Report - Dr. Stirling McDowell Foundation for Research Into Teaching

TEACHING AND LEARNING 

RESEARCH EXCHANGE 

A School-Based Study on 

the Relationship Between 

Increased Literacy Levels 

and School Attachment 

Shaun McEachern 

Project #162 

February 2008

This research was partially funded through a grant from the McDowell Foundation. However, the points of view 

and opinions expressed in project documents are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views 

of the Foundation. 

The purpose of the Dr. Stirling McDowell Foundation for Research into Teaching is to fund research, inquiry and 

dissemination of information focusing on instruction (both teaching and learning) in the context of the public 

elementary and secondary education system. Specifically, it will: 

1) contribute to knowledge about teaching and learning; 

2) encourage educational inquiry through a wide range of methodologies; 

3) support the involvement of practising teachers in active research projects; 

4) encourage organizations as well as individuals to determine and act in areas of research and inquiry; and 

5) encourage experimentation with innovative ideas and methodologies related to teaching and learning. 

The Foundation is an independent charitable organization formed by the Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation 

in 1991. It is governed by a Board of Directors with the assistance of an Advisory Committee of representatives 

from the educational and business communities. The selection and evaluation of projects funded by the 

Foundation is carried out by a teacher-led Project Review Committee. Inquiries concerning research supported 

by the McDowell Foundation may be directed to the following address: 

Research Coordinator 

Dr. Stirling McDowell Foundation 

2317 Arlington Avenue 

Saskatoon SK S7J 2H8 

Telephone: 1-800-667-7762 or (306) 373-1660 

© 2008 by the Dr. Stirling McDowell Foundation for Research into Teaching Inc. Permission is given to use this 

work for educational purposes, except that authorization from the original source must be obtained for the use 

of any material that appears in the work with credit to another source.

Table of Contents 

Acknowledgements.....................................................................................ii 

Our Research Question..............................................................................1 

Our School Community..............................................................................1 

Getting Started ..........................................................................................2 

The Literacy Classroom ..............................................................................2 

Action Research.........................................................................................3 

Challenges ................................................................................................3 

Sharing Our Progress.................................................................................4 

Conclusions ..............................................................................................5 

The Future................................................................................................6 

References ................................................................................................7 

Appendices 

A. “Tell Them From Me” Survey Data, Snapshots from 

November, 2006 and May, 2007 ......................................................9 

B. “Tell Them From Me”.....................................................................12 

RESEARCH REPORT: A School-Based Study on the Relationship Between Increased Literacy Levels and School Attachment 

i

Acknowledgements 

We wish to thank the McDowell Foundation for approving our research grant and 

for their encouragement as we explored the effects increased literacy levels had on 

our students’ attachment to their school. 

We would also like to thank the support staff at Tell Them From Me for their 

patience, guidance and professionalism over the past year while we utilized their 

on-line survey. 

The Mount Royal School Attachment Research Team: 

Mrs. Fay Elke 

Mr. Shaun McEachern 

ii 

RESEARCH REPORT: A School-Based Study on the Relationship Between Increased Literacy Levels and School Attachment

Our Research Question 

Does an increase in literacy levels, for students classified as struggling 

readers, also result in increased feelings of school attachment? 

For the purpose of our study we defined school attachment as a “sense of 

belonging at school, a network of relationships with peers as well as other school 

personnel and a sense of the inherent value for the learning process as it relates 

to students’ lives (Dworkin, 1987; Goodenow, 1991). 

Our School Community 

Mount Royal Collegiate was built in 1965 and is a part of the Saskatoon Public 

School Division. MRCI is home to an eclectic body of students that represents 

much of the diversity found in the city of Saskatoon. 

A wide variety of courses are offered to the more than fifteen hundred students who 

attend MRCI. Beyond the core academic subjects that are offered, students may 

also enrol in any one of the numerous technology or fine arts classes. Mount Royal 

Collegiate is also home to an array of special programs created to meet the 

needs of our diverse student body. 


1

Getting Started 

In the fall of 2005 teachers, guidance counsellors, administrators and parents 

referred students for the newly created Literacy 10/20 courses that were being 

offered at MRCI. The goal of the Literacy classroom was to improve student 

comprehension of text through daily explicit instruction and promote life-long 

learning. In more colloquial terms, we also hoped to turn non-readers into 

readers. Once the students registered and classes began, each individual student 

was put through a series of pre- and post-tests to determine the student’s 

abilities and identify areas of needed intervention. The diagnostic that was used 

was the Gray Oral Reading Test. 

The results of the GORT pre-tests were both fascinating and depressing. Of the 

students referred, 97% fit the category of “dependent, struggling readers” since they 

all read, at the very least, three grade levels below their age in the areas of 

fluency, comprehension, accuracy and rate. 

The Literacy Classroom 

As the teacher of Literacy 10/20, I sat down and tried to decide in what direction 

to take my students and, in essence, where to begin. The words of K. E Stanovich 

echoed in my mind: “[A]s the developmental process continues, young struggling 

readers become older struggling readers, and the achievement gap widens” 

(Stanovich, 1986, p.30). 

The actual structure of the literacy classroom was guided by the principles and 

theories offered by numerous literacy experts. Students were introduced, through 

teacher-modelled explicit instruction, to a wide variety of reading comprehension 

strategies (Durkin, 1978; Duffy, 2003; Pressley, 1995; Beers, 2003). A strong 

emphasis was also placed on vocabulary development (Ehri, 1999; Calhoun, 

1999), fluency (Adams, 1990; Stanovich, 1986), and writing (Tankersley, 2005), and 

time was allotted each day for a wide variety of reading experiences at the 

developed level. 

After two semesters the students were then post-tested using the Grey Oral 

Reading Test to see if any growth had occurred in the areas of fluency, 

comprehension and accuracy. To our delight, all of the students saw some 

growth, and some of this growth was substantial, especially in the areas of 

fluency and comprehension. 

2 RESEARCH REPORT: A School-Based Study on the Relationship Between Increased Literacy Levels and School Attachment

Action Research 

After analyzing the GORT scores, we then decided to research and analyze how 

these improved literacy scores may affect the attachment of Literacy 10/20 

students to their school. One of the main objectives in offering the Literacy 

classes to secondary students classified as “dependent readers,” was not only the 

improvement of comprehension but the hope that improved literacy skills would 

result in a more positive attitude towards academia. With this in mind, our 

next step was to contact the people from “Tell Them From Me,” an on-line survey 

company recommended by our school division, and get the students enrolled. The 

Tell Them From assessment system was developed in 2004 and “aimed to 

provide leading indicators of student engagement and wellness, and classroom and 

school climate” (Flanagan, 2007). The “Tell Them From Me” survey focused on and 

assessed “16 student outcomes pertaining to student engagement and wellness and 

15 aspects of classroom and school learning climate that are known to affect 

learning outcomes” (Flanagan, 2007). 

The survey was taken twice by more than twenty-five literacy students, once in the 

fall and once again in late May. The survey was to take approximately thirty 

minutes each time and the information gathered was to be both tenable and 

transparent. 

Challenges 

To say that we had a few obstacles and challenges to overcome during the 

course of our study would be a far too blithe description of our experiences. Our 

first formidable challenge occurred when many of the students could not 

comprehend the questions provided in the survey. We tried to circulate around the 

room as much as possible and translate the questions for the students, but it was 

a prodigious task to be in three places at once. This, of course, made the taking 

of the survey much more difficult than was originally anticipated. 

At least half of the students openly admitted that they had trouble discerning any 

meaning in the questions. Ten of the students required continual teacher 

interpretation of the questions and only six students, all of whom were reading 

above a grade eight level but well below their current grade standing, found the 

survey questions “fairly easy” to understand. This being said, the survey took much 

longer than the initial time allotment of thirty minutes. 

Taking the survey also caused an enormous amount of consternation for some 

students who did not want to be put through the process again a second time in 

May. It was obvious that in order to alleviate the students’ pejorative feelings about 

the study, class time had to be used to go over the questions and discuss their 

meaning. In the end the students were far more prepared for the second round of 

questioning than they were for the first. This difference in level of preparation, along 

with many other factors, undoubtedly played a part in skewing much of the data 

that we were able to collect from the survey. 


3

Sharing Our Progress 

“Tell Them From Me” eventually provided us with the findings from the survey in 

the form of numerous bar graphs (see the appendices). As stated earlier, “Snapshot 

1” presented in Appendix A represented the information gathered in September, 

and “Snapshot 2” presented in Appendix B represented the information gathered 

in May. 

In each “Tell Them From Me” survey, students provided feedback for eleven 

different perspectives or categories, all related to school attachment. These 

categories included, but were not limited to: 

1. sense of belonging, 

2. value school outcomes, 

3. expectations of finishing high school, 

4. expectations of going to university, 

5. truancy rate, 

6. participation in school sports and clubs, 

7. hours per day spent on homework and reading, and 

8. hours per day spent watching TV and video games. 

The results of the study were both disheartening and puzzling. The survey 

recognized a decrease in the students’ attachment to school in almost every 

area from a sense of belonging, to value school outcomes, to aspirations of 

finishing high school and rates of truancy. However, there was, surprisingly, a 

precipitous increase in students’ aspirations to go to university and their 

participation in school activities. 

The students also indicated that their truancy rates had increased from semester 

one to semester two. This information was in stark contrast to the actual 

attendance records found in our school’s data base. The attendance of the 

majority of the students for the Literacy class was nearly exemplary, and the 

students’ attendance at school as a whole made us feel far more sanguine than the 

information the students provided in the survey. 

The most disappointing aspect of the survey, for us, was the students’ responses 

to the question posed about finishing high school. When the students first 

answered this question in the fall, 92% felt they would complete high school. When 

the same question was posed again in May, only 73% saw the completion of high 

school as a realistic goal. Unfortunately, due to the structure of the “Tell Them 

From Me” survey, we were not able to move beyond the cursory to a more 

comprehensive understanding of why the students experienced such a dramatic 

shift in their future academic aspirations. We were inclined to believe however, that 

posing these questions in May, towards the end of the school year, and to 

students who have struggled academically for most of their educational lives, may 

have adversely affected the data. 


Conclusions 

If we were to use the information gathered from the survey as our only source of 

data, then the answer to our question about whether increased literacy levels result 

in an increase in school attachment would be an emphatic no. Fortunately or 

unfortunately, the evidence provided by the survey is far too amorphous to 

come to this kind of definitive conclusion. 

In January of 2008 I returned to MRCI to interview many of these students as part 

of my graduate work. Of the 20 students I wished to interview, all of whom were 

involved in the attachment study, 18 were still in school and all of them talked 

about graduating either this year or next. Many of the students were playing sports 

or belonged to clubs, and most admitted that they were enjoying their school year. 

Some even talked about their post-secondary aspirations. The information they 

shared in our conversations was in many ways the antithesis of the information 

outlined in the “Tell Them From Me” survey. 

If we were to conduct the study again we would obviously do things differently. 

Although there are many positive aspects in the “Tell Them From Me” survey, it did 

not, in our opinion, meet the needs of our students. For some, it was far too 

difficult to understand; for others, its attention to detail was far too pedantic. The 

students’ answers to the survey questions often contradicted their actions, and the 

fact that we gave the survey questions to them so late in the year the second time 

probably affected the outcomes. 

In hindsight it would have been prudent and prescient to include some secondary 

diagnostic instrument or method to go along with the data we collected from the 

survey but, as is often the case, we tend to learn best from our own mistakes. 


5

The Future 

Our school division has launched a three- to six-year Literacy For Life initiative that 

has proven to be not only successful, but also groundbreaking. We have been able 

to access professional development in our own city and have the support of 

superintendents, coordinators, consultants and administrators at every level. It is 

our hope that every collegiate is able to maintain a viable literacy component and 

that all schools, elementary and secondary alike, continue on their auspicious 

journey towards increased literacy levels for all students in the Saskatoon Public 

School Division. 

One of the drawbacks to this study was its inability to fully measure the students’ 

long-term growth and perceptions about school. For many students who have 

struggled with reading for most of their academic lives, a year, or even two 

years, of being immersed in a literacy rich environment may not be enough to 

overcome a deeply rooted belief system. It would be interesting to talk with these 

students again in three or four years to see if their perceptions about reading and 

learning were affected in any way by their experiences in the Literacy classroom. 


References 

Adams, M.J. (1990). Beginning to Read: Thinking & Learning About Print. 

Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. 

Allington, R. (2001). What Really Matters for Struggling Readers. New York: 

Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers. 

Beers, Kylene (2003). When Kids Can’t Read, What Teachers Can Do: A Guide for 

Teachers 6-12. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. 

Brown, A. L., & Palincsar, A.S. (1985). Reciprocal Teaching of Comprehension 

Strategies: A Natural History of One Program to Enhance Learning. Urbana, IL: 

University of Illinois. 

Calhoun, F. Emily (1999). Teaching Beginning Reading and Writing with PWIM. 

Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development: Virginia, USA 

Duffy, Gerald D. (2003). Explaining Reading: A Resource for Teaching Concepts, 

Skills, and Strategies. Guilford Press: New Portland, MA. 

Durkin, D. (1978). What Classroom Observatins Reveal About Reading 

Comprehension Instruction. Reading Research Quarterly, 14(4), 481-488. 

Dworkin, A. (1987). Teacher Burnout in the Public Schools. New York Press: 

Albany State University. 

Ehri, L. C. (1999). Phases of Acquisition in Learning to Read Words and Instructional 

Implications. Paper presented to the Annual Meeting of the American Medical 

Research Association, Montreal. 

Feather, Elizabeth & Brown, David (2005). A high frequency word list for teaching 

adult beginning readers. Reading Improvement. Fall, 2005 Vol. 42, Issue 3. 

Flanagan, Patrick (2007). Canadian Students: Tell Them From Me. Education 

Canada. Summer, 2007, Vol. 47: 46-50 

Flood, James, Dianne Lapp & James Squire. (2003). Handbook of Research on 

Teaching the English Language Arts. Lawrence Erlbaum & Associates: Mahwah, 

New Jersey 

Gillet, J. W., & C. Temple. (1990). Understanding Reading Problems: Assessment 

and Instruction, 3rd. edition. New York: Longman. 

Goodenow, C. (1991). The sense of belonging and its relationship to academic 

motivation among pre and early adolescent students. American Educational 

Research Association. 

Harvey, Stephanie & Anne Goudvis (2000). Strategies that Work: Teaching 

Comprehension to Enhance Understanding. York, MA: Stenhouse Publishers. 


7

He, A. E. (1999). A comparison of two types of school attachment for teacher 

educators. 

Joyce, Bruce & Marsha Weil. (2005). Models of Teaching. Boston, MA: Pearson 

Publishers. 

Libbey, H. P. (2004). Measuring student relationships to school: Attachment, 

bonding, connectedness, and engagement. The Journal of School Health, 

74(7): 274 

McEwen, Elaine. (2003). Seven Strategies of Highly Effective Readers. Thousand 

Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. 

McGill- Franzen, A. & R. Allington. (1991). The Gridlock of Low Achievement. 

Remedial and Special Education, 12: 20-30. 

Mouton, S. G. (1996). School attachment: Perspectives of low-attached high 

school students. Educational Psychology, 16(3): 297 

Pressley, M. (1995). Cognitive Strategy Instruction that Really Improves Student 

Performance. Cambridge, MA: Brookline. 

Samuels, Jay & Alan Farstrup. (1992). What Research Has to Say about Reading 

Instruction. Newark, Delaware: International Reading Association. 

Shippen, M. E., D. E. Houchins & C. Steventon. (2003) Reading assessment 

and instruction for students at risk. Special Education for All Teachers. 3rd 

Edition. Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt, pp. 275-311. 

Somers, C. L. (2001). Predicting adolescents’ risky behaviors: The influence of future 

orientation, school involvement, and school attachment. Adolescent Family 

Health, 2(1): 3. 

Stanovich, K. E. (1986). Matthew effects in reading. Reading Research Quarterly, 

Vol. 2: 360-407. 

Tankersley, Karen. (2005). Literacy Strategies for Grades 4-12. Alexandria, Virginia: 

ASCD. 

Tompkins, Gail E. (1998). 50 Literacy Strategies: Step By Step. Upper Saddle 

River, NJ: Merrill-Prentice Hall. 

Tovani, Cris. (2000). I Read It, But I Don’t Get It: Comprehension Strategies for 

Adolescent Readers. Portland, MA: Stenhouse Publishers. 

Vygotsky, Lev. (1992). Thought and Learning. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 


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Saskatoon SK Canada S7J 2H8 

Phone: 306-373-1660 

Toll Free: 1-800-667-7762 

Fax: 306-374-1122 

E-mail: mcdowell@stf.sk.ca 

www.mcdowellfoundation.ca

Report - Dr. Stirling McDowell Foundation for Research Into Teaching

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