Narrowing the Gap: Catch-up or Catch-22?

Academic achievement relates strongly and reciprocally to a child’s academic self-concept, in other words, how they see themselves learners in English and Maths (Schunk & Pajares, 2009) and also in reading (Chapman & Tumner, 1995).

Researchers have found that the importance of motivation increases as the child’s perception of reading difficulty increases (Klauda et al., 2015). The reverse is also true. This is why reading 'catch-up' can also feel as if it’s a catch-22 situation.

To resolve this problem, Hattie (2008) recommended that teachers teach children strategies that help with self-regulation and self control. The approach would target students with a weak academic self-concept and in his words:

address non-supportive self-strategies before attempting to enhance achievement directly (Hattie, 2008; p.47).

Peeling back the layers on the self-concept literature, various models and analogies are available (Schunk, 2012). Hattie’s vivid and effective analogy of a rope captures the idea of a congruent core within the child’s self-concept as well as the variety of intertwining fibers and strands that are accumulated via the child’s everyday experiences (2008, p.46). The rope as a metaphor supports the idea that one fibre of the rope applies to maths, whereas a completely different strand applies to reading and another one for playing football and so on.

The relationship between self-concept and academic achievement is reciprocal (Hattie, 2008) and also specific to each academic subject and skillset (Schunk, 2012). Therefore, strengthening self-concept for reading supports achievement in reading, while strengthening self-concept for maths supports maths skills.

It is very difficult to strengthen a child’s low self-concept in one specific subject before addressing achievement in that area, unless of course you are introducing a new approach. And, by the same token, it is important that the new approach supports self-regulating strategies, as well as building strength in subject-relevant skills.

The Rhythm for Reading programme meets both of these requirements. The programme works as a catalyst for confidence and reading skills, and therefore transforms the catch-22 situation into a positive cycle of confidence and progression, as well as offering a fresh approach, which complements conventional methods of teaching early reading.

Instead of reading letters and words, children read simplified musical notation in ten weekly sessions of ten minutes. During the sessions, they practise reading skills such as decoding; they are reading from left-to-right, and chunking small units of print into larger units.

All of this takes place while the children maintain focus, develop confidence, self-regulation and metacognitive strategies. The musical materials used in the Rhythm for Reading programme have been specially written to be age-appropriate and to secure pupils’ attention, making the more effortful aspect of reading much easier than usual.

In fact, throughout the programme, the cognitive load for reading simple music notation is far lighter than for reading printed language. This is why the children experience sustained fluency and deeper engagement right from the very first session.

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REFERENCES

Chapman, J. W., & Tunmer, W. E. (1995). Development of young children’s reading self-concepts: An examination of emerging subcomponents and their relationship with reading achievement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 87, 154–167.

Hattie, J. (1992). Self-concept. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Hattie, John.(2008) Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement. Routledge.

Klauda, Susan Lutz, and John T. Guthrie. “Comparing relations of motivation, engagement, and achievement among struggling and advanced adolescent readers.” Reading and writing 28.2 (2015): 239-269.

Pintrich, P.R. and Schunk, D.H. (2002). Motivation in education: Theory research and applications (2nd edition) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill.

Rogers, C.R. (1959). A theory of therapy, personality, inter-relationships as developed in the client-centered-framework. In S. Kock (Ed) Psychology: A study of a science, Vol.3, pp.184-256 New York, McGraw-Hill.

Schunk, D. H. and Pajares, F. (2009). Self-efficacy theory. In K. r. Wentzel & A. Wigfield (Eds.), Handbook of motivation at school (pp. 35-53). New York:Routledge.

Schunk, D.H. (2012) Learning theories: An educational perspective, 6th edition, First published 1991 Boston: Allyn & Bacon, Pearson Education Inc.