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 An action research project by Debbie Waldron St Peter Chanel Schoo
l
 Rationale
I have a small group of children in my class that I would call reluctant writers. On thewhole they are articulate children who have a real interest in the world around them.When it comes to recording their ideas there are issues with spacing, letter formationand spelling that make recording a laborious process for them. The Sounds Alive programme introduced this year is making a big difference in the children’s spelling but they still remain reluctant to write. Currently the children write each day in booksand as a class we develop success criteria relevant to a Learning Intention. Myquestion is what can I change in my class programme to engage the reluctant writer and will this impact on achievement?
 Research Question
Does the introduction of individual learning goals and the use of ICT impact onchildren’s motivation to write and their achievement in writing?
 Baseline Data
Initial achievement data was a piece of unassisted writing where no feedback wasgiven by the teacher and the children were given a certain time to craft their writing atthe conclusion of the writing time. The writing exemplars were used to assess thechildren. I also gave the children an attitude questionnaire that surveyed how easythey found it to think and record their ideas, how they responded to feedback and theyalso had to rate how much they enjoyed writing.Initial data shows that only one Year 3 child is at Level 2 and only 2 Year 2 childrenare at Level 1:3 which is where we expect them to be by the end of the year. Whenthe children reflected on their attitudes towards their writing I found that I have only38% of my class who indicate they like writing stories. This is quite a low number and it is my challenge to see if I can turn this around.
 
Level 1:1 Level 1:2 Level 1:3 Level 2:1 Level 2:2Initial 1 8 5 1
 Literature Review 
There are a lot of quality publications that address effective teaching and learning inthe field of literacy and one very positive aspect of this for me is that many of themare set in the New Zealand context. I accessed several of these looking specifically
 
for ICT and goal setting strategies that will help me engage learners in the writing process.According to
 Effective Literacy Practice in Years 1 to 4
, ‘exemplars provide reference points that help teachers and students to make decisions about the students’ currentachievement and about the next steps for learning’ (p.66). Therefore it was myresponsibility to take the information I gained from assessing the children against theexemplars and give feedback that will help to set goals and inform next learningsteps.
 Effective Literacy Practice
also emphasises the importance of establishing partnerships with children to assist them when meeting new challenges and settingnew goals.Timperly, Clarke and Hattie (2003) write about the importance of ‘ipsative’assessment in our classrooms which is where the students’ attainment is measuredagainst their previous attainment. It is their assertion that this type of assessmentincreases motivation and a rise in self esteem. They cite Black and William whoseresearch shows ‘the key to successful learning is to have clear, appropriate andchallenging targets’ (p 90). An interesting aspect of Timperly et al’s work is thatthey also address the issue of manageability with individual target setting and givesuggestions such as short conferences with children and the use of symbols to showthe target has been met. They also warn against setting targets that turn over tooquickly or are too challenging and indicate that targets need to be quantified by anumber or a letter. I found their ‘expressing targets in child-speak’ (p.93) to be auseful reference when thinking about what feedback I gave the children to guide themtowards the setting of individual targets.This leads to my next question as to whether the use of ICT can impact on children’smotivation and achievement in writing. A case study by Diane Brookes and JoFletcher in the integrated use of ICT in primary schools cites a school principal assaying ‘ICT provided different ways of learning for children who tended not to dowell when employing other traditional methods of learning’ (p. 38). This wasinteresting because I believe that many of my reluctant writers don’t respond totraditional teaching and learning methods so it is important to explore differentoptions. This same case study also cites McEune (2004) who found children’s self-esteem increased because ICT gave them greater control over their learning and asense of independence.A study of schools in Australia, USA, England and Hong Kong on ‘The Impact of ICT on Schools’ (2004) found many different changes in children’s behaviour thatcould be attributed to ICT. Of the changes they identified two had importance for mein my teacher inquiry, these were that ICT meant a greater spontaneous interest in alearning activity and an increase in time and attention devoted to learning activitieswhen ICT is used.
Taking Action
My first task in the classroom was to instigate a system whereby individual goalsetting was a systematic, effective and a manageable part of the class writing programme. Using the assessment information from the exemplars all children wereindividually conferenced over two weeks and a goal was identified for each child.This goal was written into their books and they had to receive seven ticks over a period of time to achieve their goal. These could be related to surface features or deeper features and included such things as:
 
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To use capital letters and full stops for most of my sentences.
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To write (a certain number of sentences) independently.
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To tell my readers how I felt to make my story more interesting
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To use Sounds Alive to help me to spell words.
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To start my stories with an interesting sentence
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To use describing words to make the story come alive.
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To use interesting and different words in my story.
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To use similes to help paint a picture with my words.Prior to writing we talked about individual goals and shared success stories. Qualitywriting from their peers seems to be a very powerful way of encouraging children tomake improvements to their work. The children are expected to check their writingeach day to see if they have achieved their goal. I used a smiley face in the margin asa symbol to show they were meeting either an individual goal or one of the successcriteria for our shared learning intention. We have a class writing box that thechildren are allowed to chose something from when they have achieved their goal.Each day at least two children’s writing is read aloud to the class and they receivefeedback from the other children. Writing work is displayed on the wall and in our news board book and we highlight positive aspects of that piece for the them to useas a model. At other times children get to share their writing with their reflectivetriangle partner. They have to tell them their goal and discuss whether they think theyhave achieved it, they can also highlight something from our class learning intentionsthat they think they have done well.Once this was under way I began to think of the most effective way to integrate ICTinto my writing programme. At the beginning of the year I set up a class blog for Curly our kiwi. The children took Curly home each night and wrote about hisadventures then I put their writing on the blog. They really enjoyed this activity but itwas difficult for me to sustain because it was me that had responsibility to put the posts on the blog. My issue with getting the children to do it was how long theywould take to record their ideas and the focus would be on their ability to type rather than on the writing itself so the question was how would I get around this. After much thinking I decided to introduce it as a reading station and teach the children howto access the blog, how to create a new post and how to add a picture to their blog. Iworked more closely with a smaller group of children and they became teachers of theothers.An inquiry ‘Marvellous Minibeasts’ provided the perfect opportunity to integrate ICT,writing and inquiry. The writing task for the children was to write an informationreport that teaches others about an minibeast they have chosen. As a class wediscussed what would need to be included in the report and developed our successcriteria. The children then used Google images to find a picture of a minibeast theywere interested in learning about and posted this onto our blog. As this was thesecond time they had posted a picture the process was much easier and ‘experts’supported those who had not yet mastered how to do this. They then had to add textthat introduced and described their minibeast and also write some interesting factsthey had found out using their home resources, the internet, topic tables and peopleresources. After the children had completed their work they were encouraged to readand comment on the posts their peers had made.
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