Collaborative support for reading development : parent partnership in practice : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Education, Massey University, Albany, New Zealand

Abstract

There is a wealth of existing research which reports on programmes aiming to improve the reading skills of children who are struggling to learn to read. This thesis builds on one specific research area where parents are central to the process of reading remediation and are engaged to promote learning and improve reading skills. In this research the Participatory Intervention Model was used to guide the development and implementation of a collaborative intervention in support of reading development. The researcher and parents jointly developed reading support strategies which linked child assessment data, existing home literacy practices and research led literacy instruction practices. Parents then implemented these strategies during iterative cycles of support and review. The findings focus on three aspects of the process. Factors which enhanced and inhibited the effectiveness of collaboration are explored. The particulars of parental enactment of strategies to coach children’s reading are revealed. Finally, the impact of parental reading support on the children’s reading skills is highlighted. Finally, the study presents a new way of conceptualising an intervention as a collaborative endeavour. It proposes a new term; home based pedagogy to describe the actions parents and the researcher took in supporting each child.