Literacy Instruction in Australian Primary Schools: Differentiated or not?

Abstract

The last four decades have seen profound challenges and changes to educationand learning within Australia. One such challenge is the diversity that is foundin our student populations in the regular classroom. This diversity has resultedin an increase of variance in student ability and support needs, and thesubsequent requirement for variance in teacher instruction and contexts.Within these educational contexts, research suggests that literacy difficultiesare still major concerns within Australian primary schools. The literature alsosuggests a strong link between instructional differentiation and achievement.This paper presents part of the results of a PhD study investigating readinginstruction in Stage 2 classrooms. In investigating the relationship betweenstudent diversity and instructional differentiation, the methodology involvedobserving students with low, average and high-reading ability during literacylessons, the assessment of classroom ecologies, teacher instruction and studentresponses to instruction. The research process, key features of the method,including participant selection, amendment of the published observationalcoding instrument, its field-testing and subsequent analysis and assessment forreliability as an observational instrument and some results will be presented.Whilst the results suggested some limited differentiation between instructionalpractice, classroom ecologies and student responses, there were very littleinappropriate student behaviours.