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    School years, summer holidays and the reading achievement gap : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Education at Massey University, Albany campus, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2014) Tiruchittampalam, Shanthi
    The present study examined the impact of children‟s socioeconomic backgrounds on the development of their reading and reading-related skills, over two school years and two summer breaks. The 136 children in the study were from six Auckland primary schools and represented a cross-section of different socioeconomic backgrounds. The study tested three theories of differential school year gains and summer losses in language and literacy: literate cultural capital theory, Matthew effects theory, and faucet theory. All children were assessed at five test points. The first test point was at school entry, in Year 0. Children were assessed on alphabet and vocabulary knowledge, phonemic awareness, high-frequency word reading, and graded word reading. The four subsequent test points were at the end of Year 0, the beginning and end of Year 1 and the start of Year 2. The results showed that the high-decile groups started school with greater levels of reading-related skills and high-frequency word reading skills than the low-decile groups. Generally, the gap in reading-related skills persisted and widened over the duration of the study. In terms of graded word reading ability, a disparity became apparent in the second school year. By the end of the study, the highest decile group were reading at a reading age of about two years above their lowest decile counterparts. During the two school years, all decile groups made gains. However, these gains between groups were uneven at points, contributing to the reading disparity. Over the summer breaks, while some decile groups made gains in reading, others lost ground, by as much as 50% over one summer compared to what they had gained the previous school year. The findings of the study supported all three theories to varying degrees and at different test points. The literate cultural capital theory was supported in that prereading skills at school entry determined reading progress. Faucet theory was supported in graded word reading ability in the first school year and over both summers. Matthew effects were noted in word reading trajectories over the second school year and in reading-related skills over the period of the study.
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    The effects of book reading over the summer holidays on the reading skills of Year 3 students : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Education at Massey University, Albany campus, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2013) Turner, Mary Louise
    The existence of an achievement gap between high- and low-performing students is neither unique nor new to New Zealand. Such differences have been documented since the 1930s, and despite decades of reforms and initiatives these disparities persist. Results from the most recent PIRLS study (Chamberlain & Caygill, 2012) showed no narrowing of the margin since the early 2000s, and patterns evident in previous PIRLS studies continue. A growing body of international research into achievement gaps has focused on summer learning loss and the different impact this has on students from low and high socioeconomic backgrounds. Some argue that even small differences in summer learning amass over the years, and by the end of elementary school the achievement gap is substantially larger than at the beginning (Kim & White, 2011). Further, this cumulative summer learning effect is the primary cause of the widening achievement gap between students from high and low socioeconomic levels (Terzian, Moore, & Hamilton, 2009). Various strategies have been implemented to try to counter this, including summer schools, reading programmes offered by public libraries, and reading books at home. Although summer learning loss and differential growth in learning when school is closed is well- documented in international studies, little is known about this effect on student achievement in New Zealand. This study addresses the gap in knowledge for the New Zealand context by examining whether encouraging young children to read books over the summer vacation helps stem the summer slide. Using a randomized control group experimental design, a sample of 583 year 3 children in ten schools, seven of them low SES and three of them high SES in South and East Auckland were randomly assigned to four different groups over the summer break: a books group, a books plus quizzes group, a treatment control group that received math books, and a no-treatment control group that received books only after the study was completed. All groups were pre and post tested with a range of reading measures. The results showed a significant effect of the summer books programme but only for one reading measure while a number of other measures showed no clear effect. The home literacy measures used in the study showed large differences in home literacy resources between high and low SES families such as number of books and access to the computer and to libraries. The study showed that a summer books programme is workable and was much enjoyed by children but that more research is needed to establish the benefits of summer books.
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    The effects of cross-age literacy tuition in a low-decile secondary school : a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Literacy Education, Massey University at Albany
    (Massey University, 2011) Stewart-Brown, Barbara M.; Stewart-Brown, Barbara M.
    The aim of this study was to determine whether cross-age tutoring by Year 12 and 13 students could improve the reading skills of Year 9 and 10 low-achieving readers. The participants were 44 Year 9 and 10 students, mainly Pasifika and Maori, and 22 Year 12 and 13 tutors. The Year 9 and 10 students were all low-achievers in reading comprehension but varied considerably in word recognition and decoding skills. In terms of the “simple view” of reading, some were “garden variety” poor readers with low scores in listening comprehension, reading comprehension, and word reading while others had “specific comprehension deficits” with low scores in listening comprehension and reading comprehension, but average or high levels of word reading. The design of the study involved placing the Year 9 and 10 students into matched pairs based on their reading comprehension and word reading skills and then randomly assigning each pair to an experimental group, given reading instruction, or a control group, given math worksheets. Each of the two groups divided into three levels of word reading ability, low, middle and high. The low and middle groups were “garden variety” low-achieving readers but the high group had specific comprehension deficits. Year 12 and 13 tutors taught the lessons mostly outside of class time, in the school hall, for two school terms. The tuition involved a mix of decoding skills instruction, reading of text, and comprehension activities, depending on the skills of each ability group. Results indicated that the reading tuition had a significant effect on word reading as measured by the Burt Word Reading Test but not on pseudo-word reading, WRAT word reading, or reading comprehension.