Primary teachers, can I pick your brains for a minute please? Writing my dissertation.

[Icanonlytry]

I am currently writing (or trying too) my dissertation which is a research project on parental involvement and how it impacts on pupils learning, especially focusing on reading.
My cohort was a group of year 1 children. I know they are expected to progress through two sub-levels during year one but need to use a quote if I am to include this in my findings and I cant find reference to it anywhere. Any ideas?
Also what is your view on parental involvement? Have had opinions ranging from 'essential' to 'just causes more problems if the parent has not got the necessary skills to compliment what is learnt in school'
Thanks
Who thought doing this was a good idea with a 9yr and 5 month old??

I know they are expected to progress through two sub-levels during year one but need to use a quote if I am to include this in my findings and I cant find reference to it anywhere.

Three sub levels in Y1 (two full levels over the key stage as there are only two years in KS1 that equates to a full level per year).

so maybe the teacher I was working with at the time was kidding herself that all the children had made the expected progress during that year
I knew it was 2 levels in ks1 but it didn't occur to me that this would average two each year (wonders how long I have actually worked in a school and if i should just give up now??)

Thanks

It works out at 1 and a half (2 sub levels being good) in KS2

What is your hypothesis?

How are you defining and measuring parental involvement?

My hypothesis is that parental involvement is important throughout all aspects of school life but that some parents believe it is the schools responsibility to teach their child and they play no part.
I have measured this through collecting the data from the children's reading record books that go home with their reading books. The parents are asked to sign the book when they have heard their child read the book (or read the book with the child depending on capability), once they have signed the book the child was given a new book. I recorded the frequency of book changes for each child and have compared this with their reading progress throughout the year. Considering the children that have had intensive one-to-one support within class and noting that this will have affected their results.

But of course parents can (and do) read with their kids and not sign their reading record.

Or alternatively they can sign the record without having read with the kid (to get the teacher off their back :) )

And kids can have very bad dyslexia so that no matter how much parental involvement they have they don't progress.

In fact I agreed with school that I wouldn't read with DD at home, because it was only stressing her.

And are all the kids taught reading equally in class? Or are some taught by the TA and some by the teacher?

Even if they're all taught by the teacher I doubt all kids get exactly equal teaching.

Some will be asked to read more in class than others.

And 'reading with a parent' can mean vastly different things. Some parents may be actively teaching their child phonics, some may be teaching them whole words, and some may be cooking dinner and not teaching them anything.

If you're only studying 30 kids I don't think your experiment is valid :)

Ok; I would try and formulate the hypothesis into something you can prove or disprove through your research- at the moment, it is quite long and 'important' needs quantifying IYSWIM.

You could form it as a question which your research answers; for example To what extent does parental involvement improve progress/attainment? or How does parental involvement impact on children's progress/achievement in reading?

I would also criticise your own research as it depends on parents accurately declaring the extent of their involvement; of course, you are unable to measure it accurately without installing hidden cameras in the child's home, so I am not suggesting you do that , just that you acknowledge that it relies on parental accuracy.

In terms of quotes, have you looked at the DFES (as was) document here? (I'm sure you have), it will signpost appropriate research. There is also a literature review here, although they may be out of date.

Also interesting article on Scottish legislation here

yy, criticise the small sample size.

I have discussed all your points in my dissertation already.
I had to change my project at the last minute as I found out I was pregnant and the research I had planned on doing was not possible because I had to have time off work due to a rough pregnancy then start maternity leave in April.
It was only ever supposed to be a small scale research and through discussion with my tutor she said as long as I explain my limitations thoroughly I am looking at a good grade.

Ok, so I'm confused... what is your hypothesis?

Do you already have the documents I linked or do you need some more?

sorry cross posts, that was to Indigobell.
Jinglebellend your second example of question is pretty identical to the one I have actually used.
Have discussed the limitations of my findings relying on parents being honest about their child reading the book and sometimes parents being too busy or forgetting to sign the record when the child has read the book.
I have been critical of my findings for all these reasons.
Thanks for the links, think I have looked at them but will have another look.

Ok, understood.

Can I ask whether your research showed a correlation between parental involvement and achievement?

cat64. I know, I am the same with DD now in year 4. she was an early reader and the biff and chip books she was being given from school were not going down too well with her so we would just read other things with her for enjoyment. When questioned about this from school I just started writing what she had actually been reading at home. It is obvious that some parents do sign the books without their child reading anything, one example was the mum who had pre signed every box over 3/4 pages of the book

My research did show a correlation, the children who read regularly (and I think I got quite good at telling if they had actually read the book or not when we would choose their next book together and they would choose one they had taken home and 'read' 3 days earlier... ) Obviously there were exceptions; the 5 children who had had intensive one-to-one support throughout the year but little support at home, the child who came into year one a very capable reader but as the texts became harder for her to understand (due to the content being too old for her) her progress slowed and the child who read at home every night and got a lot of support at home but still struggled to hear the sounds in a word and blend them together.

Icanonlytry:

I think a far better study would be to examine the impact of changing books more than once a week. I would suggest that 2 or even 3 books a week would seriously improve reading progress in KS1.

Our issue has been having the same book for weeks on end. For example, 3 weeks of Big Panda, Little Panda with DD2 in Y1 nearly killed us.

If you want to make a real improvement to parent/ school relations - debunk this myth that having the same book for weeks on end is a benefit. Most kids love variety. They should be able to have a book again, if it's a favourite, but as the class library book. The guided reading books really should be frequently changed.

Finally - I agree with Cat64 - I also would ruin your reseach because after 2-3 goes at reading a book which DD2 could obviously tackle with ease, we just read our own books at home and I rarely bothered to sign the book. I'd just put in a note - DD is bored with x after 10 days - so we're reading our own stuff.

Also - the worse my kids were at reading the less I read with them. Because the bad readers were stressed by reading and hated it when they were bad - while the one who was good liked reading with me.

Reading with my bad readers more wouldn't have helped. With DS1 phonics teaching would have helped. With DD nothing would have helped.

So you really can't conclude anything. If there is a correlation between progress and number of times child was read with - it does not mean reading with the child caused the progress.

As a first time mum I didn't know I had to write on a card (that was in my son's tray at school) so he had the same reading book for most of a term

Having a major wobble now that my dissertation is going to be terrible
The parents were told about my research and what it would mean for them, I held an open session for an hour after school and half an hour before school so they could come in if they had any questions about it and it was made clear that if they had any issues with the book their child was being given they could talk to me about it. Also if they had read the book but not signed the record they could just let me know at drop off/pick up.
Having the same book for a long time wasn't an issue unless they had not let me know the book had been read as I checked the records daily and if a child had the book for more than a week I would try to find out if the child had read the book so I could change it even if the record had not been signed.

Thanks for all your comments, I do appreciate you taking the time to reply, I just didn't expect them to all be so negative.

Sorry you're having a wobble.

I'm sure your stats will prove a correlation between amount of times a child is read with and their progress.

But it would be really interesting to try and find out if reading more was a cause of them being better - or an effect.

That would be quite a hard hypothesis to prove :)

I bet even in class the teacher asks the more able readers to read more. So the effect keeps on being magnified.....

please don't be too hard on yourself, most of the critisms here are valid if you were asserting that you had proved a large effect that would prehaps merit a policy intevention such as paying parents to read with their children. you are not, you are presenting some nice data which although is probably no more than a case study does go somewhere in support of the idea that involvement matters

Could you try to address the cause vs correlation at least qualitatively, by doing exit interviews with the parents and asking them to describe what it's like reading at home? ie do their DC like it, love it, hate it? Is it a source of conflict, or a source of fun, and so on? Has any of this changed over the year? You'll then be able to see how the answers correlate, if they do, with the reading level of the children. (Although 30 is still too small a sample to say anything definitive). I think including this point will really strengthen your dissertation ...

PhDs and indeed whole research careers have been based round this very question there is no point in trying to get anything conclusive, far better to write up what you have and make sure you put in the context of existing work, show you are aware of the weaknesses and interpret all the tests correctly x