4.70 2.93 2.23 0.82 1.95 4.99
18 7 5 3 14 15
Total
10.54
5.30
89
14.02
6.63
62
a
N
Adapted from Elley (1980, Table 1), by permission of New Zealand Council for Educational Research.
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Table 2 Word recognition means & SDs for each school, Tate and Fiafia Programsa Tate (1978)
Fiafia (1979)
School
Mean
SD
N
Mean
SD
1 2 3 4 5 6
21.00 14.47 13.50 16.33 9.00 13.89
10.29 9.77 8.36 1.25 5.59 9.58
12 9 6 3 10 9
43.22 25.75 25.30 29.00 19.29 26.25
4.05 10.47 5.31 5.10 6.32 14.01
9 4 3 3 7 8
14.85
12.00
49
29.41
12.39
34
Total a
N
Adapted from Elley (1980, Table 2), by permission of New Zealand Council for Educational Research.
Table 3 Oral sentence repetition means & SDs for each school, Tate and Fiafia Programsa Tate (1978)
Fiafia (1979)
School
Mean
SD
N
Mean
SD
1 2 3 4 5 6
9.27 5.67 8.00 4.50 3.78 6.67
5.12 4.52 5.35 1.50 5.68 4.11
11 8 3 2 9 6
16.33 8.67 9.50 9.33 7.00 9.86
7.15 2.62 3.50 0.94 4.07 5.36
9 3 2 3 7 7
Total
6.51
5.00
39
10.90
6.30
31
a
N
Adapted from Elley (1980, Table 3), by permission of New Zealand Council for Educational Research.
another way, the ‘‘effect size’’, which shows the size of the difference, relative to the SD of the control group, was 0.63. Schools 3 and 5, whose teachers had left during the year, showed disappointing results, no higher than the control group, but these were easily offset by the remainder. The Word Recognition scores for the Fiafia group showed a dramatic increase with a mean of 29.41, compared with 14.85 in the previous year. Again the difference was highly significant (t=5.31, p50.001). The effect size was unusually high, at 1.21 (Table 2). For the Fiafia cohort, the overall mean (10.90) resulting from the sentence repetition test represented a gain of 67.43%. Again the difference was clearly significant (t=3.11; p50.01) , and the effect size was again very high, at 0.88 (Table 3). Sex differences in the scores of all tests and for both cohorts were also examined. This analysis showed that girls scored more highly than boys in all three tests, and the difference was significant in the case of reading comprehension and word
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recognition. (t=2.57 and 2.38, respectively). Both sexes scored more highly in the Fiafia Program than in Tate.
8. Discussion The Fiafia Program contributed strongly to an improvement in all three aspects of English when compared with the Tate Reading Program. Children using the Fiafia stories knew more sight words, were superior in reading comprehension and could repeat orally more complex sentence structures. Furthermore, there was ample anecdotal evidence to show that they enjoyed working with the stories and the Shared Book procedure. The magnitude of the improvement was impressive. So often benefits accruing from a change in learning program are masked by variables beyond the control of the researcher. In this case contaminating external variables were minimal. The teachers had no vested interest in making the change succeed. Indeed, the new program required more effort than the neatly prescribed and familiar Tate Program. Some characteristics of the new procedure could be credited with its success. Its theoretical orientation provided a richer language environment. Opportunities to meet new structures occurred naturally, while pupils were actively striving for meaning. The fear that children may learn something wrongly had often stifled those opportunities in the Tate program. The Shared Book Experience may have improved on a technique regularly employed in the other program. Whereas Tate had required the children to repeat structures many times to achieve mastery, in the Shared Book method, repetition occurred as children reread the books. This feature could have developed more enthusiasm in the children. The teacher at School No.1 made frequent use of Shared Book Experiences, creating many enlarged books herself. Teachers at Schools 3 and 5, by contrast, made little use of the procedure. Results were lower for these schools when compared with School No 1. This contrast suggests that the greater use of the Shared Book procedure increased the children’s opportunity for mastery learning. The Fiafia stories themselves no doubt contributed to the children’s successes. The story quality, the inclusion of familiar experiences and the touches of humor or excitement were all motivating factors, when compared with the unexciting stories in the Tate Readers. There may well have been other theoretical or practical explanations for the success of the Fiafia program. In a previous article (De Ath, 1980), this author expressed the view that the experiment succeeded because an environment was created where the language was used in all its forms. Motivation to use the language was high. The classroom environment fostered success. The receiving and conveying of meaning were more important than oral drills. Furthermore, the children were not inhibited by the policy of teaching only one structure at a time. They had many opportunities to practice the skill of guessing at meaning, a policy that was discouraged in the Tate Program.
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The Niue experiment stands as a forerunner for many similar projects in the South Pacific, and internationally, which have occurred since. Despite the simple nature of the materials that were created and the minimal training of the teachers involved, it is clear that very significant improvements occurred in the children’s mastery of English.
References Clay, M. M., Gill, M., Glynn, T., McNaughton, T., & Solomon, K. (1976). Record of oral language. Wellington: NZ Educational Institute. De Ath, P. (1980). The shared book experience and ESL, Directions 4. Suva, Fiji. Institute of Education, University of the South Pacific. Elley, W. B. (1980). A comparison of content-interest and structuralist reading programs in Niue primary schools. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies, 15(1), 39–53. Holdaway, D. (1979). The foundations of literacy. Sydney: Ashton Scholastic. Ministry of Education (1996). The learner as a reader. Wellington: Learning Media. Slaughter, J. P. (1993). Beyond story-books: Young children and the shared book experience. Newark, Delaware: International Reading Association. Smith, J., & Elley, W. B. (1997). How children learn to read. Auckland: Addison Wesley Longman. Tate, G. M. (1967). Teaching structure: A teachers handbook. Wellington: A.H. & A.W. Reed.
Peter De Ath is Principal of Lake Brunner School, on the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand. From 1976 to 1978, he served as Director of Education in Niue, where he introduced the innovation described here. He had previously held a senior position in the Cook Islands, and was a Government Advisor on Reading in New Zealand schools. He has published in the area of reading and spelling. His contact address is: c/o Postal Centre, The Schoolhouse, Koe Street, Moana, Westland, New Zealand. E-mail: [email protected]