"They Just Gave Me My Schedule": Examining Students' Understanding of Their Placement in Reading Intervention

• In Event: Student Literacy Practices and Perspectives: A Critical Look at the Literacy Experiences of Nondominant K–12 Students

Abstract

Purpose and Theoretical Framing
Reading intervention courses (hereafter referred to as RI) are a popular method of supporting high school students who are identified as struggling readers (Slavin, Cheung, Groff, & Lake, 2008). However, research rarely focuses on schools’ exit and entry criteria for RI. Researchers only typically mention these criteria in the process of attending to other research goals (e.g., Callahan, 2006). Entry and exit criteria are what Cooper and Liou (2007, p. 44) refer to as high-stakes information. This type of information “leads students to understand the school culture, policies, and practices in ways in which they can access, embrace, and develop a strong academic self-identity” (p. 44). As a result, it is both important to understand what these criteria are and how students understand these criteria. Unfortunately, existing research suggests that schools are not sharing this type of high-stakes information with high school students in RI (e.g., Frankel, 2016; Learned, 2016; Skerrett, 2012). Given the significance of this information for students’ trajectories, this study examined the (dis)connections between official entry/exit criteria and how 12 students in one section of ninth-grade RI understood these criteria.

Data Sources & Methods
Data collection took place from November 2015-June 2016. The primary data sources analyzed for this paper includes both teacher and student interviews. The classroom teacher was interviewed twice and each student was interviewed three times. In addition, information from the interviews was corroborated by collected school artifacts (e.g., emails about placement practices) and field notes from 33 hours of classroom observations and 5 hours of informal meetings. A priori and emergent codes (Saldana, 2013) were used to analyze the data. Moreover, the data analysis was informed Cooper and Liou’s (2007) framing of high-stakes information and the research literature on course placement (e.g., Riehl, Pallas, & Natriello, 1999).

Results & Significance
The findings indicate that students’ were placed into RI because of their 8th grade performance on a single assessment, which was part of a commercial literacy instruction program. The students’ ability to exit was based solely on the classroom teacher’s discretion. During the course of the semester, her criteria changed to add a “good” behavior requirement to an existing reading performance requirement. These entry and exit criteria were not shared with students. Ninety percent of students attributed their placement in RI to their performance on the State standardized reading assessment. There was a wide range in variability in how they understood the exit criteria. For instance, one student assumed it required district administrator approval and a 4.0. On the other hand, another student thought a Lexile score of 1100 was the only necessary criterion.The practice of withholding entry and exit criteria from students created an environment of hidden high-stakes testing that funneled unsuspecting students into RI. Furthermore, it hindered students’ ability to work towards actionable goals to exit the course. These findings have important implications for the design of entry and exit requirements for RI and school-based practices for sharing high-stakes course-placement information with students.

Authors

• Maneka Deanna Brooks, Texas State University

• Katherine Rodela, Washington State University