Fria (Rong) Fan 311149677

Pitch to Millicentt Lee Poulos Foundation

Context
Our school, the Presbyterian Ladies College is a K-12 Catholic, independent school which is
located in Croydon in the inner west of New South Wales. PLC is a ladies college which was
founded in 1888, currently there are 1172 female students enrolled at the school. There are
about 37% of language backgrounds other than English students at PLC, and 1% of of the
total population are Indigenous students. At our college, we do have a very high ICSEA,
1172, which is significantly higher than the state average. 78% of our students families come
from top quarter of the state, 22% from the middle quarters and only 1% come from the
bottom quarter. We are not only proud of our outstanding school facilities, but also our net
recurrent income for each student is $28000 in 2013. We also have specialized scholarship
programs for students from year 5 to year 12.

At PLC, our students attempt to achieve high achievements in both NAPLAN and HSC
examinations. Students reading and numeracy achievements in NAPLAN testing are quite
significant from 2011-2013, which has been improved by 50 and 44 units relatively.
Meanwhile, our students achieve more the higher bands than similar schools and Australian
schools, and get less the lower bands compare to similar schools and Australia schools in
NAPLAN results. Not only the NAPLAN results, 85% of PLC students gain offers from
universities and the reminders would go to TAFE or other higher institutions, where half of
the HSC students gain ATAR results of 90 or higher.

However, the current priority area which needs to be focused on is to meet literacy needs of
ESOL students at PLC. Though our ESOL students could sustain basic interpersonal
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communication skills, they often lack the sophistication needed to fulfill the academic
requirements. One of the evidences is that according to our colleges 2013 HSC performance
of English Advanced, Standard English and ESL results, comparing to the state average
percentage of achieving band 6, 0% of ESL students at PLC had achieved band 6 compared to
stage average as 3%.

Based on the notions of the National Professional Standards for teachers, teachers should
know their students and how they learn, as well as developing effective strategies for
addressing students needs (NSW institute of teachers, 2011). Therefore, to meet literacy
needs of ESOL students has become one of the priorities at PLC this year. As the coordinator
of English language department, I would like to pitch for funding for a research and
development grant from Millicent Lee Poulos Foundation. The entire project is aiming for
providing an on-going reading recovery program for ESOL students and monitoring students
English literacy developments throughout the term. I would introduce our designed project of
reading recovery program for ESOL students by mapping onto National Professional
Standards for teachers, discuss the anticipated benefits of the entire program underpinned with
relevant research-based evidences, as well as evaluating the detailed methods of the project
from both students as data resources and students as active respondents perspectives,
discussing strengths and potential limitations of conducting the research in the following
sections.

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Project
The research project of reading recovery program will engage all our ESOL students at PLC,
students will attend a 30 minutes reading recovery session after school twice a week, and
there is no determined length of the program. By considering ESOL studentsindividual
literacy performances, the project will aim for accelerating students' English language skills
and enhance students' sophistications of academic requirements. The reading recovery
program is designed to be held individually, English subject teaching staffs will provide oneto-one support during the sessions, students will need to complete reading exercises and
attempt answering questions on their logbooks. This program is considered as supplementary
supports to the current learning curriculums in their English classrooms.
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Not only the staffs from English department are involved in this project, but also teachers
from other curriculum departments are required to get involved in the program as the
participants of the research. The key features of this research are to find out about determining
the effectiveness of having a reading recovery program for ESOL students at PLC. The
research will be supported by both quantitative and qualitative analyses. The data sources of
the research will be collected from different approaches, including students' in-class
performances, previous and current performances and results. Another dimension is that, both
students and staffs involved in the program will be interviewed with semi-structured interview
questions, their opinions and attitudes towards the on-going program will be valued in the
process.
Our research project also aims to develop a sustainable, inclusive and effective supportive
program for ESOL students in regard to their English literacy needs. This includes their
abilities to read and perceive information by reading English articles, their accuracies and
participation of attempting questions, and their improvements of literacy skills in the progress
(Kamler & Comer, 2005). These factors would probably have short-term and long-term
impacts on our ESOL students' proficiency of using language, as well as developing the
intercultural understandings between their mother languages and English.

This project is underpinned with the National Professional Teaching standards, "Element 2
Teachers know their students and how they learn" which 2.2.5 requires "teachers to
demonstrate and apply a range of strategies to address students' various needs" (NSW Institute
of teachers, 2011).

As our ESOL students come form different cultural and language

backgrounds, those students may have various learning needs and difficulties, therefore, we
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need to apply for a practical project and strategy to help those students, especially focusing on
their individual needs. It also requires teachers to apply equity and teaching practices by
providing the equal reading recovery program opportunities to all ESOL students, and
involves continuous implementations of inclusive teaching to all of the students. It would also
lead us to understand the effectiveness, importance of designed learning support strategy from
research findings, raise further considerations relates to sustainable development of reading
recovery program which may also help teachers from different curriculum areas to know
students needs better.
"Element 3 Teachers plan, assess and report for effective learning" will also be implied with
our project, during the research process, teachers will select particular texts for students to
read, develop particular logbooks for ESOL target students to complete and provide
appropriate learning supports to engage them (NSW Institute of teachers, 2011). Moreover, in
our ESOL language curriculum, we will monitor the on-going improvements of ESOL
students during the research project process by collecting students performances in progress,
and modifying the program continuously to meet their individual readiness levels on a
differentiated teaching practice basis (Tomlinson, 1998).

The success of having a reading recovery program for students in earlier years has actually
been proved by evidence-based researches. It was firstly developed in New Zealand by Clay
(1980), which was used to provide supports to students whose performances are in the lowest
20% in year one. Different to Clay's project, our designed project aims to provide special
supports to ESOL students from K-12, and all of our ESOL students are required to
participate the reading recovery program, and specialized helps will be provided depend on
their individual English literacy needs.
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Having a reading recovery program has been previously proven successful by many research
projects, for example Allington (2008), Schmitt et al. (2005) and Strickland (2010) suggest
that reading recovery program will have accelerated improvements of students' readings skills
than any other intervention. In addition, another case study which was carried out in New
Zealand reports that the reading recovery program do have outcomes of educational
significance for students (Timperley et al., 2006). Moreover, an evaluation of reading
recovery program in London suggests that, students who didn't have access to reading
program would make gap between them and their peers (Burroughts-Lange, 2006).
Considering the long-term effects of having readings recovery program, Strickland (2010)
suggests that by letting students get involved in such program, they appear to gain more
confidences and being motivated with learning experiences. Therefore, it is worthwhile to
provide reading recovery opportunities for ESOL students to engage their learning, as once
they are engaged with the learning in target language, their efficiency of using English will be
enhanced, and ultimately benefits them to develop all-round understandings across different
curriculums.

According to the current nature and school performances of PLC, it's worthwhile for PLC to
have this reading recovery program for ESOL students. Based on various interventions and
research findings, it's been proven that reading recovery program will assist students learning
successfully (NSWDET, 2014), and the outcomes of implementing the research project at
PLC would not only benefit the English department, other departments at school could further
develop effective teaching and learning support strategies for our ESOL student groups.
Therefore, the significances of conducting the research and development project of reading
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recovery program for ESOL students at PLC are strongly supported by earlier research
findings.

Benefits
There are several anticipated benefits of implementing this research and development project,
first of all, according to the nature and context of the school, PLC is a multilingual
community as there are around 37% of the total population who are LBOTE students, and
10% of total population are ESOL students. Comparing to English Advanced and Standard
English HSC performances in 2013, ESL is considered to be the prior area to be improved this
year. Our ESOL students should be provided extra supports to achieve the sophistication to
fulfill academic requirements. So that it is worthwhile to pitch for wonderful opportunities
and projects for the special 10% of our young people at PLC, to let them take challenges in
the community and make differences in the world. From the basis of Christian worldview, we
are called to help individuals, and provide equity teaching and learning environments to them.

Secondly, from recent researches, the implementations of reading recovery program have
been proven to be successful. According to a major study conducted in New Zealand, students
who begin the reading recovery program with lower initial performance would catch up with
other students by the end of the program (Ministry of Education New Zealand, 2006). Though
our designed project has subtle differences from previous cases, at this point I believe that the
earlier we prepare such program for ESOL students, the better long-term improvements would
have on those students.

In addition, as ESOL students come from different cultural and language backgrounds, it is
necessary to understand the importances of learning supports and make positive attitudes and
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responses towards various students. By designing the research and development project for
ESOL students, it would prevent the exclusions of teaching, and meet target students' needs.
Students with different individual needs may impact not only within the schooling context but
also influence towards the social functioning and operating. When ESOL students are engaged
with project discussion and the project per se, they will thus be valued, accepted and respected
regardless of cultural backgrounds (Forlin, 2004).

Moreover, statistic data shows that from 1996 to 2013, there are over 100000 students in
NSW had participated the reading recovery program, which the average duration of
participating the program is approximately 14 weeks, and over 85% of those students had
successfully discontinued the program within 14 weeks (NSWDET, 2014). It shows that
students who are involved in the program may have higher potential to improve their literacy
learning skills. Therefore, I believe that at PLC, if our ESOL students could be provided such
reading recovery program, they may have better opportunities to enhance their current English
skills.

On the other hand, by participating and getting involved in the reading recovery program of
ESOL students, it would foster professional development on teachers' knowledge about
literacy, learning and development, and gain perceptions and decision making experiences
through the process of the research project (Pearson, 2003). Teachers will have more
opportunities to know their target students better, and therefore develop on-going strategies
for addressing students' needs more effectively.

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Evaluation
We planned to evaluate the project by engaging students, teachers and different staffs across
curriculums in the research, where students are the target data sources involved in this
program. Mayes (2014) has outlined that there are many aims of students' voice, for example,
it could foster a radical collegiality between students and teachers rather than collaborations.
Instead of asking questions by teachers during research process, when students are involved in
the participatory action research, they often work together with teachers, share or negotiate
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different opinions and interests, and produce some new understandings. (Bragg & Fielding,
2005)

Therefore, in this research project, students are firstly involved as data sources, we will
review students' past performances, for example the half-yearly, yearly and HSC exam results
of ESL to determine each ESOL student's individual needs. Students' role of being data
sources will be evaluated through their on-going in-class performances compared to the past
performances in ESL class. Meanwhile, our school departments from different curriculum are
also responsible for examining students' overall improvement and performances after the
initiation of the reading recovery program research.

On the other hand, we need students to be active respondents and co-researchers in this
project, as each individual's reflections towards the developments of the project could make
contributions towards the new approaches of the research. For example, teachers' role at this
stage will need to hear what students say about the project, this can be conducted with semistructured interview method, proposed questions could be asked as "do you think you have
improved during the reading recovery program so far? Do you like or dislike this program,
why and why not? How would you rate the efficiency of this program? " Another approach is
that, teachers and staffs who are supervising the reading recovery program should also be
interviewed, such questions could be" what have you noticed during the program? What
obvious in-class performance has been made on students so far?"

The research will be conducted in both longitudinal and sectional approaches. Success of the
program could be monitored in progress, students who are involved in the reading recovery
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program will have a logbook to record their reading reflections through the whole term. The
logbook is designed with typical questions which are related to the articles that students will
be reading. After each reading recovery period, students will need to complete the questions
on the logbook, and teachers will collect students' work, check the answers on the logbook
and record the accuracy continuously. In this way, teachers will have better understandings of
each individual's needs and the actual improvements of implementing the project. By
comparing students' past performances data sources of ESL subject with the recent results and
records of logbook accuracy, we will able to know whether the project has certain
effectiveness on our target ESOL students or not.

For this research, there are several strengths and limitations. First of all, as students are
participating and getting involved in the research, it's not only because of the policy
discourses but students will actually be more engaged with learning. They will have senses of
being the centers of learning progress, and therefore teachers could also gain new
understandings about what students are experiencing at school (Talbot, 2014). In addition,
according to the 5E's model by Bybee, et al., (2006), teachers need to evaluate and make
decisions about how the learning is going and what are the future approaches. The reading
recovery program requires teachers to notice any improvements or problems occurred in
progress so that teachers can always make reflections on the program.

However, one of the limitations of this research is that, we would monitor and evaluate our
research success by interviewing students and teachers and comparing students' previous
performances with recent performances. Although students are involved as active respondents
in the research project, the questions we have proposed to ask students during the interview
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may underpinned with our own practical, personal and professional interests (Morrison,
2002). Unless we make some sharp questions to consult our ESOL students, otherwise the
research project may not be build upon a valid basis. Moreover, by considering the reliability
as the consistency of the progress and transparency to see the research if it is meaningful, it
might be difficult to determine students' overall improvements and developments with the
accuracy of answers to the questions on logbook only. When students are evaluated through
their results of answering questions, it might stress ESOL students and teachers, so that the
evidences of literacy improvements, which are collected from their answers, might lose its
validity and reliability of stating their real performances. Therefore, it is never the less to
ensure the monitoring process of the research project would not have extra stresses and
unreliable influences on students.

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Reference List:
Allington, R. L. (2008). What really matters in response to intervention: Research-based
designs. Boston: Pearson.
Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority. (2014, January 1). Presbyterian
Ladies College, Croydon, NSW. Retrieved September 6, 2014, from
http://www.myschool.edu.au/SchoolProfile/Index/75169/PresbyterianLadiesCollege/43987/20
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Bennett, P. (2011, March 10). Early Reading Instruction: Why has Reading Recovery
Survived? Retrieved September 14, 2014, from
http://educhatter.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/early-reading-instruction-why-has-readingrecovery-survived/
Bragg, S., & Fielding, M. (2005). Its an equal thing Its about achieving together: Student
voices and the possibility of a radical collegiality. In H. Street & J. Temperley (Eds.),
Improving schools through collaborative enquiry (pp. 105-135). London: Continuum. [Read
pp.105-110 and pp.127-132]
Burroughs-Lange, S., & Douetil, J. (2006). Evaluation of Reading Recovery in London
Schools: Every Child A Reader, 2005-2006. Institute of Education, University of London.
Bybee, R. W., Taylor, J. A., Gardner, A., Van Scotter, P., Powell, J. C., Westbrook, A., &
Landes, N. (2006). The BSCS 5E instructional model: Origins and effectiveness. Colorado
Springs, CO: BSCS.
Forlin, C. & Lock, G. (2004). Embracing diversity: Using technologies in remote school
communities [videorecording]. Perth: Edith Cowan University.
Kamler, B. & Comer, B. (2005). Designing turn-around pedagogies and contesting deficit
assumptions. In B. Kamler & B. Comer (eds), Turn-around pedagogies, Sydney: Primary
English Teaching Association of Australia. pp. 1-14.
Mayes, E.(August, 2014). Student participation in research in and about schools. Lecture
conducted from University of Sydney, Sydney.
Ministry of Education New Zealand, Reading Recovery in New Zealand: Uptake
implementation and outcomes, especially in relation to Maori and Pasifika students, 2006.
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Morrison, M. (2002). What do we mean by educational research. Research methods in

educational leadership and management, 3-27.
NSWDET. (2014, January 1). Reading Recovery: A research-based early intervention
program - home. Retrieved September 14, 2014.
Pearson, P.D. (2003) The role of professional knowledge in reading reform. Language Arts,
81, 1415.
Professional Teaching Standards. (n.d.). NSW Professional Teaching Standards. Retrieved
August 28, 2014, from http://www.nswteachers.nsw.edu.au/Main-Professional-TeachingStandards/nsw-professional-teaching-standards/
Schmitt, M. C., & Gregory, A. E. (2005). The impact of an early literacy intervention:
Where are the children now? Literacy Teaching and Learning: An International
Strickland, M., & Abbott, L. (2010). The Reading Teacher, 64(1), 66-68.
Journal of Early Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 10(1), 1-20.
Talbot, D. (September, 2014). Practitioner Enquiry 1. Lecture conducted from University of
Sydney, Sydney.
Timperley, H., Wilson, A., Barrar, H., & Fung, I. (2007). Teacher
professional learning and development: Best Evidence Synthesis (BES).
Tomlinson, C., (1998). The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All
Learners.

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