Trinidad & TobagoImpact of Schools and Teaching

Presentation to Student Support Services UnitMinistry of Education, Trinidad and Tobago

January 3 - 5, 2007

Early Literacy Model

Reasons for Reading Difficulties • “We infer from these results that the reading difficulties

experienced by beginning readers … may well be caused by basic deficits in certain of the cognitive abilities underlying the ability to learn to read, especially phonological abilities such as phoneme analysis, letter-sound decoding, name encoding and retrieval, and verbal memory. However, our data suggest that the number of children impaired by basic cognitive deficits represents a relatively small percentage of beginning readers [1.5%-3.0%] compared with the substantially larger percentage of those children whose reading difficulties are caused by experiential and instructional deficits.” – Velluntino & Scanlon (2001)

Prevalence of Reading Skill Problems

• “It was estimated that our best current methods, if applied broadly, would leave anywhere from 2% to 6% of children with inadequate word reading skills in the first and second grades.”

– Torgesen (2000)

What Affects Student Achievement?

Source Effect Size Home and social influences .38 Learning processes or presentation (teacher controlled)

.62

Background and style of teachers .50 Curricula differences .48 Methods of instructions .36 School environment (e.g., class size, environment) .36 Student variables .53

Hattie, J. (1992). Measuring the effects of schooling. Australian J ournal of Education, 36, 5-13.

Learning Time

http://www.personal.psu.edu/mww10

Frank: frankc@berkeley.eduMarley: mww10@psu.eduTracey: thall@cast.org