End of Year Analysis: CoL Inquiry 2021

We are at the end of 2021 and what a year it has been! Since coming back to school, I have been unable to teach my Extension classes due to Covid-19 restrictions. As a result, I have formed a final data analysis to show what potential the implementation of my 'tool' could have had, had we had more time in the classroom this year.

I hypothesised that providing speaking prompts and increasing speaking mileage would close the gap between reading and vocabulary level when it comes to speaking and presenting. This was decided after I found that my target group were all great readers (above their chronological age) yet they did not demonstrate the same vocabulary understanding, use and knowledge when it came to speaking and presenting.

I compared the vocabulary test results for children who took both tests. Note that this test demonstrated ability to understand vocabulary through reading, a skill which we know these children are good at. Results showed that all children (except one) improved in their ability to understand a range of vocabulary they come across when reading. The one child who did not show an improvement stayed at relatively the same level.

Next, I turned the PAT vocabulary test results (above) into an approximate 'age.' I wanted to see whether we have managed to close the gap between reading age and vocabulary level. Note, that the focus was to increase children's vocabulary levels in order to achieve this. You can see on the graphs that the gap for each child (difference between the blue and red column) does appear to be closing up for most children. 

 Unfortunately, I was unable to collect final term 4 data to show any increases in oral language of these children. However, I was able to collect a few second oral responses in term 3. These changes are explained in another blog post.

In all, I believe my focus on increasing speaking mileage with the support of speaking prompts has supported the children in the Extension class learning environment. It is something I highly recommend as a focus in all classrooms to support development of our children's oral language capabilities.