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Page 1: Children’s engagement in different classroom activities

This article was downloaded by: [Selcuk Universitesi]On: 20 December 2014, At: 08:25Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

European Journal of Special NeedsEducationPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rejs20

Children’s engagement in differentclassroom activitiesMargareta Sandström Kjellin a & Mats Granlund aa Mälardalen University , SwedenPublished online: 17 Feb 2007.

To cite this article: Margareta Sandström Kjellin & Mats Granlund (2006) Children’s engagement indifferent classroom activities, European Journal of Special Needs Education, 21:3, 285-300, DOI:10.1080/08856250600810724

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Page 2: Children’s engagement in different classroom activities

European Journal of Special Needs EducationVol. 21, No. 3, August 2006, pp. 285–300

ISSN 0885–6257 (print)/ISSN 1469–591X (online)/06/030285–16© 2006 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/08856250600810724

Children’s engagement in different classroom activitiesMargareta Sandström Kjellin* and Mats GranlundMälardalen University, SwedenTaylor and Francis LtdREJS_A_181014.sgm10.1080/08856250600810724European Journal of Special Needs Education0885-6257 (print)/1469-591X (online)Original Article2006Taylor & Francis213000000August 2006MargaretaSandström [email protected]

A multiple case study is reported aiming at identifying the degree of taking part and of being en-gaged in classroom activities for children with and without reading and writing difficulties/dyslexia.The aim was also to investigate the accordance between ‘effective literacy teaching’ and children’sexpressed interest and observed taking part and engagement in different kinds of activities. Thestudy is exploratory and the generalizability of the results limited. Three observations each weremade of five children with reading and writing difficulties/dyslexia and five comparison children; theobservations concerned accessibility, taking part in and engagement with two types of classroom ac-tivities, namely basic skills training and practice of higher-level language skills as a means of thinkingat a higher level. The results are presented in relation to quality criteria for teachers’ effective literacyteaching. Results found that the instruction was concerned more with the practice of basic skills inreading and writing than practice of the language as a means of thinking at a higher level for allchildren, and the children with reading and writing difficulties were less engaged in reading andwriting skills training than the comparison children, but took part equally well in activities focusedon practice of the language at a higher level. Most of the teachers had lower expectations regardingthose children with reading and writing difficulties than children without reading and writingdifficulties. The results are discussed in relation to the goals in the subject Swedish.

Keywords: Effective literacy teaching; Engagement in instruction/taking part in instruction; Reading and writing difficulties/dyslexia

Introduction

The aim of this exploratory study was to examine engagement in classroom activitiesfor children with and without reading and writing difficulties/dyslexia, and also torelate teachers’ descriptions and performance of instruction to criteria of effectiveliteracy teaching. Many children in Swedish classrooms, in particular, those withreading and writing difficulties, have difficulty too in reaching the school’s curriculum

*Corresponding author. Department of Education, Mälardalen University, PO Box 883, SE-72123 Västerås, Sweden. Email: [email protected]

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goals. In Sweden there are two types of goals defined in the National Curriculum(Lpo 94): ‘goals to attain’ (base targets), and ‘goals to aim for’ (high-level targets)(Skolverket, 1996). In Swedish language the ‘goals to attain’ focus on the masteringof basic skills in reading and writing, whereas the ‘goals to aim for’ concern masteringthe use of the language at a higher level, e.g. reflecting upon a text.

In the Swedish National Curriculum the foundation for the ‘goals to aim for’ is aset of ‘democratic values’ outlined in the curriculum. These goals are intended to bethe base for all work in Swedish schools and denote the main goal for the school,namely to educate democratic citizens. However, the syllabus goals have not beenprecisely defined for different subjects, resulting in teachers often working onlytowards the ‘goals to attain’, as these are relatively concrete and measurable (Zackari& Modigh, 2000). All children are supposed to reach the ‘goals to attain’, and thisconstitutes a problem. A child with reading and writing difficulties may have a betterchance of reaching the school’s ‘goals to aim for’ than the ‘goals to attain’, since the‘goals to aim for’ do not require personal reading ability.

In Swedish language the ‘goals to attain’ for Year 5 emphasize basic skills, such as‘being able to read with fluency, both aloud and to themselves … to be able to applythe most common rules of the written language and the most common rules ofspelling’ (Skolverket, 2001, p. 85). Other abilities are also stated in the ‘goals toattain’, such as ‘being able to understand events and meaning in books and non-fiction written for children and young persons’ (Skolverket, 2001, p. 85), but thefocus of these goals is on basic skills.

The ‘goals to aim for’ are not specified for school years; the emphasis is on masteringthe use of the language on a higher level, both for reading and writing as well as reason-ing. These goals are outlined as:

to develop their imagination and desire to create using language, both individually and inco-operation with others … develop their ability in a dialogue with others to express feel-ings and thoughts, arising from texts with a variety of purposes … acquire an insight intotheir learning, and reflect over their own development, and learn both on their own andtogether with others to use their experiences, thinking and language skills to form andmaintain their knowledge. (Skolverket, 2001, p. 82)

In this study taking part and engagement in teaching aiming for the two goals is exam-ined for children with reading and writing difficulties and comparison children in thesame classrooms. A teaching method focusing on teaching for the ‘goals to attain’frequently means that the teacher primarily supports the children in the training offundamental reading and writing skills and, in the worst scenario, the child works onhis/her own trying to master reading and writing. A teaching method primarilyfocused on teaching for the ‘goals to aim for’, on the other hand, probably allows thechild to take part in a dialogue with both fellow classmates and teacher. This may leadto the child acquiring a wider knowledge base, in spite of reading and writing difficul-ties. However, this may not necessarily stimulate fundamental reading and writingskills.

The Swedish National Agency for Education (Skolverket, 1998) has discoveredthat teachers lack general knowledge of the reading and writing process when it comes

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to the teaching of school subjects. Therefore it is important to study both teachers’and children’s awareness of this process, and also if there is a relation between thisawareness in the teachers and in the children.

Theoretical background

Academic achievement and classroom climate

Sandström Kjellin (forthcoming) has shown that children with reading and writingdifficulties are not always supported by the environment in their reading and writingdevelopment when it comes to dialogical interplay during the lessons in Swedish. Herstudy showed that some children who were very poor readers were not sufficientlysupported by the environment (either at home or at school), and inversely, that somechildren who were very skilled readers were strongly supported by the environment(both at home and at school). In other words, a strong evidence of the Matthew effect(Stanovich, 1986) was apparent. It appeared as if the teachers were not aware of thequalitative difference in language stimulation between instruction aimed at masteringfundamental skills in reading and writing and instruction aimed at developing thechildren’s use of the language at a higher level.

In most cases, the methods or pedagogical programmes that have been applied asa measure of preventing reading and writing difficulties have not been thoroughly andcritically evaluated using scientifically acceptable methods (Høien & Lundberg,1999). Furthermore, they are mainly evaluated in relation to reading and writingskills rather than use of the language at a higher level. Myrberg (1997), in a review ofthe reading and writing literature in this research field, reports that teacher skill,method of work and classroom climate have a strong impact on the child’s achieve-ment. In Sandström Kjellin (2002), Swedish teachers’ work methods in the firstgrades were analysed in relation to the school’s ‘goals to attain’ and the ‘goals to aimfor’. Teaching in Swedish took place in different ‘areas’: one focused on teachingword decoding and one focused on teaching the fundamental meaning of a text; theseare examples of teaching towards the ‘goals to attain’. A third area, however, focusedon teaching where the child’s experience of the world was taken into account in rela-tion to a text; this is an example of teaching towards the ‘goals to aim for’. It was indi-cated that teacher skill and working method influenced the result in terms ofachieving the ‘goals to aim for’. Classroom climate has been explored especially byDysthe (1996, 2003), who found that a classroom where all voices can be heard—theteacher’s as well as the children’s—is most beneficial to the child’s linguistic develop-ment. Several important US classroom-based studies showed that in order to achievesuccessful reading and writing development for all children the child–child andteacher–child interaction is crucial (e.g. Guthrie & Alao, 1997). Guthrie and Wigfield(2000) studied engagement and motivation in reading and concluded that engage-ment is strongly related to reading achievement. In a series of studies of engagementin school activities regarding children needing special support in Sweden, Granlundand associates (Eriksson & Granlund, 2004; Almquist & Granlund, 2005) reported

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that children’s engagement in school is predicted by the children’s self-ratedautonomy and control perceptions. In a longitudinal study of students’ engagementand school achievement, Skinner et al. (1998) reported that students’ control percep-tions and engagement is related to how teachers attribute student achievement.Teachers who attribute achievement to effort had students who succeeded to a largerextent than teachers who attributed achievement to student ability.

Teacher skill and working method can be related both to the school’s ‘goals toattain’ and the ‘goals to aim for’ (Sandström Kjellin, 2005). Teaching methodspromoting both types of goals often result in a dialogical classroom climate. Theteacher allows children with reading and writing difficulties to take part in thisprocess, without taking into account whether or not the child can live up to theschool’s ‘goals to attain’. High teacher expectations of children’s academic achieve-ment have proved to be important for the children’s chances to perform well. Thiswas initially shown by Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968), and it has by many otherresearchers. Realizing the importance of high teacher expectation is considered to becharacteristic of teachers’ professionalism (Hall & Harding, 2003).

Reading and writing difficulties/dyslexia in Sweden

Based on the phonological paradigm, Høien and Lundberg (1999) defined dyslexiaas: ‘a continuous disorder in the decoding of the written language, caused by a weak-ness in the phonological system’ (p. 21). In Swedish schools only few children arediagnosed as having dyslexia. Instead the concept ‘reading and writing difficulties’ isused; the teacher/remedial teacher conducts an analysis of the child’s decoding andspelling ability; the causes of the children’s difficulties are less frequently analysed.The analysis may be based on e.g. the Reading chains test (Jacobson, 2001). In thetests stanine points are given, and the norms for the stanine points awarded aredifferent for the two sexes, based on statistical differences between the sexes whenperforming the tests. The three tests (‘sign chains’, ‘word chains’ and ‘sentencechains’) are useful when screening to identify children who might be experiencingreading and writing difficulties. A pattern of performing significantly better on signchains than on word chains is seen as a typical indicator of dyslexia (Jacobson, 2001).Some children with identified difficulties are referred to the school’s speech therapist,who may diagnose a child as having dyslexia according to the ICD-10. Physicians orpsychologists may also diagnose dyslexia; after diagnosis, an action plan includingmeasures to help the child should be developed and implemented. Support shouldpreferably be given in class; schools have also the responsibility for action plans forchildren who are not diagnosed as having dyslexia, but who are ‘in need of specialsupport’ due to e.g. ‘reading and writing difficulties’.

Effective literacy teaching

Hall and Harding (2003) made a systematic review of effective literacy teaching andfound that certain distinctive features characterize teachers implementing effective

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teaching. Such features include: high expectations of all children; balance of directskills instruction and contextually grounded literacy teaching; and integration ofreading with writing and avoidance of adherence to only one approach. Lansfjord(1999) reported expert teachers’ ranking list of goals for teaching reading and writ-ing; the highest rank is for skills such as ‘creating a delight in reading … creating along-term interest in reading’ (p. 58) and ‘develop written language as a tool forthinking, communication and expressing feelings’ and encouraging pupils to experi-ence satisfaction in writing about own experiences (p. 60). The criteria mentioned byboth Hall and Harding (2003) and Lansfjord (1999, pp. 58–60) can be counted asexamples of teaching towards the ‘goals to aim for’—i.e. use of language at a higherlevel. Placed at the bottom of the ranking list in Lansfjord (1999) were those criteriathat could be characterized as teaching towards the ‘goals to attain’, including ‘devel-oping good reading aloud skills, improving skills in reading words, increasing readingspeed, encouraging pupils to apply grammar rules in their own texts, improvingpupils’ ability to spell and develop legible handwriting’. After reviewing the literatureon teaching outcomes, Gustafsson and Myrberg (2002) drew the conclusion thatteacher professionalism is an important factor for children’s academic achievement.In addition, Nind et al. (2004) carried out a systematic review of pedagogicalapproaches effectively including children with special needs in mainstream class-rooms and found that these children are dependent on peer group interactiveapproaches—i.e. activities that involve practice of the language in dialogue withothers; other indicators of effectiveness, according to Nind et al., were small-groupinstruction and one-to-one tutoring.

In summary, there seems to be a consensus in research that teaching methods,teacher attitude and classroom climate have a strong impact on children’s academicachievement, especially for children with difficulties. However, Sandström Kjellinand Wennerström (2006) have found that children from preschool to 2nd grade inupper secondary school had much less access to instruction directed towards the‘goals to aim for’ than the ‘goals to attain’. In addition, children with reading andwriting difficulties/dyslexia were more engaged in activities classified as directedtowards ‘goals to aim for’ and needed less help with these activities than with activitiesdirected towards ‘goals to attain’. To our knowledge, there have been no detailedstudies concerning teachers expressing lower expectations regarding those childrenwith reading and writing difficulties than other children. Furthermore, there havebeen no in-depth studies on observed differences in taking part, engagement andexpressed interest for children with and without reading and writing difficulties whenexposed to different kinds of instruction.

Aims of the study and research questions

The aim of this study was to identify degree of taking part and being engaged in class-room activities for children both with and without reading and writing difficulties.The aim was also to investigate whether there was any accordance between ‘effectiveliteracy teaching’ and children’s observed engagement/expressed interest in different

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kinds of activities with a focus on children with reading and writing difficulties/dyslexia the specific research questions were:

1. How do the teachers describe and perform their instruction in relation to criteriaof effective literacy teaching?

2. Is there a pattern in the children’s taking part and engagement in the observedactivities?

3. How do the children comment on the observed instruction and what desires dothey have about instruction in relation to criteria of effective literacy teaching?

4. Is there accordance between the children’s level of reflecting on activities and thecriteria of effective literacy teaching?

Method

The study was a multiple case study using a case-control design.

Participants

Five children with reading and writing difficulties participated (two children with adiagnosis of dyslexia and three children who were assessed by the teachers as havingreading and writing difficulties). Five case-control children, matched by gender, inthe same classes, were used. The children in the pairs were studied during the samelessons. The pairs of children were in different schools and in different school years,from the 4th to the 9th grade. Purposive and convenience sampling was used; fivechildren with reading and writing difficulties/dyslexia were selected from classes thatwere available to the student teachers collecting the data. The student teachers wereasked to select children who either had a diagnosis of dyslexia or were considered bythe teachers to have reading and writing difficulties. The comparison children werethe next children of the same sex on the class list. The children represented severalschools in the age group 10–15 years. The reason for our including children withquite a wide age range was convenience and the fact that the focus was on childrenwith reading and writing difficulties, rather than on a specific age group or school.

Material and concepts

The children’s reading skill was assessed by three tests.1 Observations wereconducted on the children’s accessibility and taking part and engagement of thepupils in classroom activities. The assessment material used was further developedfrom the Ecological Congruence Assessment (ECA: Wolery et al., 2002) and was vali-dated in Sandström Kjellin (forthcoming) and Sandström Kjellin and Wennerström(2006).

A score of ‘Accessibility to goals to attain and activities focused on practising basicskills’ was registered if the teacher informed/instructed the children; the children gaveoral response to grammatical or linguistic correctness/spelling; the children wrote

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exercises about grammatical or linguistic correctness/spelling; or the children read ontheir own/aloud in a group/in the class.

A score of ‘Accessibility to goals to aim for, and activities focusing on use of thelanguage at a higher level’ was registered if the teacher related/recounted a topic; thechildren individually made written reflections on a text or a theme; or the children inclass/peer groups made oral/written reflections on a text or a theme.

‘Taking part’ denotes that the child was present and was offered the chance toparticipate in the activity. ‘Takes part’ was registered if the child was present in theactivity that the class had access to. The degree of taking part was denoted by ‘doesnot take part’, ‘takes part partly’ or ‘takes part completely’.

‘Engagement’ denotes that the child showed interest and motivation for theactivity. Engagement was registered as: ‘not at all engaged’, ‘not very engaged, moreinterested in something else’, ‘fairly engaged and focused’ and ‘completely engagedand focused’.

The score ‘Instruction in accordance with quality criteria for effective literacyteaching’ was registered if more than four of the criteria, below, were described in theinterviews with the teachers and were observed. The score ‘Instruction partly inaccordance with quality criteria for effective literacy teaching’ was registered if threeor four of the criteria were described in the interviews and were observed. The score‘Instruction not in accordance with quality criteria for effective literacy teaching’ wasregistered if less than two of the criteria were described in the interviews and wereobserved. The criteria are:

1. high expectations of all students;2. balance of direct skills instruction and contextually-grounded literacy teaching;3. creation of delight in reading;4. integration of reading with writing;5. avoidance of adherence to only one approach;6. small-group instruction;7. peer group interactive approaches;8. one-to-one tutoring.

Procedure and validity

The observations were made by two observers simultaneously; the observers madetheir observations independently of each other and filled in one observation formeach. For each pair of children three observations, of 60 minutes each, were made. Inconnection with the observations, the children were interviewed (in semi-structuredinterviews) about their opinions of observed lessons as regards their engagement andin taking part in the lessons and their preferences for instructional activities. Instructured interviews the teachers were asked about their expectations concerning thechildren, and if they had any comments on the observed lesson (for example, if theyhad an explanation as to why a child did not take part or was not engaged in anobserved lesson), and about their literacy instruction in general.

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Data analysis

The observations were made by two independent observers (student teachers). Thechildren’s degree of taking part (does not take part/takes part partly/takes partcompletely) and engagement (not at all engaged/not very engaged, more interested insomething else/ fairly engaged and focused/completely engaged and focused) was regis-tered. The observation forms corresponded, between the two observers, to 90% forthe case-control students and to 93% for the students with difficulties; the formula:number of agreements divided by the number of assessments × 100, was used.

Based on the written observation forms, a categorization was made by the research-ers of the character of the observed activities—i.e. of accessibility to ‘goals to attain’(activities focused on development of basic skills) and accessibility to ‘goals to aimfor’ (activities focused on the use of the language at a higher level). The categorieswere translated into scores on Likert scales.

The data from the interviews with the teachers were categorized as regards thescore on ‘Instruction in accordance with/partly in accordance with/not at all inaccordance with quality criteria for effective literacy teaching’.

The inter-rater reliability between the two researchers coding the data was estimatedon a randomized sample of data from 25% of the participants. Using the formula:number of agreements divided by the total number of opportunity assessments, 96ratings out of 108 were judged equally by the two judges—i.e. the inter-rater reliabilitywas 88%. The data from the remaining 75% of the participants were analysed by thetwo researchers together.

The children’s answers concerning engagement and taking part in the instructionwere used as respondent validation of the observations, and the stability of thesethroughout the three observations was 83%. The limited number of children andobservations significantly limit the external validity of the study; the generalizabilityof the study is therefore limited.

Ethical aspects

Informed consent was collected from the principal, the children’s parents and thechildren. They were informed that the participation was voluntary and could beterminated at any time. It was made clear that the gathered information would not beused for any purpose other than research. A risk–benefit analysis revealed that thebenefit, both for the achieved research and for the children with reading and writingdifficulties, was that the study illuminated the school situation for these children.Observing children both having and not having difficulties minimized the risk of stig-matization the children may have experienced from participating in the study. Inaddition, the children were discussed anonymously.

Results

First, the participating children are presented, and the teachers’ descriptions of theirinstruction is displayed. This is followed by an account of the distribution of the

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observed activities, and the children’s observed access to the two kinds of activities,together with their taking part and engagement in the activities. Finally, the children’scomments of the instruction are presented.

Table 1 shows stanine points for the children for the Reading chains test (Jacobson,2001). Additional assessments were made by a speech therapist only for the girl ingroup 3A with dyslexia and for the boy in group 3B also with dyslexia. The result onthe sign chains tests indicates the child’s basic speed in a paper-and-pencil test andprovides an indication for expectations concerning the other two tests. In general chil-dren performed similarly on all three tests; the intercorrelations were quite high (0.70between word chains and sentence chains, 0.51 between sign chains and 0.60between sign chains and word chains (Jacobson, 2001).

Table 1 shows that the children diagnosed with dyslexia performed more poorly onword chains and sentence chains than the children in the control group; on signchains there was no such difference.

Seven of the ten children in this study followed the expected pattern in terms ofdifferences within pairs: three deviated from the expected pattern: the boy withdifficulties in group 2B, the case-control girl in group 3A and the case-control boyin group 3B. The boy with difficulties in group 2B showed a pattern of performingbetter on sign chains than on word chains; however, he was a ‘low performer’ on allthree tests. The case-control boy in group 3B also deviated from the expectedpattern; his result on sign chains was better than on word chains and sentencechains. The case-control girl in group 3A also performed better on sign chains thanon the other two tests.

Teachers’ descriptions of their instruction

The teachers (and the corresponding children) were grouped according to the teach-ers’ descriptions of their literacy instruction. Group 1 consisted of one teacher andthe corresponding two children. The description made by teacher 1 was in almost

Table 1. Participants in the study

Group School year SexControl group/

difficulties/dyslexia Sign chains Word chainsSentence

chains

1 6 Boy Control group 6 7 81 6 Boy Difficulties 1 1 32A 9 Girl Control group 4 4 42A 9 Girl Difficulties 1 1 12B 8 Boy Control group 3 4 62B 8 Boy Difficulties 3 1 13A 4 Girl Control group 8 5 63A 4 Girl Dyslexia 8 4 33B 5 Boy Control group 5 3 23B 5 Boy Dyslexia 6 1 1

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complete accordance with the criteria for effective literacy teaching, and the observedlessons were performed accordingly. Quality criteria 1, 2, 4, 5, 7 and 8 for effectiveliteracy teaching were met with, since the teacher said that she expected both childrento get started and work in teams, she had equally high expectations of both childrenand did not always use the same method: sometimes she let the children read a texton their own, sometimes she discussed it one-to-one if the child asked for it, andsometimes she let the children work in peer groups; when the children worked in peergroups, she attempted to encourage them to feel confident to show their work toothers.

Group 2 consisted of two teachers each with two pairs of children; these teachersdescribed their instruction partly in accordance with the quality criteria and theobserved lessons were performed accordingly. Teacher 2A fulfilled criteria 2, 4 and 5of effective literacy teaching; teacher 2B fulfilled criteria 2, 4, 5 and 7. Teacher 2Asaid that she usually let the children read aloud and underline, make their own questionsand answers about the text; they worked with the text in some way in each lesson. Bothteachers in group 2 had high expectations only of the case-control children. Teacher2A said that she demanded a lot from the girl in the control group: the girl was ‘interestedand positive’ and the teacher expected her to be active and to ‘raise her hand’; theteacher said that she only demanded of the girl with difficulties that she ‘came to schooland did what she was told to do’ and that she was ‘not interested in what I have to sayand that shows on the tests’. Teacher 2B said that she did not have very high expec-tations of the boy with difficulties; therefore he did not have to perform the same tasksas the other children. She tried to give him more simple tasks, but sometimes he wantedto try what his classmates did, and then he asked them for help; they helped him and‘did not seem to mind’. Teacher 2B said that when working with a text the childrensometimes worked in peer groups reading the text aloud to one another and asked ques-tions about the text; sometimes the teacher read aloud, then asked questions aboutthe text and explained difficult words; and sometimes they translated the text.

Group 3 consisted of two teachers each with two pairs of children; these teachersdescribed their instruction in a way that was not in accordance with the criteria foreffective literacy teaching and the observed lessons were performed accordingly.Teacher 3A did not describe her literacy teaching at all; during the observed lessons,only criterion 4 was met. She expected both observed girls to ‘do a good job’ and saidthat it was ‘not possible to have high expectations of both of them; the case-controlgirl was very ambitious and capable’. Of the girl with dyslexia, she said that ‘she hada light form of dyslexia and her mother thought she utilized the diagnosis of dyslexiaas an excuse for not needing to do schoolwork and that she was lazy’. Teacher 3Bfulfilled only quality criterion 4, since she said of her literacy instruction only that shelet the children work on their own with different tasks in Swedish or mathematics. Sheappreciated when the tasks were ‘self-instructing’, then everything was ‘smooth andquiet’. She expressed low expectations of the boy with dyslexia, since she said that he‘did not have the same prerequisite to succeed’ as the case-control boy and she didnot expect him to be as successful; however, after one lesson, the boy with dyslexiasurprised her by writing much more than she had believed he would be able to. The

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teacher thought that the case-control boy had high capacity and that she expected himto ‘go far’.

Distribution of activities during the observed lessons

Altogether 71% of the observed activities (with the groups mixed as one group)implied practice of basic skills and 29% implied practice of the use of the language ata higher level. Table 2 displays the distribution of the two kinds of activities for thedifferent groups in the observed lessons. The table indicates that group 1 was offeredmany activities involving practice of the language at a higher level, whereas group 3Bwas not offered such activities. Altogether the observed distribution of activitiesverifies the teachers’ descriptions of their instruction.

Taking part and engagement in the two types of activities

Table 3 displays the children’s degree of taking part and engagement in the two kindsof activities for the different groups (expressed in percentages). The table indicatesthat, in activities directed towards ‘goals to attain’, three of five children with difficul-ties took part less than did the case-control children. All five children with difficultieswere less engaged in those activities directed towards ‘goals to attain’ (practice of

Table 2. Distribution of activities

Group Basic skills Higher level language practice

1 17 832A 64 362B 89 113A 83 173B 100 –

Table 3. Details of taking part and engagement

GroupTaking part in ‘goals to attain’

Engagement in ‘goals to attain’

Taking part in ‘goals to aim for’

Engagement in ‘goals to aim for’

1 Child with difficulties 66 33 100 501 Child control 100 100 100 1002A Child with difficulties 100 50 100 662A Child control 100 66 100 752B Child with difficulties 100 50 33 172B Child control 100 66 17 173A Child with dyslexia 66 50 100 503A Child control 100 100 100 753B Child with dyslexia 83 42 – –3B Child control 100 50 – –

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basic skills) than the case-control children. In activities directed towards ‘goals to aimfor’ three of four children with difficulties took part equally with the case-controlchildren; the fourth child with difficulties took part more than the case-control child.Three of four children with difficulties were less engaged in activities directed towards‘goals to aim for’ than the case-control children.

Following this result, then, an expected pattern for a child with reading and writingdifficulties was to follow the following criteria:

1. taking part less than other children in activities focused on basic skills;2. being less engaged than other children in activities focused on basic skills;3. taking part rather than being engaged in activities, with a larger difference between

these two factors in comparison to case-control children in those activities focusedon basic skills;

4. taking part equally with other children in activities practising use of the languageat a higher level;

5. being less engaged than other children in activities implying practice of the use ofthe language at a higher level;

6. taking part in activities more than being engaged, with a larger difference betweenthese two factors, in comparison to case-control children in activities focused onthe use of the language at a higher level.

The children’s comments of the instruction

The boys in group 1 were satisfied with the received instruction and wished for moreactivities focusing on the use of the language at a higher level. They gave detailedexamples of these kinds of activities. The boy who had difficulties said that it was‘interesting to learn that Ulysses was clever’ and that he liked ‘to read about clever,made up characters’.

The children in group 2 expressed that they wanted more activities involving prac-tice of the use of the language at a higher level. They also gave detailed examples ofthe preferred activities. The girl in group 2A said that it was hard to read, and thatshe did not like to read aloud; and the boy in group 2B said he liked to read, anddiscuss, exciting ‘real-life’ stories.

The girls in group 3A were not able to frame their preferences exactly; instead theysaid that what they valued most was ‘running around’ and ‘when the fire-alarm wenton’. The boy with dyslexia in group 3B expressed he appreciated both activitiesfocused on basic skills (handwriting) and activities focused on the use of the languageat a higher level (making up his own written stories). The boy in the control groupsays that he appreciated practising handwriting.

Discussion

Altogether the children were offered more activities that implied practice of basicskills than use of the language at a higher level. This result is in agreement with that

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Classroom activities and engagement 297

of Zackari and Modigh (2000), who found that teachers often work more towards the‘goals to attain’. Sandström Kjellin and Wennerström (2006) also reported a predom-inance of activities focusing on basic skills.

The results revealed a strong pattern regarding the children’s observed taking partand engagement in the two types of activities. Table 4 presents an overview of thefulfilment of the expected criteria of the children’s taking part and being engaged indifferent types of activities; in the table an ‘X’ means that the criterion was fulfilled,an empty space means that the criterion is not fulfilled and a dash indicates that thecriterion was not met since the activities were not offered during the observed lessons.The ‘strongest’ criterion in the table seems to be criterion 2 (children with difficultiesbeing less engaged than other children in activities focusing on basic skills). Criteria3, 4 and 6 are the next strongest. Results for criterion 3 imply that children withdifficulties take part more than they are engaged in activities focusing on basic skills,to a larger extent than the other children. For criterion 4 children with difficulties takepart at least equally to other children in activities focused on practice of the use of thelanguage at a higher level, and for criterion 6 children with difficulties take part morethan they are engaged in activities focusing on higher-level language skills.

Sandström Kjellin and Wennerström (2006) show similar results: that childrenwith reading and writing difficulties/dyslexia were less engaged than children in thecontrol group in both types of activities (and that the difference was larger as regardsactivities focused on the ‘goals to attain’).

This pattern indicates a dilemma for teachers: in order to be graded with a pass, allchildren need to manage basic skills (Skolverket, 2001), but if children with readingand writing difficulties are engaged mainly in practising these types of activity, theirreading and writing development at a higher level will not be stimulated. Masteringthe language at a higher level is seen as a very important goal (Skolverket, 1998), notleast since it concerns schools’ basic goal in creating democratic citizens able to usehigher-level language skills as a tool in thinking and reasoning (Zackari & Modigh,2000).

Table 2 indicates that there were large differences between the three groups ofpupils as regards types of activities offered during the observed lessons, and that theteachers’ descriptions of their instruction agreed with the observed instruction. It wasalso possible to discern agreement between the teachers’ descriptions of (and perfor-mance of) their instruction and the children’s level of reflecting on activities. In short,

Table 4. Fulfilment of the four expected criteria of taking part and engagement

Group Criterion 1 Criterion 2 Criterion 3 Criterion 4 Criterion 5 Criterion 6

1 X X X X X X2A X X X X X

2B X X X X

3A X X X X X X

3B X X – – –

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the children who had teachers working completely or partly in accordance with thehigh-quality criteria reflected on the instruction, and the children who had teachersnot working in accordance with the high-quality criteria did not reflect on the instruc-tion; instead they expressed that they wanted to do something else than take part inthe lessons. There are two explanations to this: the children in group 3 are youngerand therefore might not be capable of reflecting. The other explanation is that thechildren’s level of meta-cognitive thinking is related to the teachers’ way of teaching.Both explanations must be taken into consideration. The first explanation has to dowith children’s natural development, and the second has to do with the type ofinstruction provided by the teacher (Dysthe, 1996, 2003; Myrberg, 1997; Gustafsson& Myrberg, 2002).

Conclusion

The most important result of this exploratory study is the discernment of a ‘virtuouscircle’. The fact that the children with difficulties took part equally with otherchildren in activities involving practice of the language at a higher level indicates thatsuch instruction has the potential both to enable these children to perform wellacademically (Dysthe, 1996, 2003; Guthrie & Alao, 1997; Hall & Harding, 2003;Nind et al., 2004; Sandström Kjellin, 2002, 2005) and that of enabling the childrento become part of the general classroom interaction (Zackari & Modigh, 2000).However, it is also possible to discern here a ‘vicious circle’: since there was a predom-inance of activities implying the practice of basic skills—activities in which childrenwith reading and writing difficulties take part less and are less engaged—there is a riskthat these children will not succeed academically; this ‘vicious circle’ has been estab-lished in the research (see Stanovich, 1986).

It is important to stress that it is not possible from this study to draw conclusionsabout teachers’ general awareness of the quality criteria in their instruction. In thestudy teachers’ own reports of their teaching strategies correspond to their actual useof strategies in observations. However, in Sandström Kjellin (2002), the teachers’awareness in this respect differed considerably, in that a discrepancy emergedbetween the teachers’ expressed and observed awareness of the criteria. The relationbetween teachers’ awareness and their actual teaching skills requires further investi-gation. The possibility of such a discrepancy has been noted by the Swedish NationalAgency for Education (Skolverket, 1998); it should also be noted that it is not neces-sarily adequate to measure accordance between an ‘effective literacy teacher’ and thereal-life teacher; the construction of the ‘effective literacy teacher’ should be seen asan ideal type, an analytical construct that serves as a measuring-rod to determine theextent to which concrete behaviours are similar to or differ from the defined measure(see Weber, 1999).

An implication for further research here is to determine more about teachers’beliefs and their sets of values for individual pupils; in this study such values of mostof the teachers regarding expectations varied with the pupils’ reading and writingabilities.

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It must, again, be noted that this study has limitations, in that the observedactivities included instruction in different subjects and the children were of differentages. The three observed lessons in group 2B deviated from other lessons for thepurposes of comparison as they concerned the teaching of English as a foreignlanguage. Future studies would therefore seem necessary in order to perform a morecontrolled study (this study, however, may indicate what needs to be controlled).Also, future studies should include more participants of the same age and be appliedto instruction in a specific subject, and treat the children with reading and writingdifficulties and the children with dyslexia as two separate groups.

Acknowledgements

The study was conducted as part of the project ‘The classroom as an environment forlearning for students with reading and writing difficulties’, given financial support byThe Faculty Board of Education at Mälardalen University.

Note

1. Visuo-motor speed was assessed using Teckenkedjor (sign chains); word recognition abilitywas assessed using Ordkedjor (word chains); and semantic and syntactic ability was assessedusing Meningskedjor (sentence chains) (Jacobson, 2001).

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