Using an Assessment Decision Tree to align Students’ Reading Needs to Support by @ricketts_lara

Over the period from September 2018 to August 2022, Blackpool secondary schools engaged in a major whole school project to improve the reading ability of pupils in Key Stage 3.  The project was a collaborative effort involving: senior leaders, teachers & support staff; Right to Succeed and critical friends including Alex Quigley and Professor Jessie Ricketts.  The academic paper below explores part of that collaboration.

Purpose: A decision tree was developed to support secondary school settings in identifying reading needs and aligning these needs with appropriate support and interventions. The purpose of this narrative review is to track the development of this tool, outline the practical context that motivated the tool, its grounding in research, how it was developed, and whether it was feasible, acceptable and effective when embedded in school practice.

Method. The decision tree was developed through a collaboration between a researcher (the first author), representatives from a charity (including the second author) and teachers from a socially deprived geographical area on the northwest coast of England (including the third author). The manuscript draws on insights from the authors and data from a survey and meeting notes.

Results. We provide a narrative account of the development of the decision tree tool and summarise qualitative analyses of data emerging from a survey and meeting notes. Analyses revealed that the decision tree is feasible, acceptable and effective for use in secondary schools. Areas for future development were also suggested.

Conclusions. The implications of these findings will be discussed in relation to the existing evidence and approaches to implementation science and research-practice partnerships. We will also discuss the potential for scale up beyond the geographic region for which the decision tree was developed.

Reference:

Ricketts, J., Jones, K., O’Neill, P., & Oxley, E. (2022, November 4). Using an assessment decision tree to align students’ reading needs to support in school. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/tm5cg