Literacy Learning in the Transition between Preschool and School Marion Meiers Australian Council for Educational Research

Acknowledgements The data presented in this paper results from the work of a team of ACER researchers and consultants from The members of this team have developed literacy activities, worked in preschools to gather data, undertaken data analyses. The contribution of preschools and schools in Victoria, South Australia, Western Australian and Queensland is also acknowledged. Australian Council for Educational Research 2014

Longitudinal studies of growth in literacy and numeracy ACER Longitudinal Literacy and Numeracy Study (LLANS): growth in literacy and numeracy, national sample of children, school entry to Year 6, Transitions from Preschool to School: growth in literacy and numeracy in preschool and the first two years of formal schooling, , building on the LLANS Australian Council for Educational Research 2014

Wide distribution of achievement Major finding from the LLANS study: wide distribution of literacy and numeracy achievement at school entry All children made progress in literacy and numeracy in the first three years of school Growth in Literacy and Numeracy in the First Three years at School. Meiers, M., Khoo, S.T., Rowe, K., Stephanou, A., Anderson, P., Nolan, K., (2006) Australian Council for Educational Research 2014

Key research questions What experiences and understanding of literacy and numeracy do children bring to preschool and the early school years? What can we learn about children’s growth in literacy learning in a three-year longitudinal study? Australian Council for Educational Research 2014

Gathering evidence of growth literacy activities based around picture story books one-to-one interviews between teachers and children in their classrooms concepts about print, listening to a story, comprehension, words, sounds and letters, writing Australian Council for Educational Research 2014

Growth Where should I start reading the story? 49 % correctStart Prep. 95% Show me which way to go when I’m reading. 65% correctStart Prep. 98% After I finish reading this line, where do I go next? 56 % correctStart Prep. 91% Australian Council for Educational Research 2014

Comprehension at Preschool What are Cat and Dog doing? 86% What did Dog mean when he said, ‘That sounds fair’? 71% Look at Cat and Dog. How do we know they are listening to Monkey? 25% What would the scales look like if they were balanced? 42% Would you let Monkey help you with a problem? 43% How did Monkey trick Cat and Dog? 56% Australian Council for Educational Research 2014

Comprehension at Preschool What did Monkey say he would do to help Cat and Dog? 69.7% Referred to sharing, the scales, balance the meat.) What did Dog mean when he said ‘That sounds fair’? 42.7 Recognised link between ‘equal shares’ and ‘fair’. Australian Council for Educational Research 2014

Comprehension – First Year at school What do you think will happen next? 24% Why was Chen going to the market? 78% Why do you think the writer used the words ‘chittering and chattering’? 61% Chen looks angry in this picture. Do you think he really is angry? 40% Show me the part of the book where Chen first got the idea about how to get his hats back. 36% Australian Council for Educational Research 2014

Understanding and response to literacy texts  recalling key aspects of a narrative  using visual information together with text read aloud  explaining characters’ actions and motivations  predicting what might happen at a key point in the story  making inferences about what happens. Australian Council for Educational Research 2014

Children’s Literature Picture story books engaging, authentic texts visual and verbal language contexts for probing students’ knowledge and comprehension of narrative, character, setting enjoyment, evoking personal response Australian Council for Educational Research 2014

Staring points for teaching and learning What do teachers learn about students from the one to one interviews? Where is this student in his/her learning? How has this student progressed in learning? What are the next steps in helping this student to make further progress in learning? How has this student progressed in learning? Reference: Masters, G. N. (2013) Reforming Educational Assessment: Imperatives, principles and challenges. Australian Education Review, ACER Australian Council for Educational Research 2014