An action research project

by
Debbie Waldron
St Peter Chanel School

Rationale

I have a small group of children in my class that I would call reluctant writers. On the
whole they are articulate children who have a real interest in the world around them.
When it comes to recording their ideas there are issues with spacing, letter formation
and spelling that make recording a laborious process for them. The Sounds Alive
programme introduced this year is making a big difference in the children’s spelling
but they still remain reluctant to write. Currently the children write each day in books
and as a class we develop success criteria relevant to a Learning Intention. My
question is what can I change in my class programme to engage the reluctant writer
and will this impact on achievement?

Research Question

Does the introduction of individual learning goals and the use of ICT impact on
children’s motivation to write and their achievement in writing?

Baseline Data
Initial achievement data was a piece of unassisted writing where no feedback was
given by the teacher and the children were given a certain time to craft their writing at
the conclusion of the writing time. The writing exemplars were used to assess the
children. I also gave the children an attitude questionnaire that surveyed how easy
they found it to think and record their ideas, how they responded to feedback and they
also had to rate how much they enjoyed writing.

Initial data shows that only one Year 3 child is at Level 2 and only 2 Year 2 children
are at Level 1:3 which is where we expect them to be by the end of the year. When
the children reflected on their attitudes towards their writing I found that I have only
38% of my class who indicate they like writing stories. This is quite a low number
and it is my challenge to see if I can turn this around.

Level 1:1 Level 1:2 Level 1:3 Level 2:1 Level 2:2
Initial 1 8 5 1

Literature Review

There are a lot of quality publications that address effective teaching and learning in
the field of literacy and one very positive aspect of this for me is that many of them
are set in the New Zealand context. I accessed several of these looking specifically
for ICT and goal setting strategies that will help me engage learners in the writing
process.

According to Effective Literacy Practice in Years 1 to 4, ‘exemplars provide reference

points that help teachers and students to make decisions about the students’ current
achievement and about the next steps for learning’ (p.66). Therefore it was my
responsibility to take the information I gained from assessing the children against the
exemplars and give feedback that will help to set goals and inform next learning
steps. Effective Literacy Practice also emphasises the importance of establishing
partnerships with children to assist them when meeting new challenges and setting
new goals.

Timperly, Clarke and Hattie (2003) write about the importance of ‘ipsative’
assessment in our classrooms which is where the students’ attainment is measured
against their previous attainment. It is their assertion that this type of assessment
increases motivation and a rise in self esteem. They cite Black and William whose
research shows ‘the key to successful learning is to have clear, appropriate and
challenging targets’ (p 90). An interesting aspect of Timperly et al’s work is that
they also address the issue of manageability with individual target setting and give
suggestions such as short conferences with children and the use of symbols to show
the target has been met. They also warn against setting targets that turn over too
quickly or are too challenging and indicate that targets need to be quantified by a
number or a letter. I found their ‘expressing targets in child-speak’ (p.93) to be a
useful reference when thinking about what feedback I gave the children to guide them
towards the setting of individual targets.

This leads to my next question as to whether the use of ICT can impact on children’s
motivation and achievement in writing. A case study by Diane Brookes and Jo
Fletcher in the integrated use of ICT in primary schools cites a school principal as
saying ‘ICT provided different ways of learning for children who tended not to do
well when employing other traditional methods of learning’ (p. 38). This was
interesting because I believe that many of my reluctant writers don’t respond to
traditional teaching and learning methods so it is important to explore different
options. This same case study also cites McEune (2004) who found children’s self-
esteem increased because ICT gave them greater control over their learning and a
sense of independence.

A study of schools in Australia, USA, England and Hong Kong on ‘The Impact of
ICT on Schools’ (2004) found many different changes in children’s behaviour that
could be attributed to ICT. Of the changes they identified two had importance for me
in my teacher inquiry, these were that ICT meant a greater spontaneous interest in a
learning activity and an increase in time and attention devoted to learning activities
when ICT is used.

Taking Action

My first task in the classroom was to instigate a system whereby individual goal
setting was a systematic, effective and a manageable part of the class writing
programme. Using the assessment information from the exemplars all children were
individually conferenced over two weeks and a goal was identified for each child.
This goal was written into their books and they had to receive seven ticks over a
period of time to achieve their goal. These could be related to surface features or
deeper features and included such things as:
 • To use capital letters and full stops for most of my sentences.
• To write (a certain number of sentences) independently.
• To tell my readers how I felt to make my story more interesting
• To use Sounds Alive to help me to spell words.
• To start my stories with an interesting sentence
• To use describing words to make the story come alive.
• To use interesting and different words in my story.
• To use similes to help paint a picture with my words.

Prior to writing we talked about individual goals and shared success stories. Quality
writing from their peers seems to be a very powerful way of encouraging children to
make improvements to their work. The children are expected to check their writing
each day to see if they have achieved their goal. I used a smiley face in the margin as
a symbol to show they were meeting either an individual goal or one of the success
criteria for our shared learning intention. We have a class writing box that the
children are allowed to chose something from when they have achieved their goal.

Each day at least two children’s writing is read aloud to the class and they receive
feedback from the other children. Writing work is displayed on the wall and in our
news board book and we highlight positive aspects of that piece for the them to use
as a model. At other times children get to share their writing with their reflective
triangle partner. They have to tell them their goal and discuss whether they think they
have achieved it, they can also highlight something from our class learning intentions
that they think they have done well.

Once this was under way I began to think of the most effective way to integrate ICT
into my writing programme. At the beginning of the year I set up a class blog for
Curly our kiwi. The children took Curly home each night and wrote about his
adventures then I put their writing on the blog. They really enjoyed this activity but it
was difficult for me to sustain because it was me that had responsibility to put the
posts on the blog. My issue with getting the children to do it was how long they
would take to record their ideas and the focus would be on their ability to type rather
than on the writing itself so the question was how would I get around this. After
much thinking I decided to introduce it as a reading station and teach the children how
to access the blog, how to create a new post and how to add a picture to their blog. I
worked more closely with a smaller group of children and they became teachers of the
others.

An inquiry ‘Marvellous Minibeasts’ provided the perfect opportunity to integrate ICT,

writing and inquiry. The writing task for the children was to write an information
report that teaches others about an minibeast they have chosen. As a class we
discussed what would need to be included in the report and developed our success
criteria. The children then used Google images to find a picture of a minibeast they
were interested in learning about and posted this onto our blog. As this was the
second time they had posted a picture the process was much easier and ‘experts’
supported those who had not yet mastered how to do this. They then had to add text
that introduced and described their minibeast and also write some interesting facts
they had found out using their home resources, the internet, topic tables and people
resources. After the children had completed their work they were encouraged to read
and comment on the posts their peers had made.
Exit Data

To gauge the impact of my changes to the writing programme I assessed another piece
of writing using the exemplars, however this time I provided the children with
feedback to improve the writing and gave them more time to edit and make changes
to their work.

Level 1:1 Level 1:2 Level 1:3 Level 2:1 Level 2:2
Entry 1 8 5 1
Exit 3 8 4

I modified the attitude survey to include whether they liked have an individual goal
for their writing and if it helped them improve their work. I also sought their
reflection and feedback over whether they enjoyed writing on the blog and whether
they enjoyed writing overall.

Yes
I like having a goal for my 77%
writing.
Having a goal helps me 50%
improve my work.
I know when I have done well 50%
in my writing.
I enjoy writing on the blog. 85%
I like writing stories 77%

Discussion

The exemplar exit assessment show the children made quite significant gains in their
writing over the period of almost two terms. However it was the daily formative
assessment of writing that showed me the impact of setting individual goals. The
children were focused on what their learning was and it was exciting having them
share with enthusiasm their achievement. At times we found the goal was either not
sufficiently challenging or too challenging but quickly modified this during
conference time. The children were all able to articulate what they were learning and
share this with their peers and the teacher.

After an initial slow start getting the children working on the blog they are now all
able to access the blog and make posts independently as well as beginning to edit their
work. The use of the children as ‘experts’ was an excellent way of assisting the
children and ensuring teacher time was not tied up with technical issues. It was
amazing listening in to their learning conversations and I wish I had taped them. The
biggest impact of using the blog was definitely motivational and I believe it (along
with individual goal setting) accounts for the rise from 38% of the class identifying
they liked writing stories to a brilliant 77%. There was only one child who indicated
a clear ‘no’ when asked if they liked writing stories with the rest indicating they
sometimes enjoyed writing.

It seems then that the use of ICT impacts on motivation but what impact does it have
on achievement? It is my belief that while the use of ICT seems to motivate and
engage children it is important to combine this with quality feedback and
collaborative goal setting to have the highest impact on individual achievement of
children in writing.

Where to Next?

• As we progressed both the children and myself became more focused and
experienced in what we believed to be quality writing and how we can achieve
that. This needs to be developed on and continued with future groups of
children.
• I need to share the results of my action research with the rest of our staff, in
particular the teacher that will be having these children next year. Further
exploration may be needed on why only 50% of the children perceived
individual learning goals as being very helpful and only 50% knew when they
had done well.

References

Ministry of Education (2003). Effective Literacy Practice in Years 1 to 4.

Wellington: Learning Media.

Clarke, Timperly and Hattie (2003). Unlocking Formative Assessment. Wellington:

Hodder Moa Beckett.

Brooks, D. & Fletcher, J. (2008). Integrated use of ECT in primary schools. In Set,
Research Information for Teachers. Wellington: NZCER Press.

Eadie, G. (2001). The Impact of ICT on Schools: Classroom Design and Curriculum
Delivery. Retrieved 12 November 2009, from www.tki.org.nz.

Graysen's funnel web spider report

My minibeast is a spider. A spider has got 8 legs. Spiders are really poisonous.
Spiders have webs out of their abdomens.
A spider is not a insect. A spider has got 2 body parts. A spider is black. A
spiders are really hairy. A spider has no bones.
their skin is hard like a shel to protect their insides. Spiders have got 4 eyes. All
spiders make silk. Some spiders live
under water. The biggest spider is tarautula spider wich is one foot wide.