Enhancing Non-Cognitive Skills For A First-Grade English Language Learner Through Essay.

Identifying the assessment and its rationale

Reading is the foundation of all learning.  While the progress of mastering reading varies among students, we believe in providing the opportunity for all children to read and also to achieve both in the classroom and also in life.  

Janice is a four-year-old English language learner. She is in first grade, in a classroom comprising of twenty-five students.  Janice has three brothers and she is the youngest child in the family.  She lives with both of her parents. Janice parents are highly educated and are of African descent. Her father works as a doctor while her mother works in the local pharmacy as a pharmacist.  Both parents are employed with the Turks and Caicos Government and are earning an income that is suitable to sustain them.

Educators tend to focus on non-cognitive skills that are directly related to academic success. For example, the University of Chicago’s Consortium on Chicago School Research concluded that the non-cognitive skills most strongly associated with academic performance are academic behaviours (e.g. going to class and participating), academic perseverance (e.g. grit and self-discipline), academic mindsets (e.g. feeling a sense of belonging within an academic community and believing that ability and competence can grow with effort), learning strategies (e.g. metacognitive strategies and goal-setting), and social skills (e.g. interpersonal skills and cooperation) (Farrington et al., 2012). Thus, there are a number of different skills, both affective (such as “growth mindset”) and also behavioural (such as regular school attendance), that fall within the broad category known as non-cognitive skill. 

Non-cognitive skills may be broadly defined as personality traits or “patterns of thought, feelings, and behaviour” (Borghans et al., 2008). For example, psychologists classify non-cognitive skills in terms of the “Big Five” categories: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (Trull & Widiger, 2013). 

Janice is a well manned and respectful child. Janice arrives to school every morning on time. Upon arrival, she greets the class every morning and adheres to the morning class procedures. She organizes herself and prepares for the days’ learning. Janice uses her time wisely and hence able to complete assigned tasks in a timely manner. Janice also seeks additional work in spare time or resorts to the class library to read.  Even though at times she plays alone but she likes sharing and participating in small group activities. Research has shown that academic behaviours of students including regular school attendance, completing homework, and participating in class, are strongly related to measures of academic achievement, such as grades (Farrington et al., 2012). Thus, well-developed non-cognitive skills promote the development of cognitive skills (Young, 2016).

Analyzing the data and inferring from it

In order to enhance student Non-cognitive skills, teacher can create a classroom that is rich with pictorial representation and conductive to learner besides planning motivating activities that will be engaging for the learner.  A class room such as this will keep the learner eager to come to school and highly motivated. Teacher can also take regular class attendance. Teacher can give rewards and incentive for hard work and good behaviour thus, giving positive reinforcement. Young found that teachers have important effect on non-cognitive skills – as measured by absences, suspensions, grades, and on-time grade progressions – that differs from their effects on cognitive skills   While the precise mechanism of how teachers affect non-cognitive skills is unknown, Jackson found that this effect is especially strong for English teachers (Young,2016). Ruzek et al. (2014) found that teachers influence their students’ motivation, as measured by mastery and performance achievement goals. Gershenson et. al. (2016) also found that teachers have important effects on student absenteeism.   

Comprehension is a creative multifaceted thinking process in which students engage with the text (Tierney, 1990).  Comprehension may be defined as a reader’s process of using prior experiences and the authors’ text to construct meaning that’s useful to that reader for a specific purpose.

Within this comprehension assessment test, teachers use retelling assessment also known as the Qualitative Reading Assessment (QRA). Within this assessment students were taken in a quiet area away from all distraction.  Janell were given a grade level text which was suitable for her grade. Before reading the text, Janell was introduced to the topic. Janell background knowledge was activated to tell what she knew about text before reading. Janell then proceeded with reading the text aloud to the teacher.  After reading of the passage, Janell was asked to retell the story. Various questions were asked to assess Janell understanding of what was being read. 

Janell took 10 minutes to complete reading of the story even though she had a few miscues and mispronunciation. These were due to her dialect. Janell has a vast background knowledge as she could relate the story to the real word. When asked to retell the story in her own words, she was able to retell from the beginning while forgetting some parts in the middle but was able to tell what happened at the end. “Retelling stories encourages children to use their imagination, expand their ideas, and create visual images as they transfer the plot [of the story] to new settings, including different characters or new voices” (Young,  2016).

Addressing gaps in student learning through questioning

Results from the given assessment would determine whether Janell is reading at her grade level or falling behind. By knowing the learner reading levels, teachers can accordingly plan suitable reading instructions that will aid in the learner critical needs. The teacher will identify various reading books that equals the “learners’ instructional levels and give suitable instructions that are powerful enough to challenge the learner to accomplish reading at her grade-level.  Also, monitoring the learner’s reading progress over a period of time is also essential. Scientifically-based research reviews (Chard, Vaughn, & Tyler, 2002) have established that reading fluency is a critical component of learning to read and that an effective reading program needs to include instruction in fluency.

Before introducing to this assessment, the student was informed about the purpose of this assessment. The learner was told that the passage should be read aloud and at a normal speed within a time frame of one minute to complete. A one-minute stop watch was used as a timer to calculate the one-minute time frame. To assess the learner’s accuracy in reading fluency, the learner was given a grade level passage comprising of one hundred words to read within a minute. The teacher responsible for evaluation had a duplicate copy of the same. Students receive a score on the test based on count the words in which the students read correctly

Results from the assessment showed that Janell was good at reading words but had a few mispronunciations. She also encountered a problem while quickly recognizing the words. When students lack decoding automaticity, they are advised to practice a single text repeatedly (three to five times) till the oral reading becomes increasingly automatic. Even though Janell has the ability to call words but she lacks the ability to call words with accuracy (Plummer, et.al. 2014).  Janell reads at a slow pace and also uses her fingers to keep on track.  Beginning readers point to the words as they read. They read out loud when they read to themselves. And they are word-by-word readers who pay minimum attention to punctuations and don’t pause at the end of sentence. Janell reads with little to no expression and places no emphasis when reading.  Janell reading fluency rate is of great concern.  She has to work hard in order to reach her grade level reading.

To assist Janell in this area, the teacher needs to incorporate instructional strategies to aid in the process of fluency. Teacher should give direct and instruction when modelling various types of reading search as read aloud, choral reading, paired and repeated reading.  Texts must be read with expression, emphasis and different levels of voice tone accordingly. The learner must be provided with various grade level reading books. Small group reading and other materials can also aid in the fluency process. 

Next Steps in Research-Based Reading and Writing Instruction

A research base practice that I will choose for this learner is repeated reading.  In a study, it was concluded that repeated reading emphasizes practice as a way of working on all of the areas of reading fluency: accuracy, rate, and prosody and is one of the most studied methods for increasing reading fluency. Sarah Dowhower (as cited in Rasinski, 2003) states that repeated reading helps good and poor readers recall facts from their reading. She further stated that it also aids good readers in focusing on and remembering higher level important information. It is an excellent study strategy, equal to or better than other more complex and cumbersome strategies, such as note taking, outlining, summarizing, or recalling information.  It results in improved story comprehension and leads to more sophisticated questioning and insights when a text is presented as a “repeated read-aloud.”  Besides, it promotes faster reading with greater word recognition accuracy. Also, it enables strugglers to break out of word-by-word reading to read with more meaningful phrasing (Ming & Dukes, 2008). 

Based on the above discussion, it would be prudent to conclude that reading and comprehension are necessary skills for the children so as to excel in their academic careers. As a result, it is imperative to pay special attention on these aspects with regards to children. This typically includes testing using various standardized tests so as to determine the reading and comprehension skills with the expected standards. In case of the skills found deficient, the teachers have a very critical role in ensuring that corrective action be undertaken in order to improve their skills. A plethora of these strategies which have been identified through scientific research have been highlighted in the paper for helping to improve on the various aspects of reading. It is essential that more emphasis should be paid in early years so as to identify and rectify the concerned issues in wake of the observations and strategies outlined in the given paper. 

References 

Borghans, L., Duckworth, L.A., Heckman, J.J. & Weel, T. B. (2008). The Economics and Psychology of Personality Traits Retrieved from: https://jenni.uchicago.edu/papers/Borghans_Duckworth_etal_2008_JHR_v43_n4.pdf 

Chard, D.J., Vaughn, S. & Tyler, B.J. (2002). A synthesis of research on effective intervations for building reading fluency with elementary students with learning disabilities. Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15490537 

Gershenson, S. Holt, B.S. & Papageorge, W.N. (2016). Who believes in me? The effect of student – teacher demographic match on teacher expectations. Economics of Education Review 52(1), 209-224. Retrieved from: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775715300959 

Ming, K. & Dukes, C.  (2008). Fluency: A necessary Ingredient in Comprehensive Reading Instruction in Inclusive Class-rooms. Retrieved from: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ967480.pdf

Farrington, A.C., Nagaoka, J.,  Roderick, M., Allensworth, E., Keyes, S.T., Johnson, W. D. & Beechum, O. N. (2012). Readiness for College: The Role of Non-cognitive Factors and Context. Retrieved from: https://consortium.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/publications/VUE%20Noncognitive%20Factors.pdf

Plummer, B.S., Makris, S. & Brocksen, M. S. (2014). Sessions Case Histories. Retrieved from: https://mym.cdn.laureate-media.com/2dett4d/Walden/SOCW/MSWP/CH/mm/homepage/doc/msw_case_histories.pdf 

Rasinski, T. (2004), A growing body of evidence points to reading fluency as an important factor in student reading success. Educational Leadership. 5 (61), 46-51. Retrieved from: https://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar04/vol61/num06/Creating-Fluent-Readers.aspx 

Ruzek, J., Eftekhari, A., Crowley, J.J., Rosen, C.S., Greenbaum, M.A. & Karlin, B.E. (2013). Effective of national implementation of prolonged exposure therapy in Veterans Affairs care. Retrieved from : https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23863892 

Tienrney, R. P. (1990). The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education:An Evidence Based Perspective (4^th ed.). Sydney: Springer Science & Business Media. 

Trull, J. T. & Widiger, A. T. (2013). Dimensional Models of Personality : The five Factors Model and the DSM -5. Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3811085/

Young, B.A. (2016). The effects of exposure to better neighbourhoods on children new evidence from the moving to opportunity experiment. American Economic Review, 106(4 ), 855-902.  Retrieved from: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15582159.2016.1172911