Sabbatical Report - Oranga School Website

Sabbatical Report 2009
they have written. Graham et al. (2005) note that some change though will not
be seen immediately and this includes the change in a student’s attitude.
Students will move through the self regulated development model (SRSD)
based on criteria and not time. This can be measured by observing student’s
work and conferencing with students. Decisions may need to be made about
changes to the instructional programme if students’ are not making progress
in a timely manner. Measuring effectiveness over time could occur by asking
them to explain the strategy (what is for) and to recite its basic steps. Graham
et al. (2005) says that if they cannot do this then they are unlikely to be using
the strategy effectively.
The proposed rubric as attached in Appendix 1 and suggestions for student
involvement above can be used for the evaluation of the teaching of any
writing strategy, as it has been shown by Graham and Harris (2005), De La
Paz et al. (2002), Graham et al. (1998) that the use of the SRSD model of
strategy instruction is effective, and if followed can have a positive long lasting
impact on the quality of writing the student produces. Albertson et al. (1997)
showed also that the explicit teaching of writing strategies is effective, though
they did not use the SRSD model.
7.0 Conclusion:
The writing strategies taught included the ‘Vocabulary Enrichment: Action
Word Strategy (see appendix 2) and the POW strategy (see appendix 2). The
explicit teaching of these strategies has left me with more questions than
answers because there have been differing results between the small group
teaching and the whole class teaching (to different students) that followed.
The children who have had exposure to the teaching of the strategies that
has involved some maintenance/practice of the strategies over a longer
period of time have generally performed better (when compared to the
baseline data (i.e., writing samples marked and moderated in term one)
compared with those that were in the initial small group lessons and that have
had no explicit follow up to the strategies taught in the small group lessons.
From the students that were involved in the small group teaching, all at the
end of the intervention had an increased volume of action words in their
stories and all were able to recite the mnemonics and actively engage with
them when writing. Every student was brainstorming action words before they
wrote and using the POW WWW What=2 How=2 strategy to form their stories
(though some were still needing prompting to use the strategy). In particular
their writing showed an improvement in structure and inclusion of the parts of
a good story. Their writing also contained more action words.
Further analysis of their current writing practices would need to be carried out
to see if their writing practices still include the taught strategies (i.e., have the
students been able to maintain the use of the strategies without the explicit
reinforcement of them by their current teachers?) and whether the strategies
Jonathan Ramsay
Oranga Primary - One Tree Hill - Auckland