Clay, Observation and Progress Maps

So now I have time to read again I have started to flick through a number of the books on my shelves. In her introduction to her book Becoming Literate: The construction of inner control, Clay observes:

Teachers who learn to be observers of successful and unsuccessful learners have data on which to test their assumptions. I think that effective teachers must continually test their assumptions about children and learning against such observations. I believe that teachers must question their own assumptions, and what authorities are telling them to do. They should ask, “do my children actually do what authorities say they do as they read texts?” This is a book that could help teachers to develop ways of asking questions of their own practice and self-correcting their own thinking about learning to read. It is an account of what any teacher needs to pay attention to as he or or or she works with young children and observes them closely.

For that reason I cannot become prescriptive about teaching methodologies. Effective teaching is an interaction and the major part of that interaction is outside the teacher’s control. However, in order to judge what to teach, and which way to set about the task, a teacher needs to have an overview of changes to watch for along the way. I have been building myself a clearer map of what those changes are.

I do not write about teaching methodology because I think the underlying structure of literacy behaviours might be achieved in several different ways. Successful readers and writers do emerge from many different types of programmes.

… I have assumed of that some teachers will want to think about the learning children already have when they enter school, others will want to fine tune their understanding of the “engagement period” as children begin to use literacy knowledge to access texts. As the children move further into literacy the teacher needs to understand more complex concepts of what underlies the surface behaviours he or she can observe.

… what now needs to be explained is what it is about reading and writing that helps the good reader to become better as a result of his own efforts. Something about the ways in which they re-create a forward thrust, and perhaps this is something that poor readers have not managed to learn. The forward thrust is currently explained by phonological skills, and rapidly expanding vocabulary brought about by a quantity of reading…. It seems to me that controlling letter sound relationships and learning more and more words do not suffice as explanations of this forward thrust in reading power.

Clay, M.M. (2004). Becoming Literate: The construction of inner control. Auckland: New Zealand. Heinemann. pp. 3-4.

It may not be obvious to a reader that this encapsulates many elements seen as relevant to the management of student learning through teacher judgement assessment as outlined in the thesis. For a start the teacher is encouraged to always be skeptical and to hold hypotheses, to continually test their assumptions about what is happening with/to a student.

Some might see this as a variation on response to intervention (RTI) or Mastery learning (both true). Teacher judgement assessment is (skeptically) informed by a map of the likely skills/competencies to be achieved and the most likely sequence for these.

The assessment process is ‘observation’ but of the student confronted with some task or challenge (including test items or any written product) as part of their normal classroom experience. The calibration of the teacher allows a simple shorthand recording process to keep on top of what is happening for all students. It was refreshing to re-read this Clay position which I see as completely compatible with the skills of teachers in understanding what is to be achieved by each student, what the map of progress might look like and a process to keep track over an extended period of time of the effects of particular supports.

Back to my shelves and the myriad of blogs and education related sites.