Rigorous Reading (Literacy)

Why our project?

 “Literacy is fundamental to a student’s ability to learn at school and to engage productively in society.”1

• The strategic planning process recognised the importance of literacy to improving learning outcomes, and therefore strategic direction 1.1. was designated as Literacy: Reading and Writing. The stated purpose of the group was to improve literacy outcomes for students at Rooty Hill High School, as measured by both external and internal data.

• The PLLT set out to improve average growth and progress in academic performance, as measured by internal GPA data, NAPLAN results, and performance in ACER PAT. To achieve this, it was clear that to improve student literacy, the implementation of a whole school literacy platform, addressing need, would be necessary. Therefore, the PLLT decided to implement a comprehensive and explicit framework for the teaching of reading and writing, which would design and deliver targeted professional learning, ensuring teachers developed the capacity to confidently and purposefully teach subject-specific literacy. Through the delivery of this school wide platform, the PLLT set out to improve reading and writing skills of students.

How did this align with the school plan?

• SEF elements addressed: 1.1, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5

• APST descriptors addressed: 1.5.4, 1.6.4, 2.5.4

Evidence: Average growth in reading performance and reading trajectories is within one standard deviation of state average, and growth in Years 7-9 and 9-12 is above state average.
Practice: There will be evidence in subject-based programs, teaching and learning sequences, lesson design and classroom observations of the practices of the Rigorous Reading platform.

Key Performance Measures

Over the next three years, Strategic Direction One will achieve:

• Average growth in academic performance (to within one mark) and value added data (learning trajectories) to within one standard deviation of state average.

• 40% of all students achieving Band 4+ in external tests and an average GPA of at least 3.5 on internal academic reports.

To ensure that the project delivered on stated outcomes, the PLLT intended to measure progress against the following outcomes:

• Performance on NAPLAN

• Performance on ACER PAT

• GPA Data

• Analysis of faculty programs

• Surveys of staff

• Surveys of students

• Anecdotal evidence, provided in interviews with staff and students, of the purposeful teaching of literacy across the school.

What was our “theory of practice”?

• We began by analysing the existing RHHS literacy platforms, including the work of the ILLNP (Improving Literacy and Numeracy National Partnership) and determining the effectiveness of the strategies.  The team conducted a thorough, question based analysis of student performance in NAPLAN, where it was evident that students struggled to correctly respond to inference based questions. We recognised the need for an explicit, cohesive, school-wide platform, which would support subject-specific reading and writing in each faculty, explicitly addressing student comprehension and teaching inferential skills.         

• Further research, including ‘Developing Readers in the Academic Disciplines’2 and ‘This is Disciplinary Literacy’3,  consolidated our hypothesis that literacy must be taught at both the whole school and faculty levels. In addition, the PLLT investigated the application of the National Literacy Learning Progression, concluding that in order to assist students to progress to higher levels, it was necessary to ensure staff were skilled teachers of literacy, confident in using increasingly complex texts to improve comprehension.

• In 2017, the “Visible Learning for Literacy” (workshop by Douglas Fisher for Corwin Press) provided the springboard for our research into the work of Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey, and their book, Rigorous Reading: 5 Access Points for Comprehending Complex Text .(Corwin 2013). Along with the work of John Hattie, this gave us an explicit framework (Rigorous Reading) to assist students to ‘develop the knowledge, skills and dispositions to interpret and use language confidently for learning and communicating.’

• In order to implement this framework, the PLLT needed comprehensive training in the methods. Following negotiations, Corwin Literacy for Learning generously allowed complimentary access to their online professional learning, which was completed by each PLLT member. It was clear that the implementation of Rigorous Reading would require a whole school approach, and would take some time to embed.

• Rigorous Reading provides teachers with new ways of knowing and doing –an understanding of the processes to guide students to read and understand at a deeper level, knowledge of how to select appropriately complex texts, model strategies and shift students from dependent to independent readers. Rigorous Reading was therefore adopted as the key literacy strategy in implementing the school plan.

• The Rigorous Reading platform provides students with a new way of knowing -  how to understand and decode complex text, using explicit strategies, including close reading, annotations and collaborative conversations.

• The PLLT continued to research the teaching of writing throughout the duration of the project, adopting the motto ‘reading to write, and writing to read.’ The extensive research completed confirmed the co-dependency of reading and writing. This was instrumental in the development of the Rigorous Reading and Writing platform, to be implemented under the next school plan.

References:

• National Literacy Learning Progression (version 3): Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) 2020 P.5

• Doug Buehl - Stenhouse Publisher 2017

• Releah Cosset Lent - Corwin 2015

Impact and Evaluation Poster

Are you interested in learning more on this specific project?

If so, we have created a podcast, where the PLLT Co-Leaders Catherine Lucas and Beverly Powell talk in depth about their project, please click here to listen to it.