Cultural Perspectives on Indigenous Students’ Reading Performance: A Participatory and Exploratory Case Study at a Regional School in Australia 9811997896, 9789811997891

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Gui Ying Annie Yang-Heim

Cultural Perspectives on Indigenous Students’ Reading Performance A Participatory and Exploratory Case Study at a Regional School in Australia

Cultural Perspectives on Indigenous Students’ Reading Performance

Gui Ying Annie Yang-Heim

Cultural Perspectives on Indigenous Students’ Reading Performance A Participatory and Exploratory Case Study at a Regional School in Australia

Gui Ying Annie Yang-Heim Ball State University Muncie, IN, USA

ISBN 978-981-19-9789-1 ISBN 978-981-19-9790-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9790-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

This book is dedicated to my family, and my students who participated in the research project.

Foreword

My husband and I are US citizens, but we were privileged to live and work in Australia for over two years starting in 2013. We would never claim to be Australian insiders but living and working in Australia did give us a glimpse into the country, culture, and people of Australia. Consequently, my comments in this foreword reflect my perspective as an American who briefly lived in Australia learning from, and with, Australians. Whereas Australia and the USA are each unique countries with unique cultures and histories, these two countries have many common features—some good and some not so good. One not-so-good common feature across Australia and the USA, as Dr. Yang-Heim aptly notes in her book, is the treatment of Indigenous peoples by European colonizers. Thus, although the following quotation refers to the US context with respect to the treatment of BIPOC individuals, it also relates to Australia. In fact, as you read the quotation, consider including the word Australia next to the word America. In her powerful book on race in America, Wilkerson (2020, p. 15), argues: America [Australia] is an old house. We can never declare the work [i.e., antiracism, equity, social justice, etc.] over. Wind, flood, drought, and human upheavals batter a structure that is already fighting whatever flaws were left unattended in the original foundation. When you live in an old house, you may not want to go into the basement after a storm to see what the rains have wrought. Choose not to look, however, at your own peril. The owner of an old house knows that whatever you are ignoring will never go away. Whatever is lurking will fester whether you choose to look or not. Ignorance is no protection from the consequences of inaction. Whatever you are wishing away will gnaw at you until you gather the courage to face what you would rather not see … We are the heirs to whatever is right or wrong with it [i.e., our country’s old house]. We did not erect the uneven pillars or joists, but they are ours to deal with now.

Unfortunately, as Wilkerson (2020), Yang-Heim (this volume), and other scholars (e.g., Brayboy, 2005; Grant, 2016; White Eagle, 2012) note, Australia and America are built on horrific traumas inflicted on Indigenous peoples. Moreover, as Wilkerson (2020) and the other scholars I just cited note, the remnants of those traumatic experiences live on in many forms in the structures of our respective countries

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including historical trauma (i.e., Pewewardy et al., 2022); ineffective schooling structures (Yang-Heim, this volume); and high poverty, suicide, and addiction rates (Grant, 2016), and so forth, for Indigenous peoples. So, we—all of us (including Australians and Americans)—have work to do with respect to remodeling the ‘old houses’ we have inherited. Fortunately, Dr. YangHeim provides us, as readers, with blueprints that can help to guide our collaborative remodeling work in part of the old houses we have inherited—the parts of the houses that focus generally on education and more specifically on literacy. The blueprints Dr. Yang-Heim shares in this book provide insights into (a) challenges that young Australian Indigenous students face in learning to read in English as an additional language, and (b) the ways that Indigenous culture shapes young Australian Indigenous children’s reading experiences. Dr. Yang-Heim also shares important implications of her work for teachers, administrators, schools, parents, and policymakers. As I read Dr. Yang-Heim’s book, I found that the blueprints she created through her study could inform the development and/or revision of blueprints in my own context. As you read Dr. Yang-Heim’s book, I invite you to ask yourself how the blueprints that Dr. Yang-Heim shares in the Australian context she studied might be adapted for your specific context. We all, Australians, and Americans alike, have a role to play in rebuilding the respective old houses we have inherited. Moreover, our collective rebuilding will need to start with each of us, ourselves, and then move to one child at a time, one classroom at a time, one school at a time, one community at a time, and one country at a time. Cynthia Brock, Ph.D. Professor and Wyoming Excellence Endowed Chair in Literacy Education University of Wyoming Laramie, USA

References Brayboy, B. (2005). Toward a tribal critical race theory in education. Urban Review, 37(5), 425– 446. Grant, S. (2016). Talking to my country. HarperCollins Australia. Pewewardy, C., Lees, A., & Minthon, R. (Eds.) (2022). Unsettling settler-colonial education: The transformational Indigenous praxis model. Teachers College Press. White Eagle, D. (2012). Invisible me: Three Northern Arapaho early school leavers. Journal of American Indian Education, 60(1–2), 29–50. Wilkerson, I. (2020). Caste: The origins of our discontents. Random House.

Preface

In Australia, much like the USA, Canada, and New Zealand, the average literacy achievement of Indigenous students is far behind the general national standard despite substantial investments from the federal and state governments. As a general classroom teacher working at a public school for over a decade in Australia, I experienced firsthand how the educational system and teaching strategies tailored for mainstream students often fail to assist Indigenous students. Around 50% of Indigenous students (particularly in remote localities) speak an Indigenous dialect or language at home, even though all Australian Indigenous students are educated in English in a school setting. Since 1998, the Commonwealth Government Department of Education and Training has funded further support for intensive English programs for ESL (English as a second language) learners to improve the level of Standard Australian English for Indigenous students in the early years. The Northern Territory Education Department has adopted a diverse range of programs, strategies, and initiatives aimed at maximizing the educational achievement of Indigenous students. In spite of efforts at all levels, the learning outcomes of Indigenous students are still well below the minimum national standards. In 2007, the Australian Government initiated a strategic plan called Closing the Gap with an aim to address inequality in employment, infancy and early childhood, health, safe and strong communities, economic development, appreciation of national culture and education. One of the goals of the strategic plan is to bridge the gap in literacy/reading between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. However, it is yet to be achieved by 2022. This leads to a range of questions: (1) Why has the average literacy achievement of Indigenous students in Australia remained behind the general Australian standard despite the substantial investments from the federal and state governments over the past few decades? (2) Why do the current educational system and teaching strategies tailored for mainstream students fail to assist Indigenous students to achieve learning goals? Seeking solutions to these issues has been a constant challenge for educators and policymakers. While some studies have been conducted to investigate Indigenous students’ literacy learning, few are classroom-based or focus on how cultural capital ix

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influences children’s ability to read English as an additional language in the early years, let alone in the area of young Indigenous children’s reading. As an insider of the educational system and an outsider as a non-Indigenous educator and researcher, I wrote this book to explore the contextual, particularly culture-related factors that may impact the reading outcomes of young Indigenous learners in their early years, underpinned by the conceptual framework of cultural capital originated by Bourdieu. By drawing upon a participatory and exploratory case study, conducted at a regional school in Australia over a period of six months, it highlights the challenges that Indigenous students face in reading and how contextual factors contribute to Indigenous students’ development of reading skills and their reading performance. Through this book, I aim to help the public to gain a better and deeper understanding of Indigenous culture and the role that culture plays in Indigenous children’s literacy education and the way they learn and think. Muncie, USA

Gui Ying Annie Yang-Heim

Acknowledgments

If you can imagine it, you can achieve it. If you can dream of it, you can become it. William Arthur Ward

I would like to express my gratitude to the students and their parents who participated in this research project. Without parents’ consent to allow their children to share their stories and learning, this book would not be possible. While I am humbled by the ways I was able to be a part of their learning journey, my students and their parents have taught me new ways to think about engaging, teaching, and assessing students with diverse backgrounds socially, linguistically, and ethnically. I have learned so much about this research from the participating students, who unfolded their learning and everyday stories in a unique way. I would also like to offer special acknowledgments to former colleagues for their assistance and support to make this project happen at the school where I taught. A personal thank you goes to Jennie Ward, the assistant principal, for offering Indigenous dialect resources so that I could gain an in-depth understanding of our students, particularly the participating Indigenous students. While professional relationships with staff and students at the school were solid during the field study, this book would not have been possible if it were not permitted by the Department of Education in the Northern Territory, Australia. The partnership with the Department of Education was established and grown base on the common goal of providing the most appropriate and inclusive education possible to all students regardless of their backgrounds. Of course, while the work with the students, their parents, the school, and the Department of Education was rich, I wouldn’t have a book if it weren’t for the influence of two scholar mentors. First, Prof. Stephen Dobson’s deep knowledge of research inquiry to support marginalized groups and promote equity in education backed up my vision for what the outcomes of this research should ultimately be. Prof. Dobson provided timely encouragement and effective feedback to continue my work into research methodologies and data until the project was successfully

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completed. Second, Dr. Zheng Lin provided early feedback on my initial research proposal and early stage of this journey. He supported this study until its completion. I am deeply indebted to both for mentoring me and encouraging me to believe that my research with participants had scholarly value. This research was funded by the Commonwealth Government through an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship, without which this book would not have been possible. I appreciate the financial support from the Commonwealth Government. I felt that the work I was doing with the schools and students was valued and the task of writing about it as a book was worth the effort. The final stage of writing and editing was aided by Kate Leeson who was patient, helpful, and responsive. Lastly, I appreciate my family for their endless support and love. A very special thank you is extended to adorable Elizabeth June, Joseph Randall Rockwell, Yang Yang, and Anna Clare, my nieces, and nephews, for their affections, which have brought me much joy and happiness. Lastly, I cannot thank enough my dearest husband, Gregory Thomas Heim, for his absolute understanding, support, and unconditional love. He always offered insight into his thinking, even though his expertise lies in the very different field of engineering.

Contents

1 Introduction to Indigenous Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Global Context of Indigenous Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Background to the Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Influential Initiatives in Indigenous Education in Australia in Recent Decades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4 Personal Interest in the Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.5 Understanding Indigenous Colonisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.6 Structure of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 1 2 3 7 10 11 12

2 Reading and Cultural Capital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Process Models of Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Componential Models of Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.1 Word Recognition and Phonological/Phonemic Awareness . 2.3.2 Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.3 Background Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.4 Comprehension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Linkage Between Culture and Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.1 Big ‘C’ and Little ‘c’ Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.2 Theory of Cultural Capital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 Conceptual Framework Adopted for the Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6 Summary and Reflections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

15 15 16 17 18 18 19 20 20 20 21 23 26 26

3 Research Design and Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Qualitative Research Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 The Design of the Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Research Site and Participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Data Generation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4.1 Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Assessment Systems (F&P) Using Non-Indigenous Culture-Based Texts . . . . . . .

31 31 32 34 34 37 xiii

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3.4.2 PAT (Progressive Achievement Test) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4.3 Audio Recording of Books Related to Indigenous Culture . . 3.4.4 Interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4.5 Narrative Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 Data Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5.1 Analysis of the Test Results of PAT Reading (Progressive Achievement Test in Reading) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5.2 Analysis of the Test Results of F&P Reading Tests on Texts Not Related to Indigenous Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5.3 Analysis of the Audio Recording of the Classroom Reading Activities with Texts Based on Indigenous Culture 3.5.4 Interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5.5 Narrative Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.6 Validity and Reliability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.7 Ethical Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.8 Summary and Reflections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

39 40 41 41 42

4 Challenges in Reading Faced by Indigenous Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.1 PAT Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.2 F&P Reading Tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Linguistic Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.1 Phonology-Related Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.2 Challenges Due to Limited Grammatical Knowledge . . . . . . 4.2.3 Challenges Due to Limited Vocabulary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Challenges Concerning Knowledge of the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3.1 Challenges in Understanding Culture-Related Humour . . . . 4.3.2 Challenges Due to Lack of Contextual Knowledge . . . . . . . . 4.3.3 Challenges Due to Lack of Topical Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3.4 Challenges Due to Lacking the Ability to Make Connections with the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Challenges in Applying Comprehension Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4.1 Challenges of Strategic Application of Analytical Skills . . . 4.4.2 Challenges in Identifying the Main Ideas in a Text . . . . . . . . 4.4.3 Challenges in Retrieving Directly Stated Information . . . . . . 4.4.4 Challenges in Interpreting Explicit Information . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

53 53 54 58 60 60 70 71 75 75 77 79

5 The Power of Students’ Voices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Aha Moments in Indigenous Students’ Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.1 AS3’s Narrative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.2 AS2’s Narrative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.3 AS1’s Narrative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

95 95 96 96 97 98

43 44 44 44 47 48 48 49 50

81 82 82 88 90 91 92 93

Contents

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5.3 Theme-Based Findings from One-to-One Interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4 Personal Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4.1 Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4.2 Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4.3 Personality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5 Cultural Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5.1 Cultural Influences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5.2 Family Involvement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5.3 Habit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.6 Standard of Living . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.6.1 Living Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.7 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.8 Reflections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

99 100 101 113 121 122 122 136 138 141 142 149 150 150

6 Meta-Analysis of the Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 A Summary of the Findings About the Challenges that the Indigenous Participating Students Encountered in Reading 6.3 A Meta-Analysis of the Findings Through a Bourdieusian Lens . . . 6.3.1 The Impact of Objectified Cultural Capital on the Indigenous Participating Students’ Reading Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3.2 The Impact of Embodied Cultural Capital on the Indigenous Participating Students’ Reading Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3.3 Institutionalised Cultural Capital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.5 Reflections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

155 155

7 Conclusions and Implications of the Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1 Summary of Findings and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1.1 A Brief Summary of Challenges Faced by Indigenous Students in Reading Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1.2 Indigenous Culture Shapes the Way of Learning . . . . . . . . . . 7.1.3 Reflective Thoughts on Educational Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2 Contributions to the Theory of Cultural Capital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3 Implications of This Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.4 Limitations of the Study and Recommendations for Future Research References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

177 177

156 159

160

163 171 172 173 175

178 179 181 182 184 187 188

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8 Afterword: What’s Next in Reading Research in Schools? . . . . . . . . . . 8.1 Australia: A Country Like No Other? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2 The Technicalities of Reading and How to Teach Reading and Assess Reading Progress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3 Glimpses of Emancipation, Empowerment and Resistance? . . . . . . . 8.4 The Theoretical Lens to Help Us Understand the Cultures of Teaching and Acquiring Reading Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.5 The Drifter? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

191 192 194 196 198 199 200

Appendix 1: F&P Running Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 Appendix 2 F&P Comprehension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203 Appendix 3 PAT Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

List of Figures

Fig. 4.1 Fig. 4.2 Fig. 4.3 Fig. 4.4 Fig. 6.1 Fig. 6.2 Fig. 6.3

Report on a participating atudent’s PAT Reading (Test 2) scale scores . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Snapshot of AS2’s PAT Reading results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Snapshot of AS1’s PAT Reading results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Snapshot of MS1’s PAT Reading results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Linguistic challenges faced by indigenous participants in reading Challenges concerning the knowledge of the world faced by indigenous participants in reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Challenges of comprehension faced by indigenous participants in reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

57 84 85 86 156 158 158

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List of Tables

Table 3.1 Table 3.2 Table 3.3 Table 4.1 Table 4.2 Table 4.3 Table 4.4 Table 4.5 Table 4.6 Table 4.7 Table 5.1 Table A1.1 Table A2.1

Summary of data generation across multiple layers . . . . . . . . . A Glimpse of the three layers of data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . An example of interview data analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Snapshot of PAT Reading tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Oral reading rate per minute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Accuracy rate chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Self-correction ratio and reading level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary of AS3’s reading of Collecting Firewood . . . . . . . . . Summary of AS2’s reading of The Rainbow Serpent . . . . . . . . Summary of AS1’s reading of How the Kangaroos Got Their Tails . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Development of the themes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Running record form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Finding independent, instructional and hard levels . . . . . . . . . .

37 42 46 55 61 62 62 65 66 68 100 202 203

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Chapter 1

Introduction to Indigenous Education

Abstract Australian First Nations or Indigenous Australians are people with familial heritage from those who lived in Australia before British colonisation. Indigenous Australians have experienced vast changes and challenges, particularly in the areas of education and health, while retaining their own cultural rituals and identity. Despite numerous Indigenous initiatives and resources invested in education for Indigenous Australians, little success has been achieved. Indigenous students in Australia remain well behind the national standards in learning, and in literacy in particular. I was particularly interested in identifying the causal factors behind this inequality, with the aim of assisting policy makers to re-evaluate the current educational system to provide targeted and equitable educational opportunities for all. Keywords Indigenous Australians · Inequality · Educational system

1.1 Global Context of Indigenous Education According to the Report on condition of education (NCES, 2021), First Nations people in the United States have scored consistently lower than their mainstream counterparts both in elementary and secondary school settings. (This includes American Indian, Alaskan Native, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islanders who are categorised as the original peoples in the USA and maintain tribal affiliations.) The report highlights the interesting finding that marginalised students in the US in a family with low incomes and parents without a higher education background contribute to their children’s unsatisfactory educational attainment at school. Similar trends can be seen in Canada’s three groups of Indigenous people, consisting of Indian, Inuit and Métis in the field of education. A report on education by the Assembly of First Nations (2020) indicated Indigenous students in elementary schools have fallen behind academically. The rate of high school graduation is identified at approximately 36% compared to the 75% average, despite additional government investment to reflect the diversity and needs of First Nations’ learners, schools, and communities.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 G. Y. A. Yang-Heim, Cultural Perspectives on Indigenous Students’ Reading Performance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9790-7_1

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In a similar vein, the island country New Zealand, a multicultural nation in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, has strived to achieve world class inclusive public education for its people, encompassing local history and culture. However, the nation still finds it challenging to close the gap between M¯aori (indigenous people of New Zealand) and non-M¯aori in the field of education, employment and earnings. The Department of Education has invested extra resources and adopted initiatives such as language revitalisation in schools to boost M¯aori students’ interest in schooling and their learning outcomes, which ultimately may lead to better jobs and lives. However, 2021 national performance data highlights the continuing significant gaps in the retention and achievement of M¯aori despite the fact that recognising and addressing that educational gap has been a key strategy for years. Its neighbouring country, Australia, also struggles to achieve its goal of improving education for its Indigenous people. Indigenous people (people who migrated to the land of Australia before European colonisation) and Torres Strait Islander people are the Indigenous peoples of Australia. In Australia, Indigenous students have experienced consistently low learning outcomes across grades even though governments at all levels make consistent efforts to improve their educational attainment. This is the challenge faced by a number of western countries. This book is designed to examine the issue at a much deeper level with the intent of helping the public gain a better understanding of the problem, using Australia as an example, and assisting policy makers to provide better targeted education for indigenous students.

1.2 Background to the Research The first people arrived on the Australian continent more than 40,000 years ago (Broome, 2010). Today their descendants are known as Indigenous Australians. Australia’s Indigenous people have had a continuous existence and culture for many thousands of years. European settlement in the eighteenth century brought about great changes to the Indigenous people and the Australian landscape. Now in the twentyfirst century, the Australian Indigenous population continues to face a number of significant issues and challenges. Education is one of the most significant issues as it provides the foundation for a successful adult life. In the late eighteenth century, there were between 350 and 750 distinct Indigenous social groups with a similar number of languages or dialects. At the start of the twentyfirst century, fewer than 150 Indigenous languages remain in daily use. Around 50% of Indigenous students (particularly in remote localities) speak an Indigenous dialect or language at home, even though all Australian Indigenous students are educated in English in a school setting. Since 1998, the Commonwealth Government Department of Education and Training has funded further support for intensive English programs for ESL (English as a second language) learners to improve the level of Standard Australian English for Indigenous students in the early years. The Northern Territory Education Department has adopted a diverse range of programs, strategies and initiatives aimed at maximising the educational achievement of Indigenous students.

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In spite of all the efforts provided at all levels, the learning outcomes of Indigenous students are still well below the minimum national standards. According to government reports (Australian Government, 2018), Indigenous students’ school enrolment has more than doubled since 2008, from 9490 students in 2008 to 19,237 in 2017. The percentage of Australian students who are Indigenous is 4.8%, or twice the 2.4% of Indigenous people in the entire Australian population. More than 11,000 Indigenous students attend mainstream schools (Wilson, 2014). There have been a few comprehensive reviews of Indigenous students’ educational outcomes in the Northern Territory (NT) educational context. Despite substantial investment and endless efforts, the most recent comprehensive report by Wilson (2014) indicated that Indigenous students are still left behind almost as soon as they start school. According to a number of sources (Department of Education, 2015a; Lee et al., 2016; Moyle, 2019; Wilson, 2013), the average literacy achievement of Indigenous school students in Australia is well behind general Australian standards, Indigenous students in urban or rural communities are more than twice as likely as other groups to quit before completing high school, and over 90% of students from remote Indigenous communities do not complete high school. These challenges reflect wider educational inequalities that Indigenous students are subject to: only 10–20% of high school graduates attend universities, 20–30% qualify for vocational training, while over 50% receive no further education. That too many Indigenous students fall into the final category is an unfortunate side effect of the current education system, which has evolved to service an inherently unequal socio-economic order (Rose, 2004). These appalling educational outcomes prompted me as a general class teacher to investigate culture-related factors that might play a role in young Indigenous students’ unsatisfactory reading performance. It is important to note that this book is not seeking to achieve structural changes, but to help gain a better understanding of why Indigenous students do not perform well in the dominant western educational system by considering the problem through a Bourdieusian lens.

1.3 Influential Initiatives in Indigenous Education in Australia in Recent Decades Numerous projects and strategies have been implemented to provide a framework in which teaching and learning can empower Indigenous students to succeed in education (Behrendt et al., 2012; Department of Education, 2013; Ober, 2009; Towl & Hemphill, 2020). Lee et al. (2016) expressed concerns over the education of Indigenous students. Meanwhile a number of artists and authors have expressed their views about a broad spectrum of educational issues based on their experiences working with Indigenous communities through plays, poems, short stories and songs (Moyle, 2019; Nakata et al., 2019; Ober & Bat, 2008; Sorensen, 2017). One of the issues discussed is both-ways education (Ober, 2009).

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The concept of both-ways education, according to Ober and Bat (2008), is an acknowledgement and celebration of skills and knowledge that shape Indigenous identity, using these skills and knowledge as platforms to move forward in education for Indigenous students and academia. The idea of both-ways education is to bring Indigenous concepts into classrooms at the same time as western skills and knowledge to complement and support both cultures. Ober (2009) is aware of the struggles in adopting the strategy in schools and welcomes all debates and arguments regarding the idea of both-ways. It has been a front-line, cutting-edge approach which underpins course programs and operations at Bachelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education, which caters exclusively to Indigenous students who will become Indigenous educators in schools (Ober, 2009; Ober & Bat, 2008; Towl & Hemphill, 2020). However, translating this notion into an effective teaching methodology and learning programs that incorporate and embrace Indigenous knowledge into curriculum, planning, delivery and evaluation has yet to be proved successful across the board, as only a few schools in rather remote areas have adopted this idea. Williamson and Dalal (2007) voiced the risk of applying an ‘impoverished’ version of ‘Indigenous pedagogy’ and promoting a corrupted understanding of Indigenous knowledge. A recognition of the complexities and tensions at cross-cultural interfaces between ‘Indigenous perspectives’ and western disciplinary knowledge system is required (Nakata, 2007). Bilingual education, which shares similarities with bothways education, was introduced by the federal Labor Government in 1973, when the Northern Territory was still a Commonwealth territory governed from Canberra (Ober, 2009). It has been revised and updated over the years with a different name but the same core concept, according to Harris and Jones (1991). As a direct result of recommendations from A Share in the Future: Review of Indigenous Education in the Northern Territory carried out by Bruce Wilson and NT Education staff in 2013, a program called Direct Instruction (Barbash, 2012; Edwards, 1981; Wilson, 2013) was endorsed for implementation in 60 schools in the Northern Territory from 2014 to 2016 by Peter Chandler, the Northern Territory Minister for Education (Department of Education, 2015a). This teaching approach was developed in the US and is affiliated with an instructional approach and curriculum materials developed in the late 1960s by American and Canadian behavioural psychologists (Edwards, 1981; Luke, 2014). Teachers follow a step-bystep, lesson-by-lesson approach to teaching that has already been written for them. What the teachers say and do is scripted and accompanied by a pre-specified system of rewards. This is in contrast to explicit teaching, which refers to teacher-centred instruction with a focus on clear behavioural goals and outcomes and which has been the object of education debates, controversies and substantial research (Luke, 2014; Rosenshine, 2008, 2012). The Direct Instruction approach was implemented in remote schools in the NT, but the teaching approach was discontinued due to a lack of proof of its effectiveness in those schools. More than 70% of NT government schools are located in remote areas, with almost half of NT students enrolled in these schools. Remoteness is defined in relation to whether the school is in or near a town centre: when the school is relatively isolated, it is referred to as remote or very remote. Remote communities have only

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essential infrastructure such as a local store, health clinic, school and workshop. It is inconvenient for the people in the communities to travel to larger towns frequently due to distance and driving conditions such as unsealed and single-lane roads and a wet season with road flooding. In most cases, schools in these communities consist of a student body which is almost 100% Indigenous. For these students, school is the primary aspect of western culture in their daily lives. This contrasts with government schools in provincial areas in the NT, which have a mix of Indigenous and nonIndigenous students. Indigenous students and parents in town areas are more likely to be exposed to western culture from other aspects of their town (Lee et al., 2016). In a sense, western education settings provided at town schools are much more easily accepted by the Indigenous students. However, according to educational reports (Department of Education, 2013, 2015b; Wilson, 2013, 2014), remoteness is not the sole factor driving school performance. A low attendance rate has been deemed a very significant issue in remote schools, with about 58%, compared with almost 83% in provincial areas. Indigenous students in remote areas may not attend school regularly as they feel they will not fit in with the western culture that dominates the school (Osborne, 2014, 2015; Osborne & Guenther, 2013). The NT Department of Education has taken the view that an attendance rate of at least 80% is required for a student to achieve effective learning. As an additional factor, remote schools have great difficulty attracting and retaining staff and accessing specialist services, such as counselling and speech pathology, due to the inconvenience of living in a remote community. Closing the Gap, a strategic plan adopted by the Northern Territory Government, aims to address inequality in areas such as employment, infancy and early childhood, healthy life, safe and strong communities, economic development, appreciating national culture and education (Abroginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, 2005; Northern Territory General Practice Education, 2009). The social justice report released by Professor Tom Calma, then the Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, called for the Government of Australia to commit to achieving equality for Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander people in the areas of health and life expectancy within 25 years (Indigenous & Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, 2005). The term ‘Close the Gap’ became a social justice campaign which was formally launched in Sydney in April 2007. In that same year, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG), including the leaders of federal, state and territory, and local governments, committed to ‘Closing the Gap’ by bridging the gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous Australians by the year 2031 (Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, 2009). In March 2008, the ‘Close the Gap’ Indigenous health equality target was presented to delegates at the National Indigenous Health Equality Summit (Dick et al., 2008). At the end of 2008, COAG agreed to the National Indigenous Reform Agreement which increased the scope beyond health and focused on all aspects of Indigenous life. COAG created a comprehensive overview of the steps taken to achieve the following Closing the Gap targets:

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. Close the gap in life expectancy by 2031. . Halve the gap in child mortality by 2018. . Ensure 95% of Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander four-year-olds are enrolled in early childhood education by 2025. . Halve the gap in reading, writing and numeracy test scores by 2018. . Halve the gap in Year 12 attainment by 2020. . Halve the gap in employment by 2018. . Close the gap in school attendance by 2018 (this target was added in May 2014) (Council of Australian Governments, 2009). The creators of the targets set by COAG to ‘Close the Gap’ acknowledge they are ambitious and challenging to measure. In 2018, COAG recognised the slow progress in meeting the targets, as four of the seven targets had expired (Australian Government, 2018). Part of one of the unmet targets is halving the gap in reading achievement, and little progress was reportedly made towards reaching the goal (Australian Government, 2018). Therefore, the Closing the Gap strategy was refreshed. The government adopted a strengths-based approach to ensure Indigenous people are central to the development and implementation of the strategy. The new deadline for meeting educational goals was set for 2028 (Australian Government, 2018; Department of Education, 2015a; Wilson, 2014). The latest report on the progress of the Closing the Gap presented in the federal parliament on 13 February 2017 showed the targets including education were not on track (Sorensen, 2017). In order to close the gap in Indigenous undergraduate higher education outcomes, Nakata et al. (2019) conducted research on Indigenous academic persistence in formal learning across Australian universities. The ‘gap’ was found to exist between domestic and Indigenous students’ performance and a few principles were outlined to guide strategies to support Indigenous students in Australian schools and to respond to individual needs in more effective ways (Nakata et al., 2019). Numerous research efforts and corresponding initiatives in Indigenous education can be traced back to the 1990s (Harris & Devlin, 1997; Roscigno & AinsworthDarnell, 1999). Collins (1998, 2004) recognised the need to improve the education of Australia’s Indigenous people, arguing that improvement in the education of Australian Indigenous people is very much dependent upon teachers’ awareness of the factors affecting their academic potential. He also argues that schools’ attempts to assimilate Indigenous children into the way of western civilisation have proven to be ineffective and grossly unfair. A number of research projects have been conducted since Collins’ but these have mainly focused on tertiary education of Indigenous people (Nakata et al., 2019; Sorensen, 2017; Williamson & Dalal, 2007). What is more, despite efforts to implement strategies to improve Indigenous students’ educational outcomes, official documents have shown the gap has not been bridged and significant work remains to reach parity between Indigenous and domestic students (ACARA, 2018; Australian Government, 2018; Department of Education, 2015a, 2015b).

1.4 Personal Interest in the Research

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1.4 Personal Interest in the Research Education scholars world-wide have voiced their own opinions on specific single factors that may have an impact on children’s school performance (Elder, 2016; Israel & Duffy, 2014; Linnakyla et al., 2004; Spencer et al., 2019; Sporer et al., 2009; Stoller & Grabe, 2011; Svinicki, 2001; Zimdars et al., 2009). Very little research has been done in regard to how cultural capital influences children’s learning to read in the early years, let alone in the area of young Indigenous children’s reading (Sporer et al., 2009; Stoller & Grabe, 2011). Reading is one of the most important abilities students acquire as they progress through their early years of schooling. International scholars Richard et al. (2002) believe that reading plays an essential role in overall academic achievement. Furthermore, as a foundation for learning across all subjects, development of reading competency at a young age is crucial for later academic achievement. According to Wilson (2014), a large amount of research about the significance of the early years of learning shows children who fail to lay a foundation of basic skills in the early years are unlikely ever to recover. Studies have shown that there is a strong correlation between reading and academic success (Richard et al., 2002); in other words, a student who reads well is more likely to perform well in school than a student who has unsatisfactory reading skills. As far as many NESB (non-English speaking background) students are concerned, reading is by far the most important component in EALD (English as an additional language or dialect) education, particularly for those who are learning all subjects including art, studies of society and environment, mathematics and sciences through English because reading plays a vital role in successful learning in these subjects. Reading, however, does not take place in a cultural vacuum, as readers have to interact with the text using their own cultural and language experiences (Horbury & Cottrell, 2007). My personal experiences as a learner and teacher of English as a second language, as a classroom teacher of English as part of literacy, and as a researcher have brought home to me first-hand how much reading and culture are connected. I grew up in China and learned English as a foreign language from the age of 13. My first bachelor’s degree in arts specialising in English language and literature was obtained from Shanghai International Studies University in 2006. I taught English at one high school in China upon graduation. At the end of 2006, I relocated to Australia for further study at the University of Tasmania. Within three years in Tasmania, I graduated with a second bachelor’s degree in primary education and a master’s degree in education. I secured my first teaching job at a private primary school in Canberra in 2010, where I worked as a Year 3 and 4 combined class teacher, with my students coming from diverse backgrounds including from overseas. The following year, I moved to Adelaide and taught at its sister school for a few months. I applied for a teaching job in the Northern Territory out of curiosity about the landscape and lifestyle there. I taught at various primary schools in the NT between Katherine and Alice Springs until relocating to the US in 2018.

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I pursued my case study with Year 2 public school students at the research site in Alice Springs, Northern Territory. Alice Springs has an urban population of about 26,000 and it accounts for approximately 10% of the population of the Northern Territory. The modern town of Alice Springs has both European and Indigenous influences. Indigenous residents usually live in the suburbs or further away from the city centre on family outstation communities located on Indigenous lands. Alice Springs is the regional hub of central Australia; it attracts Indigenous people from all over the region and well beyond to visit and use the town’s services. Across the school, Sheena Cameron’s resources underpin our practices in reading and writing. The Super 10 Reading Strategies, which are in line with the comprehension strategies discussed in this book (see Chap. 4), are explicitly taught. Students’ reading progress is tested each term using the Fountas and Pinnell system (see Chap. 4). The Soundwaves program is the basis for teaching spelling based on sounds. In early childhood classes, the English program is supported by early literacy and language, Read Write Inc, and sound and letter recognition. In addition to the implementation of the Australian English curriculum, the following primary intervention programs continue to build students’ English literacy: . reading support groups (additional support given to underachieving students) . levelled literacy intervention (a short-term teaching program for struggling readers) . Soundcheck (A phonics program based on 43 sounds of Australian English). The school is one of the six government schools in the town centre. It is a coeducational primary school, serving preschool to Year 6. Over 40% of the students in the school are of Indigenous descent and a team of Indigenous staff members are employed to provide additional learning and wellbeing support for Indigenous students. The school aims to offer an inclusive and friendly environment where all students receive education in a safe and supportive atmosphere. From my own experiences of teaching young Indigenous students, there appears to be a tremendous disjunction between the learning outcomes that teachers, linguists, curriculum designers and teacher trainers expect Indigenous students to achieve in reading on the one side, and the reading performance that is expected in the lives of Indigenous children outside the school and the expectations from their families on the other. My years of experience as a classroom teacher of English literacy in the early years in central Australia has brought home to me that a class teacher needs to be armed with a working knowledge of Indigenous culture to be able to help Indigenous children produce relatively satisfactory learning outcomes in reading. In 2016, I taught a class of 19 children ranging from transition to Year 1. All of them were ranked under Level 1 in PM (Premiers) reading scheme when I took over the class in April. Some critical events occurred during the course of my teaching, for instance, a Year 1 Indigenous boy reached Level 10 in the PM reading scheme by the end of the year. This was an outstanding result for an Indigenous child to achieve. However, the majority of the class were still underachievers in reading according to national benchmarks.

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As a non-Indigenous teacher in a school comprised of about 40% Indigenous students, I encountered challenges due to the fact that I was unfamiliar with Indigenous culture. For instance, I was not accustomed to their frequent disengagement from learning, strikingly different learning styles, and difficulties in meeting the academic standards for the grade level. The strategies tailored towards non-Indigenous students often failed to assist Indigenous students. Reflecting on my experience, I realised that I had overlooked cultural factors involved in teaching EALD to Indigenous children. Inspired by the success with this Indigenous boy in his first year of schooling, I began to take a great interest in cultural issues involved in literacy education for Indigenous children, especially how they might impact on their reading performance. My personal experience has foregrounded the following factors: . . . . . . .

parental involvement reading materials reading conventions at home and at school means of communication personalities of children attendance nutrition.

I have noticed that these contextual factors (some are culture-related while others are not) influence the reading outcomes of Indigenous children in the early years. To enhance Indigenous children’s reading performance in the early years of schooling, I believe that I must explore how cultural factors may affect their development in reading skills and reading performance and therefore this became the topic that that I felt obliged to investigate in in this book. In short, the book seeks to investigate the influence of cultural factors on Indigenous learners’ reading performances in the early years at school. It is intended to contribute to public knowledge about education, especially to the national efforts to close the educational gap. For this research I adopted a qualitative approach that involves treating texts as data elements that can be categorised into themes which are underpinned by Bourdieu’s conceptual framework of cultural capital. However, qualitative research has broadened in its range of approaches. The qualitative approach has shifted from a focus just on methods and techniques towards a more interpretative and dynamic nature of inquiry which is aligned with Gadamer’s (2004) hermeneutics. Gadamer (2004) believed that an interpretation of a topic does not only involve examining how the relationships between the interviewer (the researcher in this study) and the participants, participants and the context, the researcher and the context can be construed in a particular way, but more importantly is a perspective. Therefore, as a non-Indigenous researcher in this particular study, I deliberately adopted the philosophical hermeneutics inquiry method to analyse and interpret the data to retain awareness that there are many possible angles from which to view the multilayered and interconnected phenomena.

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I maintained a professional relationship with my participants who were also my students on the basis of trust, respect, encouragement and honesty. Both my participants, participants’ parents/carers, school administrative members and the community at large appreciated that I took remarkable care of Indigenous students and their education. Given my position as an outsider with respect to Indigenous culture and at the same time also an insider who was engaged in the current educational system, I was able to analyse the issues raised in this book critically through the lenses of these both positions. Through the lens of an outsider, I was able to discern what could not be seen by many insiders, and as an insider, I benefited from the opportunity to experience, identify and analyse problems in their real and authentic context. I feel honoured to be the author of this book, to have my voice heard and to advocate for Indigenous education from which all Indigenous students can benefit.

1.5 Understanding Indigenous Colonisation In this book I have been inspired by Habermas and the Australian researcher LesterIrabinna Rigney. They have both used a critical perspective to understand society and I am interested in the role of research to not only understand (hermeneutics) but create a future foundation for acting to address the challenges (transformative) of colonialism in education. To be more specific, this book relates to Habermas’ (1972) technical knowledgeconstitutive interests and practical knowledge-constitutive interests but not to his transformative emancipatory knowledge-constitutive interests. Studies conducted by Morrison et al. (2019) and Rigney (2021) in relation to Indigenous education, may be said to have explored and examined the issues of Indigenous education and sociocultural studies of literacies at the dynamics of the transformative level according to Habermas’ typology of knowledge. While I understand and support the work of Rigney and his colleagues in exposing the power differentials of the colonial system, my book does not intend to take on such a transformative approach. Instead, my research is designed to explicitly address the need to gain a better understanding of those issues at the technical and practical levels in Habermas’ typology. A major objective of this research is to understand the impact of colonialism in literacy education and the way in which colonialisation takes place in reading literacy education within the school context at the focus of this research. In other words, this research is designed to gain a better understanding how teachers of English literacy become spokespeople for a colonial system in which they are embedded and, at the same time, how Indigenous students and communities are subjected to the national curriculum imposed on them, including the ways they are supposed to learn to read and be assessed. In a sense, this book exposes the issues of colonialism from the inside, but does not intend to take the issue a step further to the transformative level to explore or propose the ways to solve those problems. Again, this research may be said to further explore the field, whereas the work of Rigney and his colleagues sets out to address the issues at the transformative level 3 of Habermas’ typology.

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This project is designed to allow me to gain technical and practical knowledge of the colonial educational system, which is reflected in the current curricula, especially in the adopted formal tools of assessment in the system such as PAT, F&P reading tests, decoding attainments, etc. At the same time, it is also designed to examine how the issues at these two primary levels have impacted the students and teachers of English in schools. Rigney and his colleagues (2020) stressed that students from marginalised cultures need teachers who can help them understand the power of dominant culture and its operation in school settings. Thereby the study aims to explore how students, especially Indigenous students, are exposed to the colonial culture in classrooms and how the dominant culture impacts their learning to read. Teachers of English literacy are said to try to adopt robust teaching pedagogies to facilitate and support ‘authentic experiences of inclusion and belongings’ for all students in class (Dobson et al., 2021, p. 1); however, in the context of the existing educational system, Indigenous students are constantly tested in academic areas which are practically designed for the non-Indigenous students, and teachers of English literacy are expected to support and facilitate the operations of the existing system and become part of the colonial system. Therefore, what the study is designed to achieve may be said to align with Habermas’ technical and practical knowledgeconstitutive interests, that is, to gain a better understanding of the existing power and acknowledge the existing power differences, with a view to addressing the issues at Habermas’ transformative level in the future. Just as Ladson-Billings (2006) stated in her discussion of culturally responsive pedagogies, ‘Without the skills and knowledge of the culture that oppresses them, students are unlikely to engage that culture to effect meaningful change’ (p. 36). This book serves the purpose of understanding the colonial system and the impact of the colonial programs, which aims to lead to actively engaging the colonial culture to transform the system at the transformative level three of Habermas’ typology.

1.6 Structure of the Book The book consists of seven chapters including this one. The structure of the book is as follows. Chapter 1 introduces the background to the research, recent influential initiatives in Indigenous education, and an understanding of the impacts of colonisation and the driving force behind this study. Chapter 2 briefly and critically and reviews models of reading, the theory of cultural capital, and the conceptual framework adopted for this research. Chapter 3 outlines the methodology adopted in the research. It includes the definition of the word ‘methodology’, justification of the qualitative methods that were selected, the site of the data collection, how the data were generated and analysed to address the research questions, the validity and reliability of the data, the ethical issues concerned, and a personal reflection.

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Chapter 4 identifies challenges that the participating Indigenous students faced in reading. The findings are analysed and presented on the basis of the participating students’ reading test results in the Progressive Achievement Test (PAT) (ACER, 2018) and in the tests of Fountas and Pinnell (F&P) (Fountas & Pinnell, 2010, 2014). The test results focused on decoding and comprehension. Non-Indigenous participants and Indigenous participants of the same level in reading were compared and commonalities were discovered in the way Indigenous participants decode and comprehend texts. Chapter 5 discusses and analyses factors identified through one-on-one interviews with each participating student and their narrative stories to examine cultural, personal and institutional factors that may have played roles in the Indigenous participants’ learning, particularly in reading performance. Chapter 6 is a meta-analysis which threads together the analysis of the PAT results, the F&P results, the interview data and the narrative stories. Broader themes are developed on the basis of the themes identified in Chaps. 4 and 5 from the perspective of the three categories of the theory of cultural capital. Chapter 7 concludes the book, summarises the key findings, identifies implications for future research in the area and specifies the limitations of the study. This chapter has considered the nationwide context of Indigenous education and ongoing efforts to improve Indigenous students’ learning outcomes. Reading, writing and numeracy are the areas where the efforts have been targeted. Unfortunately, they have not been successful. In this book, I narrow my focus to reading.

References Assembly of First Nations. (2020). K-12 elementary and secondary education. Department of Education. Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER). (2018). Progressive achievement test in reading: Comprehension and vocabulary. Northern Territory Government. Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). (2018). Resources. ACARA. https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/resources/ Australian Government. (2018). The Prime Minister’s report 2018: The Prime Minister’s annual report to parliament on progress in Closing the Gap. Commonwealth of Australia. https://www. pmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/reports/closing-the-gap-2018/education.html Barbash, S. (2012). Clear teaching: With direct instruction, Siegfried Englemann discovered a better way of teaching. Education Consumers Foundation. Behrendt, L., Larkin, S., Griew, R., & Kelly, P. (2012). Review of higher education access and outcomes for Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander people: Final report. Commonwealth of Australia. Broome, R. (2010). Indigenous Australians (4th ed.). Allen & Unwin. Collins, R. (1998). The sociology of philosophies: A global theory of intellectual change. Belknap Press. Collins, R. (2004). Interaction ritual chains. Princeton University Press. Council of Australian Governments. (2009). National Indigenous reform agreement (closing the gap).

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Department of Education. (2013). Early reading project: Putting it all together. Commonwealth of Australia. Department of Education. (2015a). Indigenous education strategy. www.education.nt.gov.au Department of Education. (2015b). A share in the future: Indigenous education strategy 2015–2024. Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. (2009). Closing the gap on indigenous disadvantage: The challenge for Australia. Commonwealth of Australia. Dick, D., Holland, C., & Harrison, B. (2008). Closing the gap: National indigenous health equality targets: Outcomes from the National Indigenous Health Equality Summit. Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. Dobson, S., Agrusti, G., & Pinto, M. (2021). Supporting the inclusion of refugees: Policies, theories and actions. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 25(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1080/136 03116.2019.1678804 Edwards, C. H. (1981). A second look at direct instruction. High School Journal, 64(4), 166–169. Elder, L. (2016). Thinker’s guide to analytic thinking. Foundation for Critical Thinking. Fountas, I., & Pinnell, G. S. (2010). Fountas & Pinnell benchmark assessment system 2. Heinemann. Fountas, I., & Pinnell, G. S. (2014). Fountas & Pinnell literacy. Heinemann. Gadamer, H. (2004). Truth and method (2nd ed.). Continuum. Habermas, J. (1972). Knowledge and interest. Beacon Press. Harris, S., & Devlin, B. (1997). Bilingual programs involving Indigenous languages in Australia. In J. Cummins & D. Corson (Eds.), Encyclopedia of language and education, vol. 5: Bilingual education (pp. 1–14). Springer. Harris, S., & Jones, P. (1991). The changing face of indigenous bilingual education in the Northern territory: A 1990 update. Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 9(5), 29–53. Horbury, A., & Cottrell, K. (2007). Cultural factors affecting the acquisition of reading strategies in bilingual children. Education 3–13: International Journal of Primary and Early Years Education, 25(1), 24–26. Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner. (2005). Social justice report. Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. Israel, S. E., & Duffy, G. G. (2014). Handbook of research on reading comprehension. Taylor and Francis. Ladson-Billings, G. (2006). ‘Yes, but how do we do it?’: Practising culturally relevant pedagogy. In J. Landsman & C. Lewis (Eds.), White teachers, diverse classrooms: A guide to building inclusive schools, promoting high expectations, and eliminating racism (pp. 29–42). Stylus. Lee, P., Fasoli, L., Ford, L., Stephenson, P., & McInerney, D. (2016). Indigenous kids and schooling in the Northern Territory. Batchelor Press. Linnakyla, P., Malin, A., & Taube, K. (2004). Factors behind low reading literacy achievement. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 48(3), 231–349. Luke, A. (2014, July 7). Direct instruction is not a solution for Australian schools. EduResearch Matters. https://www.aare.edu.au/blog/?p=439 Morrison, A., Rigney, L., Hattam, R., & Diplock, A. (2019). Toward an Australian culturally responsive pedagogy: A narrative review of the literature. University of South Australia. Moyle, K. (2019). Indigenous early childhood education, school readiness and transition programs into primary school: Literature review. Australian Council for Educational Research. Nakata, M. (2007). The cultural interface. Australian Journal of Indigenous Curriculum, 36, 7–14. Nakata, M., Nakata, V., Day, A., & Peachey, M. (2019). Closing gaps in Indigenous undergraduate higher education outcomes: Repositioning the role of student support services to improve retention and completion rates. Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 48(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/ 10.1017/jie.2017.36 National Center for Education Statistics. (2021). Report on condition of education 2021. US Department of Education. Northern Territory General Practice Education. (2009). Closing the Gap: Addressing inequality between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

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Ober, R. (2009). Both-ways: Learning from yesterday, celebrating today, strengthening tomorrow. Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 38, 34–39. Ober, R., & Bat, M. (2008). Both-ways: The practice. Journal of Indigenous Issues, 32, 56–79. Osborne, S. (2014). At the heart of learning (Series: Paper 1 of 4): Putuna Kulini: The trouble with ‘hearing.’ AlterNative, 10, 3–14. Osborne, S. (2015). Families as foundation: Anangu perspectives on what else matters in remote education. UNESCO Observatory Multi-disciplinary Journal in the Arts, 4(2), 1–25. Osborne, S., & Guenther, J. (2013). Red dirt thinking on aspiration and success. Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 42, 88–99. Richard, W. S., Mathew, J., Harvey, F., & Perini, G. M. T. (2002). Reading for academic success. Corwin Press. Rigney, L. (2021). Indigenous child as knowledge producer: Bringing into dialogue indigenist epistemologies and culturally responsive pedagogies for schooling. In B. Hokowhitu, A. MoretonRobinson, L. Tuhiwai-Smith, S. Larkin, & C. Andersen (Eds.), Routledge handbook of critical Indigenous studies. Routledge. Rigney, L., Garrett, R., Curry, M., & MacGill, B. (2020). Culturally responsive pedagogy and mathematics through creative and body-based learning: Urban Indigenous schooling. Education and Urban Society, 52(8), 1159–1180. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013124519896861 Roscigno, V., & Ainsworth-Darnell, J. (1999). Race, cultural capital, and educational resources: Persistent inequalities in achievement returns. Sociology of Education, 72, 158–178. Rose, D. (Ed.). (2004). Sequencing and pacing of the hidden curriculum: How Indigenous learners are left out of the chain. In B. Davies, A. Morais, & H. Muller (Eds.), Reading Bernstein, researching Bernstein (pp. 91–107). Routledge. Rosenshine, B. (2008). Five meanings of direct instruction. Center on Innovation and Improvement. Rosenshine, B. (2012). Principles of instruction: Research-based strategies that all teachers should know. American Educator, 36(1), 12–19. Sorensen, H. (2017, February 15). Closing the gap: Indigenous people still being disadvantaged. NT News. https://www.ntnews.com.au/news/northern-territory/closing-the-gap-indigenous-peo ple-still-being-disadvantaged/news-story/e97c6b8d34663de241a1b8ed7e742243 Spencer, M., Wagner, R. K., & Petscher, Y. (2019). The reading comprehension and vocabulary knowledge of children with poor reading comprehension despite adequate decoding: Evidence from a regression-based matching approach. Journal of Educational Psychology, 111(1), 1–14. Sporer, N., Brunstein, J. C., & Kieschke, U. (2009). Improving students’ reading comprehension skills: Effects of strategy instruction and reciprocal teaching. Learning and Instruction, 19(3), 272–286. Stoller, F. L., & Grabe, W. (Eds.). (2011). Teaching and researching reading (2nd ed.). Routledge. Svinicki, M. D. (2001). Encouraging your students to give feedback. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 87, 17–24. Towl, P., & Hemphill, A., S. (2020). Safe, supportive, and inclusive learning environments for young people in crisis and trauma: Plaiting the rope. Routledge. Williamson, J., & Dalal, P. (2007). Indigenising the curriculum or negotiating the tensions at the cultural interface? Embedding indigenous perspective and pedagogies in a university curriculum. Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 2007, 51–58. Wilson, B. (2013). A share in the future: Review of indigenous education in the Northern Territory. NT Government. Wilson, B. (2014). Review of indigenous education in the Northern Territory. Department of Education. http://www.education.nt.gov.au/parents-community/students-learning/indigenouseducation-review-1 Zimdars, A., Sullivan, A., & Heath, A. (2009). Elite higher education admissions in the arts and sciences: Is cultural capital the key? Sociology, 43, 648–666.

Chapter 2

Reading and Cultural Capital

Abstract Reading in early years plays a crucial role in learning programs since it is fundamental for all other subjects and paves a way to successful school attainments. Challenges in reading faced by EALD (English as an additional language/dialect) learners are undeniable and cannot afford to be overlooked. However, very little research has been documented with regard to culture-related factors that contribute to EALD learners’ unsatisfactory reading performance in a dominant school setting. This chapter explains why and how I chose Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital as a conceptual framework, highlighting the gaps in previous studies that have applied the concept of cultural capital while acknowledging the significant contributions made by the previous scholars in developing the concept. Keywords Reading · Cultural capital · Conceptual framework · Dominant school settings

2.1 Introduction Many of the current views of second language reading are shaped by research on first language (L1) learners. Research on reading in both L1 and L2 and about improving reading achievements or instructions has grown remarkably in the past few decades (Gabe, 2009; Hempenstall, 2016; Koda, 2007). However, the majority of these studies have overlooked the connections between theories of reading and students’ learning to read in English as an additional language or dialect (EALD), and the influence of cultural and situational factors is underestimated or even ignored by and large. To make things even more complicated, I, as a researcher and a classroom teacher of reading in EALD, have found it impractical to translate many of those research findings on L1 and L2 reading directly into my classroom teaching, where about half of the students are Indigenous children who learn to read in English as an additional language or dialect. In view of this disjunction between theories and practices of teaching reading in EALD in a class composed of both English native speakers and Indigenous children in Australia, it was crucial for this study to conduct a review of the related literature to construct a conceptual framework to guide and shape the design and implementation of the research. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 G. Y. A. Yang-Heim, Cultural Perspectives on Indigenous Students’ Reading Performance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9790-7_2

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In this chapter, I critically review studies conducted by other researchers. I argue that theories have evolved over time, with new research findings coming to the surface. I narrowed my focus to two major areas of literature: models of reading and cultural capital. This chapter justifies why I adopted cultural capital as the theoretical framework for this research and why I chose reading over other subjects as a research focus. The four components of reading impact reading performance in different ways. I make the argument that readers’ application of background knowledge facilitates comprehension of texts. Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital has developed from the late 1970s to the early 2000s. Each development and evolution have narrowed its focus to one aspect of the concept of cultural capital, which has been proved inadequate by the findings from this research.

2.2 Process Models of Reading Theories about reading used to be divided into two groups: one group regards reading as a process while the other treats reading as an ability consisting of a number of components. Gough (1972) was one of the leading scholars who developed a bottomup reading model, which envisages the reader beginning with letters, words, then sentences in order. According to Gough’s approach, the expectation of the reader plays little role in the process of reading the text, so the approach was described as text- or data-driven. Meanwhile, Rivers (1968) indicated that there is a strong bond between culture and language and this bond has to be retained for a second language learner to achieve a full understanding of the meaning of the print. However, despite the acknowledgment of the role of background knowledge or cultural knowledge, this bottom-up model failed to represent the mechanism or operations that bring in background knowledge in the process of decoding (Alderson & Urquhart, 1984; An, 2013; Mohammed & Swales, 1984). By contrast, Goodman (1968) is often cited as a representative of the top-down approach, though he himself denied the association (Smith, 1971, 1973). As is expected, the top-down reading model starts with the largest unit in a text (the whole text). So far as this model is concerned, the reader’s expectations of the text play an essential role in the reading process and this model is seen as reader-driven (Fatemi, 2014; Liu, 2010; Urquhart & Weir, 1998). In other words, not only is the reader an active participant in the reading process, making predictions and processing information, but everything in the reader’s prior experience or background knowledge plays a dominant role in the process, which is basically a process of hypothesis formation, confirmation and/or modification. According to Stanovich (2000) the shortcoming of the bottom-up model is the lack of feedback; therefore it cannot account for the sentence-context effect and the role of prior knowledge of the topic in facilitating the reading process. The problem with the top-down model, on the other hand, is that, for many texts, the reader has little knowledge of the topic and cannot generate predictions (Gabe, 2009; Liu, 2010;

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Stanovich, 2000). In response to the shortcomings of previous models, the interactive compensatory model was created to provide a more accurate conceptualisation of the reading process (Stanovich, 2000). Interactive models, such as those examined by Rumelhart (1977), hold that readers synthesise information provided simultaneously from several sources. A key concept of the interactive compensatory model is that ‘A process at any level can compensate for deficiencies at any other level’ (Stanovich, 2000, p. 23). Put another way, if a reader is poor at decoding a word they do not know, they may use their prior knowledge of sentence context or of the topic to decide what the word is. It has been argued that this interactive model acknowledges individual differences in reading ability and best accounts for the reading process. A relevantly recent addition to models of reading is the concept of a compensatory process (Stanovich, 2000), where deficiencies in knowledge can be compensated for by other knowledge (such as a reader’s application of background knowledge to assist word recognition) and, at the same time, it takes into account the nature of interactions as transactional or socio-cognitive (Ruddell et al., 2013). Of the three types of models, the interactive process model has ultimately been recognised as the one that best represents the process of reading (Adam & Collins, 1979; Cole, 1996; Goodman, 1967; Ruddell et al., 2013; Smith, 1973). Evidently, the goal of this model is to help students develop the ability to understand and transfer learning to new contexts. This is applicable to the process of students’ learning to read. The concept of reading incorporates oral reading and understanding texts and pictures, using punctuation, applying phonetic rules, etc. The fundamental goal of teaching students to read is to help them develop strategies of comprehending and applying (prior) conceptual or cultural knowledge to different settings. Echoing the concept of learning with understanding, the reading for understanding initiative was put forward by educational scholars in the USA (Pearson et al., 2020) as part of a large-scale federal investment by the US Institute of Education Sciences to improve students’ reading comprehension. The reports strongly recommend multimodal methods of teaching students to read. It is undeniable that comprehension is key to reading; however, in early years schooling, basic foundational literacy skills such as letter knowledge, phonemic and phonological awareness, decoding, and fluency also play an important role in learning to read successfully, especially for students who speak English as an additional language. Given the context of this research, decoding as a mandatory assessment element in the educational system was one of the major parts of the assessment data for the Indigenous participating students.

2.3 Componential Models of Reading The other group of theories about reading views reading as an ability that consists of a number of components. The following essential components are supposed to be interrelated and work in concert to extract the essence of reading, that is, gaining

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meaning from the text. These critical components of reading, according to Hoover and Tunmer (1993), are (1) word recognition, (2) language, (3) background knowledge, and (4) comprehension.

2.3.1 Word Recognition and Phonological/Phonemic Awareness Gray (1960) stated one of the most significant problems in teaching reading in primary school is achieving independence in word perception. Hoover and Tunmer (1993) mention three different interpretations of ‘word recognition’. First, it means to recognise an English word in print, and to be able to pronounce it and give its meaning. Second, the term is extended to mean recognition of a pronounceable string of letters which may not be an actual word in English. Many experiments on word recognition have involved the use of pseudo words such as ‘sard’. Third, the term means recognition of any letter string with space boundaries on either side, as some of the experiments have tested (Hoover & Tunmer, 1993). In successful English reading, children need to translate the letters or spelling patterns of written words into speech sounds and identify words and gain access to their meanings (Vandervelden, 1992). Therefore, children’s ability to think about individual words as sequences of sounds is important to their understanding of the alphabetic sounding principle (e.g. the relationship between letters and sounds). It is important for children to be able to understand the relationship between sounds and words and translate written words into sounds and meaning when reading aloud. Such word recognition is also referred to as decoding. Decoding, therefore, is an essential skill to acquire to perform well in reading. I share the view that it is fundamental for children to learn decoding skills and the sound–letter relationship at the beginning stage of learning how to read in EALD while developing comprehension skills. What’s more, both Rush (2017) and Reyhner (2006) believed that ensuring that a certain percentage of reading vocabulary comes from a tribal language, in my case an Indigenous language, could be an advantage as students’ interest is greatly enhanced by hearing and seeing words from their own language in books. While I agree with this in principle, it is a continual challenge in an Australian context given that the number of publications in Indigenous languages is limited.

2.3.2 Language The distinction between word recognition and language drawn by Hoover and Tunmer (1993) is not very clear since words are clearly part of language. Nevertheless, for the sake of convenience, the distinction is kept in this review. Studies

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of language have generally focused on the crucial component of language, syntax. There has been a fair amount of research conducted in the area of syntax. Syntax is about the grammatical organisation of language, concerning mainly the rules that govern the combination of words into sentences. Children are said to learn to understand grammar to improve reading and decoding skills (Urquhart & Weir, 1998). An experiment conducted by Ulijin and Kempen (1976) showed that a detailed syntactic process plays a crucial role in reading. The differential degrees of sound–letter correspondence between the L1 and L2 writing systems have been found to have a profound impact on learners’ L2 reading. The greater the similarity is between learners’ L1 and L2, the faster the learners may progress in L2 reading.

2.3.3 Background Knowledge It is widely accepted that background knowledge is involved in all reading and a difference in reading that results from differences in background knowledge is subject to the influence of three factors, namely, texts, subjects and tasks (Urquhart & Weir, 1998). In Brody’s (2001) view, background knowledge differs from prior knowledge. Unlike background knowledge, which could be unknown to the reader and could be directly taught, prior knowledge develops through experiences through the reader’s life and is stored and retrieved from long-term memory. It allows the reader to have discussions about the new text even prior to reading. Furthermore, although both background knowledge and prior knowledge require the reader to engage in metacognitive thought about unfamiliar concepts in the text, direct instruction on background appears to be more effective than activating readers’ prior knowledge in improving reading comprehension (Marzano, 2004). Moreover, background knowledge was found to make a greater contribution than L2 competency in L2 reading comprehension, since L2 readers who had significant defects in their knowledge of L2 were found to successfully use their background knowledge to compensate for their linguistic shortcomings (Carrell, 1983; Richgels, 1982). This study adopts the distinctions between the above-noted four elements of reading ability in Hoover and Tunmer’s (1993) componential model of reading and, at the same time, it also upholds Coady (1979) and Bernhardt’s (1991) view of the role of background knowledge in EALD reading, for it aims to research young Indigenous students’ EALD reading performance, which involves both their reading ability and the background knowledge they bring to their EALD reading. In this research, therefore, background knowledge is defined as the essential knowledge students have about the text, which is learned both formally in the classroom and informally through life experience.

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2.3.4 Comprehension Comprehension is the fourth element in Hoover and Tunmer’s (1993) model of reading. It relates to an intentional, active and interactive process that occurs during and after the reader reads a particular text (Duke & Pearson, 2017). When reading a text, the reader is engaged in a complex array of cognitive processes and simultaneously uses a range of knowledge and skills including awareness of phonemes and phonics, and language to comprehend or construct meaning from the text (Linnakyla et al., 2004; McNamara, 2006). Comprehension cannot occur independently of the components of reading ability and the reading processes involved (Serravallo, 2015). In this sense, therefore, comprehension may be considered the element of reading where the process models of reading and the componential models of reading converge. It is backed by the fact that comprehension concerns both componential knowledge and skills of reading and interactive processes of reading (Stanovich, 1986, 2000). Most recent investigations of L1 and L2 reading abilities adopt the component-skill approach to reading and this approach regards reading as a plethora of multiple cognitive processes such as decoding, vocabulary, syntactic process and metacognition (Gabe, 2009; Yamashita & Jeon, 2014; Young-Suk, 2017). Reading strategies are taught at the early stage of learning at school, ranging from basic decoding to reading between the lines. Students start to learn fix-up strategies during the reading process and then gradually move on to identify direct information in texts, leading towards an advanced level of interpreting, clarifying, and inferring strategies (Sporer et al., 2009). The Australian Curriculum requires students in the early years to be exposed to reading strategies of all levels of complexity using texts suitable for each year level (ACARA, 2018). Reading comprehension serves as important part of data for this study, which aims to identify the challenges EALD students face in the process of reading.

2.4 Linkage Between Culture and Education The topic of this research necessitates a review of the literature about culture, especially the connection between culture and education, which is relevant to classroom teaching of EALD reading to young Indigenous students in regional schools in Australia.

2.4.1 Big ‘C’ and Little ‘c’ Culture The task of comprehensively defining culture is almost impossible as the term is always morphing, with multiple meanings, multiple sites and political struggle (Hutnyk, 2006). Following Hong’s (2009) definition, culture is defined in this study

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as externalised rich symbols, artefacts, social constructions, social institutions and cultural icons; it is used to form the common ground for communication among members and is transmitted from one generation to the next whist still undergoing continuous modification. I would like to briefly mention two different types of culture: ‘big C’ and ‘little c’ culture. Big C culture refers to culture which is most visible (Kramsch, 1993; Krasner, 1999). Some visible forms of Culture include holidays, art, literature and food. In contrast, little c culture is usually invisible, and is associated with a region, group of people, language and so on (Kramsch, 1993; Krasner, 1999). It seems that little ‘c’ culture is closer to Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital. However, neither of the two types of culture provides a complete perspective for investigating the relations between culture and education. Therefore, I adopted Bourdieu’s (1977) theory of cultural capital as my conceptual framework, including objectified, embodied and institutional cultural capital, to construct a conceptual framework to support and guide the research.

2.4.2 Theory of Cultural Capital The central conceptual framework in this book is inspired by and draws upon the work of French philosopher Bourdieu (1971, 1977). Bourdieu (1971, 1977) and Cheadle (2009) take the view that the term ‘cultural capital’ represents a collection of non-economic forces such as family background, social class, varying investments in and commitments to education, and varying resources which influence academic success. The concept of cultural capital was highlighted initially in the studies untaken by Bourdieu and Passeron (1990) in France and by Bernstein (1973) in Britain. According to Bourdieu and Passeron (1990), the concept of cultural capital may help to explain why the education system has eliminated some students from the system while sustaining others and how social production is orchestrated in current society. Bowles and Gintis (1976) argue that, in general, the education system is designed in such a way that those without access to the cultural capital of the dominant group fail in school, while those with access to this kind of cultural capital succeed. Bourdieu and Passeron (1990) also point out that cultural capital is not equally distributed across society and hence can be regarded as the basis of differential attainment in education. Accordingly, families with a given cultural capital theoretically produce offspring with an equal amount of cultural capital. Many scholars in both the 1970s and 1980s have adopted the concept of cultural capital to explain disparity in educational attainment. Basil Bernstein (1973) looks at the linguistic component of cultural capital, analysing linguistic differences and the relationship between linguistic capital and differences in academic and occupational attainment. Morris (2014), on the other hand, examines what happens in the classroom from the perspective of cultural capital. Other studies stress the importance of parental support and

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encouragement in students’ school achievement, showing that, without the investment of time by parents, support from parents and encouragement of parents, the objectified capital will not be absorbed by children, and will not lead ultimately to successful educational attainment as a societal outcome, or in the form of institutional cultural capital (Bennett, 2005; Fan, 2001; Jeynes, 2005). The evolution of Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital has inspired hundreds of researchers to embed his concepts in their academic works over the past several decades. The evolving uses of the concept by researchers in the education field have been systematically catalogued. There has not been a consensus over the definition of the term ‘cultural capital’, which refers to cultural traits that are rewarded in fields like education in a generic way (Davies & Rizk, 2017). Bourdieu developed his notion of cultural capital in a context in which schooling had great symbolic potency and associations with honour and prestige. He was also influenced by some American and British social scientists. One of the core influences was his research on social mobility, which refers to intra- and intergenerational flows of individuals through education systems and into the occupational order in a process called status attainment. In other words, his early research repeatedly shows the close correlations of family background/origin and success in later life/career. Bourdieu was also influenced by Willis and other school ethnographers who portrayed working-class youth as rarely aspiring to higher education and as not seeing schooling as a key to success (Brown, 1987; Davies & Rizk, 2017; Willis, 1977). It is obvious that Bourdieu’s concept encompasses underlying hierarchies of social structure or class. The initial English translation of Bourdieu’s concept was well received in the United States in the 1970s and then research on cultural capital has thrived over several decades by developing and evolving in different directions rather than linearly, where the clarity of the concept could be enhanced. In a sense, the different uses of the concept do not set out to criticise each other or correct mistakes, but to stimulate new branches of research on the conceptual framework of cultural capital. Despite a plethora of research in the past few decades using Bourdieu’s (1977, 1986) concept of cultural capital to explain educational inequalities, researchers have shied away from the critically significant concept of habitus. As mentioned earlier in this chapter, Bourdieu (1977, p. 495) explained that the lack of cultural capital adversely shapes the attitude and outlook of children from disadvantaged backgrounds, which subsequently affects educational achievement and attainment. Although habitus plays an important role in the relationship between cultural capital and academic outcomes, not much research is reported in the literature about this role of habitus. Gaddis (2012) believes habitus can serve as a mediator between cultural capital and academic outcomes, but additional research is needed to fully test this finding. The exploration of cultural factors in this book will be guided by Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital, focusing especially on the factors that may belong to the three categories of cultural capital. Bourdieu (1971) divided cultural capital into three sub-categories:

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(1) Objectified capital refers to cultural artefacts such as paintings, books, instruments or machines that can be literally bought and sold. (2) Embodied capital is directly linked to and incorporated within the individual and represents what they know and can do. This type of cultural capital can be increased by investing time into self-improvement in the form of learning. When embodied capital becomes integrated into individuals, it appears in the form of habits and hence it cannot be transmitted instantaneously. (3) Institutional capital refers to what societal institutions produce such as academic qualifications and recognised professional credentials. Few studies have focused exclusively on cultural factors that affect young Indigenous children’s learning outcomes. Even fewer studies have targeted cultural factors in relation to reading in the early years of Indigenous students. The early years are the foundation that paves the way to future success both in education and employment. Reading has been proven to be the most basic and fundamental part of learning programs and it impacts on other subjects in schooling (Richard et al., 2002). It is imperative therefore to investigate the factors that have an impact on the reading performance of Indigenous children and to identify the ‘gaps’ between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students in reading performance and reading outcomes.

2.5 Conceptual Framework Adopted for the Research Reading and reading education are well-researched fields. A child’s reading ability, word reorganisation and syntax have been found to be the main factors that influence children’s reading performance. However, the roles that cultural factors play in reading have not attracted as much attention in the studies reported in the literature. The well-known interactive-compensatory model of reading (Stanovich, 1986, 2000) overlooks the influence of culture-related factors (Horbury & Cottrell, 2007). What is more, although interest in research about the influence of cultural and contextual factors on reading and reading performance has increased dramatically since then, little has been reported in the literature about the exploration of cultural factors and their impact on reading performance in schools where the majority of students are Indigenous in the NT in Australia (Kamil et al., 2011). The majority of Indigenous students fall behind in the current education system in Australia, despite the numerous efforts made to improve the situation. This is said to result from an inherently unequal socio-economic order (Rose, 2004). Rose’s argument echoes the views of Bourdieu and Passeron in France and Bernstein in Britain, who argued that the unequal socio-economic order is the outcome of social reproduction actioned by cultural capital (Bornstein & Bradley, 2008; Bourdieu, 1977, 1986; Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990). In the same vein, Young (1971) argued that the process and content of cultural capital, rather than innate intelligence, is the most significant factor that affects educational attainment.

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Reading performance refers not only to reading for the sake of engagement in or enjoyment of reading itself, but also to reading for understanding with fluency and accuracy of pronunciation (Alderson & Urquhart, 1984; Richard et al., 2002; Robertson, 2009; Urquhart & Weir, 1998). Richard et al. (2002) believe that reading plays an essential role in overall academic achievement. According to Wilson (2014), research has shown that children who fail in the early years to lay a foundation of basic skills are unlikely to recover later in schooling. Although research has examined the reading process and the knowledge and skills that are required for successful reading, little has been documented in the literature about the roles that cultural factors play in reading. This is even more starkly lacking in the exploration of the impact of cultural factors on young Indigenous students’ reading performance in the Northern Territory in Australia; hence my intention to undertake this study to further explore this field. The most recent efforts and educational research endeavours made by Australian Indigenous scholars and indigenous researchers worldwide must not be overlooked. As we enter an increasingly hyper-diverse classroom, the modern teacher must learn to negotiate the needs of diverse students. In the work of many scholars, while acknowledging the necessity to learn how to read, it is now important to not only learn about diverse cultures, but also use them as a basis for learning and teaching activities. In what follows I will present an overview of what underlies the conceptual framework of this research. It is important to keep in mind that this research is to focus on the impacts of the existing system of teaching at the site of this research, showing how the system deals with the issues concerning incorporating diverse cultures in learning and teaching reading in the school. The discussions of those issues can be traced back to early 1980s, when Au (1980) analysed a culturally appropriate instruction event with an emphasis on the importance of context in reading instruction with Hawaiian Indigenous children, where context was not a physical setting, rather an understanding of what, when and how indigenous people lived. Similarly, Clancey (1995) and Stein (1998) have also strongly recommended situated learning to create a cultural environment where students can actively participate in learning experiences to acquire desired knowledge and manage the relationships between the learner’s prior knowledge and authentic, informal and unintended contextual learning. In situated learning, therefore, learning becomes unintentional rather than deliberate (OTEC, 2007). This was well echoed in the concept of trans-literacy, which is about engaging students in realistic, complex and problem-solving-centred activities that support students in achieving desired learning skills to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media such as handwriting, printing, TV, radio, film and digital social networks (Thomas et al., 2007). It must also be noted that, from humanitarian perspectives, there has been a loud call from linguists, anthropologists, educational scholars, and activists who were deeply concerned about ongoing and unprecedented decline of the Indigenous languages. Through the lens of decolonial theory, there were studies calling scholars for inquiries into Indigenous language revitalized in teaching and learning at school to potentially engender social structural change (Grenoble & Whaley, 2006;

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Guerrettaz, 2020; Reyhner, 2006). It was in the same strain, the language revitalization movement was launched to form new self-understandings and representations of Indigenous identity and power. However, as noted earlier, this book is not to examine those issues at Habermas’ transformative level about trans-literacies and language revitalization. Archibald (2008) investigated First Nations story work, engaged in Elders’ storytelling in the community, promoted story work through the elementary curriculum and suggested culturally appropriate pedagogies. In the same strain, the term ‘cultural appropriate’ is conceptualised as ‘culturally responsive’ by Rigney et al. (2003) argued in their conference paper entitled ‘Training teachers for reconciliation: A work in progress’ that the challenge of addressing cultural diversity in education is critical, as most Indigenous people have little choice but to operate in the dominant education system, as it is in the school where I undertook this research. The notion of ‘culturally responsive’ is also noted by Smith (2011) who asserted that standards for culturally responsive teachers should be provided with visions for teaching that ‘moves away from teaching about cultural heritage as a subject in the curriculum to using local culture as the basis for their educational decisions and activities’ (p. 232). To make things even more complicated, teachers and school leaders in Australia now face super-diverse, complex, multicultural classrooms with students from Indigenous, migrant, refugee, Muslim and Anglo-Celtic backgrounds (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2014) and Australian education reforms have shifted the focus of teacher professional learning from a democratic approach to an outcomes-based focus measured through NAPLAN (National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy) scores (Rigney et al., 2020). The continuous poor results from Indigenous students in tests have prompted a debate on the need for inclusive pedagogies to re-engage Indigenous and other culturally diverse students. Rigney et al. (2020) once again advocated culturally responsive pedagogies that address inequality among students with diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds in the endeavour of schooling in Australia. This culturally responsive pedagogical idea that derives from critical theory is informed by the Vygotskian idea that learning is holistic, antideficit, and socially and cultural mediated (Rizvi & Lingard, 2009; Wink & Putney, 2002). It aims to improve the learning of groups of marginalised students on the basis of dialogic relationships with the teacher through drawing upon the cultural strengths and linguistic repertoires of the students. Following a similar vein, Smith (2003) and Morgan (2019) acknowledged indigenous students’ struggles in the dominant western educational system, and believed teachers and school leaders must be trained to be the change agents to promote radical structural transformation. Smith (2003) also suggested indigenous parents should be given increased control over the curriculum and schooling environment—what should be taught, and how should it be taught—and participate in key educational decision-making processes. Furthermore, some other international scholars (Luke et al., 2011; Sarra, 2011) also noted that targeted and specialised teacher training and professional development in Indigenous education can make a difference in encouraging and shaping cultural knowledge and engagement. This, in return, can contribute

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to the promotion of an inclusive pedagogical approach which creates a supportive classroom environment in which Indigenous students feel ready and culturally safe. In short, an underpinning concept of this study is that apart from theoretical and professional training, teachers of English must also acquire Indigenous cultural knowledge through actively engaging in Indigenous communities outside school, and through everyday engagement with the community. By so doing, they will learn to tailor their default western-oriented teaching methods and apply Indigenous-oriented teaching approaches to best meet the needs of Indigenous students in class. Culturally responsive pedagogies, recommended by Rigney et al. (2020), therefore, offer one example of teaching method for Indigenous students. Many scholars, while acknowledging the necessity to learn how to read, now also acknowledge the importance of learning about diverse cultures, and using them as a basis for learning and teaching activities. It is important to keep in mind that, as stated earlier, this book focuses on the impacts of the existing system of teaching at the site of this research, showing how the system deals with the issues concerning incorporating diverse cultures into learning and teaching reading in the school.

2.6 Summary and Reflections In this chapter, I have made the following discoveries. Firstly, reading is fundamental in early primary education as it plays a significant role in overall academic achievement. Secondly, comprehending text is as important as pronouncing words with accuracy and fluency. Therefore, it is fundamental to assist young children at the early learning stage in developing phonological and phonemic awareness, knowledge of letter–sound relationships, and skills of decoding and encoding, and comprehending. Thirdly, a number of scholars have finetuned their understanding of Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital. The theory of cultural capital has evolved and developed nonlinearly, but in different directions with an emphasis on one aspect of the concept which plays a significant role in contributing to successful learning. Clarity of the concept of cultural capital should be enhanced. Fourthly, little research has been conducted to examine cultural factors linked to Indigenous students’ reading in a dominant culture setting. This prompted me to focus my research upon discovering culture-related factors that might have an impact on young Indigenous students’ learning to read English as an additional language.

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Richgels, D. J. (1982). Schema theory, linguistic theory, and representations of reading comprehension. Educational Research, 76, 54–62. Rigney, D., Tur, S., & Rigney, L. (2003, September 28–30). Training teachers for reconciliation: A work in progress. Paper presented at the Conversactions: Australian Curriculum Studies Association Biennial National Conference, Adelaide, SA. Rigney, L., Garrett, R., Curry, M., & MacGill, B. (2020). Culturally responsive pedagogy and mathmematics through creative and body-based learning: Urban Indigenous schooling. Education and Urban Society, 52(8), 1159–1180. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013124519896861 Rivers, W. (1968). Teaching foreign language skills. University of Chicago Press. Rizvi, F., & Lingard, B. (2009). Globalizing education policy. Routledge. Robertson, K. (2009). Reading 101 for English language learners. Colorín Colorado. http://www. colorincolorado.org/article/33830 Rose, D. (Ed.) (2004). Sequencing and pacing of the hidden curriculum: How Indigenous learners are left out of the chain. In B. Davies, A. Morais, & H. Muller (Eds.), Reading Bernstein, researching Bernstein (pp. 91–107). Routledge. Ruddell, R. B., Unrau, N., & Alvermann, D. E. (2013). Theoretical models and processes of reading. International Reading Association. Rumelhart, D. E. (1977). Toward an interactive model of reading. In S. Dornic (Ed.), Attention and performance VI (pp. 573–603). Erlbaum Associates. Rush, R. (2017). A full circle. Gemma Open Door for Literacy. Sarra, C. (2011). Transforming Indigenous education. In N. Purdie, G. Milgate, & H. Bell (Eds.), Two way teaching and learning: Toward culturally reflective and relevant education (pp. 107–118). ACER. Serravallo, J. (2015). The reading strategies book: Your everything guide to developing skilled readers. Heinemann. Smith, F. (1971). Understanding reading: A psycholinguistic analysis of reading and learning to read. Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Smith, F. (1973). Psycholinguistics and reading. Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Smith, H. (2003, October). Indigenous struggle for transformation of education and schooling. Paper presented at the Alaskan Federation of Natives Convention, Anchorage, Alaska. Smith, H. (2011). Bringing the experience of Indigenous people into Alaska rural systematic initiative/Alaska Native knowledge network. In G. Dei (Ed.), Indigenous philosophies and critical education: A reader (pp. 229–244). Peter Lang. Sporer, N., Brunstein, J. C., & Kieschke, U. (2009). Improving students’ reading comprehension skills: Effects of strategy instruction and reciprocal teaching. Learning and Instruction, 19(3), 272–286. Stanovich, K. (1986). Matthew effects in reading: Some consequences of individual differences in the acquisition of literacy. Reading Research Quarterly, 21(4), 360–407. Stanovich, K. (2000). Process in understanding reading: Scientific foundations and new frontiers. Guilford. Stein, D. (1998). Situated learning in adult education. Eric Clearinghouse on Adult, Career, and Vocational Education. Thomas, S., Joseph, C., Laccetti, J., Mason, B., Mills, S., Perril, S., & Pullinger, K. (2007). Transliteracy: Crossing divides. First Monday, 12(12). Ulijin, J. A., & Kempen, G. M. (1976). The role of the first language in second language reading comprehension: Some experimental evidence. Technische Universiteit Eindhoven. Urquhart, S., & Weir, C. (1998). Reading in a second language: Process, product and practice. Longman. Vandervelden, M. C. (1992). Phonological recording and phonological analytical skill in early literacy learning: A developmental approach (PhD thesis). University of Toronto. Willis, P. (1977). Learning to labour: How working class kids get working class jobs. Columbia University Press.

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Wilson, B. (2014). Review of Indigenous Education in the Northern Territory. Department of Education. http://www.education.nt.gov.au/parents-community/students-learning/indigenouseducation-review-1 Wink, J., & Putney, L. (2002). A vision of Vygotsky. Allyn & Bacon. Yamashita, J., & Jeon, H. E. (2014). L2 reading comprehension and its correlates: A meta-analysis. Journal of Research in Language Studies, 64(1), 160–212. Young, M. F. D. (1971). An approach to the study of curricula as socially organized knowledge. In M. Young (Ed.), Knowledge and control: New directions in the sociology of education (pp. 19–46). Collier Macmillan. Young-Suk, G. K. (2017). Why the simple view of reading is not simplistic: Unpacking component skills of reading using a direct and indirect effect model of reading (DIER). Scientific Studies of Reading, 21(4), 310–333. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2017.1291643

Chapter 3

Research Design and Methodology

Abstract This research explores the challenges that young Australian Indigenous students face in reading English as an additional language and the factors that contribute to their unsatisfactory reading performance. This chapter aims to provide a rationale and descriptions of the research methodology adopted in the book. The unique feature of this book is that it helps readers understand the totality of the contributing factors and their accompanying interdependence. Given the nature of this research, it was necessary to collect and analyse different sets of data to address this demand and provide insight into different aspects of the totality. The design of the data collection and analysis not only ensured richness of sources of information but also allowed data to be collected to triangulate and complement each other. In this chapter I will address the following matters and in so doing present in depth the data sets and the accompanying rationale: what kind of methodology was selected and why; the research design; the selection of the research site and how I recruited participants; and how the sets of data were analysed. Keywords Research methodology · Research design · Data collection · Data analysis

3.1 Qualitative Research Approach ‘Methodology’ refers to the choices researchers make about cases to study, methods of data gathering and forms of data analysis in planning and executing a research study. In social research, methodologies may be defined ‘very broadly’ as quantitative and qualitative (Silverman, 1993, p. 4). The methodology of a study is determined fundamentally by the ontology and epistemology adopted, according to Morse and Maddox (2013). Specifically, the ontological position taken in this study is that reality has multiple constructions, varying from person to person, and the epistemological assumption of this study is that knowledge of the world is shaped by the context and the people involved; it may vary across time and context (Polanin et al., 2017; Tan, 2018). In this research I opted to conduct case studies of three young Indigenous students and three non-Indigenous students in Year 2 in the Northern Territory, Australia to address the research questions: © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 G. Y. A. Yang-Heim, Cultural Perspectives on Indigenous Students’ Reading Performance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9790-7_3

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Research Question 1 What are the challenges that the participating young Australian Indigenous students face in learning reading in English as an additional language (EALD)? Research Question 2 What are the cultural factors that influence these young Australian Indigenous children’s reading performances? Research Question 3 How do the cultural factors influence their EALD reading performance?

3.2 The Design of the Research Quantitative research is used to measure variables and to verify existing hypotheses or to question them (Denzin & Lincoln, 2007; Punch & Oancea, 2014) and it usually involves a large number of respondents. The quantitative measurements must be objective and statistically valid (Bryman, 2004). To put it simply, quantitative research deals with numbers and objective hard data, minimising the influence of the context. In contrast, qualitative studies have a focus on the qualities of the entities involved, and on processes and meanings that cannot be experimentally examined or measured (Punch & Oancea, 2014). In other words, qualitative researchers stress the socially constructed nature of reality, the intimate relationship between the researcher and what is studied, and the situational constraints that shape inquiry (Taylor et al., 2016). Qualitative research, therefore, emphasises understanding meaning, description, experience, ideas, beliefs and values, and the research is conducted in real contexts (Denzin & Lincoln, 2007). In my fieldwork I wished to gain a detailed insight into the world of Indigenous young students, their way of learning, their learning skills and their cultural conditions. Therefore, I decided to conduct the study in the field where the participants were, get to know the participants, observe what they do in reading, and explore what and how they bring to their reading tasks and how these factors influence their reading performance. Determined by the purpose and the fundamentally qualitative nature of this inquiry, the research aimed to deal mainly with words, using data collected through PAT in reading that takes place in the school setting; F&P running records on reading comprehension; audio recording of running records and comprehension of books related to Indigenous culture; interviews; and narrative stories. Since statistics and numbers are usually not expected to provide a rich and holistic account of students’ meaning-making efforts in reading performance, their daily experiences both in and outside school and their voices heard in the interviews, this study is not meant to be a quantitative inquiry but a qualitative one. Progressive Achievement Test (PAT) reading tests are the most popular methods used in the Northern Territory to identify the level of students’ comprehension skills. The test results enable teachers to tailor reading programs to individual students’ reading needs. However, the accuracy and fluency of oral reading is also a major component of reading, so a Fountas and Pinnell (F&P) reading assessment consisting

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of running records and comprehension was brought in as part of the data. It is important that young learners can recognise high-frequency words and decode unfamiliar words using blending and segmenting phonetic strategies. The running records of F&P were used to assess participants’ word recognition and decoding skills. The comprehension component of F&P enabled the data to be triangulated with the data obtained from PAT testing in reading. Due to the fact that the testing materials for F&P and PAT are based on mainstream culture, in order to identify whether this affects Indigenous participants’ performance in reading, data was also collected through audio recordings of reading testing with running records and comprehension of books related to Indigenous culture. Data from the three major reading tests were expected to provide a good picture of how the participants perform in reading. Data from the interviews and narrative stories offer a snapshot of the context where the participants live and learn, which allowed me to gain insights into the cultural or non-cultural factors which might impact Indigenous participants’ reading skills by comparison with the non-Indigenous participants’ reading. As I have argued above from an ontological point of view, qualitative research embraces the idea of multiple realities while, epistemologically, conducting a qualitative study requires the researcher to get as close as possible to the participants being studied to gain knowledge about the participants. I was interested in the multiple realities experienced by the Indigenous young students, such as home, culture, community and school, and also interested in gaining knowledge about the Indigenous young students through their real-life experiences. I adopted a case study approach to gain an in-depth understanding of the multiple cases with information drawn from multiple sources (Yin & Campbell, 2018). A central part of my research design was to collect detailed data on technical reading skills, life experiences and the importance of culture. My intention was that my findings would reveal little-known challenges and barriers for the disadvantaged group in gaining access to education in the mainstream culture, and thereby to provide recommendations for teachers, schools and policy makers to enhance schoolchildren’s learning outcomes. It must be noted that this case study was also a participatory case study because I was involved in the study as a classroom teacher throughout the phases of data generation. Teacher-researchers look at everyday situations in the school, consider the spontaneity that comes with participating students and are involved with advancing the profession of teaching (Lankshear & Knobel, 2005). The teacher-researcher operates in a framework that captures the live action of the classroom while conducting teaching in the classroom (Souto-Manning & Felderman, 2012). Teacher research is deemed a significant means for understanding the intricate details of teaching, students’ learning and classroom activities (MacLean & Mohr, 1999) and a teacherresearcher is therefore supposed to be able to gain an understanding of the students and of their needs in an authentic, true-to-life manner. The field of education needs teacher-researchers who are capable of uncovering and providing insights into

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teaching and learning from countless hours with students in the classroom (BeanFolkes & Souto-Manning, 2012). The students with whom the teacher-researcher works with are expected to benefit from an improved understanding of the social, emotional and cultural aspects that the teacher-researcher uncovers.

3.3 Research Site and Participants In order to address the three research questions stated in Sect. 3.1, this study was designed as an exploratory and participatory case study of Indigenous children’s EALD reading performance in a Year 2 class at a primary school in the Northern Territory in Australia. The study started initially with twelve participating students ranging from six to eight years of age. The research aimed to employ six pairs of participants, with one Indigenous and one mainstream participant in each pair, and two pairs at each of three achievement levels—low, middle and high. However, as it turned out, the number of participants fell from 12 to 6 in the end. Young Indigenous students often experience irregular attendance at school and also unexpected mobility of their families; therefore, the reduction in the number of participants was not unexpected. These were the reasons why the data finally used and reported in the study were collected from six participants out of the twelve who were recruited at the initial stage of the research.

3.4 Data Generation Morse and Maddox (2013) pointed out that integrating qualitative and quantitative findings gives research increased scope, density, detail and even increased validity. Research designs using mixed and multiple methods of data generation have become popular over the past two decades (Morse & Maddox, 2013). A mixed-methods design is defined as consisting of a core component that is a complete study in itself and a supplementary component. The core component could involve a standard qualitative method, such as ethnography, grounded theory, narrative inquiry or phenomenology (Bazeley, 2009; Morse & Niehaus, 2009; Thornberg & Charmaz, 2014; Voils & Hasselblad, 2008). The findings from the core data are solid and can stand alone. The supplementary project consists of an additional strategy, which can be quantitative, that serves to complement the qualitative core component and it does not stand on its own as it is not complete (Morse & Maddox, 2013; Morse & Niehaus, 2009). On the other hand, a multiple-methods design is composed of two complete projects, one qualitative and one quantitative. Both can be published as separate studies. The aim of a multiple-methods study is addressed by the qualitative question, and either the quantitative or qualitative component can take a priority (Morgan,

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1998; Morse & Maddox, 2013). In general, the qualitative study establishes the theoretical base of the research, and the quantitative study adds to the qualitative findings information such as how much, how many or how often and the relationships between pertinent variables (Morse & Maddox, 2013). There are distinct differences between the use of mixed methods and multiple methods. This research did not completely adopt either mixed or multiple methods as described above; however, it utilised similar strategies to mixed qualitative methods. The research employed multiple tools of qualitative data generation involving reading test results, audio recording of reading activities, interviews and narrative stories to maximise the benefits of having different and triangulated data sources. Despite all data being qualitative, each data source served the project in its own way and contributed to the project in its unique manner. Unlike previous studies reported in the literature, which were usually based on data collected via non-participatory classroom observations, the young children in this research were purposefully selected on the basis of their academic achievements. Of the twelve participants, four were high achievers, with two Indigenous and two non-Indigenous students, four were low achievers, with two Indigenous and two non-Indigenous participants, and four were middle-level achievers, including two Indigenous and two non-Indigenous students. As the research progressed, a couple of young Indigenous students experienced irregular attendance and were relocated to other parts of the territory. The remaining participants continued their participation in the process of data collection until all the tests of reading were completed. Among these participants who completed the journey of reading test data collection to the end, three Indigenous students and three mainstream students were selected for the next step of qualitative data collection and analysis. Of the three Indigenous participants, one was at a low level in reading, one at the middle in reading and one at the high level in reading and so were their three counterparts from the non-Indigenous mainstream group from the class, with one at low, one at middle and one at a high level in reading. This study generated data through participatory classroom teaching and learning activities where I played the role of the classroom teacher who taught all learning areas to the class. That means the whole process of data generation (Morse & Maddox, 2013) took place in the natural and authentic situation of the English reading classroom, with the relationship between myself and the participants being played out in a way that is normal in the classroom. This participatory approach to data generation not only ensures the authenticity of the data but also minimises the unwanted interference of observing outsiders, which is usually a factor that has to be dealt with in non-participatory studies in this field. As I argued at the beginning of the chapter, because many factors are involved a holistic view of the lifeworld of the Indigenous young students was necessary. In order to collect data for this study that was as rich and holistic as possible, I collected data from multiple sources through a variety of tools of investigation. This led me to propose a methodology that was able to answer the different research questions. To address Research Question 1

‘What are the challenges that the participating young Australian Indigenous students face in

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learning reading in English as an additional language (EALD)?’, data were collected mainly from the participating students’ performance in F&P (Fountas and Pinnell) reading tests, running records of reading two books (one Indigenous orientated, the other non-Indigenous related), comprehension of the two books being read, and PAT (Progressive Achievement Test) reading test results. To answer Research Question 2 ‘What are the cultural factors that influence these young Australian Indigenous children’s reading performances?’, one-on-one interviews were conducted with each participating student, collecting Indigenous participants’ daily narrative stories to investigate cultural factors that might influence their reading performance. Lastly, to answer Research Ques- ‘How do the cultural factors influence Indigetion 3 nous children’s EALD reading performance?’, data were elicited through one-on-one interviews with three Indigenous students and their paired three non-Indigenous student counterparts, and the narratives of the Indigenous participants. The voices from the participating students and reading performance data of these students were meta-analysed by adopting Habermas’ three types of knowledge constitutive interests as discussed in Chap. 1. As noted earlier, 40% of the students in the school are of Indigenous background, 50% of students are of European descent, and 10% of students are of other ethnic backgrounds. The collection of data took place at the school in a natural setting. The types of data generated in the study are shown in Table 3.1. Before considering each data type, the reader is reminded that, because of my ambition to create a holistic understand of the six students, I decided to collate multiple layers of data. This creates a holistic picture of their world. Some might like to call the data for each participant an ongoing and growing portfolio, developed through audio recordings of one-on-one reading assessments where information was gathered about the participating students’ responses to the texts, participating students’ oral reading of the texts, their narrative stories and one-on-one interviews with each participant. The participating students’ F&P running records and comprehension of the texts constitute the main sources of documentation for the first layer of data in the portfolio. In addition, PAT Reading results also serve as another major part of the participating students’ portfolios, demonstrating the participating students’ reading capabilities, and thereby contributing to the richness of the first layer of data. As noted earlier, the qualitative data collected through interviews and narrative

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Table 3.1 Summary of data generation across multiple layers Characteristics

Purpose

Running records (note 1)

– Non-indigenous testing materials – one-on-one testing

To identify oral reading challenges

Comprehension (note 1)

– Non-indigenous testing materials – one-on-one testing

To identify challenges in understanding texts

Comprehension (note 2)

Online comprehension (multiple choice)

To identify challenges in understanding texts

Audio Running records & recording of comprehension (note 3) activity books

– Indigenous-related testing materials – one-on-one testing

To explore differences in reading performance using materials related to Indigenous culture

Interviews (note 4)

One-on-one

To explore possible cultural factors that impact on reading performance

Narrative stories (note 5)

One-on-one

To gain a deeper insight into factors impacting on Indigenous participants’ reading

Type of data F&P

PAT Reading

Notes (1) Assessment activities of running records and comprehension conducted via F&P reading assessment system (see Sect. 3.4.1) (2) PAT (Progressive Achievement Test) reading results (see Sect. 3.4.2) as evidence of the participating students’ growth over the period in a year of data collection, including reading skills and application of reading strategies to the texts, etc (3) Assessment of running records and comprehension (see Sect. 3.4.3) of testing books related to Indigenous culture (4) A series of one-on-one interviews with the six participating students regarding their daily routine, home environment, their verbal expressions of their understanding of books/TV shows, and their opinions on books and lessons, and the ways in which they express themselves to examine what roles the target cultural factors play in the participating Indigenous students’ reading (5) Narrative stories told by each Indigenous participating student to gain a deeper insight into the reasons why Indigenous participants fall behind their counterparts in reading

stories form a deeper layer of data from which the possible culture-related factors can be extracted to explain why Indigenous participants fall behind in reading.

3.4.1 Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Assessment Systems (F&P) Using Non-Indigenous Culture-Based Texts The single PAT Reading test focuses on comprehension only, so F&P testing of both reading comprehension and running records was also conducted to obtain

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more comprehensive data to identify challenges in Indigenous participating students’ reading. The Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Assessment Systems (Fountas & Pinnell, 2014) is adopted as the standard tool of measurement for students’ formative and summative assessment in the school where the research was conducted. It was employed in the study to determine participating students’ levels of independent and instructional reading. By observing each student’s reading performance in a one-toone manner through F&P (Fountas & Pinnell, 2014), the teacher is expected to make informed decisions on the student’s instructional/independent reading level. If the student is found to be at the instruction level, a series of systematic steps are required to assist the student with reading to attain deeper and higher quality of comprehension and maximum knowledge from the text by instructing him/her on reading skills, new vocabulary and so on. If a student is found to be at an independent level, it means the student has achieved that level of reading ability, and the goal for the student is then to move up to the next level and read texts of increasing difficulty. The F&P assessment of reading includes two major parts: running records and comprehension. Running records function as an assessment tool to provide an insight into a student’s reading performance as it is happening. Running records are commonly taken at the early stages of literacy education at school in the NT to assess students’ skills in decoding and meaning making when reading a text, especially with students who are not progressing at the expected rate. In this study running records were therefore used to help me to analyse a student’s reading performance as she/he read a benchmark book that was selected for the purpose of assessment and to gain a deeper insight into not only the student’s reading ability but also the ways to improve the student’s reading. Another important part of the F&P assessment of reading conducted in the study is the comprehension conversation after the reading. Without comprehension, reading is nothing but tracking symbols on a page with one’s eyes and sounding them out. If an English-speaking student is reading a story written in Chinese characters with no understanding of the characters’ meanings, it can only be said that the Chinese words are appreciated aesthetically and the student may be able to draw some small bits of meaning from the written forms of Chinese, but he/she is not truly reading the text. The words on the paper are simply symbols and convey no meaning to the student. People read for many reasons but understanding is always part of their purpose. Without understanding what is being read, the reader is not gaining any information from the text. The students’ answers to the questions are assessed using a 10-point scale. The guide to the reading comprehension score rubric is provided in Appendix 2. Knowledge in three areas (within the text, about the text, and beyond the text) is essential to a complete understanding of the text. An extra point may be awarded to the student if she/he expresses an additional understanding beyond the key understandings provided. The student’s reading ability, whether it is in the independent or the instructional category of the particular level being assessed, is determined on the basis of the student’s scores for accuracy rate and comprehension. Table A2.1 in Appendix 2 shows how a student’s level of reading is determined using F&P.

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It should be clear from Table A2.1 that, on the basis of the student’s scores in both comprehension and accuracy of decoding, including the detailed information recorded in the running records, the teacher who teaches reading can determine the student’s reading level, and identify the student’s strengths and the areas in which she/he needs to improve. Thereby the teacher can adjust or personalise the reading programs for the student to better meet her/his learning needs.

3.4.2 PAT (Progressive Achievement Test) The PAT test developed by ACER in 2007 has increasingly been used by education specialists and teachers to map students’ progress and development over time (Fogarty, 2007). This is now a commercial test used by many schools. Even though this does not stop it from providing important insights into reading performance, it must be noted that the test is conducted according to the test handbook and I remain convinced that is a one-size-fits-all test and does not offer sensitivity to other cultures. Why have I used it in my book as a source of data when it has this limitation? The answer is that I have deliberately used a test teachers are familiar with, and also to provide the opportunity to understand and comment on to what degree the PAT test in terms of content or process captures or fails to capture the backgrounds of Indigenous youth. PAT Reading refers to progressive achievement tests that are primarily designed to help classroom teachers determine students’ achievement levels in reading comprehension and to indicate possible gaps in reading (ACER, 2018). The aims of conducting PAT Reading tests can be found in Appendix 3. The PAT on the assessment of students’ reading comprehension in literacy education in the participating school is usually conducted online. The length of testing is usually one hour and the testing items of the PAT Reading usually include a variety of formats. The reading texts are usually of various text genres with varied degrees of difficulty. The individual test results enable teachers to tailor reading programs to meet each student’s learning needs. In contrast to F&P testing, PAT does not cover running records which involve students’ reading speed, fluency and accuracy, but only reading comprehension. The results of PAT Reading can be used in conjunction with F&P reading assessment—the comprehension part is used to analyse how participants perform in understanding the text being read.

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3.4.3 Audio Recording of Books Related to Indigenous Culture Both of the school-required reading tests, PAT and F&P, contain content with little cultural sensitivity. Therefore, in this research, I deliberately included reading books related to Indigenous culture to provide more accurate and comprehensive data. Audio recordings were also collected through classroom activities, which were designed in the form of F&P formative reading assessments focusing especially on texts related to Indigenous cultures in Australia. As mentioned above, the standard F&P tests in reading contain test materials that are orientated towards mainstream culture. This does not seem to be to Indigenous students’ advantage when they are required to undertake the standard F&P tests to have their reading ability or achievements in reading assessed in schooling. Horbury and Cottrell (2007) point out that a child’s mother tongue should be extended because the child’s conceptual growth and whole being stem from it and it needs to be very, very solid. It is understood that culture-related stories and texts play an important part in a student’s culture and identity, which is deemed instrumental to the successful acquisition of an additional or second language, thus enhancing reading skills in that language (Yamashita & Jeon, 2014). In the classroom activities designed especially for this study, six books related to Indigenous culture were chosen for the six participating students. Each student was tested on one Indigenous book selected according to the student’s level in reading. The test was organised the same way as the standard F&P tests (see Sect. 3.4.2). The six books are all written in the language of English, telling famous Indigenous Dreaming stories, and they are accompanied with illustrations on each page. Like the standard F&P, the reading activity included two parts—running records with a focus on accuracy in decoding and fluency, and comprehension. Each student was scored against their performance on these two skills: oral reading and comprehension. One-on-one reading sessions were used to gather information on the participating students’ responses to the Indigenous cultural story lines, and the participating students’ questions and comments about those Indigenous cultural stories. The data also included participating students’ word decoding skills, sounding out unfamiliar words in the books, and basic reading behaviour/fix-up strategies applied during the reading process. Running records and comprehension questions on these books related to Indigenous culture constituted part of the main sources of documentation in the portfolio. This documentation was used in the analytic comparison at a later stage with the F&P reading assessment results (Fountas & Pinnell, 2014), which concerned only texts related to mainstream culture. The rationale behind adding the texts oriented to Indigenous culture for testing was to explore whether culturetargeted test materials made any differences to the participating Indigenous students’ reading performances.

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3.4.4 Interviews Interviews conducted in qualitative education research often seek to uncover both a factual and a meaning level of a story behind the participating students’ everyday experiences (Rubin & Rubin, 2005). The interviews in this study included mainly semi-structured open questions in order to remain as adaptable as possible to the participating students’ priorities and preferences. In a sense, I did not strictly follow a list of questions and asked more open questions when needed during the interview (Potter & Hepburn, 2012). As Burns (2000) pointed out: ‘Semi-structured interviews permit greater flexibility and permits a more valid response from the informant’s perception of reality’ (p. 424). I was able to collect rich information from the participating students about their home routines, everyday experience, opinions, preferences and attitude towards learning. The one-on-one interviews in the study allowed the participating students to articulate their daily stories in an explicit way, supported by my prompting questions. In addition, the interviewees were provided with opportunities to express their ideas and opinions in their own words rather than using the vocabulary that I set (Rapley, 2012). The one-on-one interviews were designed to elicit information from the six participating interviewees to address the research questions this study aims to explore. As noted earlier in this chapter, the six participating interviewees were from the class I taught and belonged to two groups: three were Indigenous students while the other three were their non-Indigenous counterparts. They were paired respectively into low-, middle- and high-achieving pairs. The fundamental purposes of the interviews and the grouping were the same as for the audio recording noted in the preceding section, that is, to elicit information from the interviewees to assist me not only to better understand and interpret the in-depth information about the cultural factors that may exert an impact on young Indigenous students’ reading performance, but also to find out why the participating Indigenous students did not perform as well as their counterparts in reading from their unique perspectives, thus better addressing the research questions this study aimed to explore.

3.4.5 Narrative Stories In this study, key events, particular places, and times when the events occurred were highlighted in the narrative stories told by the participating students. The physical layout of activities involving the participant offered me an opportunity to gain insights into why the Indigenous participating students did not perform in reading at a satisfactory level from a narrative angle. This was a different perspective on the research questions than that gained from the other qualitative data-generation tools used in the study. Clandinin (2007) believes that the principal attraction of narrative as a method is its capacity to render life experiences, both personal and social, in a relevant

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and meaningful way. The three categories of time, place and events provide a rich and informative background for the readers of the research. Time is essential to the unfolding of events. Place is a description of the research environment. It may include a description of the physical layout and the locations of various activities that are undertaken by participants in the study. It purposefully provides the readers with the context of the research, which in return helps explore the complexity from a human-centred perspective (Savin-Baden & Niekerk, 2007; Webster & Mertova, 2019). Narrative storytelling occurred on the same dates when I interviewed the individual participating students. Not in any particular order, the participating students took turns in telling me their stories, either in the classroom when the other students were taken by another classroom teacher to a different room or outside the classroom. The time period for collecting narrative stories was September to December 2016. Each participating student’s storytelling was recorded. Sometimes I also asked prompting questions to obtain more details of particular events in the story and meanwhile I also jotted down notes to retain as much of the raw and original flavour of the life stories as possible.

3.5 Data Analysis The purpose of analysing data is to find meanings in the data and demonstrate insight into the research object by organising and representing the data (Miles et al., 2013). As indicated at the beginning of the chapter, I chose a layered data approach. There is a connection between the layers. The first layer identifies the challenges Indigenous participating students face in reading; the second layer is to examine the possible cultural factors influencing the Indigenous students’ reading performance; the third layer is a meta-analysis of how these culture-related factors impact on Indigenous students’ learning to read English, which is underpinned by the conceptual framework of cultural capital and interpreted from Habermas’ (1972) hermeneutic perspective. With that in mind, I have summarised the layers and visually represented them in Table 3.2. Table 3.2 A Glimpse of the three layers of data Layers

Type

Purpose

First

PAT

Identification of challenges

F&P Testing materials related to Indigenous culture Second

Interviews

Identification of themes

Third

Narrative stories

Identification of additional factors from participating students’ perspectives

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Data collected from audio recording of the classroom activities and the results of the F&P and PAT Reading tests were first analysed to identify the challenges the Indigenous participants encountered in reading. Following this, the data generated from interviews and narrative stories that expanded the baseline findings were analysed and interpreted to find out how and why the participating Indigenous students and their mainstream counterparts varied in their reading performances and the relationships between ‘pertinent variables’ (Morse & Maddox, 2013, pp. 524–539). In this research project, ‘pertinent variables’ refers to the range of themes and sociocultural factors extracted from the reading test results obtained through the PAT and F&P, and from interview data and narrative enquires. The thematic patterns that emerged from the analytic analysis of the interview data are expected to contribute to the explanation of the Indigenous participating students’ unsatisfactory reading performance, while the findings based on the narrative enquiries are supposed to further support the linkage identified between the first layer of data and the second layer of data as shown in Table 3.2. The integrative meta-analysis of the findings based on these three different types of data will be discussed in depth in Chap. 6.

3.5.1 Analysis of the Test Results of PAT Reading (Progressive Achievement Test in Reading) The PAT Reading test is conducted online and it automatically scores students’ answers and generates individual and group reports. To address the research questions, only the test results towards the end of Year 2 were used and analysed in the study. Individual participating students’ reports were generated by PAT Reading online based on each student’s performance in regard to comprehension strategies or skills involved in the tests. Individual reports were therefore analysed to identify what the participating students did well and did not do well. Three pairs of low-, middle- and high-achieving participating students’ test results were compared and analysed; thus, commonalities and differences were generated. In this study, the six individual reports on the PAT Reading results are coded as follows: AS1 AS2 AS3 MS1 MS2 MS3

Indigenous student high (level in reading) Indigenous student middle (level in reading) Indigenous student low (level in reading) Mainstream student high (level in reading) Mainstream student middle (level in reading) Mainstream student low (level in reading).

AS1 and MS1 form one pair; AS2 and MS2 another; and AS3 and MS3 the third pair. The three pairs were compared and analysed pair by pair. Similarities and differences started to come to the surface after the first round of comparison and then the six reports were analysed in groups, with AS1, AS2 and AS3 being brought together as

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a group of three Indigenous students, while MS1, MS2 and MS3 were analysed as a group of three mainstream (non-Indigenous) students.

3.5.2 Analysis of the Test Results of F&P Reading Tests on Texts Not Related to Indigenous Culture The six participating students’ reading performance were assessed in the study using the standard Fountas and Pinnell system (Fountas & Pinnell, 2014). As noted in Sect. 3.4.1, the standard F&P is based on texts that hardly involve any content that is specific to Indigenous culture. The F&P assessment measured students’ decoding and comprehension skills. The participating students’ test results in the F&P were analysed in the same way as their PAT Reading results. The individual participating students were compared pair by pair to interpret the performance gaps between the Indigenous and nonIndigenous participants. And then the six participating students’ results in the F&P were analysed in two groups (i.e. the group of Indigenous students and their nonIndigenous counterparts).

3.5.3 Analysis of the Audio Recording of the Classroom Reading Activities with Texts Based on Indigenous Culture All of the six participating students’ results for the reading activities were audio recorded. The analysis started with the transcription of the audio recordings. The transcripts and the accompanying running records, and my fieldnotes were analysed in the same way as their results in the standard F&P tests to identify their strengths and areas that needed to be improved. Similarly, the six participating students’ performances recorded in the activities were compared first pair by pair, and then in the group of Indigenous students and of their non-Indigenous counterparts to generate patterns, and to extract findings that might reveal the gap or differences between the participating Indigenous students and their non-Indigenous counterparts, which the standard F&P testing alone is not able to uncover.

3.5.4 Interviews Roulston (2014) indicates that qualitative researchers agree that interviewing is a very powerful research technique to enable them to seek a rich understanding of

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human nature and experience. She also believes that analysis of qualitative interview data analysis is diverse; therefore there is no one right way to analyse them (Roulston, 2014). In broad terms, analysing interview data includes the phases of (1) data reduction, (2) data reorganisation, and (3) data representation (Roulston, 2014). In other words, the process of data analysis includes the phases of data reduction or condensation; data display; conclusion drawing; and verification (Miles et al., 2013). Kvale (2011, p. 104) also describes the process of data analysis as meaning coding, meaning condensing and meaning interpreting. There is a good deal of variation in how these terms are worded and enacted. Regardless of the various descriptions of data analysis, they all share commonalities. Common steps are involved in preparing for interview data analysis and representation if the process is broken down into smaller steps: . . . . . .

transcribing verbal data sorting and comparing data coding and classifying categorising interpreting writing up findings.

In this study, the above steps were realised in five steps as explained below.

3.5.4.1

Transcribing

During the process of transcribing the interview data, the transcripts included interjections such as ‘um’, ‘uh’ and ‘yeah’ to retain the originality of the responses from the participating students. As Roulston (2014) pointed out, interjections are useful in the initial transcription of the interview and, in order to support a better interpretation of the content of the interview, it is important to record the slips and stumbles that take place in everyday interaction. Descriptions of non-verbal behaviour such as ‘a long pause’ were also included to support the presentation of the interaction (Kvale, 2011) and the analysis of the content. The initial transcripts constituted the basis of the second layer of data for the thematic analysis in the study.

3.5.4.2

Initial Coding

The initial coding of the interview data was carried out using the computer software NVivo. The entire corpus of interview data was entered into NVivo and the initial coding started by going through the entire corpus phrase by phrase, and sentence by sentence, identifying the key information in each data unit or proposition. With the assistance of NVivo, the initial coding of the entire interview data was achieved in a most efficient manner, which saved considerable time and effort in comparison with conventional data coding with pen and paper.

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Broad Coding

The codes that resulted from the initial coding were compared, reread and reflected upon. Consequently, the initial codes were organised into broad codes by grouping together codes that were closely connected in terms of meaning, content or topic. In other words, the initial codes were condensed and organised into larger ideas, which I called the broad codes.

3.5.4.4

Identifying Themes (Categories)

The step that followed ‘broad coding’ was the identification of themes or categories. After re-reading, reflecting and interpreting in relation to the field notes (i.e. my memos), I identified the connections between ideas encoded in the broad codes and collapsed them into larger and more condensed ideas, which are referred to as initial themes (categories) in this study (Kvale, 2011).

3.5.4.5

Developing Themes

Although researchers may vary in their theoretical approach, what is common at this stage of analysis is the development of the key concepts with regard to the topic of the study (Kvale, 2011). According to grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), eventually the themes are integrated into overarching concepts (Bryant & Charmaz, 2007). In the step of ‘developing themes’, the analysis of the interview data resulted in the development of the ‘initial themes’ into the ‘broad themes’ and then the ‘final themes’ that had been hidden in the data about the research problem that the research project set out to investigate. To illustrate the robustness of the mechanisms built into the analytical process, an example of the analysis of the interview data is presented here. Table 3.3 shows how the themes were developed in the process of interview data analysis. The interview transcript was accessed through NVivo: Researcher We had relaxation, and quiet reading first. Can you remember what happened after that? AS3 (Yawning) Um, cannot remember. Table 3.3 An example of interview data analysis Interview transcripts

Initial themes

1. Researcher: After you did Length of information quiet reading, what else did retention you do? AS3: I, I on mat, put, then PAT test. [Note: PAT test did not happen]

Broad themes

Final themes

Skills

Personal factors

3.5 Data Analysis

Researcher AS3 Researcher AS3

47

After you did quiet reading, what else did you do? I, I on mat, put, then PAT test. [Note: PAT test did not happen.] What did you learn from the last lesson at school? Uh, uh, um, is, uh, can’t remember.

The data indicate that AS3 could not remember events that occurred in the classroom and he did not remember what the lesson was about. He either responded ‘cannot remember’ or recalled an event that happened at another time. Clearly AS3 struggled to recall events that happened on the same day when he was interviewed. This event was coded as ‘different length in retaining information’ as an initial theme. When the initial theme was compared with other initial themes to identify similarities and differences, it was then placed in the broad theme called ‘skills’ (Vainikainen et al., 2015). At the final stage of analysis, the broad theme ‘skills’ was grouped into the final theme of ‘personal factors’. (See Chap. 5 for a detailed presentation and discussion of the analysis of interview data.)

3.5.5 Narrative Stories In order to maintain the entire picture of the individual participating students’ daily experience, the whole interview data set was also treated as the data collected for a narrative enquiry and was converted into the form of stories in the first person where utterances such as ‘um’ or non-verbal behaviour such as ‘a long pause’ were removed for the purpose of readability. For example, words like ‘um’ were deleted; word repetition was omitted. Roulston (2014) believes that these utterances or redundant words do not contribute to the form of the story, even though they are quite useful in the initial transcription of the interview data to support interpretation of the content. In this research, the narrative stories were told by the participating students through the one-on-one interviews. In other words, the stories contain the same content as the interview data, but the former is constructed from the perspective of a narrative inquiry to turn the data into a story and make the overall data more comprehensive and closer to the real-life experience. Being mindful of the typical limitations of narrative inquiry, the individual interviews were recorded so that I could refer back to the oral recording when constructing the stories, which were individually organised in the form of separate stories in this study. I took a large quantity of notes while the participating students were telling the stories. Six participating students told their individual stories; however only the three Indigenous students’ narratives were used and analysed for the purpose of addressing the research questions. It must also be noted that insufficient time allocated for storytelling in one time slot was another challenge. I could only use my limited non-contact hours (a maximum of an hour per day) during the school day to collect the narratives. Often, one story could not be completed during the hour and it had to be continued on another occasion. This impacted the fluency or cohesion of the story.

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3.6 Validity and Reliability Validity in research is concerned with the precise results from the data in accordance with the focus of the study. A valid study demonstrates what actually exists and a valid instrument measures what it is supposed to measure. Reliability deals with the consistency, stability and repeatability of the informants’ accounts as well as the researcher’s ability to collect and record information accurately. It refers to the ability of a research method to yield the same results consistently over the datacollecting periods (Brink, 1993; Burns, 2000; Stake, 2010). In other words, reliability requires that a researcher using the same or comparable methods will obtain the same or comparable results every time the researcher uses the methods on the same or comparable subjects (Bryman, 2004). In order to yield results that were as accurate as possible, more than one reading test (PAT and F&P) was conducted to obtain the participating students’ performance results reflecting their reading abilities and levels for data analysis. These data were also validated by comparing individual participants and groups of participants to generate findings which helped answer the research questions. In addition, in order to ensure the reliability of the data, some techniques such as note taking and audio taping were used during participants’ reading performance and interviews throughout the process of data generation in the study. In order to ensure the richness and complexity of human behaviour were properly captured in the research, triangulation techniques were adopted to collect research data from more than one source or standpoint, and to properly map out the data to address the intended research questions (Ashour, 2018; Burns, 2000). In this study, multiple data sources were engaged for the purpose of addressing the research questions: the Indigenous students and non-Indigenous students, and myself as a classroom English teacher-researcher, the range of texts for reading, F&P test results including running records and comprehension, PAT Reading results, reading materials related to Indigenous culture, a series of one-on-one interviews, and participating students’ narratives. In addition, I have also sought to reflect upon a modern set of concepts. It includes honesty, authenticity and familiarity. The research was conducted in an honest manner from the identification of real challenges faced by the Indigenous students to the data collection and analysis. The study was done in an authentic classroom situation and I was familiar with the context of the study.

3.7 Ethical Issues This study involved human participants and ethical issues needed to be taken into consideration in the research. The participants were informed of the aims of the research and agreed to participate without any coercion (Cohen et al., 2000). To gain informed consent from the participants, I informed the participating students

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and their parents/guardians of the purpose of the study and the details of the study, advising them of what they would do if they agreed to participate, and how their rights and the confidentiality of the information they provided would be protected. Several ethical procedures were followed. First, the participants’ parents were provided with information sheets and consent forms. They were given sufficient information about the purpose of the study, what the participants would be doing in the study, and the way in which data would be collected and treated. Second, to assist Indigenous parents to understand the information better, I invited an Indigenous staff member who was also my cultural adviser for this study to interpret the information sheet and the consent form to the Indigenous participants’ parents orally in Indigenous language. Participants had the right to withdraw at any stage of data collecting. As Cohen et al. (2000) suggested, the decision whether to become involved and when to withdraw from the research was controlled entirely by the participants. Third, the steps that were taken to protect the safety and confidentiality of the research data followed the protocol set by the University of South Australia and the participants were also informed accordingly. This research project was approved by the University of South Australia and the Department of Education NT prior to commencing data collection. The protocols set by both the University of South Australia and the Department of Education NT were strictly abided by throughout the process of the research. An Indigenous advisory group was established prior to data collection. The group consisted of three volunteer Indigenous staff members at the research site. They offered assistance on aspects of the research study including: (1) discussing research questions; (2) providing cultural input for data collection plans; (3) discussing ethical considerations around the research; (4) interpreting the consent form and information sheet in Indigenous language for some participants’ parents who did not speak English; (5) encouraging students to participate in the study; and (6) providing community information to assist me in gaining a better understanding of their culture.

3.8 Summary and Reflections In this research I adopted a qualitative approach and I was conscious of the need for sensitivity to the culture where the study was conducted. Unlike previous research projects, this research considered the totality of factors which influence the reading performance of young Indigenous students. Quantitative research is more about measuring variables and usually involves a large number of participants. In order to gain a rich and holistic account of young Indigenous students’ world including their learning styles, skills and cultural experiences, in this study qualitative research was adopted to gain a better understanding of the topic as this research approach enabled me to gather rich and comprehensive data, with a consciousness of the need for sensitivity to the cultural context. Determined by the nature and purpose of this study and the qualitative approach, an exploratory and participatory case study of six participating students including three

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Indigenous and three non-Indigenous participants was undertaken to address the three research questions. This case study approach allowed me to follow the participating students over six months to gain detailed and in-depth data from different sources, namely reading tests, interviews and stories. These data sources enabled the research to explore the challenges that participating students face in reading and the factors that impact on these challenges. Meanwhile, I was also the participating students’ classroom teacher throughout the data-generation phase. The purpose of being a teacher-researcher is to know the students and their culture better to provide the best possible learning support. The data generation was also unlike any other research project. Different layers of data were collected to provide insight into different aspects of the totality of the factors and their relationships. The first layer of data was test results from PAT Reading and F&P reading assessments. The findings from the tests provided baseline data about the challenges that the participating students faced in reading. The second layer of data came from a one-on-one semi-structured interview with each participating student. The findings from the interviews provide insights into the unsatisfactory reading performances, especially the factors that contribute to the reading results. In addition, the narratives of the three Indigenous participating students were analysed from the participants’ unique perspectives. The multiple sets of data were analysed together in order to address the research questions.

References Ashour, M. L. (2018). Triangulation as a powerful methodological research technique in technologybased service. Business and Management Studies, 6(1), 193–208. Australian Council for Education Research (ACER). (2018). Progressive achievement test in reading: Comprehension and vocabulary. Northern Territory Government. Bazeley, P. (2009). Mixed methods data analysis. In S. Andrew & E. Halcomb (Eds.), Mixed methods research for nursing and the health sciences (pp. 84–118). Wiley. Bean-Folkes, J., & Souto-Manning, M. (2012). Teacher as researcher: The ‘why’ behind teacher research. Childhood Education, 87(5), 357–360. Brink, H. L. (1993, March 19). Validity and reliability in qualitative research (Paper presentation). SA Society of Nurse Researchers Workshop, Johannesburg. Bryant, A., & Charmaz, K. (Eds.). (2007). The Sage handbook of grounded theory. Sage. Bryman, A. (2004). Social research methods. Oxford University Press. Burns, R. B. (2000). Introduction to research methods (4th ed.). Pearson Education. Clandinin, D. J. (2007). Handbook of narrative inquiry: Mapping a methodology. Sage. Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K. (2000). Research methods in education (5th ed.). RoutledgeFalmer. Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2007). Collecting and interpreting qualitative materials. Sage. Fogarty, G. (2007). Research on the progressive achievement tests and academic achievement in schools. Australian Council for Educational Research. Fountas, I., & Pinnell, G. S. (2014). Fountas & Pinnell literacy. Heinemann. Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. Aldine de Gruyter. Habermas, J. (1972). Knowledge and interest. Beacon Press.

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Horbury, A., & Cottrell, K. (2007). Cultural factors affecting the acquisition of reading strategies in bilingual children. Education 3–13: International Journal of Primary and Early Years Education, 25(1), 24–26. Kvale, S. (2011). Analysing interviews. In S. Kvale (Ed.), Doing interviews (pp. 102–120). Sage. Lankshear, C., & Knobel, M. (2005). A handbook for teacher research: From design to implementation. Open University Press. MacLean, M., & Mohr, M. (1999). Teacher-researchers at work. National Writing Project. Miles, M., Huberman, A. M., & Saldana, J. (2013). Qualitative data analysis: A methods sourcebook (3rd ed.). Sage. Morgan, D. (1998). Qualitative content analysis: A guide to paths not taken. Qualitative Health Research, 3(1), 112–121. Morse, J. M., & Maddox, L. J. (2013). Analytic integration in qualitatively driven (QUAL) mixed and multiple methods designs. In U. Flick (Ed.), The Sage handbook of qualitative data analysis (pp. 524–539). Sage. Morse, J. M., & Niehaus, L. (2009). Mixed-method design: Principles and procedures. Left Coast. Polanin, J. R., Maynard, B. R., & Dell, N. A. (2017). Overviews in education research: A systematic review and analysis. Review of Educational Research, 87(1), 172–203. Potter, J., & Hepburn, A. (2012). Eight challenges for interview researchers. In J. F. Gubrium & J. A. Holstein (Eds.), Handbook of interview research (2nd ed., pp. 555–570). Sage. Punch, K., & Oancea, A. (2014). Introduction to research methods in education (2nd ed.). Sage. Rapley, T. (2012). The extraordinary practices of qualitative interviewing. In J. F. Gubrium, J. A. Holstein, A. Marvasti, & K. McKinney (Eds.), The Sage handbook of interview research (2nd ed., pp. 541–554). Sage. Roulston, K. (2014). Analysing interviews. In U. Flick (Ed.), The Sage handbook of qualitative data analysis (pp. 297–312). Sage. Rubin, H. J., & Rubin, I. S. (2005). Qualitative interviewing: The art of hearing data (2nd ed.). Sage. Savin-Baden, M., & Niekerk, V. L. (2007). Narrative inquiry: Theory and practice. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 31(3), 459–472. Silverman, D. (1993). Interpreting qualitative data: Methods for analysing talk, text and interaction. Sage. Souto-Manning, M., & Felderman, C. (2012). Teacher as researcher: What’s really going on: Teacher research in a 2nd-grade classroom. Childhood Education, 86(5), 335–336. Stake, R. E. (2010). Qualitative research: Studying how things work. Guilford Press. Tan, W. (2018). Research methods: A practical guide for students and researchers. World Scientific Publishing Co. Taylor, S., Bogdan, R., & DeVault, M. L. (2016). Introduction to qualitative research methods: A guidebook and resource (4th ed.). Wiley. Thornberg, R., & Charmaz, K. (2014). Grounded theory and theoretical coding. In U. Flick (Ed.), The Sage handbook of qualitative analysis (pp. 153–169). Sage. Vainikainen, M., Wustenberg, S., Kupiainen, S., Hotulainen, R., & Hautamaki, J. (2015). Development of learning to learn skills in primary school. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 34(4), 376–392. Voils, S., & Hasselblad, V. (2008). Making sense of qualitative and quantitative findings in mixed research study synthesis. Field Methods, 20, 3–35. https://doi.org/10.1177/1525822X07307463 Webster, L., & Mertova, P. (2019). Using narrative inquiry as a research method: An introduction to using critical event narrative analysis in research on learning and teaching (2nd ed.). Routledge. Yamashita, J., & Jeon, H. E. (2014). L2 reading comprehension and its correlates: A meta-analysis. Journal of Research in Language Studies, 64(1), 160–212. Yin, K., & Campbell, T. (2018). Case study research and applications: Design and methods (6th ed.). Sage.

Chapter 4

Challenges in Reading Faced by Indigenous Students

Abstract Australian Indigenous students’ literacy learning outcomes have continuously fallen behind national standards despite constant efforts and resources invested in education to minimise the gap. A variety of teaching pedagogies and programs have been introduced in schools with the aim of improving the academic performance of Indigenous students. Unfortunately, the invested resources and efforts have not paid off as Indigenous students’ learning, especially their literacy outcomes, are still well below achievement standards. This chapter reveals detailed and exact learning challenges that Indigenous students face during reading performance. It serves as baseline data for the explanation in Chapter 6 of the connectivity between the reading challenges and the culture-related factors and what role culture plays in shaping the way Indigenous students think, learn and communicate. It is my obligation as a researcher to investigate the issue holistically to identify intersectionality among factors and challenges in order to assist stakeholders and the public to gain an indepth understanding of Indigenous culture and how the culture impacts students’ learning. These evidence-based findings will assist policy makers to target the areas that need to be reformed to provide the most appropriate education for Indigenous students, thus lifting their overall learning outcomes. Keywords Literacy learning outcomes · Indigenous culture · Reading challenges

4.1 Introduction The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the challenges faced by the Indigenous participating students in both PAT Reading (Progressive Achievement Test in Reading) and F&P tests (Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Assessment Systems) as well as in the classroom reading activities designed in the form of F&P but based on texts related to Indigenous culture. The challenges will be examined in comparison with the Indigenous participants’ non-Indigenous counterparts in the class. It must be noted that the PAT and F&P tests are complementary in that PAT Reading tests are solely comprehension orientated using mainstream culture-related test materials, while F&P tests are based on running records, which have a focus on phonics, and responses to comprehension questions on the non-Indigenous and Indigenous © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 G. Y. A. Yang-Heim, Cultural Perspectives on Indigenous Students’ Reading Performance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9790-7_4

53

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4 Challenges in Reading Faced by Indigenous Students

culture-related reading texts. In the early years, decoding is the major part of assessment in reading and a test on decoding is mandatory at the school to meet the curriculum needs. I will present and critically consider a number of topics connected with reading tests in this cultural context. The three major types of reading challenges are discovered and analysed from the perspectives of linguistics, world knowledge and comprehension. Under each theme, several specific and detailed aspects of the challenges are discussed and analysed.

4.1.1 PAT Reading PAT Reading assesses students’ reading comprehension skills and vocabulary knowledge but not reading fluency. PAT Reading assesses the student’s ability to retrieve directly stated information, interpret explicit information, interpret implied information and reflect on texts, and the student’s responses are structured in multiple-choice format (ACER, 2018). These reading skills are the comprehension skills stipulated in the Australian Curriculum for English (ACARA, 2018; ACER, 2018). NT Education Department recommends that the same PAT Reading test is conducted twice a year, with the first one at the start of Term One and the second test done in Term Three. The information generated from the first test helps the teacher to design tailored and individualised reading programs for participating students. The series of snapshots of the students’ current abilities in reading are intended to demonstrate the reading skills that the students have mastered, and those they are lacking. The second PAT Reading results provide the teacher with a picture that the teacher can compare with the first PAT Reading to find out how much progress the class or each student who participated in both tests have made after the implementation of the tailored reading programs catering explicitly for the students’ needs. This is why it is called a progressive achievement test (ACER, 2018). The beauty of PAT Reading is the flexibility of its application and implementation. Each school has its own way of using the tests based on its own circumstances. The primary school where the project was conducted requires students to sit the tests which are targeted at the specific year level. If students achieve 95% or above in the targeted test, they are encouraged to take the test at the next level up. In this participating Year 2 class, PAT Reading Test 2 was used to assess Year 2 students’ reading performance. There are a few students who are currently in Year 2 who could have already been tested on PAT Reading Test 4, which is designed for Year 4 students. In short, the individual test results help teachers to design personalised reading programs to meet each students’ learning needs, and comparisons of the results for the same student, between students or between classes allow teachers to identify the gap in students’ achievements in reading so as to intervene promptly to maximise students’ learning in a short time. This research aims to address the research questions about the challenges that Indigenous students face in reading and the cultural factors that might influence their

4.1 Introduction

55

reading results. Therefore, only the Term Three PAT Reading (Test 2) results were used to serve the research purpose. I administered the PAT Reading (Test 2) to the whole class before lunchtime on 18 October 2016 in Term Three, except for the students who were absent from school that day. The absentees had a catch-up test on 27 October 2016. Before each student was assigned a computer, I had set up the test on each computer by logging in the individual username and password to allow the test result to be linked to the student’s profile online. Once all the computers were ready, I modelled the instructions by giving an example on the overhead projector until every student understood. The test ran for approximately an hour. During the test, students were not allowed to chat, refer to books or websites, or ask classmates for assistance if they got stuck. I did not read the texts or questions for the students. Those who finished the test early were asked to read books (which I had prepared in advance) quietly around the corner until everyone in the class completed the test within an hour. Every student was supposed to complete the test within the same time frame. The test results were generated immediately online after the test was completed. The PAT Reading test consists of five texts arranged from simple to relatively challenging in terms of the level of difficulty. Each text is accompanied by around five questions which require comprehension skills and vocabulary knowledge. Table 4.1 shows the targeted comprehension skills, the number of questions set for each skill and the ID numbers of the questions that were directed to each skill, and the short forms of the names of each skill. Table 4.1 shows that four comprehension skills were tested, namely retrieving directly stated information or RI, interpreting explicit information or IE, interpreting by making inference or II, and reflecting on text or RF. Only the last question of the test assesses skill in RF and only question 21 is about skill in II. Ten questions are about RI (retrieving directly stated information) and 13 questions are for IE (interpreting explicit information). It is clear the emphasis is placed on RI and IE skills in the test. The four skills that PAT Reading is designed to test are defined as follows: Table 4.1 Snapshot of PAT Reading tests Skills

Number of questions

Short forms

Question ID numbers

Retrieving directly stated information

10

RI

1, 6, 7, 11, 13, 15, 18, 19, 20, 23

Interpreting explicit information

13

IE

2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 16, 17, 22, 24

Interpreting by making inference

1

II

21

Reflecting on texts

1

RF

25

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4 Challenges in Reading Faced by Indigenous Students

. Reflecting on texts: This is an analytical practice in which the reader adds personal reflection on the meaning of the item or incident, thought, feeling or situation described in the texts. It involves making a simple connection between information in the text and common, everyday knowledge. . Interpreting by making inference: Identify the main idea in a text, understand the relationship, construe meaning within a limited part of the text when the information is not prominent. Figure out meaning from evidence or reasoning rather than from explicit statements. . Interpreting explicit information: Recognise the main theme or author’s purpose in the text about a familiar topic, when the required information in the text is prominent. Understand meanings from the text that are clearly and directly stated. . Retrieving directly stated information: Locate one or more independent pieces of explicitly stated information (ACER, 2018). In the test, the students’ scale sores (see Fig. 4.1 for an example) indicate the kinds of texts and text complexities that students in the band can read and understand. The text and question annotations help the teacher to better understand the skills this student has largely mastered. This helps the teacher to support the student by selecting appropriate texts for independent reading. Each text illustrates different aspects of text complexity and they are not of uniform readability or the same difficulty value. The first text is easier and more relatable to students’ experience in life than the rest of them and the estimated complexity and unfamiliarity increases with each text. The last text is considered to be the mostly remotely related to the students’ life experience. In this case, students are encouraged to read a variety of texts and access many kinds of texts for independent reading. It can be seen from Fig. 4.1 that the questions in the PAT Reading test are sorted by classification according to the reading skills involved: RI, IE, RF and II. The far-left vertical line (the y-axis) shows the degree of difficulty of each question, also called scale scores. The numbers on the y-axis are counted from bottom to top. The larger the number is, the more difficult the question is. The bottom horizontal line (the x-axis) shows the questions’ ID numbers. The numbers are not necessary in sequential order but arranged according to the four reading skills assessed in the test. As the x-axis shows, the test contains 25 questions: 7 questions are on the scale score over 100, 8 questions sit between 90 and 100, 8 questions fall between 80 and 90, and 2 are below 80 yet above 70. The red squares indicate incorrect answers and the green circles mean the answers are correct. The broken horizontal line shows the student’s ability in reading comprehension based on the current test results. This line on the graph also helps interpret the relationship between the level of difficulty of the questions and the student’s achievement in reading or current reading ability. As it is shown in Fig. 4.1, the level of difficulty of the questions is represented by scale scores. The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) is an independent, non-profit research organisation that provides high-quality assessments and reporting tools for Australian schools (https://www.acer.org/about-us). ACER points out that scale scores are the best indicators of students’ current reading ability. The scale score of an item is a measure of the extent of skills and knowledge required from

4.1 Introduction

57

Fig. 4.1 Report on a participating atudent’s PAT Reading (Test 2) scale scores

a student to be successful on the item. A difficult item has a high scale score because it requires more sophisticated skills and richer knowledge to answer correctly than items lower on the scale. Thus, scale scores take into consideration the relationships between the level of difficulty of the test items and the level of ability of the students. For example, a test raw score of 4 on PAT Reading in Test 2 (catering for Year 2 students) is equal to a scale score of 76.4, whereas the same test raw score on PAT Reading Test 3 (catering for Year 3 students) is equal to a scale score of 79.4. This example shows that relying on raw test scores alone does not give an accurate picture of a student’s ability. According to ACER, a difference of 5 in scale scores in the middle of the PAT scale (for example, from 50 to 55) is equivalent to the same difference on any other part of the scale (for example, from 15 to 20 or from 85 to 90). Scale scores allow comparison of results on test booklets of varying difficulty and they enable the tracking of students’ development in skills as measured by the test from year to year. As a result, scale scores provide a common achievement scale for all test booklets, giving teachers the flexibility to match the test level to a student’s ability and measure growth over time (https://www.acer.org/about-us). The purpose of utilising scale scores for this study is to determine the students’ reading skills at the time of the test. Put simply, the scale scores enable us to analyse how well the students have mastered the essential reading skills indicated by the test results and the learning needs that should be focused on to enhance students’ reading ability. Obtaining the same test score on two tests (e.g. Test 2 and Test 3) could suggest that the two results

58

4 Challenges in Reading Faced by Indigenous Students

are equivalent; however, a comparison of the scale scores of the two tests would show that the Test 3 score is much higher than the Test 2 score.

4.1.2 F&P Reading Tests As noted earlier, the F&P reading test consists of two parts: 1. running records to check students’ decoding skills and the fluency of the reading; 2. comprehension of the same text by answering questions. The running record of F&P reading tests allows the teacher to assess a student’s reading performance as she/he reads from a benchmark book that is selected for the running record assessment purpose. The student is assessed according to the criteria of the reading ability at the assessed level. Running records are commonly taken at the early stages of reading development at schools in the NT, especially with students who are not progressing at the expected rate. Running records are therefore used to help the teacher analyse a student’s reading behaviour and gain a deeper insight into ways of improving the student’s reading and the challenges she/he has to deal with. Unlike F&P reading tests, PAT Reading tests focus on comprehension, with students quietly reading the texts and completing multiple-choice questions on their individual computer screen. Therefore, the PAT Reading test is not meant to determine students’ reading errors, accuracy in reading aloud and self-correction rates since students read the passage silently in PAT. In order to measure the participating students’ decoding accuracy, their F&P running records and comprehension were incorporated into the analysis. F&P assessment systems are deemed to be accurate and reliable tools to identify individual students’ reading behaviours and reading levels and teachers can document the student’s comprehension of the text and identify individual student’s oral reading skills through one-on-one formative and summative assessments. F&P running records were usually taken every two weeks to monitor students’ decoding and comprehension progress. Accuracy, fluency, self-correction and comprehension were examined in the reading test. The key indicators of the test are defined as follows: Fluency: It is defined as the ability to read with appropriate phrasing, pausing, stress with proper expression. Two important aspects of reading fluency are reading rates and accuracy. Reading rate is how fast the text is read. Accuracy is reader’s ability to read without making mistakes. Accuracy percentage: Calculating the Percent of Accuracy for a record by subtracting the total number of errors made from the number of running words in the text. The answer will then be divided by the number of running words. Self-correction: It is an ability to fix mistakes in the reading process. The selfcorrection rate is expressed as 1:4. This means that the student corrects approximately 1 out of every 4 errors. If a student is self-correcting at a rate of 1:4 or less, this indicates that he or she is self-monitoring his or her reading.

4.1 Introduction

59

Comprehension: It includes 3 types of questions, and students can score from 1–3 in each area: (1), Within the text – Retell or summarize the story and identify the problem; (2) Beyond the Text – Indicates the student’s ability to connect their own experiences with the story and draw conclusions about characters or events; (3) About the Text – Indicates the students’ ability to think about the author’s purpose, style of writing, or how the text is organized. The testing books were pre-levelled and selected based on students’ reading abilities. The participating students were divided into three groups, as noted in Chapter 3. AS3 and MS3 as a pair were tested on the same book entitled Bedtime for Nick (Otfinoski, 2008), AS2 and MS2 were paired up and tested on the book The sleepover party, and AS1 and MS1 were tested on a book called The best cat. The three books were works of fiction and they approximated participating students’ respective reading levels. I tested each participant one on one in October 2016. The individual test occurred when I had an hour release, during a break from teaching. The participant was seated in a quiet corner of the room to prevent her/him from being distracted by other students. The student was given the textbook and I sat next to the student with the record form in my hand so that I could see the student’s finger and eye movements as she/he read the text. As the participant read, I marked each word on the running record form by using the appropriate symbols (see Appendix 1 for a detailed account of the procedure). ACARA (2018) stipulates that students in Year 2 are to read texts that contain varied sentence structures, some unfamiliar vocabulary, a significant number of highfrequency sight words and images that provide extra information. They need to be able to monitor meaning and self-correct errors using knowledge of phonics, syntax, punctuation, semantics and context. The Indigenous participating students encountered many difficulties when trying to meet those goals in the reading. Based on their results on the PAT and F&P tests, it was clear that their reading performances were much less satisfactory than their non-Indigenous counterparts, although they were at the same reading level. In the analysis of the PAT Reading and F&P reading results, as noted earlier, each participating Indigenous student (AS) was paired with a non-Indigenous counterpart (MS) at the same reading level and coded in the analysis as AS1 vs MS1, AS2 vs MS2, AS3 vs MS3, with the numbers indicating low (3), middle (2) and high (1) in terms of reading abilities in the class. Based on the analysis of the data generated from the PAT and F&P tests results, the identified challenges have been grouped into three categories: linguistic challenges, challenges concerning knowledge of the world and challenges of comprehension skills. They will be examined in detail in the following sections.

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4 Challenges in Reading Faced by Indigenous Students

4.2 Linguistic Challenges It is customary to define linguistics as the scientific study of language including speech sounds, grammatical structures and meaning of vocabulary across the world’s languages (Yule, 2017). Language is a method of human communication with both spoken and written forms which is organised in a structured and conventional manner. For the English language, words consist of letters which are called symbols from the phonetic aspect of language. Knowledge of sound–symbol relationships is represented in the language in both written and oral forms (McWhorter, 2011). In this study, with a focus on students’ reading, the linguistic challenges related mainly to the following three aspects of English: phonology, vocabulary and syntax (grammar). More specifically, I examined the participating students’ phonological awareness about sound–symbol correspondence; grammatical knowledge concerning grammatical words like prepositions and syntactic rules about clausal structures which help readers to understand texts; and vocabulary especially in relation to semantic aspects and the meaning of words.

4.2.1 Phonology-Related Challenges Phonological awareness is also known as phonemic awareness, which is based on oral language by listening. The two most important phonemic awareness skills that I focused on in this study are segmenting and blending (Gillon, 2017; Serravallo, 2015). Segmenting is about breaking a word into its individual sounds (Gillon, 2017). If a student can segment properly, she/he is able to utter f-i-sh after hearing the word fish. Blending, another skill, is the ability to pronounce a word after hearing each of its sounds (Saiegh-Haddad, 2019). If a student can blend, she/he can utter the word fish after hearing the individual sounds f-i-sh. Students need these two skills to tease out the connection between speech sounds and written letters or words. Being able to connect sounds and written letters is a phonemics-based skill which is built upon phonological awareness. With these skills, students learn to read aloud fluently and accurately, to self-correct when needed and to decode unfamiliar words by connecting letters with sounds, breaking words into sounds or blending sounds into words. The Indigenous participating students were found to encounter challenges with relating sounds and letters in the reading tests, and that ultimately impacted their reading performance.

4.2.1.1

Fluency When Reading Aloud

F&P (Fountas & Pinnell, 2010, 2014) recommend the reading rate for Year 2/3 students should be 90 to 120 words per minute (see Table 4.2), and they should read in phrases or word groups in a smooth and expressive manner. This reading rate posed a

4.2 Linguistic Challenges

61

Table 4.2 Oral reading rate per minute Fountas & Pinnell recommended oral reading rates (Words per minute) Expected oral reading rates at grade and instructional levels End of grade (Level)

Oral reading rate (WPM) 75–100

1 (J-K) 2–3 (L-M-N)

90–120

3 (N-O-P)

100–140

4 (Q-R-S)

120–160

5 (T-U-V)

140–180

6 (W-X-Y)

160–200

7–8 (Y-Z)

180–220

huge challenge for all Indigenous participating students. They read primarily word by word with infrequent phrasing, showing no smoothness or expressive interpretation. The Indigenous participating students also displayed irregular pausing and paid little attention to the author’s meaning or the punctuation in the text and their reading rates were slow: AS3’s reading rate was 24 words per minute; AS2 read at 48 words/min, AS1 read at 58 words/min. Refer to Table 4.2 for the reading rates recommended by F&P systems (Fountas & Pinnell, 2010).

4.2.1.2

Accuracy in Oral Reading

Accuracy refers to oral reading or reading words aloud without making mistakes (Sefcik, 2019). The accuracy rate is expressed as a percentage. The rate can be calculated through the following formula (Fountas & Pinnell, 2010; Rochman, 2017): / (total words read − total errors) total words read × 100 = accuracy rate AS3 read the book entitled Bedtime for Nick (Otfinoski, 2008), and he made 22 errors out of the 217 words in total, so his accuracy rate was 89%. AS2 read a book called Sleepover party which contains 288 words in total and she made 9 errors, so her accuracy rate was 97%, and AS1 read The best cat and she made 7 errors out of 263 words, so her accuracy rate was 98%. The accuracy rate is also used to determine whether the text read is easy enough for independent reading, whether it is appropriate to use with reading instruction provided, or whether it is too difficult or too challenging for the reader. The breakdowns of these three categories are shown in the accuracy rate chart below (Tables 4.3 and 4.4). It was clear that, as it was, AS1, AS2 and AS3 could not read fluently although their accuracy was satisfactory. It follows that, considering the Indigenous participating students’ oral reading rates and accuracy rates, it is more challenging for them to

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4 Challenges in Reading Faced by Indigenous Students

Table 4.3 Accuracy rate chart Independent

Easy enough for independent reading

95–100%

Instructional

Instructional level for use in levelled reading session

90–94%

Frustrational

Too difficult and will frustrate the reader

89% and below

Source Fountas and Pinnell (2010)

Table 4.4 Self-correction ratio and reading level

0:0—no errors, no self-corrections*

Above = Ab

1:1—1:2 self-corrections

At = At

1:3—1:4 self-corrections

Approaching = Ap

1:5 or higher

Below = Bl

1:0—no self-corrections

Far Below = Fb

Source Fountas and Pinnell (2010, 2014)

achieve satisfactory oral reading rates than it is for them to be accurate when reading aloud. This discrepancy between reading rates and accuracy rates implies that the accuracy rate should not be treated as the only determining factor when it comes to deciding whether the student should move up to the next level in reading.

4.2.1.3

Self-Correcting During Oral Reading

Self-correction is when a reader is able to monitor their own oral reading, identifying mistakes and then fixing them. It includes two processes: one is self-monitoring, which refers to noticing errors in oral reading; the other is the ability to fix such errors (Clay, 2011). The self-correction rate is expressed in the form of 1:3 or 1:4; for instance in the Fountas and Pinnell Reading Assessment System (Fountas & Pinnell, 2010, 2014), 1:3 means that the student corrects approximately 1 out of every 3 errors. If a student is self-correcting at a rate of 1:4 or less, this indicates that he or she can self-monitor and self-correct his or her reading. To determine the self-correction rate on a running record, the calculation formula is as follows: 1. add the number of self-corrections to the number of errors. 2. divide by the number of self-corrections (Number of errors + Number of self-corrections)/Number of self-corrections = Self-correction rate (Fountas & Pinnell, 2010, 2014). A Rubric for Self-Correction Ratios is used to determine whether the selected book is considered to be at the student’s reading level. If a student has a self-correction ratio of 0:0, this indicates no errors and no self-corrections, and also scores as satisfactory or above on comprehension, this achievement would indicate that the book was too easy for the student and the student should be assessed at a more advanced instructional level.

4.2 Linguistic Challenges

63

The three Indigenous participating students’ correction rations were: AS3 corrected 11 mistakes and made 22 mistakes, so his correction rate was 1:3; AS2 made 9 mistakes with 3 corrections, and her correction ratio is 1:4; AS1 had 5 corrections and 7 mistakes and her correction rate was 1:2 which is higher than 1:3 or 1:4. The data showed that AS2 and AS3 read with a decent amount of self-monitoring and fixing, and they were approaching the level of the book, but AS1 was at the level where she might be able to read independently the books which are labelled at this level. Being able to self-monitor while reading is a good fix-up strategy, but it does not mean a reader with this strategy can read accurately or fluently. It only indicates that the books they read are probably at an appropriate level. Therefore, it was clear in the data that attaining a self-correction rate of 1:5 or higher is a challenge for Indigenous students because the participating Indigenous students were well below the level of difficulty of the book, since their self-correction ratios were rather low in the tests.

4.2.1.4

Adopting Appropriate Word-Solving Strategies in Oral Reading (Decoding)

Decoding is the process of using known words or parts of words to figure out unknown words based on decoding smaller words or sound units inside the large words (Darnell et al., 2017). This process not only requires students to master phonetic rules such as what sound certain vowel or consonant combinations make, but also to apply this knowledge to a new context where a new word contains the same or similar sound patterns. This is a critical skill a young learner should master in the early years to assist oral reading. A decoding test is a required assessment for all young children in early years at the school where the research was carried out. However, it is always a challenge for Indigenous students who learn English as an additional language to learn and acquire the sounding systems of the English language. The lower the reading level the child is at, the more challenging it becomes for the student to figure out the sounds of unknown words. The challenge was shown clearly in AS3 and AS2’s oral reading. The following excerpt is from AS3’s reading:

Running record Excerpt 1: √

←-- R

Nick

put

√

√

footput

on

his

pyjamas. (AS3)

√

walked

√

He

washed

his

√ face. (AS3)

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4 Challenges in Reading Faced by Indigenous Students

Excerpt 1 comes from AS3’s reading of the text entitled Bedtime for Nick (Otfinoski, 2008). AS3 repeated one word ‘put’ and substituted the word ‘pyjamas’ with ‘footput’, which is not found in dictionaries. He also replaced ‘washed’ with ‘walked’, which did not make sense in the context. If AS3 was able to break down the mispronounced words into syllables, and then work out the individual sounds, he might have been able to sound out the words properly. The word ‘pyjamas’ has three sound units: py-ja-mas. Each unit can be sounded out separately and then the sounds of the three units can be threaded together; that is how the word can be sounded out. However, AS3 used the word ‘footput’ instead but the resultant sentence with the substituted word did not sound right or make sense. This shows that AS3 was not able to make meaning at the sentence level in the process of oral reading. Similarly, ‘washed’ is composed of wash + ed (past tense). The word has a digraph ‘sh’. If the sounds of wa + sh + ed are linked together, it becomes the pronunciation of the word ‘washed’. Obviously, AS3 lacked the ability to use the sounding system to work out unfamiliar words encountered in reading. He produced ‘walked’ instead of ‘washed’, the middle sound he produced for the word ‘washed’ was an error, showing that he did not know the sound of the digraph ‘sh’. The first half of the two words looked the same, indicating that AS3’s mistakes were made due to his erroneous decoding of the visual symbols involved. The same struggle was also obvious with AS2, who read the text entitled The Sleepover party (Boroson & Ulrich, 2008):

√

√ Axing-T

Jim was excited √

√

√

√ √ √ √

√

because he was going to a sleepover party! AS2 could not read ‘excited’. She produced the initial sounds that were close to ‘ax’, but got stuck on ‘cited’. She produced ‘ing’ for ‘cited’. AS2 appeared to have difficulty sounding out unfamiliar words with multiple letters which involve certain phonetic rules. There were also some other words in the text she mispronounced as she had not mastered the relevant sounds of vowels, consonants, blends and so on. One of the phonemic awareness skills involved in pronouncing unknown words is segmenting, as mentioned earlier. Participating students need to break the word into its individual sounds. For instance, the word ‘excited’ is to be broken down to ‘e-xc-i-t-ed’. If the student can say each individual sound, the pronunciation of the word will come out correctly. However, it is a challenge to manipulate those sounds in the string, identifying the correspondence between the sound and spelling (or written words) if a student has not mastered the phonological awareness skills and learnt to segment a word or blend sounds at the very early stage of learning oral reading. According to the test data, the Indigenous participating students clearly encountered

4.2 Linguistic Challenges

65

challenges in identifying the basic sounds and linking the sounds with letters, and the challenge definitely impacted adversely on their oral reading of texts where these basic phonics skills are required to sound out words.

4.2.1.5

Reading Books Related to Indigenous Culture

PAT Reading and F&P shared one thing in common, that is, the reading materials are related to non-Indigenous culture. According to Horbury and Cottrell (2007), the cultural content of materials is an important factor in reading schemes, which contribute significantly to the reading development of bilingual people. It is said that a successful reading of culture-based texts relies on a shared understanding between the reader and the writer (Harvey & Goudvis, 2017; Serravallo, 2015). Three books based on Indigenous culture at three different difficulty levels were selected for the purpose of identifying any differences made by Indigenous students in reading, especially in oral reading as oral reading assessment is a requirement set by the school to meet the curriculum needs. The use of books with Indigenous content was intended to identify whether there would be any differences in Indigenous participating students’ oral reading performance in comparison with those with mainstream or non-Indigenous reading content. AS3 was tested on an Indigenous story titled Collecting firewood in the same month as he was tested on Bedtime for Nick (Otfinoski, 2008) in 2016. The story is about a river which not only provides water and food, but is also a place for Indigenous children to play. It gives an insight into a lifestyle based on Indigenous people’s lived experience. AS3 was familiar with the story, because he had heard about it, seen it, and experienced it himself; Nevertheless, his familiarity with the story did not significantly alter his oral reading performance. The results of his reading are shown in Table 4.5. The book contains 175 words in total. AS3 made 21 mistakes with an accuracy rate of 88%. Of the 21 mistakes, only one mistake was self-corrected, and this self-correction rate was well below what was expected from the book. The oral reading also showed that AS3 could not decode unfamiliar words. The following is an example which indicated AS3’s poor reading performance. Table 4.5 Summary of AS3’s reading of Collecting Firewood Student

Errors

Accuracy rate

Self-correction

Self-correction rate

Total number of words

AS3

21

88%

1

1:22

175

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4 Challenges in Reading Faced by Indigenous Students

Table 4.6 Summary of AS2’s reading of The Rainbow Serpent Student

Errors

Accuracy rate

Self-correction

Self-correction rate

Total number of words

AS2

18

88%

2

1:10

146

√

√

√

√

go/SC

when we went looking for

firework firewoods,

√

√

√

bug, bee, bees, bugerbees

I

found

a

beetle.

When reading the book entitled Collecting firewood, AS3 only self-corrected one of his errors, as shown above. Initially he mistakenly read the word ‘for’ as ‘go’. The word ‘go’ in this sentence did not sound right or make sense. He adopted a cuing system and corrected the error. Out of all his mistakes in oral reading this book, he only self-corrected this error. While decoding other unfamiliar words in the book, AS3 tried his hardest to self-correct errors, but he did not succeed in sounding the words correctly. For instance, he attempted four times to self-correct the sound of the word ‘beetle’ from ‘bug’, ‘bee’, ‘bees’ to ‘bugerbees’. He tried to adopt a visual and sound cuing system to make attempts, but he struggled to apply them to the words. AS2 experienced the same challenges as AS3. She read a book called The rainbow serpent. The story tells how people behaved in the old days when Indigenous people went to the place known by non-Indigenous as Glen Helen, which is a sacred place in Indigenous culture. The book includes 146 words. AS2 did not show much better performance in oral reading of the Indigenous story than non-Indigenous texts. It can be seen from Table 4.6 that AS2 read most of the words correctly, making 18 mistakes. She self-corrected only 2 of them. The self-correction ratio is 1:10, which is very much below what was expected of her. AS2’s unsatisfactory performance could also be seen from the running records, where she could not monitor her reading as she could not decode most of the unfamiliar words:

4.2 Linguistic Challenges

√

√

Long

long

T

√

√

√

√

ago,

in

the waterhole

√

Helen there √

√

People

used

√

a

√

√

√

They/haven’t

T

at

Glen

serpent.

√

√

√

and

camp

there,

√

a

T

√

√

√

good distance away from the

√ that

√

√

rainbow

√

TL

rainbow

√

where

√

√

to come

their camp

Waterhole

√

√

lived

√

making √

67

serpent lived.

T

√

√

√

des/SC

√

√

√

√

√

Instead, they camped some distance away on the high, flat √ ground. √ Then √

√ they √

from that

√ would

√ have

√

go/SC √ to

get

up

√

√

√

and

move

away

√ place.

Glen Helen is a famous and sacred place for Indigenous people. All of the participating students, particularly the Indigenous students, either knew of this place, or had been to it, or had heard about this place. However, AS2 could not connect the sound of the place (i.e. her knowledge of the place) and the sounding of its written form. I gave her the words ‘Glen Helen’ during the one-on-one reading time. The word ‘distance’ appeared an unknown word to AS2. She did not have a go at sounding it out but waited and I then gave her the word. When the word appeared again, AS2 made a mistake in sounding, but she self-corrected the error. AS2 could have broken down the word into smaller sound units even though it was an unfamiliar word. The third mistake was the word ‘where’: she tried ‘they’ first and it did not seem right to her, so she had a second try with ‘haven’t’. AS2 made two attempts and she did not care if the substitute ‘haven’t’ made sense in the context or not. Another self-correction

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4 Challenges in Reading Faced by Indigenous Students

Table 4.7 Summary of AS1’s reading of How the Kangaroos Got Their Tails Student

Errors

Accuracy rate

Self-correction

Self-correction rate

Total number of words

AS1

20

95%

7

1:3

447

made by AS2 was the word ‘get’. Initially she pronounced it as ‘go’ and then she corrected it. The word ‘get’ is a high-frequency word which appears very often in many children’s picture books. AS2 was not able to sound out this three-letter word in the first place. However, she used sound and visual cues to assist her in sounding. AS1 outperformed AS2 and AS3 in oral reading in both accuracy and selfcorrection rate. AS1 read a book named How the kangaroos got their tails. It was a famous Dreaming story and the majority of Indigenous children had been told the story by Elders in their community. The book includes 447 words. AS1 struggled with 20 words, which she incorrectly sounded out. She corrected 7 mistakes out of 20 during the reading process. Her self-correction rate was 1:3 which was a standard ratio according to the F&P assessment system. As the strongest reader among the three Indigenous participating students, AS1 performed better than AS2 and AS3 in reading, attaining a higher accuracy rate, 95%, as shown in Table 4.7. The running records of AS1 show that she understood the meanings of words which she made mistakes with in oral reading: √

√ really √

√

√

Dreamtimes

In the early days, in the Dreamtime, √

Where

there were

√

√

√

√

two kangaroos who lived

√

the

√

in

this country.

During the reading, she followed the visual cues and attempted to sound out words. The substitutes and the actual words in the texts looked similar or alike, with parts of the words retained. For instance, ‘early’ and ‘really’, ‘were’ and ‘where’, ‘dreamtime’ and ‘dreamtimes’, and none of the substituted words changed the meaning of the resultant sentence as the sentence still made sense regardless of the mistakes she made in oral reading. AS1’s self-correction rate was the highest out of the three Indigenous participants. She self-corrected 7 errors in oral reading.

4.2 Linguistic Challenges

with/SC √ The hill √

√

69

√

√ √

√

kangaroo was a small kangaroo … √

√

√

√

√

√

You can find sugarbag by watching the bees, √

follow/SC √

√

√

√

√

√

√

√

√

and following them to their hive where they make the honey. √ √ k/SC √

√

√

√

√

√

√

√

√ the √

√ √ √

so he kept on looking and looking until he found some in a hole in a rock. √ √

√

√

√ √

√

√

√

√

√

√

So the big kangaroo put his hand into the hole but only √

√ some/SC

pulled out more √

√

√ √

√ spiders. the/SC √ √

He went and broke one √

√ √

√

√

off a √

√

√

√ red

√ bloodwood

and/SC √

√

tree. √

√

√

√

√

√

They hit each other over the head with those sticks until the big kangaroo ran away. √ √

√

√ √

√ √ loud √

√

√

sugar-glass/SC √

The big kangaroo went back to the low country where the sugar-grass

grows…

The running records above indicated that AS1 adopted various strategies to identify her oral mistakes and correct them immediately. Three high-frequency words (‘more’, ‘one’ and ‘with’) were replaced with different words. ‘More’ was read as ‘some’, ‘one’ as ‘the’ and ‘with’ as ‘and’. These mistakes were visual and meaning making related. AS1 realised the mistakes and self-corrected them. Even though the replacements ‘some’ and ‘with’ were not the original words, adding these two words did not affect meaning making in the sentence, but she applied visual cues to self-correct them. In contrast, the replacing word ‘the’ seemed odd in the sentence structure; she was also aware the sentence structure did not sound right, nor did the letters in the word ‘one’ match the sound of the word ‘the’. Having these strategies in her mind led her to the right path of self-correcting these mistakes. AS1 also used a visual and sound cuing strategy in self-correcting the word ‘following’ from ‘follow’. There were three further self-corrections: from ‘with’ to the correct word ‘hill’, from one letter sound ‘k’ to the right word ‘kept’, from ‘glass’ to the correct

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4 Challenges in Reading Faced by Indigenous Students

pronunciation of ‘grass’. She understood letter–sound relationships and applied them in decoding these unfamiliar words and fixed her mistakes immediately. There were still 13 mistakes in AS1’s oral reading, and she did not consistently apply these fixup strategies. At Year 2 level, students were expected to master all these decoding strategies and to be ready to move onto the next level with a focus on comprehension. Apparently, AS1, the most advanced reader of all the Indigenous participating students, was not ready yet. In a nutshell, reading materials based on Indigenous culture with familiar content did not cause the participating Indigenous students to produce a better performance in oral reading. The Indigenous participating students demonstrated similar reading performances in terms of reading fluency, reading accuracy and self-correction rate. The data showed the statistics of the measurements were almost the same regardless of whether they were reading aloud the non-Indigenous or Indigenous cultural materials.

4.2.2 Challenges Due to Limited Grammatical Knowledge Grammar is a set of rules by which sentences are constructed systematically. There are many types of grammatical rules involved in the English language (Capella University, 2018). The importance of grammatical knowledge in reading comprehension is well reported in the literature (Gabe, 2009; Shanahan & Lonigan, 2012; Yamashita & Jeon, 2014). Studies over the years have shown a clear relationship between syntactic or grammatical sophistication and reading comprehension. That is, as students learn to deal with more complex sentences in their oral and written language, their ability to make sense of what they read increases (Shanahan & Lonigan, 2012). The findings extracted from the testing results that concern grammatical knowledge involved in reading were mainly about grammatical words and some syntactic rules about clausal structures. According to Taylor (2003), prepositions are one of the most common grammatical words that frequently appear in English texts in reading and writing. A preposition is a word that usually precedes a noun or pronoun and expresses a relation to another word or element in the clause or sentence. It usually indicates the position of something, or a time when something happens, or the way in which something is done, or features something or somebody possesses (Swan, 2016). These prepositions are grammatical words that are limited in number and short in form but important grammatically because they act as vital markers of the structure of a sentence or of a special relationship between persons, objects and locations. An example is the word ‘with’, which expresses multiple meanings in different contexts. Question 24 in the PAT Reading test examines students’ grammatical knowledge of the preposition ‘with’. Question 24 Why did Ox let Rat and Cat go on his back? . Ox wanted to trick Rat . Ox was afraid of the water

4.2 Linguistic Challenges

71

. Ox could not see very well . Ox wanted Cat to get him some fish

The answer to the question lies in the following part of the text: Cat wondered how she would cross the river because she was afraid of water. Ox wondered how he would cross the river with his poor eyesight. Rat had a plan. Rat and Cat would sit on Ox’s back so that they could guide Ox across the river. (ACER, 2018)

The second sentence reads: ‘Ox wondered how he would cross the river with his poor eyesight’. The main information which answers the question is explicitly stated in ‘with his poor eyesight’. The preposition ‘with’ is used to indicate the grammatical meaning that the subject of the clause, Ox, has or possesses the feature presented in the nominal phrase that follows the preposition with. Surprisingly, AS3, with the lowest proficiency in reading, got the answer right, while AS2 chose erroneously ‘Ox was afraid of the water’, and AS1 also selected erroneously ‘Ox wanted to trick Rat’—they both failed to understand the grammatical meaning signified by with. Similarly, insufficient grammatical knowledge could also be seen in AS2’s and AS1’s errors. AS2 could not see the grammatical connection between the subject ‘Cat’ of the main clause and the subject ‘she’ of the subordinating clauses—they refer to the same entity who was afraid of water. AS1 made a mistake because she could not understand the causal relation between Rat’s plan and Ox’s decision to let Rat and Cat go on his back and she tried to compensate for the deficiency by resorting to her prior knowledge of characters depicted as mischievous rats in cartoons. Having said that, MS1 and MS2 were consistently successful in identifying correct answers; however, MS3 erroneously chose the answer ‘Ox wanted Cat to get him some fish’, which is false but is congruous with the common sense that the ‘Cat’ likes fish. The testing data showed that, when students encountered a challenge due to limited grammatical knowledge, disregarding whether they were Indigenous or nonIndigenous, they tended to make mistakes in reading comprehension by erroneously compensating for their deficiency with irrelevant prior knowledge of the world that they had accumulated in life.

4.2.3 Challenges Due to Limited Vocabulary Vocabulary plays a fundamental role in the reading process and is critical to reading comprehension (Sparapani et al., 2018). The link between vocabulary and the goal of reading comprehension is profound. If a reader does not know the meaning of a decoded word, then s/he will not be able to make sense of what is read. A reader cannot understand a text without knowing what most of the words mean. Lacking either adequate word identification skills or adequate vocabulary will ensure failure (Biemiller, 2005).

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4 Challenges in Reading Faced by Indigenous Students

This claim is backed by a very interesting study by Spencer et al. (2014) who endeavoured to find out if there is such a thing as a specific reading comprehension disability. They found in their study that, when decoding and vocabulary are both sufficiently developed, only 1% of students presented with comprehension difficulties. In other words, the importance of vocabulary in reading cannot be denied. Students in Australia usually learn the meaning of most words indirectly, through everyday experiences with oral and written English. Some vocabulary, however, is learned through reading materials and carefully designed instruction in class. When it comes to teaching reading at school, Hempenstall (2016) strongly recommended that vocabulary instruction should start early through a range of strategies. Although incidental learning does help, students need to be taught vocabulary systematically through direct instruction which supports students to learn more complex concepts and ideas which are uncommon in spoken language. At the early stage, young children begin to learn high-frequency words in spoken language, and then high-frequency words in written language, and finally they work towards more complex or academic vocabulary as their reading develops. Clearly the three Indigenous participating students encountered a serious challenge during PAT Reading and F&P tests, showing a clear lack of the vocabulary needed for the reading they were engaged in, although most of the vocabulary they did not know was high-frequency words in both spoken and written English targeted at Year 2. The limits on their vocabulary adversely influenced their understanding of the texts they were reading. For instance, Question 15 is about understanding the meaning of the word ‘drill’, and all the Indigenous participating students got the answer wrong. It reads as follows: The dentist finds a tiny hole when she is checking Ben’s teeth. She gives Ben an injection to numb his mouth. She drills away the bad part of Ben’s tooth and fills the hole with a special paste. (ACER, 2018) Question 15 What does the dentist do with the drill? . numbs Joanna’s gum . checks Joanna’s teeth . checks the hole in Ben’s tooth . removes the bad part of Ben’s tooth

AS3 ticked the answer ‘checks the hole in Ben’s tooth’; AS2 chose the answer ‘numbs Joanna’s gum’; and AS1 made the same mistake as AS3 by choosing ‘checks the hole in Ben’s tooth’. The key to the correct answer is a proper understanding of the two words ‘drills away’ or what is meant by ‘drills away’ in the context of the story. AS2 guessed that ‘drills away’ had nothing to do with ‘numb’, although ‘numb’ did appear in the sentence next to the part where the correct answer is. Both AS1 and AS3 did not understand the meanings of ‘drills away the bad part of Ben’s tooth’, and did not know either what the word ‘remove’ meant in the multiple choice, therefore they failed to work out the correct answer. In clear contrast, MS1 and

4.2 Linguistic Challenges

73

MS2 comprehended the text and got the correct answer ‘remove the bad part of Ben’s tooth’, but MS3 chose the wrong answer ‘numbs Joanna’s gum’, as AS2 did. MS3 and the three Indigenous participating students failed to choose the correct answer because they had very limited vocabulary and were unable to understand the words ‘drills away’ used in the text or the meaning of ‘removes’. Another example in the test further proved that the Indigenous participating students lacked the vocabulary to understand the meanings of the words in the text. Question 9 is about monetary knowledge and a basic mathematical skill of comparing one-digit values. To answer the question, students were required to compare costs of activities tabulated in the reading. Question 9 Which activity is the cheapest? . Swimming Games . Circus Tricks . Mural Madness . Magic Show Forest Council January Holiday Program Ages 5–11 Date

Activity

Time

Cost

10th Jan

Swimming Games Aquatic centre, Marpol street Play on the waterslide and in the whirlpool. Obstacle races will be held in the wading pool. Being your bathers and a towel

Location

10 am and 2 pm

$4

11th Jan

Circus Tricks George’s Gym, Trent Learn to walk on stilts and roll Road through hoops. Wear loose, comfortable clothing

10 am and 2 pm

$6

12th Jan

Bicycle Safety Traffic School, Yarra Park 11 am Improve your riding skills and learn the road rules. The traffic police will provide a sausage sizzle in the park for lunch. Bring a bike and a helmet

$6

13th Jan

Mural Madness Join in and help paint a giant mural on the old bottle factory wall. Wear old clothes

Old Bottle Factory, Glover 9 am Street

$2

14th Jan

Magic Show Watch Mervin the Magician perform his marvellous tricks

Council Theatre, Berrima Square

$8

11 am

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4 Challenges in Reading Faced by Indigenous Students

If the word ‘cheapest’ was known or understood properly by the students, it would be a rather simple question to answer. ‘Cheapest’ means the lowest cost or least expensive and requires the participating students to know the meaning of the affix ‘-est’. However, this question posed a huge challenge to the participating students. All Indigenous participating students made a mistake when answering the question. AS3 and AS1 went with ‘Magic Show’, which in fact was the most expensive activity of all—indicating they were not able to associate the meaning of ‘cheap’ with the superlative degree of comparison in English because ‘$8’ was the largest in value, not the smallest in value. AS2 chose ‘Circus Tricks’, which cost $6 and was the same cost as the ‘Bicycle Safety’ activity and therefore could not be the cheapest. AS3 and AS1 either did not know the word ‘cheapest’ or were unable to compare the values involved. AS2 randomly chose an answer as she did not even know what the question was asking. This question also posed a challenge to two mainstream participating students, MS2 and MS3. MS2 chose the same answer as AS1 and AS3 did; while MS3 chose ‘Swimming Games’ for the same reason as AS2. It was clear that students with low proficiency in reading, disregarding whether they were Indigenous or non-Indigenous, were likely to have very limited vocabulary and morphological knowledge, which clearly impacted negatively on their overall comprehension. It must be noted that, although there is no question that efficient decoding is a necessary condition for successful reading comprehension, Koda (2012) believes that text comprehension is impossible if readers have no knowledge of the individual words that constitute the text and that building core vocabulary therefore should happen before text comprehension. AS1 showed an excellent understanding of the text How the kangaroos got their tails (Lofts & Mung, 2009), which was related to Indigenous culture, and she was able to offer detailed and relevant answers to all the questions including those that were aimed at readers at higher levels. She demonstrated a good vocabulary knowledge when answering comprehension questions about the text. Her comprehension skills demonstrated in reading this particular text appeared to be rather sharp and she was able to extract implied meanings from the text in the book. In the story the word ‘sugarbag’ was mentioned multiple times and it was explained when it appeared in the first time in the text. Here is an extract from the text (Lofts & Mung, 2009): One day, the short-armed kangaroo was walking around hunting for sugarbag (wild bush honey). He (the short-armed kangaroo) reached just inside that hole and pulled out a handful of sugarbag and ate it. Mmmm. It was a good tucker.

Both AS1 and MS1 were asked questions about the text above and here are their answers: Q1 What do ‘sugarbag’ and ‘tucker’ mean in the text? MS1 It [sugarbag] means wild bush honey. I have not seen them. We really do not have much bees here. ‘Tucker’ means food.

4.3 Challenges Concerning Knowledge of the World

75

AS1 ‘Sugarbag’ means food, maybe honey because I can see yellow. ‘Tucker’ means treat because they eat in the story. Question 1 was about vocabulary used in the Indigenous story. Both MS1 and AS1 knew the two words included in the question and provided very good explanations of the words ‘sugarbag’ and ‘tucker’. These two words are frequently used in the Indigenous community, especially when collecting bush foods, which is part of their everyday life. It was clear in the example that having adequate background knowledge of the text enabled students to enrich their interpretations of the meanings of the known vocabulary like these two words. It must also be noted that the data also showed that prior rich background knowledge could not adequately compensate for the lack of adequate vocabulary. AS2 demonstrated a very good understanding of the book The rainbow serpent (Sharpe & Inkamala, 1988), which was also an Indigenous story. However, she got stuck in one question which tested vocabulary knowledge. Neither AS2 nor MS2 could answer the question correctly. Q2 What does ‘sacred place’ mean? MS2 Not many people go there. AS2 Mean sacred man. Mean it is sacred. AS2 simply repeated the word ‘sacred’ and associated it with a person and also a thing, showing that she could not find a good explanation of the word. MS2, on the other hand, gave an answer, but it was not quite accurate. I had assumed that the Indigenous students would enjoy some advantage when they read a story about their own culture and that their prior knowledge of culture would facilitate their decoding unfamiliar words. The findings based on the participating students’ testing results showed that prior knowledge of Indigenous culture could enrich Indigenous students’ interpretation and understanding of the known vocabulary they encountered in reading, but it could not enable them to perform better in decoding unknown or unfamiliar vocabulary in the reading materials, regardless of whether they were related to Indigenous or non-Indigenous culture.

4.3 Challenges Concerning Knowledge of the World 4.3.1 Challenges in Understanding Culture-Related Humour Humour is the quality of being amusing, funny or comic. Humour can be found in movies and books, in jokes and in everyday situations in life. Research reported by Bettinghaus and Cody (1994) and Foot (1997) showed that humour helps build rapport and liking of the humourist; it may relax a person and make the person more receptive to the message, and make the information more memorable. However, Martin (2019) pointed out that what appears humorous to one person may not be humorous to another. Similarly, what appears humorous to one culture may not be

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4 Challenges in Reading Faced by Indigenous Students

humorous to another. This was demonstrated when the Indigenous and mainstream participating students responded to western humour differently. All Indigenous participating students demonstrated a lack of the ability to understand culturally related humour presented. The text required participating students to consider the context where the language was used and thread the pieces of information together from individual words, and thus decide on the best answer to the question about the interpretation of the humour involved. Question 12 in the text is a typical example of using humour in language that all Indigenous participating students struggled with and failed to understand properly. Question 12 Why does the dentist say Joanna’s mouth is boring? . Because Joanna is nervous . Because Joanna has no holes in her teeth . Because the dentist is not interested in teeth . Because the dentist has to give Joanna a filling

The question was why the dentist considered Joanna’s mouth boring. This question tested the skill of interpreting explicit information and taking into account culturally related humour. The correct answer to the question required the reader to be sensitive to western culture and humour and be able to understand the meaning of the relevant text: The dental nurse puts a bib around Joanna’s neck. Joanna sits in a chair that is like a couch. The dentist shines a spotlight into Joanna’s mouth and checks her teeth. The dentist wears gloves and a mask, and uses a little mirror to see inside Joanna’s mouth. The nurse writes down everything the dentist notices about Joanna’s teeth. There are no holes in her teeth. ‘What a boring mouth!’ says the dentist, but she is pleased that Joanna has looked after her teeth. (ACER, 2018)

It can be seen from the text that, following ‘There are no holes in her teeth’, the dentist made the remark ‘What a boring mouth’ and it was right after the examination of Joanna’s mouth. The logic and causal connection between the fact that there were no holes in Joanna’s mouth and the comment on her mouth being boring was clearly hinted in this instance. To appreciate the humour, the reader was also expected to have a proper understanding of what boring means in western culture and the reason why a dentist would consider it boring when she saw a mouth where she had no problem to fix and thus had nothing to do. AS3 erroneously selected the answer ‘Because the dentist has to give Joanna a filling’; AS2 chose the wrong answer ‘Because Joanna is nervous’; AS1 selected the same wrong answer as AS3 did. From the two wrong answers chosen by the three Indigenous students, it was clear that none of them successfully interpreted the particular part of the text which required a proper interpretation of the humour involved. None of the Indigenous participating students were able to establish a humorous connection between ‘no holes’ and ‘a boring mouth’.

4.3 Challenges Concerning Knowledge of the World

77

The humorous use of the lexical item ‘boring’ was lost on the Indigenous participating students. Instead, they were confused by the humorous expressions. They did not pick up the humour in the sentence because such humour is uncommon in Indigenous culture. What is more, it is not uncommon for Indigenous participating students to establish a connection between a dentist and phrases such as ‘feeling nervous’ and ‘giving a filling’. Indigenous participating students clearly lacked the ability to establish a humorous connection between a problem-free mouth and a boring mouth in the dentist’s view and they compensated for the inability by resorting to their familiar lived experience with dentists. This was shown convincingly in the answers the Indigenous participating students selected. In contrast, westerners tend to take humour as a natural feature of life and to use it wherever and whenever possible (Jiang et al., 2016). Two mainstream nonIndigenous participating students, MS1 and MS2, chose the right answer because they had no problem in detecting the humorous connection in the text. It must be noted, however, that, like AS1 and AS3, MS3 gave ‘Joanna is nervous’ a tick, because he also failed to piece together relevant information in the text to reach a proper understanding of the humour. This may indicate that a proper appreciation of humour is fundamentally dependent on a necessary understanding of the literal meanings of the text involved even if the reader is familiar with the culture involved.

4.3.2 Challenges Due to Lack of Contextual Knowledge ‘Context’ refers to an environment in which a text is created or to which it responds. Context can include general social, historical and cultural conditions (context of culture) or specific features of the immediate environment (context of situation). The term is also used to refer to wording surrounding an unfamiliar word (literal context), which a reader or listener uses to help understand the meaning of the unfamiliar word (ACARA, 2018). Contextual knowledge is an essential component of reading comprehension because every text takes for granted the readers’ familiarity with a range of unspoken and unwritten facts about the cultural and natural worlds. Guthrie et al. (1999) argued that focusing on a literal context domain over an extended period of time not only enhances students’ general vocabularies, but also improves their general fluency and motivation to read as it enables students to make sense of unfamiliar surrounding words on the basis of knowing the subject and knowledge of the familiar words. Lacking such knowledge, it becomes challenging for students to comprehend texts (Beck et al., 2002). Nevertheless, cultural and situational context also plays a significant role in gaining a better understanding of the text. Students in Year 2 are often encouraged to look for the pictorial clues or use sentential context to figure out answers to the reading questions. The use of knowledge of the situational and literal context to aid reading comprehension is considered an important strategy in reading, particularly for younger learners (Ferlazzo & Sypnieki, 2018; Spencer et al., 2019). Question 22 in the PAT Reading test contains an image to assist students’ comprehension.

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However, using the pictorial clues alone is insufficient to identify the correct answer. Being able to draw upon the literal context together with the visual clues is the key to answering Question 22. However, cultural knowledge on the topic is also a huge bonus for the reader to understand the story better. The story is a myth from China; According to myths, the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac were selected to through a race. This race is meant to create a time measurement for the people. In order to determine the first lucky animal of the Chinese zodiac, the Jade Emperor invited animals to cross a rapid current river and reach the finish line on the shore. The text is about how Rat won the race; so familiarity with the cultural context can aid comprehension of the text. Question 22

When did this happen? . before the race . at the start of the race . in the middle of the race . at the end of the race

The image above shows Rat is jumping off Ox, and the second last sentence of the text ‘As Ox started to climb the riverbank, Rat jumped off and finished the race first’ indicates Rat won the game in the end. AS3 and AS2 thought this happened before the race. They both struggled to understand what the image told the reader and failed to determine the exact time when Rat jumped off Ox in the relevant sentence ‘As Ox started to climb the riverbank, Rat jumped off and finished the race first’. Interestingly the same struggle was shared by MS2 and MS3 whose choice was ‘what the image shows happened in the middle of the race’. Obviously, the image shows the moment when Rat jumps off Ox while ‘the end of the race’ means the race was finishing. There was a slight discrepancy between the times of the two actions ‘jumping off’ and ‘reaching the bank and thereby finishing the race’. The reader was required to decide which of the two answers provided a more appropriate answer to the question according to the story. Both the top Indigenous and non-Indigenous participating students, AS1 and MS1, chose the correct answer, ‘at the end of the

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race’, demonstrating a better ability to choose the most appropriate answer based on their understanding of the literal and the situational context available. Changing the content of the reading materials altered the results. In reading the book entitled The rainbow serpent, AS2 outperformed her counterpart MS2 in comprehending the question which required adequate knowledge of the related culture and the context of the story. Consider the following Question 3 about The rainbow serpent: Q3 Why didn’t people want to camp near the rainbow serpent? MS2 Because it is blind. If there is big wind, you have to move away. AS2 Because they might get bitten. Question 3 required readers to make an inference using prior knowledge of the culture concerning the rainbow serpent. AS2 outperformed MS2 because she was able to assess the question accurately based on the textual information. The contextual words like ‘camp’ and ‘rainbow serpent’ indicate background information. The experience of Dreaming stories circulated among Indigenous communities facilitates their logical thinking in the right direction towards the best answers. Clearly, AS2 showed better contextual knowledge which enabled her to answer the question correctly despite the fact that her decoding accuracy was lower than MS2’s. As shown above, contextual knowledge refers to an understanding of the context which can be cultural, situational or literal. Literal and situational knowledge are usually acquired in school by learning; however cultural knowledge is often gained outside school through experiences and incidental learning.

4.3.3 Challenges Due to Lack of Topical Knowledge Daniel Willingham (2015), a member of the panel overseeing the National Assessment of Educational Progress in the United States, noted that whether or not readers understand a text depends far more on how much background knowledge and vocabulary they have relating to the topic than on how much they have practised comprehension skills. That is because writers leave out a lot of topic-related information that they assume readers will know. If they put all the related information in, their writing would be tedious. However, if readers cannot supply the missing or presumed information, they will have a hard time making sense of the text (Willingham, 2015). In response to this issue, Hirsch (2005) pointed out that a solution to improving reading comprehension is to teach a core set of content topics over the grades. To be a good reader, a child needs a wide range of topical knowledge. Some topical knowledge can be acquired through experience in life, and some can be gained through schooling, or wide reading if a student has mastered the decoding skills. If a student brings to a reading task what he/she already knows about the topic, he/she will have an easier time understanding the text and content than a child who does not. In the PAT Reading test, Text 5 is related to Chinese culture. If someone knows the legend in Chinese culture, he/she will find it easy to comprehend the text. Such

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topical knowledge or prior knowledge of the topic is usually learned from reading widely, watching relevant educational programs or through school curricula. For Text 5, Question 25 asked what message the author was trying to convey through the story. Question 25 What was one message from this story? . Friends look after each other . If you want to win, you need to be clever . If you work as a team, you will all succeed . The biggest and strongest always comes first

The answer to Question 25 is not directly stated in the text, but it can be worked out through synthesising and reflexing on the text. If a student is familiar with this famous Chinese parable, it will be rather simple to get the right answer even without being able to read the full text because the topical knowledge of the story will suffice to answer the question. All Indigenous participating students struggled with the text, particularly with Question 25 and none of them could produce the correct answer. Unlike their Indigenous counterparts, MS1 and MS2 managed to choose the right answer to the question, but MS3 made the same mistake as the Indigenous participating students because, likewise, his low language proficiency and inadequate topical knowledge prevented him from getting the right answer. It must be noted that the data showed a rather different picture when it came to a question about a concept that appeared in the reading material that was related to Indigenous culture. The question was about the word ‘bonfire’. The least competent reader of the three Indigenous participating students exceeded my expectations and demonstrated an excellent knowledge regarding the topic of the story, despite the fact that he had displayed difficulties in decoding the text, with many words mispronounced in his oral reading, as discussed earlier in this chapter. Consider the answers below that MS3 and AS3 provided to the question that I asked after oral reading. The answer to the question was not directly presented in the text. Q5 Can you describe what a bonfire looks like? What is needed to make it? MS3 I have never seen a bonfire. AS3 It looks like just a fire. A fire without stuff keep away from the bushes. You could put some bushes in to make it big and warmer. To find wood, if you want to make it big, you get some bushes, chuck it in time. You need a lighter to make a fire. AS3 voluntarily provided additional information in his answer, saying: Long, long time ago, we found water and swim, we got a sacred place. When it gets hold, it is nice. We make long footpath to get down to the creek, sometime there is no water. Sometimes there is water, we can swim. Sometimes people call it a different name. It is just creek and water.

The Dreaming stories are the stories Indigenous children are most familiar with as they grow up with Elders telling the stories. Storytelling is part of their culture

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and identity. Indigenous students seem to see their culture accurately portrayed and their existence acknowledged in the text, and their culture is valued. The dramatically improved understanding of texts was evident for all Indigenous participating students. Meanwhile, culturally familiar stories also boosted Indigenous participating students’ confidence and self-esteem in reading.

4.3.4 Challenges Due to Lacking the Ability to Make Connections with the World The Australian Curriculum states that students need to make connections between texts and the world in Year 2 (ACARA, 2018). In other words, it helps comprehend the text being read if students are able to connect the text they read to something they have experienced in their personal lives, to other texts they have read, or to the knowledge of the world they have developed over time (Harvey & Goudvis, 2017). In this PAT Reading test, Question 10 required students to connect part of the text to relevant knowledge of the world they have experienced in real life. Question 10 Kelvin has one leg in plaster. Which activity would suit him best? . Swimming Games . Circus Tricks . Bicycle Safety . Magic Show

To answer this question, students should understand what physical actions each activity involves in the real world, and be able to link them to Kevin’s situation where he had one leg in plaster. They should be able to know Kevin’s condition prevented him from being highly active, and they should be able to judge which of the listed activities would suit him best in terms of the physical demands involved. See Sect. 4.2.3 for information on the activities. Based on information about the physical demands of each of the listed activities, the first choice of swimming games should be ruled out as it includes ‘play on the waterslide and in the whirlpool and obstacle races’. Circus tricks was not the best choice either since it involves ‘walk on stilts and roll through hoops’. Bicycle safety could be a good choice if your own bicycle and helmet were not required. Obviously, Kevin would not be able to ride. It looks like the magic show is the perfect activity for Kevin, who cannot walk properly with one leg in plaster, as he just needs to be there watching tricks. Neither student with low reading proficiency, Indigenous AS3 or non-Indigenous MS3, could get the answer right, whereas all the other participating students successfully made proper connections between the text and the real world they knew. Both AS3 and MS3 selected ‘Circus Tricks’ as the best choice for Kevin, because neither of them was able to make meaningful connections between the text and the real world

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they knew. They both knew what a circus was like and thought Kevin with one leg in plaster should walk all right but they failed to connect the specific physical motions indicated in the table included in the text with what Kevin was supposed to be able to do in the circus tricks. In other words, building the necessary connections between Kevin’s medical condition and the background knowledge about each activity listed in the text was a crucial means to support children to understand the text and make meaningful connections. In short, students, disregarding if they were Indigenous or non-Indigenous, needed to be able to deal with the challenge of making proper connections between the text they read and the world they knew if they wanted to successfully comprehend the text.

4.4 Challenges in Applying Comprehension Strategies 4.4.1 Challenges of Strategic Application of Analytical Skills Analytical skills are defined as the ability to visualise, conceptualise and solve both simple and complex problems using all information available (Elder, 2016). The term covers a wide range of different skills like paying attention to details, organising ideas, making inferences from texts, using prior knowledge and thinking outside the box, which are all necessary for critical thinking and problem solving. In reading, analytical skills refers to an act of making sense of the author’s writing and message by thinking carefully, critically and deeply while reading (Spears, 2012). Mastering these skills will help students get a deep and sound understanding of the texts that they read. In the PAT Reading test, Questions 21 and 25 require the reader to employ analytical skills in order to solve the problems. Three pairs of participating students were compared and analysed to identify the challenges they encountered when responding to Questions 21 and 25. Consider Question 21 and the part of the text it targeted: While Ox was working hard to cross the river with Rat and Cat on his back, Rat cried out to Cat, ‘Look at all tasty fish swimming in the water.’ Cat licked her lips. Cat leaned over for a closer look, and Rat gave Cat a little push. SPLASH! Cat tumbled into the water. As Ox started to climb the riverbank, Rat jumped off and finished the race first. Question 21 Rat told Cat about the fish because Rat was . caring . scared . hungry . sneaky

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Question 25 below targeted the same text as Question 21: Question 25 What was one message from this story? . Friends look after each other . If you want to win, you need to be clever . If you work as a team, you will all succeed . The biggest and strongest always comes first

Both MS3 and AS3, the lowest pair in reading ability, missed both Questions 21 and 25. The high scale scores of the two questions in the test indicated that students would encounter a high level of difficulty when answering the questions. These two questions required students to make connections between the text and their everyday knowledge. Of the two questions, Q21 required students not only to read the text but also to read between the lines. Question 25, on the other hand, was about the message from the story and students had to read and understand the text well enough to be able to figure out the author’s purpose in telling the story. Clearly the correct answer ‘sneaky’ for Question 21 was not directly stated in the text, but it could be inferred from the text if the reader was able to appropriately apply strategic analytic skills. Both AS3 and MS3 chose ‘hungry’, which is implied by the text ‘look at all tasty fish swimming in the water’. They thought Cat usually liked fish and, when he saw the fish swimming in the water, he was reminded of the taste of fish and might become hungry. However, they did not notice the question was about Rat and not about Cat. When they tried to answer the question, they tried to compensate for their inability to determine what the question was about by applying their analytic skills, selecting their everyday knowledge of cats who typically crave fish and linking the knowledge to one of the four choices that was most likely to provide the link between cat and fish. Consequently, they chose ‘hungry’, although ‘sneaky’ is a correct description of Rat’s intention in calling Cat’s attention to the fish in the water. AS3 and MS3’s failure to connect the text properly with their everyday knowledge about cats’ typical craving for fish was a clear instance of erroneous application of analytic skill for reading, compensating for inadequate reading ability by resorting to prior knowledge of the world. For the middle pair in reading ability, AS2 made a mistake on Question 21 but answered Question 25 correctly. MS2 outperformed AS2 and answered both Questions 21 and 25 correctly. It was interesting to observe that AS2 only achieved 10 points out of 25 questions, which was less than 50% and below the benchmark for her year level; however, she got the relatively difficult Question 21 right (see Fig. 4.2 for details). For the top pair in reading ability, AS1 did less well than AS2. She chose a wrong answer for Question 21, and left Question 25 unanswered (see Fig. 4.3). As AS3 did, AS1 opted for the answer ‘hungry’ to Question 21 and failed to notice the question was about Rat’s intention rather than the reason for Cat to lick her lips. She also tried to compensate for her inadequate reading ability with her prior knowledge of the

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Fig. 4.2 Snapshot of AS2’s PAT Reading results

world, but she erroneously selected a wrong piece of knowledge due to her failure to notice that the question was about Rat’s disguised intention. MS1 outperformed AS1 and answered both Question 21 and Question 25 correctly, as shown in Fig. 4.4. In fact, MS1 achieved 24 out of 25 and gained a rather high score for his age group. It is worth pointing out that MS1 also participated in the test at two levels up, which was designed for students in Year 4, and he ended up with 90% in the test. As is shown in the score graph, he made only one mistake. His outstanding results on the PAT Reading test proved that MS1 had exceeded the reading skills required for Year 2. Similarly, continuing to use the example noted above in 4.2.2, AS1 made a mistake in answering Question 24 ‘Why did Ox let Rat and Cat go on his back?’ She chose the wrong answer that ‘Ox wanted to trick Rat’, because she could not understand the causal relation between Rat’s plan and Ox’s decision to let Rat and Cat go on his back. She tried to compensate for the inability to determine the causal relation by resorting to her prior knowledge that Micky Mouse is mischievous and likes playing tricks in cartoons. This was another instance where Indigenous students made mistakes in answering reading comprehension questions due to erroneous application of prior knowledge of the world that they have accumulated in life to strategically compensate for their inadequate reading abilities. In short, it was evident in the participating students’ performances in the PAT test that students, regardless of their Indigeneity, had problems applying their everyday knowledge to compensate for their inadequate ability in reading because they could not properly comprehend what the reading question was about or the meanings of the texts. In other words, although analytical skills in interpreting texts by making

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Fig. 4.3 Snapshot of AS1’s PAT Reading results

inferences or resorting to prior knowledge of the world can be applied to solving reading problems, as reported in the literature (Serravallo, 2015), they can also be misapplied, when students have an incorrect expectation in reading and thereby put up a wrong problem for solution. Therefore, as shown in the PAT Reading data collected in this study, any efforts to compensate for inadequate reading ability in initial reading were most likely to result in erroneous application of the reader’s prior knowledge of the world if the reading questions or the meanings of the text were misinterpreted. Indigenous students’ lack of ability to analyse the text at a deep level was also shown in the F&P reading comprehension tests, where the students were required to answer orally some questions concerning a detail of the story s/he had just read aloud. All Indigenous participating students struggled to produce the right or acceptable comprehension answers when they were required to demonstrate their understanding of the underlying meaning of the texts. This type of reading comprehension question usually requires students to read between the lines and search, integrate and infer information in or from the text to identify what the author really means. The following exemplar questions are taken from the F&P reading tests: Q6 I wonder why Wags was so late going to bed. What do you think? AS3 En, en, because it was dark. Correct answer Wags might have been taking a walk with Dad (or any plausible reason).

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Fig. 4.4 Snapshot of MS1’s PAT Reading results

The question came from the test reading Bedtime for Nick (ACER, 2018) done by AS3. It was asking why Wags was late going to bed. Possible guesses might be eating food, playing, taking a walk or anything Wags was busy doing at the time. Any answer is acceptable, provided that it fits the context or makes sense according to the text. However, the answers given by AS3 to the question had little association with the context in the text. AS3 produced the answer on the basis of his own experience rather than the context provided in the book. When he continued to be asked about why ‘It was dark’ makes Wags late to bed, he was not able to find the connection between his answer and the question. AS2 was unable to answer the following question from Sleepover party (ACER, 2018), which was about how and why the toy Mugsy got in Jim’s bag: Q6

How did Mugsy get in Jim’s bag? Why do you think his mum did that? AS2 Because his mum put it in his backpack. Because he might have a big dream. Correct answer Because his mum put it there. Because she knew he could not sleep without it. In order to work out the answer, AS2 needed to read between lines and have a really good understanding of what he was reading as the answer is not explicitly stated in the text. However, the answer to the questions could be inferred from the paragraph of the text below:

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‘Get your sleeping bag. I’ll zip up your backpack.’ ‘Have fun,’ Mum said.

AS2 was able to answer the first question and she failed to produce an acceptable answer to the second question. The answer, ‘He might have a big dream’ was incorrect and unacceptable because it failed to relate to the text and did not make any sense in the context of the story. Her answer indicated that she either did not understand what a sleeping bag was for in real life or she did not have any idea about problems with sleeping and she could only associate sleep with dreams. AS1 also found it difficult to apply analytical skills strategically in answering comprehension questions. Question 7 from The best cat (ACER, 2018) is a good example: Q7

How did the author and illustrator show you how much Spencer wanted a cat? AS1 (Pointing at the picture on Page 3 with a thinking cloud) Because it is his brain. A picture of cat sleeping in his head. Correct answer ‘I really wanted one.’ (Pointing at the picture on Page 3 with a thinking cloud.) It is more intense, bigger and black. Also, there are thinking bubbles. He was thinking a cat would be good for him. AS1 found the right page in the book she read aloud, but she was not able to explain the pictures and was not able to point out the large words in bold font: ‘I really wanted one’ in the thought bubble in the picture that emphasised the desire Spender had. It was obvious in the data collected via the participating students’ performances in F&P tests that all the Indigenous participating students across all the three reading levels demonstrated that they had problems in dealing with the challenges of strategic application of analytical skills when answering reading questions that required them to identify important information, integrate information or make inferences on the basis of initial reading. However, it must be pointed out that AS1 and MS1 performed equally well in comprehending the text How the kangaroos got their tails (Lofts & Mung, 2009). Q4 Why did the big kangaroo get so mad? What do you think? AS1 Because the little kangaroo tricked the big kangaroo. It was the wrong hole, he kept on pulling out spiders. MS1 The little kangaroo tricked him by making his arms all the way down when the honey rest on the top. Question 4 above asked why the big kangaroo got so mad. AS1 used the core word ‘trick’ in her answer which did not appear in the literal text. It demonstrated her great understanding of the text by being able to construct meanings from words, sentences and contexts. Her background knowledge supported and facilitated her comprehension. This was clear in her answers to Question 5. Q5

Why do you think the big kangaroo with long arms could not reach the sugarbag?

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AS1 Because it was the wrong hole. The big kangaroo was not near the black tree. If he was near the tree, he will get the sugarbag. My uncle is an expert, we got sugarbag one time. We follow the bees, the sugarbag was near the gum tree. We found it. If you follow the bees, they will take you to the sugarbag. MS1 Because he needs to make sure the arm gets on the top then you pick up spiders. Question 5 is an open question and open to any possible reasons why the long-armed kangaroo could not reach the sugarbag. AS1 referred to her own experience and prior knowledge, providing additional information related to the question. She showed an excellent understanding of the text. The majority of the questions for How the kangaroos got their tails are inferable and the participating students cannot retrieve information directly from the text or the answers are not obviously stated in the text. Questions about the previous non-Indigenous content posed tremendous challenges to all Indigenous participating students in reading comprehension. Undoubtedly, culturally based reading materials, as shown above, greatly support Indigenous students’ comprehension of their reading despite the evidence that shows the topic or background knowledge of the text did not make any difference in their reading fluency and accuracy.

4.4.2 Challenges in Identifying the Main Ideas in a Text The main idea of a passage is the main message about the topic that the author is trying to get across to the reader. It is usually a brief but all-encompassing summary that covers the things the passage talks about in a general way, but it does not need to include the specifics. Finding the main idea is critical to understanding what is being read. It helps the details make sense and have relevance, and it provides a framework for remembering the content (Harvey & Goudvis, 2017; Serravallo, 2015). The following are four steps that are commonly taken to identify the main idea: 1. Identify the topic: read the text through and try to identify what the topic is; do not worry yet about deciding what argument each paragraph is making about the topic. 2. Summarise the text: after reading the text thoroughly, summarise it in your own words. 3. Look at the headings, or the first and last sentences of each paragraph. 4. Look for the repetition of ideas: start to look for repeated words, phrases or related ideas if you are finding it hard to summarise the text (Harvey & Goudvis, 2017). Three common mistakes need to be avoided when working on a question about the main ideas: firstly, selecting an answer that is too narrow in scope; secondly, selecting an answer that is too broad; lastly, selecting an answer that is complex but contrary to the main idea (Harvey & Goudvis, 2017).

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One question in this PAT Reading test asks students to describe the main information of a text. The multiple choices provided are ‘size’, ‘food’, ‘body’ and ‘life cycle’ as shown below: Question 16 The information describes the camel’s . size . food . body . life cycle CAMELS A camel’s body is perfect for its desert home. Deserts are hot, dry and sandy places where food and water are often hard to find. Eyes Long thick lashes keep out the sand. Thin eyelids let in light. They let in enough light to allow the camel to walk through sandstorms with eyes closed. Nose Nostrils squeeze shut to keep out the sand. Knees and Chest Extra-thick skin forms padding for resting on hard ground. Hump A camel’s hump is not filled with water as people once thought. It is a mound of fatty tissue. The camel’s body uses this fat for energy when food is hard to find. A well-fed camel’s hump is large and firm. A hungry camel’s hump shrinks and sags.

By looking at the headings of the paragraphs and the details included in those paragraphs, the reader should be able to see they are about different parts of a camel’s body. Clearly ‘body’ is the best answer to the question. AS3 and MS3, the low pair in reading ability, chose ‘size’ as the main information of the text. Similarly, AS2 did not work out what the text was about as a whole either and thought the text was about ‘food’. Although the text mentioned ‘food’ in a couple of places, it was not what the whole text was about.

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The challenge of identifying the main ideas in the text was also evident in the F&P tests. AS3 did the F&P test on Bedtime for Nick (ACER, 2018). The following question was asked about what happened in the story: Q What happened in this story [Bedtime for Nick]? AS3 They read a book then Nick go to sleep. Correct answer Nick got ready for bed. He went to bed but he couldn’t go to sleep. Judging from AS3’s answers to the question, AS3 did not know how to summarise the story or understand the story well enough to be able to work out the answer. AS3’s answer was incorrect because, when answering the question, he did not seem to base his answer on the story at all, but followed his own way of thinking, and based the answer on what he had heard about in a similar context AS3 knew at school, particularly in Show and Tell time in class when children took turns sharing their interesting daily stories to the rest of the class. Many students had a habit of bedtime reading prior to sleep and saying goodnight. That was why he included the plural pronoun ‘they’ in the answer. However, this was not a correct summary of the story he read. The Indigenous participating students tended to select the main idea too narrowly. They only focused on one detail in the text without looking through the whole text. Usually, they chose the part of the text they understood best or which could be related to their lives. The four-step strategy mentioned previously was clearly not applied when they learned to summarise a text.

4.4.3 Challenges in Retrieving Directly Stated Information Retrieving directly stated information refers to locating one or more independent pieces of explicitly stated information (ACARA, 2018; ACER, 2018; Serravallo, 2015). To achieve this, students need to read and understand the words, phrases and sentence where the information is located and they need simply to retell, count, name, list or copy the information. AS3 consistently showed his inability to find relevant information directly stated in the text Bedtime for Nick (ACER, 2018). As discussed in Sects. 4.2.1.1 and 4.2.1.2, AS3 struggled to read fluently and accurately in his oral reading, achieving merely 24 words per minute in fluency and an 89% accuracy rate. Experiments show that a student who can sound out words quickly and accurately has begun freeing up his/her memory to concentrate on comprehension of meaning (Hirsch, 2003). Decoding fluency and accuracy is also intimately connected with vocabulary knowledge and topic knowledge. This is why AS3 is not able to find directly stated information. See Question 2 from Bedtime for Nick (ACER, 2018): Q2 AS3

What did Nick ask his mum to do to help him sleep? What else did she do? Give him a goodnight kiss, turn off the light.

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Correct answer He told his mum to do different things to help him. (Give 2–3 examples, such as read a story; turn on the night light; give a kiss; open the door.) The above question required AS3 to recount or list the things that Nick asked his mum to do to help him sleep. As is shown in the correct answer, Nick’s mum read a story, turned on the night light, gave him a kiss and opened the door. In AS3’s response, he recalled only the information ‘give Nick a goodnight kiss’, and contradicted the information provided in the text by saying ‘turn off the light’, which was the opposite to what actually happened in the story: ‘turn on the light’. This indicated that AS3 did not literally comprehend the relevant parts of the text where the information is located. The task required the participating students to identify the words, phrases or sentences that are relevant to the question. The meaning of these words, phrases or sentences are straightforward, clear and direct. However, it still posed a challenge for the Indigenous participating student.

4.4.4 Challenges in Interpreting Explicit Information Interpreting explicit information is one level higher than locating directly stated information in texts. The application of this strategy requires students to be able to classify, categorise, explain and predict the relevant texts (ACER, 2018). To master this particular reading skill, students will have to read and understand most of the relevant words in the texts. Familiarity with the topic is also a key element to be successful in interpreting the explicit information (Hirsch, 2003). AS3 demonstrated a lack of knowledge about the vocabulary and the topic; therefore, he struggled to interpret the explicit information in the text Bedtime for Nick (ACER, 2018), as is shown in the following question: Q3 How did the story end? Nick say good night to everyone. AS3 Correct answer His dog (Wags) came in and then he went to sleep. Question 3 asked about the ending of the story, and AS3 was expected to interpret the explicit information presented in the text: ‘He (Nick) looked around the room. Something came in the door. “Wags! You’re late,” said Nick, “Now we can go to sleep.”’ In this part, there were a few pronouns: ‘He’, ‘You’, ‘We’. He referred to Nick. You indicated the dog (Wags). We meant I (Nick) and Wags. If the relationships between these pronouns are not interpreted correctly this part of the story, which contains the appropriate answer, becomes quite confusing. The other words and phrases in the sentences are simple and they are high-frequency words in reading. However, the Indigenous participant AS3 was not able to process the information and interpret them correctly. This part of the story with a few pronouns and highfrequency words was difficult for the Indigenous participant to interpret properly. The same skill was also expected in the answer to Question 5:

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Q5 AS3 MS3 Correct answer

What was the real reason that Nick couldn’t go to sleep? I don’t really know. Because Wags was missing. Nick missed Wags and that’s why he couldn’t go to sleep.

MS3 gave the perfect answer. In contrast, AS3 was not able to interpret the reason why Nick was not able to go to sleep. He replied ‘I don’t know’ to the question. In order to answer this question, AS3 needed to understand the part of the text below: ‘I can’t go to sleep,’ said Nick ‘Something is missing’.

The answer is carried in the sentence above and is pretty straightforward as long as AS3 is aware that ‘something’ in the sentence is referring to the dog ‘Wags’ and also knows that someone may not be able to go to sleep if the thing that usually keeps him/her company is missing. The rest of the text is rather explicit. It also requires the participating students to be able to understand the texts before and after this sentence to make connections among sentences to help them interpret the explicit information. Clearly, the Indigenous participant found it challenging to use reading strategies to interpret the explicit information.

4.5 Summary As shown in this chapter, both the PAT Reading and F&P tests are designed to help teachers to assess how well students have mastered the targeted reading skills. The Indigenous participating students encountered tremendous challenges in oral reading and in comprehending the texts they read. Regardless of the degree of complexity of the text, the test results showed Indigenous students struggled to decode unfamiliar words with accuracy and fluency. Challenges also lay in finding relevant and accurate information to answer questions in the PAT and F&P. The comprehension part of the F&P tests echoes the findings identified from the PAT Reading texts that Indigenous students struggle with understanding non-Indigenous reading materials. This was particularly obvious with Indigenous students at the low and middle reading levels. When it comes to context-related knowledge about the text, if it is not related to Indigenous culture, Indigenous students tended to provide either inaccurate or irrelevant information for the questions asked in the test. However, the testing materials related to Indigenous culture were found to be a turning point for the Indigenous participating students’ performance in comprehending texts, as the texts are relevant to their cultural experience. The Indigenous students were equipped with a wealth of knowledge about the Indigenous-related stories in these texts; therefore, they found it rather easy to make connections with the contextual, cultural and topical information in the text. Therefore, they outperformed the non-Indigenous participating students in comprehension of the texts related to Indigenous culture. Nevertheless, the Indigenous culture testing books did not dramatically improve the Indigenous students’ scores for oral reading skills, including accuracy, fluency, self-correction and decoding.

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References Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER). (2018). Progressive achievement test in reading: Comprehension and vocabulary. Northern Territory Government. Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). (2018). Resources. ACARA. https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/resources/ Beck, L., McKeown, G., & Kucan, L. (2002). Bring words to life. Guilford Press. Bettinghaus, E., & Cody, M. (1994). Persuasive communication. Harcourt Brace. Biemiller, A. (2005). Size and sequence in vocabulary development: Implications for choosing words for primary grade vocabulary instruction. In E. H. Hiebert & M. L. Kamil (Eds.), Teaching and learning vocabulary: Bringing research to practice (pp. 223–242). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Boroson, M., & Ulrich, G. (2008). The sleepover party. Heinemann. Capella University. (2018). Grammar handbook. American Psychological Association. Clay, M. M. (2011). Reading errors and self-correction behaviour. Educational Psychology, 39(1), 47–56. Darnell, A. C., Solity, E. J., & Wall, H. (2017). Decoding the phonics screening check. British Educational Research Journal, 43(3), 505–527. Elder, L. (2016). Thinker’s guide to analytic thinking. Foundation for Critical Thinking. Ferlazzo, L., & Sypnieki, K. H. (2018). The ELL teacher’s toolbox. Wiley. Foot, H. (Ed.). (1997). Humor and laughter (2nd ed.). Routledge. Fountas, I., & Pinnell, G. S. (2010). Fountas & Pinnell benchmark assessment system 2. Heinemann. Fountas, I., & Pinnell, G. S. (2014). Fountas & Pinnell literacy. Heinemann. Gabe, W. (2009). Reading in a second language: Moving from theory to practice. Cambridge University Press. Gillon, T., G. (2017). Phonological awareness: From research to practice. Guilford Press. Guthrie, T., Anderson, E., Alao, S., & Rinehart, J. (1999). Influences of concept-oriented reading instruction on strategy use and conceptual learning from text. Elementary School Journal, 99(4), 343–366. Harvey, S., & Goudvis, A. (2017). Strategies that work: Teaching comprehension for understanding, engagement and building knowledge Grades K–8 (3rd ed.). Stenhouse. Hempenstall, K. (2016). Read about it: Scientific evidence for effective teaching of reading. Centre for Independent Studies. Hirsch, E. D. (2003). Reading comprehension requires knowledge of words and the world. American Educator, 27(1), 10–29. Hirsch, E. D. (2005). The knowledge deficit: Closing the shocking education gap for American children. Trade and Reference Publishers. Horbury, A., & Cottrell, K. (2007). Cultural factors affecting the acquisition of reading strategies in bilingual children. Education 3–13: International Journal of Primary and Early Years Education, 25(1), 24–26. Jiang, F., Lu, S., Yue, X. D., & Hiranandani, N. (2016). To be or not to be humorous? Cross cultural perspectives on humor. Frontiers in Psychology, 7. Koda, K. (2012). Insights into second language reading. Cambridge University Press. Lofts, P., & Mung, G. (2009). How the kangaroos got their tails. Scholastic. Martin, R. A. (2019). Humor. In M. W. Gallagher & S. J. Lopez (Eds.), Positive psychological assessment: A handbook of models and measures (pp. 305–316). American Psychological Association. McWhorter, J. (2011). What language is (and what it isn’t and what it could be). Gotham. Otfinoski, S. (2008). Bedtime for Nick. Heinemann. Rochman, M. (2017). The importance of teaching reading: Emphasize for reading fluency or accuracy in improving students’ reading comprehension in EFL context. Journal of Language Teaching and Literature, 4(1), 11–29.

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Saiegh-Haddad, E. (2019). What is phonological awareness in L2? Journal of Neurolinguistics, 50, 17–27. Sefcik, H. (2019). The impact of making reading heavenly instruction on fluency and accuracy. Northwestern College. Serravallo, J. (2015). The reading strategies book: Your everything guide to developing skilled readers. Heinemann. Shanahan, T., & Lonigan, J. C. (2012). Early childhood literacy: The National Early Literacy Panel and beyond. Brookes. Sharpe, E., & Inkamala, J. (1988). The rainbow serpent. Yipirinya (Yeperenye) School Council. Sparapani, N., Connor, C., McLean, L., Wood, T., Toste, J., & Day, S. (2018). Direct and reciprocal effects among social skills, vocabulary, and reading comprehension in first grade. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 53, 159–167. Spears, D. (2012). Developing critical reading skills. McGraw-Hill Education. Spencer, M., Quinn, J. M., & Wagner, R. K. (2014). Specific reading comprehension disability: Major problem, myth, or misnomer? Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 29(1), 3–9. Spencer, M., Wagner, R. K., & Petscher, Y. (2019). The reading comprehension and vocabulary knowledge of children with poor reading comprehension despite adequate decoding: Evidence from a regression-based matching approach. Journal of Educational Psychology, 111(1), 1–14. Swan, M. (2016). Practical English usage. Oxford University Press. Taylor, J. (2003). Cognitive grammar. Oxford University Press. Willingham, T. D. (2015). For the love of reading. American Educator, 39(1), 4–13. Yamashita, J., & Jeon, H. E. (2014). L2 reading comprehension and its correlates: A meta-analysis. Journal of Research in Language Studies, 64(1), 160–212. Yule, G. (2017). The study of language (6th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Chapter 5

The Power of Students’ Voices

Abstract Chapter 4 explored reading challenges faced by Indigenous students in the areas of linguistics, application of reading strategies and world knowledge. Further investigations could be conducted from a number of angles to understand why these specific challenges were faced by the Indigenous students. Unlike any other studies in Indigenous education, this research is the first to collect students’ voices, critically analysing the relationships between cultural factors and the challenges faced by the Indigenous students in reading. The contextualised data sources in this chapter provide a snapshot of culture-related factors that may impact on participating students’ reading English as an additional language. Keywords Students’ voices · Contextualised data sources · Relationships

5.1 Introduction Indigenous culture uses holistic concepts of time, heritage, language, intergenerational aspects and relationships with the environment (Battiste & Henderson, 2000; Porsanger & Virtanen, 2020). Thus, I have deliberately added multiple levels of data sources with open or multiple interpretations in this book to help readers develop a deeper understanding of Indigenous cultural knowledge. The first level of data is the reading test which is embedded in everyday teaching practice. The test results are used as a baseline data source in this book. Subsequently the second level of narrative stories stresses Indigenous’ students’ voice which shapes their identity as individual learners. Data from one-to-one interviews with the participants provides a snapshot of the context to assist readers to gain an understanding of perspectives on why Indigenous students do not perform well in reading tests. The data sources are not limited to a single interpretation but could be interpreted from multiple perspectives. This chapter is not seeking to achieve transformative politics, but to help understand why Indigenous students do not perform well in the dominant western educational paradigm. It does not assume a simple split between western and Indigenous cultures; rather it advocates an understanding of the coexistence of the two cultures. In this chapter I will look at the participants through a different lens, namely that

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 G. Y. A. Yang-Heim, Cultural Perspectives on Indigenous Students’ Reading Performance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9790-7_5

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of narratives. This offers a rich analytical framework to enrich my understanding of reading practices among Indigenous children. In this chapter I discuss the three Indigenous participating students’ narrative stories, followed by detailed critical analysis of one-to-one interviews with all participating students. Three different themes are identified: personal factors, cultural factors and standard of living. Under the umbrella of each theme, a number of sub-topics are discussed and analysed.

5.2 Aha Moments in Indigenous Students’ Stories What I am undertaking here is a new way of looking at my participants. The narratives increase understanding of how they view themselves as holistic beings and not separated into life in school, life at home or life in the community. I present and analyse stories, ensuring that critical events are extracted from the narratives to bring out how the participating Indigenous students interpret things, especially those that supply complementary and critical details to shed light on the findings uncovered in the thematic analysis of the interview data. To retain the original flavour of the account, each narrative keeps the use of the first person and retains as much as possible the original wording and grammar.

5.2.1 AS3’s Narrative AS3 was one of the Indigenous students in my class. He transferred from another local school to the research site at the start of 2016. He is academically a low achiever in most learning areas, for example reading, writing and mathematics, but AS3 was a well-received class member despite being a new student in the school and soon made a number of friends that he frequently played with at recess and lunch. With prompts, he verbalised a full account of his daily stories both at home and at school on 27 October 2016, and the informal interviews took place in a quiet room at school. AS3 was asked to give a detailed account of what happened from the morning until lunchtime at school the day before the interview. Every effort has been made to retain the maximum amount of the original flavour and the tone of the stories AS3 told, including the linguistic errors as long as they do not cause confusion in the interpretation of the stories. In his story, he used several words which have different connotations in the Indigenous context than in mainstream culture. His story also covers some of his experiences which are quite unique to his culture. The following is the theme that the critical events extracted from his narratives shed light on.

5.2 Aha Moments in Indigenous Students’ Stories

5.2.1.1

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Cultural Identity

My mum picked me up. She drove. Sometime they use my second mum’s car. [The researcher asked: ‘What do you mean by “second mum”?’ She was told second mum is his mum’s sister.] It is dark red. My mum’s car is light blue old car. I like it. It is kind of nice because it is my favourite colour. Dad and Mum share a car. But we do not have the car anymore. My aunties bought school clothes because my mum was sleep and Dad at work. We did not need to pay her back.

In AS3’s recount, he mentioned his aunty a number of times. This is a reflection of the important roles his aunt played in his everyday life and his pride in his cultural identity. Family in his world was defined slightly differently to what the word ‘family’ means to the majority in mainstream society. In private, he addressed his aunties as second or third mum. When I asked further questions to clarify the family relationships, AS3 started using the term ‘aunty’ in his later recount to avoid confusion. His narrative definitely shared the uniqueness of his culture, which he is proud of, and simultaneously he was willing to accommodate the needs of others from a non-Indigenous cultural background by using generic terms for his family members.

5.2.2 AS2’s Narrative AS2 was born in Alice Springs and she had a one-year-older brother who went to the same school as she did. She finished preschool, transition (a year before Year 1), and Year 1 at the research site. She was in Year 2 when she was recruited as one of the participating students for this study. Among all the Indigenous students in the class, she was considered an average learner in most learning areas including reading. AS2 had missed a few school days during 2016 for a variety of reasons. She frequently arrived late in the morning. On several occasions, she entered the class after the first two lessons were over. I interviewed AS2 at the school on 10 November 2016; the interview lasted for approximately an hour. On a few occasions, AS2 was confused about what she was retelling. Like AS1, I offered a decent amount of scaffolding and clarifying questions in a bid to assist her to understand my questions and to express herself clearly. She mentioned that she struggles with maths concepts, but she indicated she likes English programs such as reading, particularly ‘quiet reading time’, and spelling activities in class.

5.2.2.1

Learning Gap

I told him [her mum] the school was fun. Sometimes tricky. I like reading because it was fun then we get to have 10 minutes quiet reading time. I like it. Looking at pictures, practising words that are tricky.

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5 The Power of Students’ Voices We do spelling tests. You learn so much because my brain just became bigger and bigger. It is also fun. Yesterday I learned that the most enjoyable part is handwriting. When you hand is writing and getting weak, it means you are getting stronger. I don’t like maths. You do plus, take away, time, they are too tricky. Sometime we use times, sometimes we don’t.

A clear learning gap emerged when AS2 expressed her preferences regarding school subjects. She preferred English literacy over maths because maths involves the notion of time. She indicated that using concepts of time is not an everyday practice at home. Such an absence of the concepts of time in Indigenous daily lives should make educators reflect on their programs or teaching pedagogy that may not attend to Indigenous students’ special learning needs and knowledge about the world. Although it is important for Indigenous students to learn the unfamiliar concepts of time, the learning gap in Indigenous children’s prior knowledge should be appropriately addressed by tailoring teaching and learning programs accordingly. Additionally, it is important to remember that English is an additional language for many Indigenous students; it might be their second, third or even fourth language. Therefore, it is necessary to explain activities or concepts in more than one way and more than once to help Indigenous students to grasp them and gain confidence in themselves.

5.2.3 AS1’s Narrative AS1 was one of the most advanced readers among all the Indigenous students in the class. Her mother worked as a receptionist at one of the local primary schools in which the vast majority of students were of Indigenous descent. Her mother spoke fluent English whenever she communicated with the teachers. Unsurprisingly she had a good command of English as the nature of her job at school was to communicate with parents, students and staff in English. As a teacher, at times, I overheard their mother–daughter conversations and they were carried out in English rather than in an Indigenous language, in contrast to other Indigenous students in the class. On 25 November 2016, I interviewed AS1 outside the classroom while others were having lessons with another teacher.

5.2.3.1

Non-linear Narration

The theme of non-linear narration was clearly indicated in AS1’s critical events when she stumbled on multiple occasions where she mixed up events that occurred at different times. In addition, she tended to shift from one topic to another abruptly and found it hard to stay on the same topic during the conversation with me. I had to provide a few prompts to assist her to stay on topic and to offer relevant answers. This could be seen in the account as follows:

5.3 Theme-Based Findings from One-to-One Interviews

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[Yesterday after school] I walked to my friends’ place, because it is only two houses away from our house. My friends are Stephanie and Catherine. Then it is getting dark. [Note: the following ballet performance occurred the previous Friday. This event occurred a week ago. Visiting friends took place the day before the interview. AS1 was mixing events that occurred on different days.] It was the ballet time. We played helicopter and helicopter at friend’s place. Chasey around the house. We had lunch at friend’s house. We made sandwich. Then I went back home before the ballet started. I got ready for ballet. We had ballet bag, put all stuff in there. This the tights, put the tights first, and after I put shirt on. We had food at home before going to ballet. Dad and Mum made dinner, sandwich and orange. I had sandwich with peanut butter. I went to ballet at Araluen. We got out of the car, Mum needs to work at home, so she came back home. We practised there. After 2 minutes, Mum came to the Araluen again to watch our performance. After that we did pose, I performances with others from the ballet class. After the ballet, we went back home. Dad did not come to the performance because we did not have enough money. My aunty and uncle went. We drove car back home. We talked about the ballet performance. My mum said she liked it. My aunty and uncle are from Tennant Creek, they stayed with us that night. We never went home; we all went to my aunty’s and uncle’s house. We had quails for dinner, after that everyone was asking for noodle.

The interview with AS1 was conducted on 25 November 2016, a Friday. She was recounting what she did after school on Thursday. She went to her friend’s place and then she talked about getting prepared for the ballet performance which took place on 19 November. It was hard to keep track while the story’s time frame jumped around without following a linear pattern. Occasionally movie directors choose to use non-linear techniques to shake the story up or create a special effect, especially to increase character development. This does not seem to fit the context when AS1 was asked to retell her story as it is unlikely that she was attempting to utilise these advanced techniques. It is fair to say that she did not use this non-linear strategy purposefully in her recount. It echoed the way AS2 told her story. AS2 touched upon her struggle with using time in daily life, saying that using digital or non-digital formats of time presentation is not a common practice in Indigenous culture. Thus, AS1’s critical events teased from her narratives confirm that a typical non-linear or non-chronological order of narration can be considered a reflection of a learning gap, which was also discovered in AS2’s stories.

5.3 Theme-Based Findings from One-to-One Interviews There were 17 initial themes that were extracted through the initial coding of the transcripts of the three pairs of participating students with each pair at a similar reading level. The 17 initial themes were identified at the literal level of analysis and 7 broad themes were categorised subsequently at a deeper level ready for the meta-analysis to be presented in Chap. 6. For convenience of discussion, the 17 initial themes and the 7 broad themes are tabulated below but their definitions are provided in the relevant subsections of the chapter. Table 5.1 presents the progress of the analysis from the initial themes to the broad themes and then to the final themes, showing how the analytic outcomes were

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Table 5.1 Development of the themes Initial themes

Broad themes

Final themes

1. Length of information retention

Skills

Personal factors

2. Providing feedback 3. Self-evaluation of academic attainment at school 4. Conceptualisations of vocabulary in use

Learning

5. Different levels of commitment to homework 6. Understanding books 7. Dispositions

Different personalities

8. Consistency in response 9. Home routine 10. Different focuses of parental conversations with their children

Habit Family involvement

11. Different conceptualisations of time

Cultural influences

Cultural factors

12. Different cultural experiences 13. Different conceptualisations of family and the role of family in schooling 14. Different ways of thinking 15. Seeking clarification 16. Home environments

Living conditions

Quality of living

17. Differences in house appliances and electronic devices

formed at the three different levels of analysis. The presentation of the thematic findings based on the interview data in the following sections of the chapter is organised in a deductive and roots-to-leaves manner, starting from the final themes, which branch into the broad themes and end up in the leaves of the initial themes, showing how the final themes were extracted from the analytic findings at lower levels of analysis. Indigenous participating students’ responses are compared with their counterparts’ when necessary.

5.4 Personal Factors It is clear from Table 5.1 that in this research three final themes were extracted from the interview data and ‘personal factors’ is one of them. It refers to individual factors that are unique to the participating students and that strongly influence their behaviour, development and learning capacities. Roche (2014) pointed out that nonschool factors play a vital role in children’s abilities to learn and succeed in schooling. These factors could very well be reflected in individual differences in intelligence, aptitude, personality and learning styles/skills, which affect students’ rate of learning and eventual success in schooling (Hattie, 2008). As shown in the analysis of the

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interview data, personal factors constituted one of the three major categories of factors which account for the patterned systematic relationships underpinning the participating students’ reading performances in class. This final theme can be further divided into three sub-categories that were identified as broad themes in the course of the analysis, namely, skills, learning and personality, which will be discussed in detail in the following sections.

5.4.1 Skills Skills forms one of the seven categories identified as broad themes in the analysis and is about the development of a student’s thinking, problem-solving and learningrelated skills at school. It is relatively strongly connected to students’ competences in early education (Vainikainen et al., 2015). Such skills are usually fostered through school education to ensure that students reach their cognitive potential for use in different learning situations in their later life. In this study, the broad theme of skills is represented in four initial themes extracted from the participating students’ responses to the interview questions, namely length of information retention, providing feedback, self-evaluation of academic attainment at school, and seeking clarification, which will be presented in the following subsections.

5.4.1.1

Length of Information Retention

The theme information retention is about focusing attention in the short-term memory on relevant pieces of information received and sifting out relevant information from irrelevant information (Huitt & Lutz, 2018; Mayer, 1984; Sternberg, 1985; Wang, 2003). The capacity to retain information in learning is deemed fundamental in the learning process (Colmar & Double, 2017) and forms the foundation for building connections among the selected pieces of information, and organising and recalling them if need be. The ability to store and retrieve information plays a fundamental role in learning as it helps build continuity between what has happened, what is happening and what is going to happen. In a classroom setting, the types of learning are not isolated but connected; being able to recall what has been taught is essential to new learning. Colmar and Double (2017) noted that the length of information retention is also referred to as short-term working memory, which is believed to have a positive impact on how and how well students learn. Many definitions of working memory characterise it as a cognitive system responsible for the immediate storage and manipulation of information. A positive relationship has been demonstrated between working memory capacity and the development of reading and literacy (Normand & Tannock, 2014; St Clair-Thompson & Gathercole, 2006). It is suggested that about 10% to 15% of children in regular classrooms have working memory difficulties and that this

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problem negatively impacts on their academic learning and progress (Gathercole & Alloway, 2008). The Indigenous participating students in this study all experienced challenges in storing and retrieving information about events which occur on an everyday basis and in the classroom setting. AS3 demonstrated clear difficulties in retaining information in his mind about what happened in the past and was therefore unable to recall events that occurred on the previous day and even the lesson that was taught just an hour before the interview. This can be clearly seen in his responses to my questions below: 1) Researcher We had relaxation, and quiet reading first. Can you remember what happened after that? AS3 (Yawning) Um, cannot remember. 2) Researcher After you did quiet reading, what else did you do? AS3 I, I on mat, put, then PAT test. [Note: PAT test did not happen.] 3) Researcher What did you learn from the last lesson at school? AS3 Uh, uh, um, is, uh can’t remember. In the first instance above (1), AS3 was asked what he did in the previous morning at school. He could not remember or recall what happened ‘yesterday’, although many of these events in fact reoccurred on a regular basis. In the interview, even with prompts I adopted to assist him to recollect what happened the previous day, he was still unable to recall the events in a chronological order. In the second instance (2), AS3 told the researcher he had a PAT test after the quiet reading activity, but actually the PAT test did not take place that day. AS3 appeared to have confused its occurrence with what happened three days before the interview and seemingly struggled to remember what the lesson was, let alone to retrieve the content of the lesson. In the third instance (3), AS3 repeated the same answer ‘I cannot remember’ as he did in the first instance. Clearly, he had difficulty in remembering what happened in the past or retaining information about past events, even a lesson that took place only one hour before the interview. In contrast, MS3 was clearly able to recall what happened in the past in an orderly and chronological manner: he could even recall what he learned in the first instance below (1). In the second instance (2) below, MS3 was able to explain what he learned in the lesson when sharing a reading strategy he learned from a reading lesson with me. He paused when he was not clear what my question was about, but he was able to provide the answer immediately once I prompted him with a clarification. 1) Researcher MS3 2) Researcher MS3 Researcher MS3

What did you learn in reading? Un, um, the key words. Great job. What did you learn about the key words? Un … What does key words mean? Ah, the words that are very special.

Such a difference between the two participating students was even clearer in MS3’s response to my question about what he learned in the lesson he had on the day of

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the interview. In his response, MS3 was able to recall sequentially the activities he engaged in: MS3 Then we go to our desk, write our words, then draw a picture next to them. Then we went to the library, we read a book, then we borrow books. After that, we did maths. Then we did our writing. After that we went to lunch and then we go to the art room now. It was clear that MS3, the lowest-level reader in the mainstream group, was able to show his working memory skills by providing specific learning points in a lesson and recalling a daily learning schedule in a chronological order. This is in contrast to how AS3 performed in responding to similar targeted interview questions. AS3 either could not remember what happened or offered insufficient information to answer the questions. Like AS3, AS2 could not remember what she learned in class, even though she attempted to: Researcher What did you learning in the middle block? AS2 We learned. I forgot what we learned. AS2 was asked about her learning that occurred an hour ago in the middle block on the day of the interview where usually two lessons were conducted. She could not retrieve what she learned from the lesson. She was obviously trying to retrieve from memory and responded saying ‘We learned’, but she was unable to do so because she did not remember the lesson. Another example was a question related to her daily routine, which had nothing to do with actual learning. She still struggled to recall what happened: Researcher AS2 Researcher AS2 Researcher AS2

Nice. Where did Mum drop you off? In the front. Kiss and Go? Ya. Then what did you do after being dropped off? I forgot.

AS2 was dropped off at school by her mum in the morning and she could not tell what happened after her mum dropped her off at ‘Kiss and Go’. MS2 gave quite different responses during an interview, as she could recall almost everything she learned in detail, as is shown in the following excerpts. Both excerpts of conversations involved lessons that occurred the previous day. Researcher MS2 Researcher MS2 Researcher MS2

Did we do spelling? We only talked about it; we did not do it. Did you learn anything from the lesson? Ummm What was your spelling rule? ‘ou’ sound.

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In the above excerpt, MS2 was asked what the spelling lesson was about, but the question was worded in a way that only required a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. As a matter of fact, the spelling lesson was only for a few minutes due to insufficient time allocated for the lesson on the day. MS2’s response was rather accurate. Even her ‘mmm’ answer was legitimate as I had only talked about and reviewed some of the spelling rules each group had been learning for the week. Surprisingly, she was able to retrieve the essential part of the spelling lessons for the week—her focused spelling rule for the week was the ‘ou’ sound. Researcher What do you mean you did yellow 4? MS2 I read the text on myself. When I finish, I turn the card over, all the questions on the book. When I finished answering all the questions, I get the sheet, umm, answer the questions. The second excerpt above was a conversation about a reading lesson. MS2 shared the sequence of a reading activity in detail. The way she explained it was clear and easy to follow and understand. In a situation similar to AS2 and AS3, AS1 had also shown difficulty, although to a much lesser degree, in recalling events that occurred a few hours before, let alone retelling them in a chronological order. This is reflected in the following excerpt: Researcher What was the [spelling] activity about? AS1 We writed our words on board. AS1 was asked about what she did in the spelling lesson a few hours before. She was able to recall the lesson but her account was inaccurate. The activity was rainbow writing the words. Rainbow writing meant using different colours to write each letter in a word. AS1 did not remember the word ‘rainbow’ so she omitted the word. She also struggled to recall events that occurred on the same day, as shown in the following excerpt: Researcher AS1 Researcher AS1 Researcher

Before you played the game, what did you do? (Long pause) Can you remember anything you did today? No. It is OK.

AS1 struggled quite a lot in retelling what she did throughout the day. As the highestachieving Indigenous student in reading in the class as a whole, she was clearly trying hard to recall something but ended up using a very simple word, ‘No’, to tell me she did not remember any events that happened on the day, even though she should have sufficient knowledge of English to name some of the activities or games if she could remember what occurred on the day of the interview. In stark contrast, MS1 could not only recall what happened on the day of the interview but also retell it in detail:

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Researcher What did you do in writing? MS1 We have a piece of paper folded into 4, then after that then you do pictures that thing. So first I did the pictures, went to the museum, then finally on Monday I went to, actually I did not go anywhere. But I made banderine pencil topper and made a picture of banderines with a snow cone on the top of it. I drew Mr happy face because the holidays make me happy. MS1 shared what he wrote for the recount writing. He provided details about the writing lesson. The steps MS1 recalled were presented in a sequential order. He also used compound and complex sentences, using connective words to make the sentences better connected and clearer in meaning. It should be clear from the above excerpts that the mainstream participating students were able to recall most of their learning and daily events. Advanced readers like MS1 and MS2 showed their ability to remember and retell details of the learning. In contrast, the Indigenous participating students definitely struggled and were most likely to fail to recall what happened before, even if it was an event or activity that took place only a few hours earlier. Unlike AS3, AS1 and AS2 had relatively stable home environments. However, both AS1 and AS2 were late for morning classes on a frequent basis, causing them to miss the first two lessons of the day. While this may not be the only factor affecting their retrieval of their learning and events they participated in, it may contribute as all learnings are interconnected and missing one part of learning would result in a gap that the student may be unable to fill.

5.4.1.2

Providing Feedback

The theme feedback refers to information about reactions to a product or a person’s performance of a task, and is used as a basis for improvement (Oxford Dictionaries, 2019). In participating students’ daily stories, feedback refers to the participating students’ responses to the books, schooling and games. Constructive feedback is deemed valuable information that can be used in important decision making. Students who are able to provide effective feedback generally have a good understanding of what is commented on and are equipped with the skill of pointing out both positive and negative aspects to help others improve their performance (Svinicki, 2001). Being able to provide feedback is a skill that students are encouraged to learn in class. It requires a linear thinking pattern while processing what comment will be given. It usually starts with giving a personal opinion on the topic and then a reason to support the opinion. AS3 gave contradictory information while offering feedback, as seen in the following excerpt from the interview. Researcher Did you like the tests? AS3 A little. Because sometimes I don’t know the questions. It is kind of hard. Researcher Why is it too hard?

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AS3 Researcher AS3 Researcher AS3

Because it is a lot of words, sometimes I don’t know the words. Did you like the chasey game? Ya. What did you like about the game? Because it kind of it make you run around. You run around makes you happy when you run around fast. The person run up on the rainbow playground, person down there have to get. You have to get a different person. Researcher Do you think this kind of game helps you with reading? AS3 Ya. Researcher How? AS3 Because it is not a reading game, it is a chase game. Hide and seek, because you have to hide from the person in. In the first instance, AS3 gave his view on the PAT Maths test. It was clear in his response that he did not quite like the test because the questions in the test were hard and they included many words that he did not know. However, on another occasion, when he was asked to rate out of 10 how well he did in the test, he gave 9 out of 10. Apparently, the two responses he gave me were contradictory and questionable, indicating he did not fully understand what was meant by using a number between 1 and 10 to rate his performance in the PAT Maths test. That is, he was not able to properly associate his feedback on his performance in the PAT Maths test with the rating system upon which he was supposed to formulate his feedback. In the second instance, AS3 did not answer the question to the point when he was asked how playing chasey helped him with reading. It was clear he did not understand what was meant by ‘helping with reading’ or if any relationship could exist between playing chasey and doing reading. However, he believed that there must be some reason for playing the chasey game to help with reading, otherwise he would not have been asked about it. Nevertheless, he was not able to articulate the possible logic or causal connection between the two things, so he resorted to his knowledge of the game and thought it might serve the purpose of pleasing the teacher and said something instead of nothing. It can be seen from the above two instances, therefore, that AS3 prioritised saying something in reply when asked by the teacher, whether he knew the answer or not. He was happy to compensate for his inability to provide a correct answer by providing an incorrect answer, whether it addressed the point or not, if he knew what the point was at all in the question. MS3 had a better command of the skill of responding to a question in conversation. He gave a response that was to the point and logical, followed by a reason to support his stance. MS3’s feedback was also easy to understand and follow with a logical linear thinking process involved. See the excerpts below: Researcher That’s very good. What type of books do you usually borrow from the library? MS3 The books that the stuff I know. From the section over there from A to Z.

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Researcher MS3 Researcher MS3 Researcher MS3 Researcher

Any topics that interest you? Dr Seuss’ books. Why? They are pretty easy to read. And very funny sometimes. Nice. Any particular topics are you interested? Sometimes giant. For example, some people like animal books. What type of books would you like? MS3 Un some animal book sometime. Researcher Why? Un, it has some cool animals, and sometimes tell you about animals – MS3 what they do, like lions something. MS3’s responses to my questions were to the point, offering the information that I expected from him. His comments on Dr Seuss’ books and the reason he gave about why he liked his books was clear—they were easy to read. He was able to explain why he liked animal books or animal programs even though the expressions he used were not grammatically complete or sound. It was clear that MS3 did not compensate for his inadequate linguistic knowledge by resorting to providing irrelevant or incorrect answers to my questions, as AS3 did. MS3 also voiced his opinion on school subjects that he did not like in a frank manner: Researcher MS3 Researcher MS3

Is there anything that you don’t like at school? Un, un, spelling. So you don’t like spelling, right? Why? Ya. [Note: He seemed a bit sad when telling the researcher about something he doesn’t like.] Researcher It is OK. We don’t have to like everything. There are things that I don’t like. OK? MS3 Because writing two rows rather than one row. (Sobbing) Because my hand always get sore. Researcher Great. You writing is awesome now. Probably because I always after done my homework, I writing down MS3 my sentences after I come back from school. MS3 voiced something he did not like at school such as spelling as he found writing down spelling words made his arm sore. It should be noted that MS3 broke his right arm in a scooter accident and it was in a cast. Therefore, he became rather emotional while he stated why he was not a big fan of spelling. During the interview, the conversation with MS3 flowed smoothly and he seemed to develop a habit of elaborating on reasons whenever necessary. When I complimented him on his writing, he explained that he did extra homework so that his writing improved. It is also worth comparing AS2 and MS2’s comment on their school subjects, as the level of sophistication is strikingly different between the two. For example, AS2 made comments on her favourite subjects at a level she is at.

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Researcher AS2 Researcher AS2 Researcher AS2 Researcher AS2

5 The Power of Students’ Voices

What is your favourite subject? Um, spelling the words correctly. Why? Because we do sentences, sometimes um, I help people with sentences. What else about spelling makes it your favourite subject? Um, we did the test, um, my brain just getting bigger and bigger. Why? Because you learn so much.

AS2 made comments on her favourite subject—spelling. She explained why she liked the subject. She said she helped her friends with spelling words and she gained satisfaction from helping others. When I asked a further question, she also said: ‘We do the test, um, my brain just getting bigger and bigger.’ I tried to clarify what she meant by ‘brain just getting bigger and bigger’. AS2 clarified that it was because she learned a lot from the lessons. The difference in the way AS2 and MS2 offered feedback was enormous. Unlike AS2, MS2 offered constructive feedback on the books she read: she pointed out the aspects of the book she liked or did not like, followed by a convincing reason to support her opinions on the book and the author of the book. Researcher MS2 Researcher MS2

Researcher MS2

Researcher MS2

Researcher MS2

Researcher MS2 Researcher MS2

What types of books do you usually choose? Non-fiction. The animal. Why? Because I sort of like animals. There are people from class they want animal books. So, I find animal books for the class. Some for me. Sometimes I choose dinosaur books for myself, as I read all the other animal ones. Can you tell me a book that does not make sense? Um, sometimes it’s The cat in the hat book, that does not make any sense. Except for the ABC one because that one makes the most sense except for when it makes really big words up. What made you think The cat in the hat does not make any sense? Because it’s big lot of words and, um, they are like made up words and they don’t mean anything. It is really hard to understand it. Um, it is the words unreal. They are not real words, really? They are just made up, some silly words. Like sometimes they will be real words, but it’s like change its colours too like green eggs with green ham. Sometimes it is just really weird. That is very interesting. So you don’t like Dr Seuss’ books, do you? I do. Only some of them. Only some of them I don’t like because they make up really weird things. Who makes up really weird things? The author or the characters in the story? Author. The author is Dr Seuss and the cat is pink and make different animals yellow and rainbow.

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MS2 was able to justify why she enjoyed reading non-fiction books and voiced her own opinions on a few books. She liked animals and she wanted to learn more about animals. Also, she said sometimes fiction books did not make sense to her. MS2 provided an example to justify her opinions. In her view, Dr Seuss’ books such as The cat in the hat did not make any sense. She named one of Dr Seuss’ books called ABC that made the most sense. She believed that the words in The cat in the hat did not mean anything and were unreal. These words were just made-up silly words. It was also weird that the colour of objects in Green eggs and ham changed. She clarified that she did not dislike all of Dr Seuss’ books; she still liked some of his books. When authors make up really weird things, she did not like it. Researcher MS2 Researcher MS2

Researcher MS2 Researcher

MS2 Researcher MS2 Researcher MS2 Researcher MS2

Researcher MS2

Can you think of any books you don’t like? Um The tall man and The magic cat. Why? Because the magic cat is full of power and into a ruler and trying to get off the villain. They can use the magic cat forever until they find out where the villain lives. They speak to villain and the villain turns nice. You don’t like the story itself. Do you like the pictures of the story? I like the pictures. But I don’t like the story. You told me that they lost their power, the magic cat has all the power, and they lost the battle to the villains. That’s why you did not like the book? Ya. Is there anything else about the book you did not like? No. What made you like the pictures of the book? Because it is very colourful and they are really good pictures. How do the pictures help you understand the story better? Because it sort of looks like the person saying he lost magic hat. It helps you when you get stuck in word, it sort of tells you words in the picture. What word is. Are you saying pictures help give you some – Clues.

Two books MS2 commented on were The tall man and The magic cat. She preferred the pictures to the stories. She said colourful pictures helped her gain a better understanding of the stories. MS2 shared with me that she used the pictures as clues to make meanings while reading. Both AS1 and MS1 made comments on schooling or learning. The differences are the former could only give very simple answers and sometimes it was hard for her to find the answer. AS1 never voiced something that she did not like, and the same trait can also be found in other Indigenous participating students’ responses in the interviews. Researcher Do you like homework? AS1 You get better at uni and how to write properly.

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Researcher Is there anything you don’t like? AS1 No. AS1 did not directly say ‘yes’ to the question ‘Do you like homework’. She went straight to the reason: ‘You get better at uni and how to write properly’ to her unsaid opinion that she liked homework. She also indicated there was nothing that she did not like. Unlike AS1, MS1 gave more convincing reasons to support his opinion on subjects. Researcher What do you think of reading? MS1 I think the hard part of the reading is just what I liked. When I was three, so I was at preschool, Mum was reading this book, I asked Mum if I could read this book myself. Mum said I just taught myself. I did not actually learn anything. MS1 made comments on reading activities. He told me that he enjoyed the challenging parts of reading such as reading comprehension. MS1 told me he started to challenge himself by reading a book by himself. Researcher Tell me one thing about reading you really like. Well, I think the yellow box was really fun. Because you get to answer MS1 questions. I like doing quizzes. Researcher How do you think this activity help you with your reading? MS1 I think it helps us with our comprehension. That is why it’s called comprehension box. MS1 commented on reading comprehension. He thought the yellow box (the comprehension activity box) was fun as he got to do quizzes and answer questions because the activity helped him comprehend the books he read. The excerpts reveal the gaps between the Indigenous participating students and the mainstream participating students in the way they responded to the questions and how well they voiced their own opinions about learning and schooling. Undoubtedly, the mainstream participating students tended to be more confident during conversations with me than the Indigenous participating students. The former did not hesitate to voice what they thought on the topics being discussed; however, the latter did not seem to feel as confident as the former in sharing their thoughts and they tended to be rather careful in selecting what they shared with me. I felt they were trying not to get themselves in trouble by saying something I might not like. The mainstream participating students strongly demonstrated their critical and analytical skills in providing feedback on the books and learning. This skill, however, was lacking or yet to be developed with the Indigenous participating students. There are also cultural influences on lacking confidence in sharing their ideas and thoughts. Asking and answering questions is common behaviour in mainstream Australian households, but not in Indigenous communities, therefore, Indigenous children might arrive school with little experience of question-and-answer conversations. On the other hand, this not unique to Indigenous students. When I taught at high school in China, my first teaching experience, some students did not willingly express

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their views on certain topics. Expressing opinions could be seen as a skill which a person possesses, but it is also subject to cultural relevance, as the questions I raised in the interview were predominantly geared to children who are accustomed to western culture.

5.4.1.3

Self-Evaluation of Academic Attainment at School

The theme self-evaluation refers to recognising one’s own strengths and progress while identifying areas that need improvement (Klenowski, 2010). When students evaluate themselves, they are assessing what they know, how well they know, what they do not know and what they would like to know. AS3 and MS3 showed different levels of understanding of what they learned and how well they learned. AS3 was confused about how well he was doing in his school subjects during the interview. He was not able to explain how well he performed in a maths test when he was asked to use numbers to rate his achievement. Researcher AS3 Researcher AS3

Why is it too hard? Because it is a lot of words, sometimes I don’t know the words. How well did you think you performed in the last [PAT Maths] test? Uh I think 9 out 10 or 10 out of 10. I don’t really know.

AS3 evaluated his performance in the PAT Maths test with 9 out 10, and then continued that he was not quite sure; therefore, he said it might be 10 out of 10. He was clearly not able to understand what 9 out of 10 means as he told me previously that most of the words in the test were too hard for him. He produced the number because it was not in his Indigenous culture to disappoint the teacher by producing no response. In contrast, MS3 was aware of where he was at, how he was progressing and the next step he was aiming for. MS3 demonstrated an awareness of how well he learned certain subjects. He made comments on his own learning as follows: Researcher What did your mum actually say when you told Mum you moved up levels in BNF [basic number facts]? MS3 She is very excited, she looked at my homework to see where I am at, she is very surprised. I just got on that level; I am about to move up. MS3 [My writing is awesome] probably because I always after done my homework, I writing down my sentences after I come back from school. MS3 mentioned in the interview that he moved up to the next level in maths. He self-assessed his learning and identified what he did well. He was very happy with the progress he had made in writing. Unexpectedly he added that doing extra writing homework contributed to his progress. Similarly, MS1 had mastered the concept of self-evaluation and applied it properly to the context given in the interview:

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MS1

Um, we did assessment on Mathletics. It took around 2 minutes, maybe even 3 or 4, I did not have enough time to finish the other. I did not get time to get another certificate though. Researcher That is fine. You did very well. You got 40 extra credits. MS1 40 extra credits. I got 97% and I only got one wrong. That one was really tricky. MS1 Number 14. That one said how many. What fraction shown in the picture. I didn’t know what it was, as I am not very good at that. Researcher Do you know how to work it out now? MS1 Ya. There was 8 fractions in total, um, and so count them all then I saw there was one coloured, then 1 then 8. MS1 talked about his maths BNF (basic number facts) levels and he was rather surprised that he was on level three at the time, which was generally designed for students in Years 4 and 5. MS1 was happy discussing his most recent Mathletics online test with me. He said he achieved 97% and made only one mistake. He was aware that his weakest skill was fractions and that is where he made a mistake. Self-evaluation requires self-awareness of how much or how well a person has learned and what the next step might be. It is a rather logical and linear way of thinking. All of the Indigenous participating students struggled to tell events in a chronological manner and to stay focused on the same topic during the conversation, as identified and discussed earlier in this chapter. The concept of self-evaluation requires a higher level of complexity than the previous themes. It not only requires linear thinking, which differs from what the Indigenous students were accustomed to, but also involves articulation skills that the Indigenous participating students did not feel comfortable with, especially when they were not sure if I would like their responses. In other words, the Indigenous participating students need to learn to know what they are learning, how well they are learning and how to articulate the learning, especially when it is not satisfying to hear. The data showed it posed a huge challenge for AS3 to grasp the concept of self-evaluation and apply it properly. Self-evaluating one’s own learning is not a common practice in Indigenous culture. In fact, it was a new tool of learning adopted in the school where the research was carried out. This learning strategy was not widely applied in all schools in NT or in Australia as a whole. Indigenous students may not self-evaluate when they are learning in the same way as western students do. However, in their culture, everybody is not only a learner and but also a teacher. Most learning is achieved through real-life performance rather than through practice in a contrived setting as is often the case in schools. Once they master the skills, they pass on the skills to the next generation. In other words, Indigenous students self-evaluate their own learning in a very different way from westerners.

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5.4.2 Learning Like ‘skills’, learning is a second broad theme that was extracted from the 17 initial themes. It refers to a process involving acquisition of new knowledge, or modifying existing knowledge, behaviours, skills, values or preference through experience, study or by being taught (Domjan, 2010). In this study, learning is considered to be closely linked to the process of understanding and learning reading, especially texts/books read in formal or informal settings and encompasses three initial themes, that is, conceptualisations of vocabulary in use, different levels of commitment to homework and understanding books.

5.4.2.1

Conceptualisations of Vocabulary in Use

Researchers have shown that, at the early stage of second language learning, language learners tend to rely more on form than on meaning as their form-to-concept mappings are still relatively weak (Van Hell & Poarch, 2012). Conceptualisations of vocabulary in use, another initial theme identified in the interview data, therefore refers to participating students’ mappings of the vocabulary they come across in reading with the corresponding concepts that they have accumulated in life about the world. In other words, there is a developmental shift from form to meaning as the second language learners become more proficient. This is in agreement with findings made about non-proficient and proficient Catalan-Spanish speakers (Ferre et al., 2006). It is not an easy task for young children who speak English as a second or additional language to master English to a level where they feel confident in communicating with others in social contexts. It takes time. In addition, the vocabulary of the English language also reflects its culture and is at the same time influenced by it. In a sense, language is part of culture (Hossain, 2016). When children learn a new language or new vocabulary of that language, they are learning about the related culture. On multiple occasions in the interview, AS3’s answers to my questions demonstrated that AS3’s conceptualisations differed from what was normally expected in answering the given questions. Researcher AS3 Researcher AS3

So, Nana owns the house? Does she have to pay to live in the house? Ya. Sometimes all of us have to pay like, what is called. Why do your mum and dad have to pay? Because sometimes the power off, we have to move things to next door, and get a big cord from next door.

In the interview, AS3 told me that his nana owned the house where AS3’s family lived. I asked AS3 if his mum had to pay to live in the house. Clearly, AS3 did not interpret or conceive the concept of ‘pay’ in the same way as I did. My question was based on the culture where someone who owns a house does not need to pay to live in the house. I simply paraphrased my first question in my second question. However, AS3 apparently failed to see that the two questions were the same and

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were about whether his nana owned the property. He interpreted ‘pay to live in the house’ as paying the bills. Therefore, when AS3 was asked the question, he appeared to struggle to come up with an answer. When he managed to give an answer, it did not seem to be relevant. This difference in his conceptualisation or his different way of adopting a proper schema or a proper model of culture to guide reasoning, in processing, organising and making decisions on the information involved became clearer in AS3’s answer to my further question about ‘paying’. It was clear in AS3’s answer to the follow-up question that he considered paying to live in the house was the same as paying for the power, including paying for the power they got from the next-door neighbour through an extension cord. On another occasion, AS3 shied away from my questions by offering unrelated answers that did not hit any points, and AS3’s presentation or response was not always articulate enough for others to understand. On three different occasions, his answers went astray from the questions or he did not offer sufficient information for me to understand. Researcher AS3 Researcher AS3 Researcher AS3

It’s OK. Where did you play with them? Um, at recess and lunch. Where did you play? At the rain, rainbow playground. Where is it? It’s the colourful playground, I don’t know. Where you are going, it is blue, the slide, and I don’t know.

When he was asked to describe what he meant by ‘rainbow playground’ and where the playground was, he could not state it clearly. AS3 should be very familiar with this place as he goes there a few times a day to play with his friends; however, he got stuck in explaining where it is. Researcher Where did you practise it? AS3 Practise it the place where the shop, I don’t really know. You know the shop, that street road, that is the shop. Researcher Do you know in what area? Like Gillen, Larapinta, etc. AS3 I don’t really know. Similarly, he did not know the place where he practised karate even though he went there three times a week. He was not asked to name details such as the street name or street number, but the name of a community where he lives. This was still a huge difficulty for AS3. Researcher AS3 Researcher AS3

How far is the caravan from school? I really don’t know. Is it a long ride? I will ask Mum.

In addition, he could not tell me how far it is from his nana’s place to school. He said he would have to ask Mum about it. Usually non-Indigenous students in class use a different way to explain if they are not quite sure about ‘how far’ it is from one place

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to another. The easiest answer could be ‘very far’ or ‘not very far’. In contrast, AS3 shifted to the answer ‘I will ask Mum’. The underlying reason was rather clear: he did not understand the questions well enough and lacked the language to be able to explain, or he could not properly conceptualise the distance in the terms commonly used in the mainstream culture. Another Indigenous participant, AS2, encountered a similar challenge of conceptualisation in her conversation with me as follows: Researcher AS2 Researcher AS2 Researcher AS2 Researcher AS2 Researcher AS2 Researcher AS2 Researcher AS2

That’s OK. That’s alright. Anything else you talked about? Um, sharing our holidays. What did you talk about holidays? Um temple. [Town pool] Where is the temple? The swimming pool. Where is the pool? Um, next to the footy. Then where is the footy? Next to basketball. Is it in Alice Springs? Ya. I want to know more about it. Um, man and woman play.

At another time, AS2 tried very hard to respond to a question about her holidays. She mentioned the town pool, but it was tremendously challenging for her to explain where the town pool was. The circles of questioning and answering went around and around, but it still did not turn out to be clear enough for others to understand the location of the town pool, because she presumed I shared with her the same knowledge of the locations of the entities mentioned in her brief answers. Obviously, the only piece of knowledge we shared was the location of Alice Springs. In a different vein, MS3’s responses tended to be relevant and make sense and were articulate enough for others to follow on a regular basis. Researcher MS3 Researcher MS3 Researcher MS3 Researcher MS3

Oh nice. What book did you read? Un, the lion guard. The little one. Can you remember what is the book about? Un, it’s about a little lion, his dad and the other people. What happened to the lion in the story? They go gone the other animals. They have been fighting them. Why did they fight? Maybe, because I cannot remember.

MS3 talked about a book called Little lion guard. He articulated characters and plots in the story. Only when he was asked why the characters were fighting, he said he could not remember. This question requires higher-order thinking skills as the answers cannot be retrieved directly from the text, so he had to think beyond the text. It is uncommon for low-achieving students to apply more complicated reading strategies such as answering questions led by how and why.

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In contrast, MS2 did not encounter any conceptual barriers during the entire interview process. It was an easy, smooth and fun experience to learn about her daily stories through informal conversations. Researcher MS2 Researcher MS2 Researcher MS2 Researcher MS2 Researcher MS2s Researcher MS2 Researcher MS2

What did you do after breakfast? Um, I woke up my brother because he was still in sleep. Does your brother go to school? Ya. Then what is next? Then we got our bike ready. Then Dad left for work. Mum – Why did you need to get bikes ready? So we can ride to school. Where did you park your bike? In the bike shed at school. Where about is the shed? It is down near the preschool gate. What happened next after you rode to school? Then me and my brother came to class and put our bags away and change our readers.

During the interview, the conversation with MS2 ran rather smoothly. There was no moment when I found it hard to understand her. For instance, I asked MS2 about her morning routines. She understood every question and clearly responded with no confusion. For instance, when I asked her where she and her brother parked their bikes, MS2 said ‘down near the preschool gate’. The simple answer addressed the question perfectly because both MS2 and I knew which school we were talking about and where the preschool gate was. It was clear in the interviews that the Indigenous participating students have problems in adopting a proper way of conceptualising vocabulary in interacting with the interviewer. This often resulted in communication breakdowns during a conversation between the interviewer and the interviewee. In a sense, the language challenge was caused by the Indigenous students’ inability to understand, interpret or conceptualise exactly what had been said and what they could presume they shared with the interviewer and thus can be explained. In other words, they were not able to produce and perceive linguistic forms appropriate for the particular social situation (Paradis et al., 2013). Lacking sufficient or proper conceptualisation of the vocabulary used in communication with me, the Indigenous students found it challenging to express themselves well enough to make themselves understood. From a different perspective, English is not the main communication tool for most of the Indigenous families, who speak an Indigenous language at home. During the early years of school, these participating students were at the age in which they simultaneously acquired language at home and learned English at school. However, in Indigenous culture, speaking an Indigenous language is important to their identity both in terms of self-identity and the identity of the community as a whole.

5.4 Personal Factors

5.4.2.2

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Different Levels of Commitment to Homework

Homework is a set of tasks assigned to students by teachers to be completed after school. In general, homework is the tasks that help children reinforce what they learn at school and help develop independence in learning. Reading every night is part of homework policy at the school where the participating students go. It is an important activity that is intended to improve their word recognition, comprehension, fluency and word attack skills. According to Gabe (2009), the more frequently children read at home, the more likely they are to climb to a higher level in reading. The participating Indigenous students and their mainstream counterparts were found to differ in the levels of their commitment to completing homework. Reading at home is everyday homework for the participating students since it is part of the policy of the school where the data was collected. However, not every student made the same commitment to homework. AS3’s commitment was shown in the following interview excerpt. Researcher Did you read at night? AS3 Yes, I read. Researcher You just said you went straight to bed and slept after dinner, so you did not read last night, right? AS3 No. I don’t. AS3 did not read at night. This evidence was also backed up by the recording of home readers, where students can switch books in the morning if they read the books from the previous night at home. AS3 did not tick that box on the home readers sheet. In contrast, MS3 read books at night and also practised writing at home too, even though writing was not part of the homework. Researcher MS3 Researcher MS3 Researcher MS3 MS3

Do you prefer to be read to by Mum and Dad or read to yourself? Read to myself. Why? Because I, I (long pause) don’t really know. Who helped you with homework? No one, I just do it. Mum just watch TV, I do it. And after done my homework, I played outside. And then I watch TV with my mum. I do my writing that getting my handwriting, because it gets neater when write. [Note: MS3 did extra homework by writing sentences without being asked to.]

Clearly, MS3 read at night at home and he also said, if his parents read a book to him, they would ask him some questions about the book to help him get a better understanding of the text, but he preferred to read to himself and did not state any reasons why. MS3 mentioned doing homework from time to time, and doing extra schoolwork at home even though he did not enjoy writing as that made his arm hurt. (His right arm was in a cast due to an accident.) He did not ask for any assistance from his parents and completed his homework without any adult supervision.

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The middle group of participating students, AS2 and MS2, shared something in common—reading every night as part of the school homework policy, as shown below. Researcher AS2 Researcher AS2 Researcher AS2 Researcher AS2

Did you read last night? Ya. Do you read at bedtime? Ya. Does anyone read to you? Mum read a book to us. Does Mum discuss the book with you? No.

The above excerpt indicates that, unlike AS3, AS2 read regularly at home and her mum was able to read to her at bedtime. However, her mum did not discuss or talk about the book being read with AS2. Researcher MS2 Researcher MS2 Researcher MS2 Researcher MS2

Do you do bedtime readings? Ya. Did you read last night? Ya. Did your parents read to you? No, I have to read by myself. What did you read? I read a chapter book before going to bed.

MS2 read by herself. She said she read a chapter book on her own. This indicates she was at a high level of independent reading. In a similar vein, both AS1 and MS1 mentioned they read or were read to after school. Researcher AS1 Researcher AS1

How long do you do your homework every day? Um, um, not for that long. Nice. Do you read every day at home? Ya.

The above excerpt indicates AS1 did her homework and read every night at home. Researcher Do you read every day? MS1 I read. MS1 I think the hard part of the reading is just what I liked. When I was three, so I was at preschool, Mum was reading this book, I asked Mum if I could read this book myself. Obviously, MS1 enjoys reading. At school, I can recall that he always sat in the library or somewhere comfortable in the classroom enjoying his favourite books. He also mentioned he started to be exposed to reading at a young age and could read a book and teach himself to read at the age of three. This also indicated that MS1 enjoys

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challenges during reading. I did not expect the extra detailed information about his home reading experience that he provided in the interview. The participating students displayed different levels of commitment to home reading. The majority of them did reading at home and it became part of their daily routine at night. The exception was AS3, who had not developed a habit of home reading after school. This could partly explain his exceptional weakness in reading. There were not significant differences between AS1, AS2 and all MS participating students in terms of commitment to reading. Sitting down, opening books and reading is not the traditional way of learning in Indigenous culture. Indigenous people traditionally learn through sharing traditional stories that empower them to become effective learners (Archibald, 2008). These three Indigenous participants demonstrated varied levels of interest in reading books, which was dependent on the extent to which they had absorbed western culture while maintaining traditional Indigenous culture. Most of them enjoyed reading by themselves rather than being read to by others. No one mentioned discussion of the books after reading. The one thing that was strikingly surprising was that MS1 shared in the interview how much he had enjoyed reading challenges since he was very young.

5.4.2.3

Understanding Books

Understanding books is another initial theme extracted from the interview data in the study. When a student says he/she understands something, then the student should be able to explain to others what it is that is understood (Chappuis & Stiggins, 2002; Clarke et al., 2003). It comes down to the premise that if the student cannot explain what he/she knows, he/she does not know. A good way to assess whether a student understands a lesson, a movie or a book is to let them tell what they know about it. The participating students were found to differ in their depths of understandings of books they read. The following conversations were regarding how well AS2 and MS2 knew the story books they like. Researcher AS2 Researcher AS2 Researcher AS2

What are your favourite stories? Monster stories. Can you recall one monster story? Bless you Santa. What is the book about? In the morning, Santa have breakfast. And then he went, went to the, went to the, he went to wash his face in the bathroom. When he walked out of the bathroom, he sneezed. Researcher Is it a funny story? AS2 Ya. The interviewer asked AS2 about her favourite stories. She mentioned monster stories, so she was asked to recall a monster story. AS2 shared a book called Bless you Santa, but it is a Christmas book not a monster book. It made me wonder if

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AS2 understood the question or understood what a monster story should be like or sound like. She did talk a little bit about what the book Bless you Santa was about and, based on what she said about the book, she was aware it had nothing to do with monsters. In sharp contrast, MS2 demonstrated greater understandings of the books she read. She was up to specific chapters of the books, as indicated in the homework section. Therefore, handling or reading picture books was a piece of cake for her. The following excerpt is just an example showing how she demonstrated her understanding in reading. Researcher MS2 Researcher MS2

What movies did you watch? I watched Peter Rabbit. Did you like it? Ya. If the real rabbit, you have three rabbits as friends and his squirrel friend, the squirrel is Napkin. I cannot remember the three rabbits’ name.

In the interview, MS2 was unable to recall the names of the characters in the story Peter Rabbit. It is quite common that a character’s name is forgotten and it does not affect how the book is understood. Researcher What was the problem in the movie? MS2 They go to the person to get something, there is the big cat, scare them away. The second problem is there is lot of wolves, cats and those things, they have trouble to get their food. In above excerpt, MS2 explained the problems in the movie. Surprisingly, she was able to identify two problems in the story, which clearly showed her level of understanding of the movie. Researcher How were the problems solved? MS2 Because they are so small, they hide in someone’s bag, someone takes them to farm, drop the bag and they quickly ran out and through the fence and go to where the food is to get some food. They bring a little car with them and put some in there, but they leave four seats, four little spaces. They go rolling down hill and they quickly jumped in and quickly ran to their houses. This excerpt showed MS2 elaborated on the resolution of the story, and how the above problems were resolved. Clearly, she understood the story so well that she was able to pick the main elements in the story to share. It must be noted that the structure of a story was taught in class, so the above excerpts demonstrate how the participating students had differed in understanding the lessons. Being able to articulate her understanding was an amazing attainment in understanding for MS2 that AS2 was clearly unable to reach.

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5.4.3 Personality Personality is a second broad theme that was extracted from the interview data. In this study, personality is defined as the characteristic set of behaviours, cognitions and emotional patterns that evolve from biological and environmental factors. The concept of personality is the dynamic integration of the totality of a person’s subjective experience and behaviour including both subconscious and conscious, concrete and habitual behaviours and fears (Kernberg, 2016). A person’s personality type is codetermined by genetic and constitutional dispositions, although researchers have different views on the key determinants of personality and their influences (Konner, 2010; Widiger & Mullins-Sweatt, 2005). Of the many characteristics that contribute to one’s personality, only one was identified in the interview data of the study as an initial theme, that is, disposition. By definition, disposition is one’s prevailing mood or the aspects and habits or inclinations of mind and emotion that a person displays over time. It is a particular type of character a person naturally has, such as being shy, extroverted, reserved, introverted and so on (Abe, 2018; Dweck, 2008). A child’s character plays an important role in the way they learn (Abe, 2018). Teachers need to get to know the student and identify what kind of disposition he/she has to avoid unnecessary pitfalls along the learning journey. Some students are brave and willing to take learning risks, whereas other students are focused on the consequences of making mistakes or not making the right learning choices. Consequently, in order to avoid making mistakes, these students tend to tell the teacher what they think she/he likes to hear. This could be a cultural difference, not just about personality. AS1 was a typical example in this case. AS1 tended to give answers for the sake of giving an answer rather than offering a correct answer. When she did not know how to respond, she was afraid of being criticised so she tried to admit a mistake she did not actually commit at the time. This was uncommon among the mainstream participating students. Researcher AS1 Researcher AS1 Researcher AS1

Why did the teacher ask you to sit on floor? Because I was too aloud. Really?! I did not think so. What did you do on floor? (Long pause) Is there anything you don’t like? No.

The above excerpt shows how AS1 responded when she did not know the answer. She said she ‘was too aloud’ so she was asked to sit on the floor. This was not the reason for sitting on the floor. The teacher actually asked them to sit on the floor to get ready for an instructional lesson. AS1 also responded ‘no’ when she was asked if there was anything she did not like. Perhaps this was not a truthful answer, but rather she did not want to reveal her true feelings. She was concerned she might get in trouble by giving a negative response. In contrast, the mainstream students were more open and truer to themselves in terms of responding to the interviewer.

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MS1

That was the first time in ages. I just remember now I forgot to ask Dad not to cut the wishbone, but that’s ok. Researcher Why did you ask Dad not to cut wishbones? MS1 I like wishbone because actually you put your finger around the bits then the other person put around the bits, then you both pull, then whoever gets the bit of the top, gets to make a wish. MS1 was much more open and shared daily stories freely with me. He told me about a ‘wishbone’ story over the dinner table. He forgot to ask his dad not to cut the wishbone of a chicken. He liked wishbones, as he said if one person puts his/her finger around one bit then the other person put their finger around the other bit, and both people pull, whoever gets the top bit gets to make a wish. This is an additional piece of information MS1 liked to share without being asked. He was not worried about getting himself in trouble by telling something that was not required. He was the total opposite to AS1 in this respect. In contrast, AS1 was not willing to take risks in learning because she was afraid of getting in trouble if she made mistakes.

5.5 Cultural Factors Cultural factors are the second final theme that was extracted from the interview data. Research has indicated that culture-related factors play a role in second language learners’ learning strategies and learning choices. For instance, Chinese students have a tendency to prefer strategies involving memorisation and a focus on a code of linguistics as a result of the cultural factors that promote the predominant use of such strategies in the learning of Chinese characters in order to become L1 proficient (Rao, 2002, 2004). An understanding of the role of cultural factors in education will lead to more effective teaching and learning (Goldman, 2014).

5.5.1 Cultural Influences Cultural influences are one of the seven broad themes that was taken from the interview data and is a sub-theme of cultural factors. Culture refers to the shared values, beliefs and norms of a specific group of people and it influences the way people learn, live and behave. To a certain degree, it also contributes to shaping the personality of a person (Lareau & Weininger, 2003). Culture is a social construct and most students have at least three areas where culture exercises significant influence: home, peers and school (Goldman, 2014; Horbury & Cottrell, 2007). For instance, a student may come from a home where they are told not to make mistakes, and this type of culture may be manifest when they are afraid to make mistakes so they avoid taking risks in

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learning or seeking clarification when they do not understand the teacher (Lareau & Weininger, 2003). Indigenous students might display similar traits in learning as a result of their cultural influences.

5.5.1.1

Different Conceptualisations of Time

Time is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, and to compare the duration of events or the intervals between them. Generally speaking, methods of temporal measurement take two distinct forms: the calendar, a mathematical tool for organising intervals of time, and the clock, a physical mechanism that counts the passage of time. Usually, children’s expanding cognitive abilities allow them to understand time more clearly as they grow older (Dendir, 2014). Twoor three-year-old children’s understanding of time is mainly limited to ‘now’ and ‘not now’. Five- and six-year-old children can grasp the ideas of past, present and future. Seven- to ten-year-olds can use clocks and calendars (Harris, 2008). However, conceptualisations of time was found to be an initial theme where Indigenous students differ from their non-Indigenous counterparts. The Indigenous participating students found it hard to grasp concepts about the intervals of time between two events, while their paired mainstream counterparts did not. It was clear in the interview that AS3 encountered challenges in conceptualising time and the intervals between past events. This conceptualisation concerns not only awareness of concepts such hours, minutes and seconds, but also understanding what an hour, a minute or a second is like, and what activities could be done within a certain amount of time, how much time a particular action would take to accomplish and how past events could be chronologically linked. Differences in the conceptualisation of time and events can be seen in the excerpt below: Researcher AS3 Researcher AS3 Researcher AS3

What time did you have dinner? 8:20 What time did you go to bed? Um, 8:30. What else did you do before you went to bed? Un, we watched movie. We watched Utopia.

It can be seen from the excerpt that AS3 indicated his dinner time was at 8:20 pm and bedtime at 8:30 pm. Therefore, it did not make any sense when he said he also watched a movie before bedtime. The understanding of time and time-related concepts has always been a huge challenge for Indigenous students. There was a sharp contrast in MS3’s responses with regard to time and time-related concepts. See the two excerpts below for instance. 1) Researcher What did you do after Dad got home from work? We go for showers, have dinner. After had shower, we watch TV, MS3 have dinner and then watch TV. 2) Researcher How long did you read the book for?

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Un a little bit, because I cannot stay for that long, cause I got to bed at 7:30 pm.

The above excerpts show clearly that MS3 told his daily stories in a logical and chronological order with a clear understanding of basic time concepts that was normal for his age group. In general, the majority of students in that age group have a basic understanding of time, knowing, for example, what goes first, then what is next, and what happens after that. They are usually able to understand the time intervals between events despite the fact that they might not be able to tell the time exactly to the minute. MS3 was aware of his bedtime and how long he should read in bed. He used the phrase ‘a little bit’, which matched his explanation ‘cannot stay for that long’ because he got to bed at 7:30 pm. AS2 tended to misunderstand my questions during the interview and also expressed that time is a hard concept for her to grasp. Researcher Do you like maths? AS2 Time [note: AS2 meant clock.], they are all too tricky. I don’t really know about time. Researcher Do you think is it too hard? AS2 Because my brother said it is hard for me too. Researcher Do you use time a lot? AS2 Sometimes. Researcher When do you use time? AS2 At school. Researcher Do you use time at home? Not really. AS2 Researcher When do you have to read the clock? AS2 Um, at 5 o’clock [Note: Answer does not make sense] we have to go to the birthday party. AS2 used the word ‘tricky’ twice in the interview. The first time she used the word to describe the school, which she believed is fun. The above excerpt contained the word again to describe the concept ‘time’, which is difficult as AS2 said. She mentioned she sometimes used time at school and she also suggested it is not a common practice for her to read time outside school. MS2 understands time concepts, which is reflected in the way she answered my questions: Researcher MS2 Researcher MS2

What are the things that you keep in mind while making a plan? Ummmm Make sure you draw the events in? In order.

MS2 and I talked about making a plan for a recount. She initially stumbled a little when she was asked about an important part of planning the writing. However, she gave a perfect answer with a little prompt. She understood that it was important to draw the events in chronological order before writing. On a different occasion, she recounted events in sequential order.

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Researcher What happened next after you rode to school? MS2 Then me and my brother came to class and put our bags away and change our readers. Researcher Then? MS2 Went outside for play before the music went off. MS2 put events in a chronological order by using transitional words such as then and before to indicate what happened first, next and last. Being similar to AS2 and AS3, AS1 stumbled in terms of understanding the concept of ‘time’ as shown in the following excerpts: Researcher Good morning. Remember last time you said that you do spelling first in the morning. How long do you do spelling in the morning? AS1 Like a while. Researcher How long is it? AS1 2 or 3 minutes. Researcher Is that long? What do you usually do in spelling? AS1 Write words down, draw pictures. Do a bit of writing. AS1 used ‘two to three minutes’ to describe the length of a spelling lesson. In general, a spelling lesson lasts for at least 20 min. Therefore, she was lacking an understanding of what two to three minutes should look like and what type of activities can be completed in two to three minutes. In order to confirm the fact that AS1 lacked understanding of the concept, I asked another question regarding time: Researcher AS1 Researcher AS1 Researcher AS1

How long do you do your homework every day? Um, um, not for that long. For how long? Like 2 or 3 minutes. What do you do with your homework for that 2 to 3 minutes? BNF homework, en, practice spelling, practice BNF, so you can pass.

Generally, AS1 said two to three minutes were needed for almost everything. She said she spent two or three minutes doing her homework including spelling and maths. It does not sound feasible to complete a set of tasks in such a short amount of time. I confirmed that AS1 had no understanding of time even though she was among the best achievers in the Indigenous group in the class. In her age group, the majority of students have mastered the concept of time intervals and can tell time to five minutes. It seemed to be a very difficult task for AS1 to achieve, but it was a different story for MS1: Researcher What did you do when the bell went off? MS1 When the bell went off, I came back to the classroom, then I put, I sat down at my desk and put my bag on, then I went around the big side near the Old Hall, after that, I got in the car. I get my mum my bag; there was a newsletter there, as when there was a newsletter there I give my bag to her. So it took around 5 minutes to get home.

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When MS1 recalled events that had happened already, he always talked about them in a chronological order with time transitional words to indicate the sequences such as then, first, after that, eventually and so on. The above excerpt shows he understood what 5 min meant and looked like. I was aware of the fact that it took about 5 min to travel from school to his house. Therefore, MS1 understood what 5 min should feel like. Undoubtedly, all three Indigenous participating students have encountered considerable challenge with basic time concepts. They all stumbled in the conversation with me when it came to time-related matters. AS3 struggled with the time intervals, as did AS1. Neither of the two showed a clear understanding of what a 5-min time period might look like and what can be done within this period of the time. AS2 showed that she was not able to read the clock. The tool clock was not familiar to them. However, they understand time concepts in a different way from the mainstream culture. For example, one Indigenous participant shared with me that he uses the sun to tell time and what he needs to do. If he sees the sun set, it is time to go home and have dinner. Many Indigenous people mark the rising and setting position of the sun throughout the day to tell the time. As AS2 mentioned that they do not use a clock at home, perhaps she only experiences western time concepts when she is at school. In contrast, for the non-Indigenous participating students it feels natural to show awareness of time and to use a calendar or digital clock in daily life. It definitely helps facilitate mainstream students’ learning about the time at school. This does not mean that Indigenous students cannot learn, but it means they learn to grasp time concepts in a different way.

5.5.1.2

Different Cultural Experiences

The interview data identified cultural experiences as another initial theme. It refers to a set of shared beliefs, attitudes, goals, values and practices that are related to nationality, ethnicity, religion, social class, locality or any other factors that characterise a social group or a country. Acquiring understanding of a type of culture is important as it helps to learn how to think, act and feel the way people of that culture do. Different cultural experiences shape cultural identity differently and thereby shape people’s perspectives and understandings of things around the world differently (Banks, 1997; Chirkov et al., 2005; Hossain, 2016). AS2’s responses in the interview could be difficult to understand. This might be explained by factors that are associated with the cultural environment in which she grew up. It could be attributed to the fact that people from outside her culture somehow do not find it easy to unlock the key to successful communication. The following excerpt from the interview with AS2 is an example: Researcher AS2 Researcher AS2

What did you enjoy learning most? Um, um, handwriting. Why? Because when you hands are getting weak, you are getting stronger.

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AS2 expressed a reason why she enjoyed handwriting. Her logic was if someone’s hands are getting weaker, he/she is getting stronger. There is no clear correlation between cause and effect in her reasoning. Her logic evolved from her cultural experiences and her understandings. However, it is not a common way that people from western cultures think. AS2’s expression, which is unfamiliar and difficult to understand in the mainstream culture, was perfectly understood by Indigenous educators who had experienced a similar culture to AS2, that is, when you have exercised so hard that you are exhausted physically, you are actually becoming stronger in your muscles.

5.5.1.3

Different Conceptualisations of Family and the Role of Family in Schooling

‘Family’ means different things to AS3 and MS3. In AS3’s culture, a family includes members of the extended families such as uncles, aunties and cousins. They all belong to the same family and, while they do not necessarily live under the same roof, they should support each other and work together to help each other tide over difficult times in the same ways as the immediate family in western cultures. Researcher AS3 Researcher AS3 Researcher AS3

Who bought you your uniform? Un, my aunty. Mikayla’s mum. Why didn’t Mum and Dad buy you your uniform? Because my mum was busy and Dad is at work that day. Did Mum pay Aunty back? No. because she [Aunty] has money.

AS3’s extended family members lived in the same community and helped and supported each other. He had a close-knit large family with many extended family members. His aunty bought school uniforms for him and he lived with his nana who provided accommodation for AS3 and his parents. In contrast, MS3’s conceptualisation of family is what makes up the immediate family, with its members living under the same roof. Parents spending time together with children at home is part of his family activities, as shown in the following interview extract: Researcher What do Mum and Dad watch on TV? MS3 Mum and Dad watched news, they watch cooking shows, farm shows. Researcher Oh, nice. I love cooking shows too. Do Mum and Dad sit down and watch animal shows with you? Ya. MS3 Researcher Do you discuss about animals on TV? MS3 En, sometimes. As a family, MS3 and his parents watch animal TV programs together and discuss some very interesting animals. MS3’s family also collaborate with each other when it comes to home duties, as seen in the following excerpt:

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Who made dinner? My dad and my mum. Who set the table? Jessy, Katy [sisters’ pseudonyms] and my dad and me. What did you do with the setting up? I did the knives and fork.

MS3 mentioned that every family member was part of the dinner activities. The parents cooked and the children helped set the table. Similar to AS3’s situation, AS2’s extended family members were involved in her life. Researcher AS2 Researcher AS2 Researcher AS2

What did you do after you got home? I jump on trampoline. Do you have a trampoline at home? Ya [at Nana’s house]. Did you mention you rode on a scooter? Ya. But I ride on, ride on, rided on scooter to, rider on scooter with Dad to Nana’s. Researcher What did you do at Nana’s house? Then we did, we jump on trampoline, then we, then we had, do you AS2 know the bar chocolates? Researcher Yes, I know. AS2 Then I had bar chocolate. The above excerpt shows AS2 spent time after school at her nana’s place, playing and having snacks. This is different from MS2’s situation. In western cultures, in general, it is the immediate family members who live together and are called ‘family’ and they collaborate with each other. MS2 shared the interesting personal event below, which distinguished her ‘family’ from the Indigenous participating students’ conceptualisation of the term. Researcher Then what did you do? MS2 Un, the, then we went out with Mum because it was her birthday. Before that my dad picked us up and took us to the jewellery place, my brother bought a ring for Mummy and I bought a ankle lace, but the ankle lace is too big and the ring is too small. Researcher Did you have a special dinner for Mum’s birthday? We went out for bush troy hill thing. We went on the hill. MS2 MS2’s dad made breakfast for her and her mum sometimes helped pack her lunchbox. She organised her school bag herself after breakfast and got ready for school. Dad and the kids organised food and celebrated Mum’s birthday as a family. Like other Indigenous participating students, AS1’s extended family members are heavily involved in their lives.

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Researcher Did Dad go to watch your performance? AS1 No. Because we don’t have enough money. My aunty there, my mum and my uncle. But we took pictures there. Researcher What did you do there at your uncle’s house? AS1 We camped there for the night. We had corn and beef for dinner. AS1’s aunty and uncle played a role in supporting her. She said when her parents did not have enough money for both parents to watch their own kids’ ballet performance (this is described in detail in Sect. 5.5), her uncle and aunty came to the performance to support her instead. They also took the kids to their place and made food for the kids. Similar to the other two mainstream participating students, MS2 and MS3, it is MS1’s parents rather than his extended family members who are the main support for him and his siblings’ everyday life and education. This is shown clearly in the following conversations: Researcher How did you come to school? MS1 My dad, because Mum still has to fill in and busy with her friend Michele’s birthday. Ya, so Dad brings me today. And also, I have to go to Dad’s ute, starts off Monday. The above excerpt shows MS1’s family was similar to most western families and was composed of parents and children without extended family members. Parents take care of children’s needs and assume responsibility for sending children to school. In addition, MS1 also shared he helped out with horses raised at home. Researcher What’s next thing did you do? MS1 Then after that, I actually remember. Oh, ya, time for dinner. Mum cooked dinner. Actually, I went out to help Mum with horses. Researcher Oh, how did you help? MS1 So, I got out, she just finished doing the thing as usual, but I got there in time to (I think I) put on the rugs, putting rugs on the horses, on the horses, I like putting it on horses. Clip the back then unclip the thing then put it around her rack, again do around the other side then unclip the thing again, can go up and on the other one, then clip on it, then you do the front, if you are the other side around, then so it is just the normal bubble, you have to do twice though, you have to put it onto to his toe. MS1 helps his mum with chores such as looking after horses, and doing laundry and dishes (as indicated in Sect. 5.5). This is quite different from the Indigenous participating students’ families with heavy involvement of members of the extended family. In all mainstream participating students’ conversations, none of them touched upon an extended family member who is heavily involved in their daily activities. One thing that struck me was the importance of the immediate family members’ collaboration involving children in the daily home activities. Quite differently, the

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Indigenous participating students have been supported not only by their parents but also by their extended family members even though they do not live under the same roof. This is simply a different lifestyle in which the two groups of participating students live. Regardless of how collaboration is carried out, it helps the children learn the notion of teamwork and makes the children feel supported. According to White and Braddy (2017), children thrive on feelings of belonging and the affection that comes from enjoying care and support. Once again, such care and support are typical activities in mainstream culture with immediate family members involved. MS1 did not mention extended family members at all during the interview, as it is not the common practice for them to be closely involved in the care of children in western societies.

5.5.1.4

Different Ways of Thinking

Thinking involves cognitive activities used to process information, solve problems, organise information, ask questions, make plans and decide what to do (Kelly, 2015). There are two types of thinking that must be noted—sequential (linear) thinking and holistic (nonlinear) thinking. The former is processing information in an orderly, prescribed manner and it involves a step-by-step progression where the first step needs to be completed before the second step occurs. The latter, on the other hand, is about seeing the big picture and recognising the interconnectedness of various components that form larger systems. Holistic thinking progresses not in one direction but in multiple directions to understand how everything connects (Kelly, 2015). Children at school demonstrate different ways of thinking; therefore, in order to cater for their learning needs, it is important to know what type of thinking they predominantly use, and modify teaching instructions to help these children reach their learning potential. Different ways of thinking is an initial theme identified in the interview data. AS1 appeared to adopt a way of thinking which is different from what is common in the mainstream culture. She had shown a tendency to give random answers to most of the questions I asked. She seemed rather confused and confusing about the sequential orders of activities that happened to her. Researcher AS1 Researcher AS1 Researcher AS1 Researcher AS1 Researcher AS1

What else did you do at your friend’s place last night? Then we had lunch at my friend’s place. Did this happen after school? Ya. [Note: Does not make sense.] Didn’t you have lunch at school? We made sandwiches. Had some food before ballet start. Did you eat food at your own place? Ya. [Note: Does not have time order when responding.] What did you do after eating food? I got ready for ballet. [Note: That happened last weekend.]

AS1 talked about visiting friends after school. When she was asked what else she did other than play at her friend’s place, she said she had lunch there. This does not

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make sense as she had lunch at school and went to her friend’s place after school. She may have lunch at her friend’s place at some point during the year. After that AS1 mentioned they made sandwiches and had some food before ballet started. Her thinking was wired back to the previous weekend when her ballet performance occurred, whereas she was aware that I asked her to share what happened last night. It was really hard to follow her as her mind frequently shifted from one time to another. It was rather hard for her to stay on topic. However, this was never the case for the non-Indigenous participating students, as shown in MS1’s responses to my questions: Researcher What did you play at recess? MS1 We played lava. So when we went to the big side, the last one to reach the square thing with the post, that person is in, then wander around to see if anyone is running in front of the post, the person had to chase and tag them. Researcher Did everyone follow the rules of the game? MS1 Ya, I think so. MS1 explained the rules of the chasey game he played with his friends clearly so that I could understand the game very well after his explanation. He consistently stayed on the same topic, which is also reflected in the next excerpt: Researcher Did you dry up yourself? MS1 I dried myself and I put on my pyjamas. I think I just did some finger knitting. Researcher Oh nice. Can you show me how? OK, so first you put, you have to hold hands like this the whole way MS1 through, and then you put the end of the string through your thumb and you pointer, then you wrap your pointer one, finger one. You make sure they both have two times otherwise too many, grab the bottom loop and put it over, then you keep on doing it. During the interview, MS1 also articulated the steps of finger knitting and the instructions were clear, concise and easy to follow. He used precise verbs to show the steps and also used time order words to indicate the sequence of the activity. MS1 always stayed on the topic being discussed. It was clear that MS1 was thinking in a way that differed from what was demonstrated in his paired Indigenous counterpart AS1’s responses to my questions. Like all other Indigenous participating students, AS1 demonstrated repeatedly in the interview a way of thinking that was different from the mainstream culture. She tended to shift from topic to topic rather quickly. In other words, she did not respond to the questions in a meaningful way but deviated from what the question was about. Researcher AS1 Researcher AS1

What was the [spelling] activity about? We writed our words on board. How did you write down the words? The teacher told us to sit on the floor and we went to science. [Note: This event did not happen.]

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AS1 was asked about a spelling lesson. She literally said writing down words. When I prompted further ‘How did you write down the words?’, she produced a completely surprising answer: ‘The teacher asked us to sit on the floor and we went to science’, which has nothing to do with the spelling words and it did not happen in the spelling lesson. It happened at a different time on a different day. Researcher Did you talk about anything in the car? AS1 We took my uncle and aunty to my place because they both from Tennant Creek. On another occasion, she was trying to answer a question about what she talked about with her mum in the car. She said they took her uncle and aunty to the ballet performance. Obviously, it was not hitting the point. She did not give relevant answers to the questions I asked. What she related in her response had happened at some point in her life, but it had nothing to do with the question asked at the time. In sharp contrast, MS1 was always on track in responding and gave relevant answers to the questions: Researcher Please tell me one thing you learned from science and technology lessons? MS1 Well I think something interested me the most is this one: something something something.dot.au. Researcher Sounds interesting. Is it the game you made? MS1 No, it is not the one we made. It is already on the site. MS1 was able to answer the questions in the above excerpt in a sequential and logical manner. The conversation with MS1 flowed smoothly and he was fairly articulate in answering every question. He mentioned the one thing he learned from the science lesson was the website that interested him most. When I questioned further, ‘Is it a game you made?’, his answer was clear, starting with ‘no’, followed by an explanation: ‘It is already on the site.’ The answers MS1 provided were relevant and easy to understand and follow. Similar to AS1, AS2 also tended to deviate from questions and her answers often did not hit the point, which made them difficult to follow. She also tended to mix up events that occurred at different times and got confused about the sequential order of events and words. Researcher AS2 Researcher AS2 Researcher AS2 Researcher AS2

Did you talk about school? He told me how is school? I say, said it was fun. Anything else about school? I say school was tricky. Why is it tricky? We done reading, lots of stuff. Why is reading tricky? Reading is fun.

AS2 used the word ‘tricky’ to describe school. However, when I further asked her about the word ‘tricky’, her explanations once again did not answer my question.

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This made me wonder if she understood the word ‘tricky’ well enough or if she used it in a different sense from how it is commonly used in English. This became clear when she said ‘Reading is fun’ to answer the question ‘Why is reading tricky?’ This showed AS2 used ‘tricky’ to mean ‘fun’ or ‘funny’ and her limited word choices hindered her attempt to achieve clarity in her explanations. On another occasion, AS2’s mind was apparently wound up with events that happened at different times and she really struggled to focus on what happened at a particular time, as is shown in the following excerpt: Researcher AS2 Researcher AS2 Researcher AS2 Researcher AS2 Researcher AS2 Researcher AS2

What did you have for dinner? Spaghetti bolognese. Yum. What did you do after dinner? Then Mum came back. Who made dinner? Mum. Did you help? I help stirring it. What did you stir? That spaghetti. What did Dad do while you were helping? He watched TV.

AS2 was asked about what happened after school on that day. She said her mum came home from work after she had spaghetti bolognese for dinner. I further asked who made dinner and her response was ‘Mum’. This did not seem to be logical and chronological. In order to understand more clearly, I questioned further: ‘Did you help making dinner?’ and ‘What did Dad do during that time?’ She mentioned she helped stir and Dad was watching TV. Based on the information AS2 gave, this whole dinner making event must have happened sometime but not the night she was asked about because her mum did not come home until she had had dinner. Unlike AS2, MS2 responded in a way that I could understand and follow easily and all her answers were relevant to the questions and made sense. Researcher What did you do at the park? We rode down the hill but we got prickles throughout clothes. Then we MS2 went back home, get changed into different clothes, we did not went back to park, never went on hill again. We don’t want to get prickles on clothes again. MS2’s entire interview with me did not include any points in her answers that were unclear or hard to follow. In the above excerpt, she talked about what she did after school in the park. She also explained why they did not want to go on the hill again. Her responses were clear, succinct and easy to follow. AS3’s answers to my questions in the interview were often irrelevant or strayed away from what was normally expected for the answer and failed to hit the topic or to make sense. Consider the instance below:

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Researcher When Mum picked you up, did you talk in the car? AS3 Yeah, my mum picked up Braden, she drove around. In the excerpt above, AS3 did not directly answer my question about whether he and his mum had talked to each other in the car. Instead he strayed away from confirming or negating if he talked in the car with his mum. It was clear that he could only retain the information conveyed by the first and the temporal and conditional clause of my question when he answered the question. Because he did not retain the main information from the question, he formulated his response based on the first part of the sentence, which was clearly not the point of my question. Interestingly, he provided me with additional information that his mum drove round and also picked up Braden (a pseudonym) even though I did not expect or request such information. Superficially, the answer AS3 provided was a deviation from the norm in western cultures. However, fundamentally, this could very well be a disguised instance of a different way of thinking, since he attached greater importance to the first part of the utterance than the latter part. Unlike AS3, MS3 was able to produce proper and relevant responses in the interview, without any deviations of the kind shown in AS3’s responses. This was evident clearly in the excerpt below: Researcher MS3 Researcher MS3

What did you learn in spelling? Long vowel ‘O’. Great memory, just beautiful. Then we go to our desk, write our words, then draw a picture next to them. Then we went to the library, we read a book, then we borrow books. After that, we did maths. Then we did our writing. After that we went to lunch and then we go to the art room now.

It was clear in MS3’s response that he provided an answer that was relevant to the question I asked. Although I did not ask him to give an account of how he learned the spelling of the long vowel ‘O’, the further information he provided enriched his answer to show convincingly what he had learned. Such additional information was not expected but was more than acceptable and might very well be considered the icing on the cake according to the norm of western cultures. The excerpts above clearly show that the mainstream students follow a linear thinking pattern in which events develop in a sequential order in their mind. In contrast, the Indigenous participating students tend to follow a rather different thinking path where the order of the events is not important, and what their mind is focused on at that particular moment is more important than the sequential order of the events. Therefore, they process information without taking sequence into consideration and what they think is the most important to them was always the answer to any questions I asked. Because the most important aspect in their mind is not necessarily the best answer to the question, mostly it created confusion during the conversations.

5.5 Cultural Factors

5.5.1.5

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Seeking Clarification

The theme seeking clarification means to clear up confusion and make an idea understandable by asking relevant questions. It is also considered a reading strategy (Chin & Osborne, 2008; Koda, 2012): when readers encounter words or part of the text that are hard to understand, they raise questions to clarify the points. On most occasions, the Indigenous students tended to offer answers to questions even if they were not quite sure about what was actually being asked. It is not common for them to seek clarification if they do not hear the question properly, or do not understand parts of the question. On a couple of occasions, AS1 misunderstood the questions in the interview but did not ask me to repeat the question or rephrase it. Researcher AS1 Researcher AS1

What does Dad do? He got ready for work. OK. What is Dad’s job? He fixes fix aircons.

AS1 said her dad got ready for work after being asked ‘What does Dad do?’ She understood the question better after I paraphrased the question in a way which was familiar to her. Researcher AS1 Researcher AS1

AS1, what did you do after waking up in the morning? (Long pause) We did spelling. Tell me what you did at home after waking up. We, I had bacon and egg.

Similarly, AS1 did not quite understand the question ‘What did you do after waking up in the morning?’ She took time to think about the question, indicated by ‘long pause’ in the above excerpt, and then she gave a ‘random’ answer. It was clearly not in her culture for AS1 to seek clarification of the points in the question that she was not sure about. In contrast, MS1 did not feel afraid to ask clarification questions when he had doubts and was not certain about particular words. Researcher MS1 Researcher MS1 Researcher

Are they fiction or non-fiction? I don’t know the differences between them. It is OK if you don’t know. Because I kept on getting them mixed up. Fictional books are not real, non-fictional book are real and facts about people, places and animals.

When MS1 and I talked about books, I asked MS1 whether the books he liked are fictional or non-fictional. He felt comfortable to let me know that he did not know the differences between the two terms and sometimes he got the terms mixed up. On a different occasion, he asked for an explanation of the word ‘conclude’ as he did not know the meaning:

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Researcher How did the lesson conclude? MS1 So, the lesson is fun. What conclude means again? Researcher What did you do at the end of the lesson? Both AS1 and MS1 experienced moments when they could not fully understand a question I asked due to factors such as unknown words in a question, or confusion about the sentence structure. The approaches they adopted to deal with the situation were rather different. AS1 chose to stay quiet without articulating the challenges she was facing; however, MS1 opted to ask questions to seek clarification of the points he was not sure of. It was clear from the data that the Indigenous participating students differed from their mainstream counterparts in their attitudes towards an inability to understand a question in conversation. Unlike their counterparts, the Indigenous students would rather produce an answer without regard to its correctness, because it is inappropriate in their culture to question an interlocutor of a higher social status in conversation.

5.5.2 Family Involvement Family involvement is another broad theme that is subsumed under the final theme of cultural factors. In early years education, family involvement generally covers parental interaction with school and the impact of their involvement at home. Research shows the level of family support at home has a consistent association with children’s success at school based on correlations; however it is not necessarily a causal relationship (Downey, 2002). Some critics argue that family involvement has little impact on young children’s successful learning at school. The analysis of the interview data revealed that the conversations that took place in Indigenous participating students’ families differed from those that occurred in the non-Indigenous participating students’ families. The initial theme extracted from the interview data shows there existed some different focuses of parental conversations with their children. Conversation with parents refers to a talk in an informal way between children and their parents, in which children share how their day at school went with their parents. Levin (2015) points out that effective communication about school is more than just finding out how a child’s day was, but finding a way to help kids become problem solvers and independent learners. Good conversations help children see their parents care about their lives, support them and help them develop strategies to solve problems independently. Both AS3 and MS3 included an account of communicating with parents in the interviews. AS3 mentioned his communication with his dad was brief and there was hardly any meaningful communication except for simple greetings, while MS3 also provided information about his conversations with his parents but at a much deeper level.

5.5 Cultural Factors

Researcher AS3 Researcher AS3 Researcher AS3 Researcher AS3

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Do you talk to Dad when he gets back home? Ya, I say hello Dad. Does Dad say anything? He says, hi son. Nice. Is there anything else you talk about with Dad? Ya. Did Dad ask you about school? He asks Mum.

AS3 told the researcher that his dad only said ‘hi’ to his son at home and did not seem to talk a lot about his son’s day at school or ask him questions about how the day went at school. This was rather dry small talk, as shown in the excerpt above. Unlike AS3, MS3’s responses in the interview included a large amount of information about his formal and informal conversations with his mum. They talked about school and learning. This is reflected in the following excerpts from the interview: Researcher MS3 Researcher MS3 Researcher MS3 Researcher

What happened next when you and your sister got into mum’s car? After that we talk, we talked about our day, it was so much cool. Tell me more about what you talked about your day. About our school. About maths, writing and art, spelling. What did you mum say about your day? She said: ‘Good’! Good. When you are at home, sometimes you talk about school, what do you talk about school? MS3 En, talked about how school was, because when I go home, I tell Mum how I did BNF. She is very excited, she looked at my homework to see where I am at, she is very surprised. I just got on that level; I am about to move up. Researcher What do you normally talk about while watching TV with your parents? MS3 If we found very interesting animals we talked about them. MS3 told his mum what subjects he liked most at school and how well he did in basic number facts. His mum was very responsive to his improvement in learning and she complimented him on reaching the next level in maths. MS3 enjoyed a sense of achievement while sharing his progress in learning with his mum. He also added that his parents discussed animal programs with him as they contained topics that both the parents and kids were interested in. This also constituted a great opportunity for incidental learning outside school. The conversation MS3 had with his parents was strikingly impressive and involved specific learning for the day. MS3 also touched upon watching and discussing educational animal programs with his parents. This may partially account for his better achievements than AS3, his paired Indigenous counterpart. However, in this study, the participating students’ responses were limited to the day in which the interview was conducted. The plain small talk which was shown in AS3’s conversation with his dad was generalised by myself as the same type of talk every single time. The scope of this conversation seemed to be limited.

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5.5.3 Habit Habit is another broad theme revealed by the analysis of the interview data. A habit is a recurrent, often unconscious pattern of behaviour that is acquired through frequent repetition (Wood & Rünger, 2016). Habitual behaviour often goes unnoticed as undertaking routine tasks does not require self-analysis. Old habits, once formed, are hard to break (Wood & Rünger, 2016). In this study, habit is specifically interpreted as consistency in the way the participating students responded to questions subconsciously and the participating students’ daily home routines.

5.5.3.1

Consistency in Responses

Consistency in responses is an initial theme identified in the analysis of the interview data. The range of meanings of the concept ‘consistency’ in daily language is very extensive. It is not only used in the measurement context, but also in describing features of materials (Bievre, 2013). For instance, is a politician consistent in what he or she says? Therefore, if somebody is said to be consistent, it usually means the person always behaves in the same way, has the same attitudes towards things or people, or achieves the same level of success in something. If one idea is consistent with another, it means the two ideas do not contradict each other. In this study, consistency refers to offering the same answers to the same questions even at different times of the day. In other words, the answers to the interview questions do not contradict each other. However, this was not always the case with the Indigenous participating students, as they tended to give inconsistent answers to the same questions. AS3 provided different answers to the same questions which were asked at different times in the same day. His answers lacked consistency. Consider the different responses that AS3 gave in the two excerpts below: 1) Researcher Do you have a toy in bed with you? No. AS3 2) Researcher Do you have a toy in bed? [Note: the same question was asked at a different time of the day.] AS3 Ya. [Which is not consistent with the answer offered to me previously.] Researcher What type of toy is it? It’s like a little army man. He has that kind of scar on him. AS3 The discrepancy between the above two excerpts is clear. AS3 initially told me he did not have a toy, but the second time he was asked the same question, he said he had a toy, a little army man. AS3’s two answers to the same question were different and contradicted each other. Such contradictions were not found in the responses that MS3 made. Instead, MS3 was generally consistent in his responses to all the questions I asked. An example is shown below:

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Researcher What did you do straight after you woke up? MS3 When I woke up, I packed my lunchbox. I put my clothes on after and had breakfast. Researcher What did you do after waking up? [Note: The same question was asked at a different time on the same day.] MS3 After wake up, I got out of bed, un, I went out to the lounge room, and I put food in my lunchbox. After that, I had my breakfast. MS3 provided consistent answers during the whole one-to-one interview at different times of the day. The story was told smoothly and was logical and consistent, showing his daily activities clearly. It must be noted that MS3 was asked about his morning routines on different occasions, and he was consistent with his answers—demonstrating a sequential order in organising his recounts of the part of morning after waking up. The sequence in his morning routines made sense, and was consistent and relevant to the question. Like AS3, AS2’s answers to the same question were contradictory. AS2 responded differently to a question about her dad’s profession, which was asked at different times of the day. Researcher AS2 Researcher AS2 Researcher AS2

What does Dad do? He goes to What is Dad’s job? He paint. Does he paint houses? Ya.

The above excerpt showed AS2’s dad worked as a painter. She did not quite get the first question ‘What does Dad do?’, so I rephrased the question so that she understood it. Researcher What is his work? AS2 He does fixing stuff. At another time in the same day, AS2 said her dad’s job was to fix stuff. She could not provide details of what kind of ‘stuff’ he fixed. In contrast, MS2 was consistent with all her answers given on different occasions, as reflected in the following excerpt: Researcher When you borrow books from the library, what types of books do you usually choose? MS2 Non-fiction. The animal. Researcher Why? MS2 Because I sort of like animals. There are people from class they want animal books. So I find animal books for the class. Some for me. Sometimes I choose dinosaur books for myself, as I read all the other animal ones. Researcher Really?! That’s amazing. Why did you choose non-fiction books?

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Because I like to learn more about animals. And sometimes when I choose one of the fiction books, it sort of make no sense.

Throughout the entire interview with MS2, every piece of information she shared was fairly consistent, logical and meaningful. Using the above excerpt as an example, MS2 provided consistent answers to the same question which was asked in a different way. She told me why she liked to choose non-fiction books. Her first response was she liked animals. Her second response was she liked to learn more about animals and sometimes she thought fiction books did not make sense to her. Obviously, the excerpts reveal striking differences between the two groups of participating students, the MS group and AS group. The mainstream participating students stayed consistent in responding to the same questions that I asked at different times. This showed that how they interpreted the question, what their thinking process was and how they responded were compatible each time the same question was asked. In sharp contrast, the Indigenous participating students found it challenging to ensure a consistent response to the same question. The underlying reason has been touched upon earlier in the chapter regarding different ways of thinking between the Indigenous participating students and their non-Indigenous counterparts. Unlike non-Indigenous students, the Indigenous students do not always follow a linear way of thinking which focuses on steps in order, but their mind mostly gears towards what seems most important to them at the time of speaking, regardless of whether what they said was compatible with the questions being asked. In other words, even though the Indigenous participating students’ responses did not seem compatible to non-Indigenous people, the answers appeared to make sense to the Indigenous participating students themselves.

5.5.3.2

Home Routine

Home routine is another initial theme that is subsumed under the broad theme of habit. It refers to activities done regularly or at specific intervals at home. It includes chores, such as morning procedures. Having a routine means a person can predict and plan their day, which makes them feel secure. School often provides strong class routines for the students to make the students feel secure so it is easier for children to cope with memory and cognitive issues, as everything is steady and predictable (Davidoff et al., 2006). Similarly, it is important to have routines at home. Both AS1 and MS1 were asked about their home routines during the interview. The former did not seem to establish as strong routines at home as the latter did, as shown in the following excerpts: Researcher AS1, what did you do after waking up in the morning? AS1 (Long pause) We did spelling. As shown in the above excerpt, AS1 could not remember what she usually does in the morning after waking up. If it was a strong routine, she would have been able to recall what she did rather than say ‘We did spelling’, which was the first lesson

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of the day at school long after waking up. On the other hand, the following excerpt demonstrated MS1’s strong routine at home. Researcher Good morning, could you please share with me your morning routines at home? MS1 So first every day we usually just get up and play my iPad a little bit, and then I had my breakfast, then sometimes I get a little bit distracted with I am doing this, I do my teeth, then I get dressed, then if I have enough time, I just go to the lounge room, do some more banderines. Then I go to school. MS1 got up early in the morning, played on his iPad, had breakfast, brushed his teeth and then made banderines if there was enough time left before going to school. There is a sharp contrast between AS1 and MS1. AS1 did not recall what she usually did in the mornings at home but mentioned doing spelling instead. Spelling lessons are the first thing the students participate in at school in the morning. This clearly shows that strong routines are not established at home as she was not able to share the usual morning activities prior to going to school. On the other hand, MS1 was articulate about what his morning is usually like. Some of the vocabulary contained in MS1’s response such as ‘usually’ and ‘sometimes’ clearly showed that the activities he did in the morning happened regularly. It is important to take into consideration that a ‘routine’ in western culture may not be the same as that in Indigenous culture. When compared to western culture, Indigenous cultures have different ways of thinking, different ways of learning, different ways of communicating and so on.

5.6 Standard of Living Standard of living is the third final theme that was extracted from the interview data. It is a tangible, quantifiable term that refers to things such as wealth levels, comfort, goods and necessities that are available to people of different socio-economic classes in a geographical area (Dorota, 2016). The standard of living may vary from area to area, from person to person, and from family to family, and it is closely related to quality of life. Quality of life is a subjective and intangible term that is hard to quantify as the factors that affect the overall quality of life vary with people’s lifestyles and personal preferences (Dorota, 2016). In this research I equate standard of living to living conditions, which is a broad theme identified in the interview data, and which concerns the participating students’ daily necessities such as shelter, food, safety and so on.

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5.6.1 Living Conditions Living conditions, a broad theme that unfolded in the study, refers to the circumstances of the participants’ lives such as shelter, food, clothing, safety and access to clean water. Putting it simply, it is a summary of the standard of life of the participants. Research shows that children’s educational performance is affected either positively or negatively by their home living conditions, in other words, socio-economic factors have a strong influence on educational interruption and consequently affect students’ performance (Hampton, 2008; Migliore, 2006). This is echoed by international studies that show the impact of socio-economic status on learning has increased in a number of countries and poverty is a risk factor that puts children’s academic performance at risk, with the exception of a very few students who achieve excellence in school despite their challenging living conditions (Vera et al., 2015).

5.6.1.1

Home Environment

Home environment is an initial theme identified in the analysis of the interview data. It entails aspects of people’s domestic lives that contribute to their living conditions. It has been recognised that children’s home circumstances influence their intellectual development and school learning (Kaur et al., 2017). The studies indicate that children who do not do well in school often come from families in which support for school learning is limited due to a variety of factors including physical living environments and learning materials or tools needed at home to reinforce their learning (Muola, 2010). In this research, AS3 touched upon aspects of his current living circumstances in his daily stories. The data show that AS3 lived in a condition where not all necessities were met. AS3 Researcher AS3 Researcher AS3 Researcher AS3 Researcher AS3 Researcher

Uh, we are going to move to a block. Did you live in a caravan or a house? Caravan. A caravan does not have three bedrooms, though. That is my nana’s house where the three bedrooms are. Why did you live in a caravan in the first place? Because we don’t have enough money to pay for it. Why are you going to move out of Nana’s house? To the block, we just. No power, does that mean you cannot cook, cannot watch TV and cannot do a lot of things, right? Ya, we kind of can cook because we, uh, put the power from the next AS3 door, in here or all the power can work. Researcher How do they wash dishes?

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We have to go to, like, get water from un, from the shop, and we put soap in, put clothes in, then we scrub our clothes in there, and to get them dry.

AS3 told me that he and his parents used to live in a caravan and they now lived with his nana because it was close to the school he went to. At the time of being interviewed, he mentioned they would be moving back to the block (caravan) before Christmas for unknown reasons. His parents could not afford a house; therefore, they had to shelter in a caravan. He mentioned there was a kitchen with no benchtop in the caravan and they experienced frequent power failures. They had to connect to the power from the next-door neighbour to carry out daily activities. AS3 also disclosed the way their clothes were washed. Without a washing machine or a tap, they had to fetch water from far away to do their washing. This is very different from the living environment where MS3 lived. This is reflected in the follow excerpt: Researcher MS3 Researcher MS3 Researcher MS3 MS3 Researcher MS3

What’s Dad’s job? He works for airpower. OK. Nice. He washes his cars, fix his cars. He is the boss there. Excellent! What TV channel do you watch? En, ya, we normally watch DVDs. Lots of animals’ DVDs. After dinner, I watched, watched, mm TV. What did you watch on TV? Un, Adventure time. Meals, joke and my hunters.

The above excerpt shows that MS3’s parents have provided comfortable living conditions for him and they enjoy family leisure time together by watching TV programs and DVDs after dinner. MS3 indicated his father has a good job which enabled him to support his family at multiple levels. All the Indigenous participating students’ living situations were quite similar in a way, that is, the parents struggled financially. AS1 described her family’s living circumstances: Researcher Why did you and your sister sleep on the couch? Because there is no room to sleep on the mattresses. And there is only AS1 two mattresses. And the baby slept on the single mattress. My mum and dad slept on big mattress. There was not enough room. Researcher Are there any beds or just mattresses? AS1 No bed. But we do have bed in room, but the beds are taken off because we are using them for sleep. Researcher Did you say sharing the mattress with babies? AS1 Ya, where we sleep. My brother sleep on the mattress on the ground in my mum’s room. Un sometimes we watch TV, sometimes we sleep in the lounge. Researcher Do you sleep well in the lounge room?

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Ya, because the reason we don’t sleep on the bed, when we sleep in the lounge there is no bedbug in the room.

AS1 shared a mattress with her siblings and she slept in the lounge room because there were not enough rooms and beds to cater for the number of people in the family, with four children and two parents. Sometimes AS1 or her siblings slept on the couch for the night. She told me she slept well without a proper bed and she did not have to worry about bedbugs while sleeping in the lounge room. On another occasion, AS1 mentioned her parents could not afford for both of them to go to her ballet performance because they did not have enough money: Researcher Did Dad go to watch your performance? AS1 No. Because we don’t have enough money. My aunty there, my mum and my uncle. But we took pictures there. AS1 was performing and it was a pity that her stepdad could not make it to watch her perform due to lack of money. MS1 had better living conditions than AS1, as indicated below: MS1

Sometimes at the end of the day, she [Mum] just reminds me to put the lunchbox on the dishwasher, no, not on the dishwasher, on the side of the sink. Yesterday she asked me to put it in the dishwasher, but I did not line up. Um, um, last time she asked me to put in there, I put it in the middle drawer because I did not know where it was supposed to go, so I asked Mum, she said put it in the middle drawer. Ummm. Researcher Have you ever used a washing machine? MS1 Ya. Sometimes Mum asks me to put washing in, then I take the washing in and get the detergent and open the drawer and put some in, and then shut the drawer, press start. The above excerpts show MS1 enjoyed modern home appliances such as a washing machine and a dishwasher. His mum had instructed him how to use the machines. All these indicated MS1 and his family live a comfortable life. It was clear in the interview data that the non-Indigenous and Indigenous participating students had different home living environments. Both AS1 and AS3’s family struggled in terms of financial circumstances. MS3 and MS1 seemed to enjoy a decent living environment with entertaining devices and modern home appliances. Studies show that parents with different levels of education, income or occupational status can provide a very stimulating home environment which supports and encourages the learning of their children (Bornstein & Bradley, 2008; Dowsett et al., 2008). The quality of the home environment is closely related to the availability of educational resources such as books, iPads, the nature of parenting activities such as reading books with their children, watching educational TV programs together and so on. The socio-economic level of their families and home environments are partly responsible for the participating students’ varying achievements in schooling and in reading ability and reading performances in class.

5.6 Standard of Living

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Household Electronic Devices and Appliances

Household electronic devices and appliances is another initial theme that is subsumed under the broad theme of living conditions. Unlike home environment, household electronic devices and appliances are specific materialistic indicators of living conditions. Devices in the study refers to electronic tools (Clarke et al., 2003) that provide access to communication and learning digitally. Despite the fact that electronic devices may limit the chances of face-to-face communication or working in person with partners, digital technology has increased opportunities for learning and is seen to boost children’s interest in learning (Hughes & Roblyer, 2018). Therefore, digital devices are becoming more and more integrated into teaching and learning programs at school nowadays. For example, the use of iPads and computers in class has become part of everyday learning at the research site. However, the use of electronic learning tools at home appears more popular in the mainstream world than in Indigenous society. AS3 had no access to electronic devices for entertainment and learning at home: Researcher AS3 Researcher AS3

OK, I see. Do you have a computer? No. We used to have one, but my dad took it to Adelaide. Do you use internet at home? No.

The above excerpt shows that AS3 did not have a computer, or access to the internet at home. He also expressed that he had to go to his relative’s house to watch DVDs due to the lack of this facility at home. Researcher AS3 Researcher AS3 Researcher AS3

Did you watch TV? Um, no, on USB. Who has the USB? Umm, my aunty, they had a USB. Then I went back home, I had dinner. Do you have a DVD player? No.

The conversation showed AS3 had no access to TV or DVDS at home. He indicated that if he wanted to watch TV programs, he had to go to his aunty’s place. AS3 also made it very clear that he liked phones because he never had phones before. He was intrigued and amazed by the idea of owning a phone as he could do so many different things with it. He mentioned he really wanted to have a mobile phone so he could play games and store family members’ phone numbers on the phone. This is indicated in the following interview excerpt: Researcher AS3 Researcher AS3 Researcher AS3

Does anyone at home have a mobile phone? No. Would you think you will like mobile phones? Yes. Do you think they are useful? Why? I like it because I have not really had phones before.

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Researcher If you have a phone, what can you do on your phone? AS3 Put my mum’s number on it, my dad’s number, my aunty’s and my cousin’s. That’s all. Researcher What else can you do on the phone? AS3 Chuck on games on it. Researcher What games would you like to play on the phone? AS3 Minecraft. Compared to the Indigenous students, the mainstream students had more opportunities to access electronic learning and entertaining devices at home. The majority of the non-Indigenous children in the class had these basic facilities at home so they enjoyed opportunities to explore online learning or online child-friendly games for entertainment. MS3 shared his enjoyment of watching DVDs and TV with his parents, as shown below: Researcher MS3 Researcher MS3 Researcher MS3 Researcher MS3

Do they watch DVDs too? Ya, sometimes. What do Mum and Dad watch on TV? Mum and Dad watched news, they watch cooking shows, farm shows. Have you and Mum, Dad watched something together? Yes, sometimes we watched animal shows together. Do you discuss about the shows? We talked about interesting animals.

The above excerpt shows MS3 and his family members spend time together watching TV shows or DVDs and it is a bonding time for everyone in the family. He also indicated that access to TV and DVDs provides learning opportunities for him as he discusses interesting topics with his parents and learns about animals. Similar to AS3, AS2 had no access to electronic devices for entertainment or learning purposes. The following excerpt is an example showing how she spent her time after school one day: So, what did you do when you got to Mum’s workplace? We draw. What did you draw? I drawed a fish. Wow. Mum finding a colouring page, then I draw it. I coloured with red, pink and blue. Researcher OK. Did you draw the fish or there is a fish template, you coloured it in? AS2 It is a colouring sheet. Researcher AS2 Researcher AS2 Researcher AS2

AS2 usually goes to her mum’s workplace after school and colours in picture books while waiting for her mum to finish work. During the interview, AS2 did not mention playing on or using iPads, computers or other electronic devices at home. In contrast, MS2 shared her learning experiences using digital technologies as shown below:

5.6 Standard of Living

Researcher MS2 Researcher MS2 Researcher MS2 Researcher MS2 Researcher MS2 Researcher MS2 Researcher MS2 Researcher MS2

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What do you use an iPad for? On the iPad, I like photo area, we take photos when Mum is driving. How do you know how to take photos? There is button that shows take a picture of the camera. Anything else did you do on the iPad? Sometimes I play Ninja Turtles. Are there any words on the screen to read how to play? Un, when they say. Um, ya. Because they don’t talk, you actually have to read what they say. When you finished reading it, you press next. Can you read all the information? Ya. It’s like a big story book. Is it hard to read? Can you read the words on screen? Ya. Did you like it? Ya. Why? Because it is fun and I like to read.

Unlike AS2, MS2 uses an iPad for a variety of activities, such as taking photos, watching movies and playing games. MS2 did point out that she had to read during the playing time. That was how she managed to learn to use the device for different purposes. This might appear to be a hard way for students to learn a new skill, but she enjoyed it and it was fun learning for her. Both AS1 and MS1 have access to devices for either learning or entertainment purpose. AS1 used her mum’s work computer. Researcher AS1 Researcher AS1

Do you girls use the computer too? Ya, the girls sometimes play on it or watch something. What do you play? We played the searching game; it is called search. Place one of the boxes.

AS1 played ‘searching games’ on her mum’s computer. She did not need to read instructions to be able to play the game. She said she followed verbal instructions and a visual support to help her understand the game and learn how to play it. Researcher What do you use computers for? AS1 Mum uses it, us girls. She has to read on computer, he workmates put something up on the computer. This computer was her mum’s work computer loaned from her workplace and AS1 pointed out that sometimes her mum used the computer for work purposes. She had to read on the computer where her workmates updated information. Researcher Do you do any reading on the computer? AS1 Sometimes. Researcher What do you read on the computer?

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Mum puts on Reading Eggs for us. My sister has Reading Egg too. We have different reading things.

Sometimes AS1 and her sister used their mum’s computer for Reading Eggs, which is an online reading program subscribed to by the school. Every student had been given an individual username and password to allow them to access the game at school and anywhere else online if the internet was available. This fact that AS1 enjoyed access to her mum’s computer and the internet, while the other two participating Indigenous students did not, partially explains why she did better than AS2 and AS3 in schooling and in reading performances in class. Similarly, MS1 talked a lot about using different types of electronic devices: MS1 Sometimes I play activities on my iPad, usually I just watch TV. Researcher What programs do you watch on Channel 99? MS1 On Channel 99, the one I liked the most is Emma [his sister] is bit scared to watch, YOOYKNI Watch. Researcher What activities did you play on the iPad? MS1 I played a game called Robox. If you are wondering why it is called Robox because it’s the, everything is made out of box. Sometimes it does looks like what they are. Sort of it’s like Lego but it is not Lego. MS1 watched TV shows on Channels 99 and 22 and used his iPad for games and watching programs. He explained a game called Roblox and why it was named Roblox. MS1 said it looked like things made out of boxes and was like Lego, but not exactly like Lego. The way he conveyed his message was quite engaging and vivid. I could imagine what Roblox might look like based on his explanation. Researcher MS1 Researcher MS1 Researcher MS1 Researcher MS1

So you watched a YouTube tutorial? Ya. Did it show you how to play Robox? Ya. It’s Roblox. It sounds quite weird, right? Actually, it should be called Robox. Where you watched the tutorial, did you have to read the words or just listen? Um, I just watched the videos that they make up Roblox. I cannot see the buttons they use because it gets dark when they push it. So that’s how I figure out how to play it. That’s how I figure out how to do it, actually I just figured it out.

He played Roblox on the iPad. He shared with me that he figured out how to play this game by watching tutorials on YouTube. Meanwhile, he corrected the name that I called the game. It was Roblox not Robox. What was interesting was he acknowledged the fact that it should be called Robox as it was like boxes. The excerpts clearly show that all mainstream participating students had opportunities to access electronic devices either for entertainment or learning purposes at home. They learned to read by using the devices at home through fun activities such

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as playing games. In contrast, the Indigenous participating students did not have those same opportunities to access such household electronic devices and appliances at home, except for AS1 who enjoyed the same learning opportunities at home with an iPad which she shared with her sister. AS2 spent her time with more traditional entertainment methods such as colouring books while AS3 explicitly expressed that these devices are absent from his house and how much he longed for them. The striking differences between the two groups of participating students (with the sole exception of AS1) offer convincing evidence that access to household electronic devices and appliances correlates with the participating students’ achievements in schooling and in reading performances in class, and may very well serve as a useful indicator. Digital learning is a useful learning tool for young children, but it does not mean that traditional ways of learning are less effective. It only means that electronic learning tools can expand the opportunities for children to explore and maximise their learning.

5.7 Summary Analysis of the interview transcripts identified a range of factors contributing to the relatively poor reading performance of the Indigenous participating students. Three final themes were identified, that is, personal factors, cultural factors and standard of living. Students’ learning skills, learning process and personalities fall into the category of personal factors. Students’ innate ability to learn varies from one to another regardless of cultural background. One of the strikingly common factors among all the Indigenous participating students was shyness and their lack of confidence in learning, which usually directly and sometimes indirectly contributed to their unsatisfactory reading performance. This was not the fault of the Indigenous students, yet it definitely impacted on their learning at school. An important question is how schools can capitalise on the strengths of Indigenous students’ traits to maximise learning rather than regarding these factors as learning barriers. The second major profound finding was that Indigenous cultural influences exerted a massive impact on the way Indigenous students act, behave, respond and learn at school. It is important for educators to understand and respect the way Indigenous students learn at school and adjust their teaching accordingly to assist students to adapt to the mainstream school culture. In addition, the Indigenous participating students did not receive the same level of support from their family in education as their non-Indigenous counterparts in the study. It has been found that active parental involvement in children’s learning greatly facilitates their learning at school. Furthermore, building partnerships with the community and encouraging Indigenous students’ parents/carers to become more involved in their children’s learning is extremely important. It is the responsibility of the school and governments to come up with strategies to make that happen in order to support Indigenous students and maximise their learning at school.

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This study has also identified a third theme that is related to standards of living. Being equipped with electronic learning devices such as iPads or computers at home was found to be excellent for learning outside school, but their availability is closely associated with the standard of living that each participating Indigenous student enjoys at home. Schools usually provide learning sites for students to access if they have devices and internet at home. Having an iPad or a computer with internet at school alone seems insufficient, even though it offers great opportunities for students to enjoy their learning.

5.8 Reflections As referenced in Chap. 1, the qualitative inquiry in this book is not limited to the traditional sorting and grouping of data according to commonalities and differences. The approach adopted to analyse data in this study also befits the concept of hermeneutical analysis (Gadamer, 2004). Simply, hermeneutics incorporates a method of analysis that considers the interpretation of text itself and its context (Smith, 2011). Gadamer (2004) holds that everything can be interpreted differently from different perspectives. The only way to compensate for our partiality is to acknowledge it, and to engage in ongoing investigations to discover other ways of understanding that challenge our own and from which we learn. As a researcher, I am open to fresh insights and discoveries. I examined the interview data to convey meaning, to identify patterns of content, to shape the portrayal of the topic and to understand the relationships between the patterns and their underlying message within their context. As an outsider and a researcher, I have the benefit of discerning aspects or issues that may not be noticed by other researchers. I am completely aware and respect points of view from other researchers across the world on these topics relating to Indigenous education. I believe we, researchers and educators, share a common goal, which is to provide the best possible education for Indigenous students in the current western educational paradigm.

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Chapter 6

Meta-Analysis of the Findings

Abstract This book presents interconnected multilayered findings by comparing Indigenous students with their non-Indigenous counterparts. The comparative study identifies challenges faced by students in reading and culturally or non-culturally specific factors that shape the way Indigenous students learn to read English as an additional language. This chapter adopts a hermeneutic approach to explain how the culture-related factors exert an impact on Indigenous students’ reading performance, and examines the findings through the conceptual framework of Bourdieu’s cultural capital. Keywords Indigenous · Non-indigenous · Multilayered findings · Hermeneutic approach

6.1 Introduction As the reader might recall, in Chap. 4 I presented a number of challenges Indigenous students are facing in reading on the basis of the analysis of how they performed in reading tests. The Indigenous students in this study faced a range of cultural and linguistic challenges including some challenges that were Indigenous specific, and others that were faced by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous participating students who read at a lower level than their fellow classmates. Chapter 5 discussed personal and cultural factors that were revealed through interview transcripts and critical events. These findings indicate the Indigenous participating students did not perform as well as non-Indigenous participating students and they fell well below the achievement standard for Year 2 stated in the Australian Curriculum. The oneto-one interviews and examples of critical events enabled me to analyse in depth the factors that may exert an impact on the Indigenous participating students’ poor reading performance from a unique hermeneutic interpretive persecutive. This chapter deals with how the initial themes were regrouped and condensed into a smaller number of categories and broader categories, eventually arriving at a point where Bourdieu’s (1977) conceptual framework—objectified capital, embodied capital and institutional capital—could be brought in for a meta-analysis of the findings in this study. Putting it simply, this chapter further develops the themes © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 G. Y. A. Yang-Heim, Cultural Perspectives on Indigenous Students’ Reading Performance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9790-7_6

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by analysing the interview data, complementing this with extra findings from the narrative analysis, and the findings about the challenges the Indigenous participating students encountered in reading. This serves the purpose of explaining the relationships between the findings from both the interviews and narrative stories examined in Chaps. 5 and from the reading test results analysed and discussed in Chap. 4. The final part of the meta-analysis shows how all of these are connected and interprets them in terms of Bourdieu’s (1977) theory of cultural capital.

6.2 A Summary of the Findings About the Challenges that the Indigenous Participating Students Encountered in Reading Chapter 4 identified the challenges Indigenous participating students encountered in reading through an examination of their performances in the PAT Reading and F&P tests, including an additional F&P test which used reading materials based on Indigenous culture. The challenges which the Indigenous children encountered in reading were found to lie in three major areas: knowledge of language, knowledge about the world and overall comprehension skills. These findings are presented as diagrams in Figs. 6.1, 6.2 and 6.3. As Fig. 6.1 shows, the Indigenous participating students were found to face linguistic challenges, specifically: (1) reading aloud fluently and accurately, decoding unfamiliar words and self-correcting when they noticed mistakes during the reading process; (2) limited grammatical knowledge; and (3) limited vocabulary. The findings obtained from the F&P reading tests indicate the Indigenous students struggled to read words in phrases or word groups in a smooth and expressive manner as required. They failed to achieve a satisfactory oral reading rate even when they had

Fig. 6.1 Linguistic challenges faced by indigenous participants in reading

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the required accuracy level. Due to their disfluency in reading, no matter how high their accuracy rate was, they were not able to advance to the next level of reading. Most of the Indigenous participating students were not able to monitor their own reading, identify mistakes and then fix them. Generally, the self-correction ratio for Indigenous participating students was low. To successfully decode unknown words in reading, students need to understand the phonetic rules which govern the sounds of the relevant morphological parts of the words. The Indigenous participating students found it challenging to deduce the sounds of unfamiliar words in reading and thus adopted erroneous blending or segmenting of sounds instead. Therefore, the lower their reading level was, the poorer their decoding skills were. Grammatically, a proper understanding of a sentence structure involves some knowledge of the types of sentences involved, and the different functions that nouns, verbs, adjectives and prepositions play in the sentence. The Indigenous participating students often failed to identify relationships between persons, objects and locations in reading comprehension due to insufficient grammatical knowledge. Lacking the necessary vocabulary adversely influenced the Indigenous students’ comprehension of the texts they were reading. In other words, a very limited vocabulary or morphological knowledge negatively impacted the participating students’ overall comprehension and correlated highly with their low reading performance. It should also be noted that the Indigenous participating students’ prior knowledge of Indigenous culture had a positive impact on their interpretation and understanding of the known vocabulary in reading testing materials based on their culture; however, this knowledge did not translate into success in decoding unfamiliar vocabulary in the text. In another words, the use of testing materials related to Indigenous culture significantly improved the Indigenous participating students’ comprehension of the text but did not have a similar positive impact on the phonological aspects of their reading. As shown in Fig. 6.2, the Indigenous participating students were found to be weak in understanding culturally related humour presented in the text. Students are required to take context into consideration where the language is used humorously and where pieces of lexical and contextual information are embedded in individual words. None of the Indigenous participating students were able to understand the humour which was embedded in the texts. When the test materials were not orientated to Indigenous culture, the Indigenous children found it challenging to apply appropriate contextual knowledge during the reading process. Contextual knowledge in this study refers to an environment where the context is created, and word chunks surrounding an unfamiliar word help the student infer the meaning of the word (Hirsch, 2003; Miller, 2006). The use of contextual knowledge of the cultural, situational and literal context to assist comprehension is one of the fundamental strategies in reading from early-years learners. However, when the materials were about Indigenous Dreaming stories the Indigenous students outperformed the mainstream students in using their related contextual knowledge to facilitate their reading comprehension. When reading non-Indigenous texts, the Indigenous participating students had difficulty making sense of the texts as they could not supply the missing information

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challenges concerning the knowledge of the world

lack understand culturally related humour

lack contextual knowledge

lack topical knowledge

lack abilities to make connections with the world

Fig. 6.2 Challenges concerning the knowledge of the world faced by indigenous participants in reading

Fig. 6.3 Challenges of comprehension faced by indigenous participants in reading

since they did not have sufficient knowledge of the topic concerned. Topic knowledge can be acquired through experiences, school curriculum or wide reading if the child has a good command of decoding skills, which, however, the participating Indigenous students apparently lacked, although having some background knowledge of the topic should definitely help their reading performance. It must also be noted, however, that the low-achieving readers, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, could not successfully make proper connections during reading. Their failure to link the real world with the texts was potentially related to their low level of proficiency in English. This study did not investigate the reason why their different cultural backgrounds did not make a significant difference in their reading performances, and that is worthy of further investigation in the future. Finally, as Fig. 6.3 indicates, the test results showed all Indigenous participating students lacked the ability to apply analytic strategies in reading in order to gain the underlying meaning of the text, even though analytical strategies are the higher-order skills that students at Year 2 should learn to apply to interpreting texts, via inferring or resorting to their prior knowledge to gain an understanding of the text at a deeper level. All Indigenous participating students were unable to answer questions to which the answers could not be directly retrieved from the text.

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The Indigenous participating students also struggled with identifying the main ideas of a text. Usually there are three strategies involved in the identification of main ideas: summarising the text; referring to the headings, or the first or last sentences of each paragraph; and looking for the most repeated content words. The Indigenous participating students did not understand the testing materials well enough to be able to use these three methods to work out the appropriate answers to questions about the main ideas. Understandably, the Indigenous students were not well prepared to apply relatively difficult reading strategies. However, they even had great difficulty retrieving directly stated information in the text, since their insufficient ability in this respect was also reflected in their performance in the reading tests. This is interconnected with the other challenges mentioned in this section. Similarly, interpreting explicit information requires students to be equipped with topic knowledge and a range of high-frequency vocabulary words. Since the Indigenous students have inadequate tools—topic knowledge and vocabulary—it is very difficult for them to interpret explicit information. The Indigenous students demonstrated consistently low achievement in the PAT Reading tests. They had particular difficulty with higher-order thinking skills. The Indigenous students tended to find it challenging to understand the underlying meanings even when the answers were explicitly stated in the text. Based on what the data can present, none of the Indigenous students had mastered skills in inferring from or interpreting texts. This type of reading skill is regarded as a higher-order thinking skill, which brings together many elements as they read the texts including prior knowledge, summarising the ideas, and developing knowledge about themselves as learners. Even with simple reading materials with easy comprehension questions, the Indigenous students at a low reading level still struggled to read and understand them.

6.3 A Meta-Analysis of the Findings Through a Bourdieusian Lens The aim of this study is to examine the influences of cultural factors on the reading performances of the participating young Australian Indigenous children in the early years of schooling. The analysis of the reading test results revealed a number of challenges that the Indigenous students encountered. Narrative stories were also employed to further examine the everyday critical events of the participating students to identify from a different angle the factors which were not discovered in the thematic analysis of the interview data. The thematic analysis of the interview data revealed the cultural factors that influenced the connections between the linguistic, grammatical and comprehension difficulties that the Indigenous students were faced with and their poor grades in reading.

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In an effort to draw a theoretical pattern of the relationships among the thematically identified cultural factors that affect the Indigenous participating students’ reading performances in class, Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital was adopted. In Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital, capital is defined as accumulated labour (in its materialized form or its ‘incorporated’, embodied form) which, when appropriated on a private, i.e., exclusive, basis by agents or groups of agents, enables them to appropriate social energy in the form of reified or living labour. (1986, p. 241)

Cultural capital, like its economic counterpart, refers to the accumulation of something with realisable, real-world value, although the accrual of wealth to which it refers comprises skills, knowledge and educational advantage, rather than cash (Bourdieu, 1986). Bourdieu and Passeron (1990) stressed the importance of cultural capital and its three categories: embodied, objectified and institutionalised. Embodied cultural capital is incorporated within an individual’s mannerisms, habits and personality. Objectified cultural capital refers to physical objects such as paintings, instruments or works of literature. Institutional cultural capital, on the other hand, may be in the form of academic qualifications that are recognised as certifying a certain level of cultural competence on the part of the individual who possesses the credentials (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990). What is more, Bourdieu (1977) believed that the close correlation between possessing high-status cultural capital and the outcome of education cannot be denied. It is therefore predicted that the uneven distribution of cultural capital across social classes can best explain why students with access to high-status cultural capital tend to achieve higher attainments in schooling. Yet, as mentioned in Chap. 2, there has also been little in the literature that has clearly shown how the elements of cultural capital connect to students’ reading performances, particularly young Indigenous students’ EALD reading performances. This question was therefore investigated in this research to address the gap in the literature. In this study I adopted Bourdieu’s (1977) definition of cultural capital and the three forms of cultural capital—objectified, embodied and institutionalised. They were employed as a conceptual framework for the research. The following is a metaanalysis of the above-mentioned findings that shows how Bourdieu’s theory of three forms of cultural capital explains the findings of the research and how the study has contributed to Bourdieu’s framework.

6.3.1 The Impact of Objectified Cultural Capital on the Indigenous Participating Students’ Reading Performance In the objectified state, cultural capital refers to material objects such as pictures, books, dictionaries, instruments, writings, paintings, monuments and so on (Bourdieu, 1986). Bourdieu stated that

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If it is emphasized that they are not the possessors (in the strictly economic sense) of the means of production which they use, and that they drive profit from their own cultural capital only by selling the services and products which it makes possible, then they will be classified among the dominated groups; If it is emphasized that they draw their profits from the use of a particular form of capital, then they will be classified among the dominant groups. (1986, p. 246)

It is evident therefore that the dominant groups in a society enjoy cultural resources, referred to as objectified cultural capital. To possess or to be able to access these objectified cultural resources, one requires economic capital. For instance, to own an iPad, one needs financial and economic resources, whereas to use an iPad with a specific purpose, one needs the capital of science and technology as defined in embodied cultural capital. According to Bourdieu (1986), possessing cultural capital only in its objectified form does not enable its holders to compete with one another, which means objectified cultural capital alone does not transfer success or educational credentials directly or immediately. Possessing an iPad for example, an instance of objectified cultural capital, does not guarantee the owner’s success in schooling or educational credentials. It is the embodied cultural capital that is involved in a proper application of the iPad to facilitate learning at school that contributes to the success of the owner/user of the iPad in schooling. The six participating students in this study were from a regional area in the Northern Territory, Australia. Most people who live there are considered to have low socio-economic status as they are from low and middle social and economic backgrounds. Although none of the participating students were from a high social class, from Bourdieu’s perspective, some of them were being trained to be members of the dominant group. The two groups of participating students in this study (Indigenous and non-Indigenous) present clear differences in their economic backgrounds, which could well fit into Bourdieu’s differentiated classes. There were clear differences in the objectified cultural capital of the two groups of students involved, seen in the varying levels of access to objectified cultural resources. As Bourdieu’s theory on the role of objectified cultural capital indicates, having an opportunity to access rich cultural resources was found to open a door to school credentials. This was true for some of the participating students. The Indigenous participating students possessed much less objectified cultural capital than their non-Indigenous counterparts did. They lived a less comfortable lifestyle and encountered a range of hardships in everyday life that were not found in the lives of their mainstream counterparts. Unlike their counterparts, the Indigenous students experienced challenges with living spaces, sometimes daily necessities, and mainstream learning resources outside school. DiMaggio (1982) found in his studies that cultural capital can be operationalised as children’s exposure to cultural forms such as classical music, great works of literature, the arts, galleries and museums, assuming these activities are largely provided by families. The findings of this research have confirmed that, the lower living standard of the Indigenous participating students, the lower their reading level was. AS3 and MS1

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were typical examples at the two extremes in the study. AS3’s poor reading level and his performance in the reading tests could be partially attributed to his inadequate cultural capital. By contrast, MS1 was the top reader in the non-Indigenous group of participating students and also topped the whole class in reading. His high achievements in reading were partially due to his engineer father’s higher-than-average salary and his investment in adequate objectified cultural capital, which afforded MS1 with the privilege of raising his pet pony, carrying out his hobby of making crafts, and using digital resources like iPads or computers with access to the internet. AS1’s case was another example that confirms Bourdieu’s view that objectified cultural capital plays an important role in students’ achievements in schooling. AS1 is not the top reader in class, but, undoubtedly, she was the most advanced reader of the Indigenous students in the class. Of the three Indigenous participating students, she was the one who enjoyed the most objectified cultural capital and she had access to the most resources from the dominant culture available in the region, such as participating in a ballet performance after school and access to digital resources such as iPads and internet-connected computers at home, which even some mainstream non-Indigenous students in class could not afford. She demonstrated better reading performances than all the other Indigenous students in class. However, it should also be noted that, despite all the objectified cultural capital she enjoyed, AS1 still fell behind the standard of achievement for a Year 2 student. In other words, the objectified cultural capital which she had definitely facilitated her schooling and also prevented her from falling further behind the requirements stipulated in the national curriculum. It was also clear in the case of AS1, however, that access to or possession of objectified cultural capital cannot guarantee success in schooling. Knowing how to effectively capitalise on one’s cultural resources was found to be more important than superficial exposure to or possession of them. This was especially obvious with the non-Indigenous participating students who took advantage of their objectified cultural capital and tended to enjoy exploring various ways to use the technologies effectively. Both MS1 and MS2 were good examples, since they discovered and operated their electronic devices in many ways to maximise their uses to facilitate their learning directly or indirectly at school. Unlike MS1 and MS2, MS3 was among the low-achieving students in class, despite his possession of the same objectified cultural capital. This finding in the study echoes DiMaggio’s (1982) finding that the combination of exposure and effective use of cultural resources can boost standardised test scores and teacher-awarded grades. In a sense, therefore, objectified cultural capital was a factor in the educational inequalities that materialistically shaped the participating students’ capacity for learning at school. The impact of the inequalities in the participating students’ possession of objectified cultural capital observed in this study therefore confirms Bourdieu’s point below: By doing away with giving explicitly to everyone what it implicitly demands of everyone, the educational system demands of everyone alike that they have what it does not give. This consists mainly of linguistic and cultural competence and that relationship of familiarity with culture which can only be produced by family upbringing when it transmits the dominant culture. (1977, p. 494)

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According to Bourdieu (1977, 1986), cultural capital involves familiarity with the dominant culture in society and the ability to understand and use it. Possession of objectified cultural capital varies with social class, and yet the education system demands an equal possession of cultural capital among the students. It follows that in this study it was very difficult for students from a low social class to succeed in the education system. In other words, only some students in fact had the objectified cultural capital which the education system presupposed; while those who did not were found inefficient in understanding the method teachers at school used to teach reading and the language they used in the provision of instructions. As a result, students who were in possession of cultural capital or familiar with the cultural capital were more likely to gain higher educational credentials than the lower-class students who were denied access to these cultural resources. For Bourdieu, children from what he called the ‘dominant class’ are crucially advantaged over the children of subordinate classes in that they enter the educational system already well prepared to succeed within it. In their case, a clear continuity exists between the culture of the home and that of the school. In contrast, for children from marginal social and economic backgrounds, and especially for those of poor family backgrounds, the school represents an alien and hostile environment—a cultural and social world set apart from that of their families and communities, and they are likely to feel out of place. This resonates with the findings in this research, that is, some Indigenous students had no access to electronic devices at home, as their families struggled financially and frequently did not even have a shelter of their own to live in. For these students, the less objectified cultural capital they had and the fewer cultural resources they were able to access, the poorer reading test results they had. Nevertheless, it must be noted that this relationship between the possession of objectified cultural capital and attainments in reading was not entirely causal; as noted above, other factors were also found to have a role, perhaps an even more important role, in students’ reading performance in class.

6.3.2 The Impact of Embodied Cultural Capital on the Indigenous Participating Students’ Reading Performance According to Bourdieu (Bourdieu, 1977; Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990), cultural capital in the embodied state refers to external wealth being converted into an integral part of the person, into a habitus, and it cannot be transmitted instantaneously by gift or bequest, purchase or exchange (unlike money, property, rights or even titles of nobility). It is the incorporation of cultural attitudes and practices within an individual and includes knowledge, skills and perceptions. Clearly, it takes time to accumulate in an individual. Bourdieu’s theory of reproduction claims strong correlations between measures of cultural capital and social class and concludes that those measures statistically

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mediate the impact of social class background on educational outcomes. However, Bourdieu was not clear about how the high level of possession of embodied cultural capital is translated into increased likelihood of educational success. A number of researchers have shown interest in investigating or testing Bourdieu’s theory. The findings generated in the study are largely in line with Bourdieu’s conceptual framework. However, what is missing from Bourdieu’s theory came to the surface during the investigations. The additional discovery based on the research which is difficult to fit into Bourdieu’s theory is that students’ learning is not only influenced by their social and cultural backgrounds, but also by personal factors such as students’ personalities, although they are shaped by the culture they grew up in, as stated in Chap. 5. In addition, institution-related factors such as choices of testing materials also played a role in the Indigenous students’ unsatisfactory reading performance. This research showed that in general the non-Indigenous participating students come from better social and economic family backgrounds than the Indigenous participating students, despite the fact that none of those non-Indigenous participating students would be classified as upper class. The mainstream students had access to more and better cultural resources for two reasons. First, their parents had jobs which helped them make a decent amount of money and some of them were well educated. Secondly, the mainstream students were exposed to the dominant culture, meaning the mainstream western culture. In the location of this research, the dominant western culture is enjoyed by the majority of the mainstream public. The Indigenous students were marginalised as their Indigenous culture was not dominant in the mainstream cultural environment. This research also shows that access to more cultural resources or inheriting a large amount of objectified capital does not necessarily translate into success in learning at school. MS3 showcases this point. Despite his materially comfortable home environment, with both of his parents being employed in the workforce, his access to digital learning resources and a high level of parental support with his schooling, his reading level still fell well behind the achievement standard. At some reading tests, the lowest-level Indigenous reader AS3 even outperformed MS3. On the other hand, MS1’s access to his rich cultural resources contributed to his reading level, which was well beyond the achievement standards for the year level. This indicates that students’ participation in activities of the dominant culture do not necessary convert directly to scores in reading. Cultural resources are definitely important but are not the sole determining factors of a child’s reading success. The factors uncovered in the meta-analysis in relation to the influence of embodied cultural capital will be examined in detail in the following subsections.

6.3.2.1

Parental Involvement

Bourdieu (1986) stresses that the transmission of cultural capital in its embodied expression is a major part of the formation of ‘habitus’, which is Bourdieu’s other signature concept. This is the system of socially conducted dispositions that the individual acquires, most effectively in early life, and that determine his or her entire

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orientation to the world and modes of conduct within it (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990, pp. 66–79). Bourdieu emphasises that the ‘habitus’ acquired within their families by children of the dominant class is inevitable. This means the habitus is formed in its essentials by domestic influences and it remains profoundly resistant to other influences, in particular to the school, which is seen as having only very limited potential in this regard. Put simply, Bourdieu noted that capital transmission only occurs within the family, passing down from one generation to another, and other forms of transitions are largely irrelevant. Children’s family background is associated with children’s educational outcomes. Family background, often referred to as economic, social and cultural capital, is the main component of parental resources required for the child to succeed in school (De Graaf et al., 2000). Domina (2005) suggested that parental involvement does not independently improve children’s learning but can prevent behavioural problems. This study shows that both the mainstream children and Indigenous children’s parents were involved in their everyday life. When it comes to educational involvement, the mainstream parents tended to invest more time in activities such as talking about their learning and reading to their children, even though the children preferred to read by themselves, discussing programs with their children and asking questions about books and so on. On the other hand, Indigenous parents invest relatively less involvement in their children’s learning, seldom talking about learning and reading books to their children, only reading to put them to sleep easily without discussing the themes in the books with their children. Cultural capital is strongly connected with class structure on the basis of socioeconomic status. In Bourdieu’s theory, cultural capital is distributed unevenly across the class structure, with individuals from low socio-economic backgrounds or a less privileged class lacking access to the cultural resources or knowledge that is valued and rewarded by schools. Some researchers have upheld Bourdieu’s concept of transmission of cultural capital, while others have pointed out that mere access to the valued cultural capital does not always ensure that individuals can use that culture to their advantage. The individual needs to know how to apply or mobilise the culture to serve their interest, which is dictated by habitus (Gaddis, 2012; Wildhagen, 2010). This agrees with the findings of this study about the role children played in capitalising parental cultural investments in their schooling, especially in improving reading performance in class. Most of the non-Indigenous participating students in the study did extra homework beyond the required assignments. Their parents were heavily involved in their children’s education, voluntarily organising meetings with the teacher to discuss possible strategies to help their children improve writing. Their mothers cooperated and consulted with the school, reinforced their children’s learning from home, prioritised homework and engaged in school choices. They also engaged in discussions on books they read to their child. This type of active parental involvement exerted a positive effect on their children’s learning, which was reflected in their report cards. On the other hand, the Indigenous children’s parents seldom spoke to their children’s teachers or talked about how well their children were learning at school. Generally, they presented themselves as shy and not responsive even when the teacher really

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wanted to speak to them about their children’s learning. Some Indigenous parents do not have sufficient English to communicate with the school. Often, they feel schooling in the general public-school system is quite alien. From my personal experience as a classroom teacher, the Indigenous students’ parents rarely turned up for parentteacher interviews or meetings which were organised to share children’s learning journey with their parents. These meetings were intended to help a child to achieve learning and personal goals by increasing collaboration between school and home, and effective home reading is a typical item on the meeting agenda. Given this lack of parental support, their children have developed learning and reading skills much slower than their non-Indigenous counterparts whose parents are actively involved in their children’s schooling. This lack of parental involvement has led to the disadvantages that Indigenous students suffer in the system, which presumes active parental involvement in their children’s schooling. Therefore, it is understandable that low-income Indigenous parents fail to support their children in succeeding in schooling, not simply because their incomes are too low but because they lack the confidence, the skills, habits and knowledge which are needed to effectively assist their children. In other words, the Indigenous parents’ interactions with their children and school and the extent to which they make effort and time to expose their children to mainstream cultural resources for the acquisition of learning and skills are highly correlated with their children’s achievements at school (Beyer, 1995; Lamborn et al., 1996).

6.3.2.2

Skills

Embodied cultural capital is unconsciously acquired over time and is often passively inherited from the family unit. It is reflected in a child’s character consisting of knowledge and ways of thinking. For instance, a person can gain an appreciation for reading from his/her parents starting from early childhood and this appreciation is cultivated over time, which then is integrated within the person. Another way of obtaining embodied cultural capital, such as skills, is to invest time in intentional learning. For example, children learn vocabulary and reading strategies by going to school. The notion of skills in this study refers to the ability to retain information, focus on the topic, respond to questions consistently, offer constructive feedback and master new learning. The mainstream participating students were equipped with more of these skills than the Indigenous participating students. They were able to retrieve information and retell it in detail. However, the Indigenous participating students found it very challenging to recall events which recently occurred. On a regular basis, the Indigenous participating students deviated from the topic being discussed and sometimes they responded in a way that was hard to follow. The mainstream participating students performed far better than the Indigenous participating students during the interview and they also demonstrated their abilities to offer constructive feedback on authors and books, while Indigenous participating students found it hard to reach the same level.

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In short, the skills that are required for successful oral and silent reading and reading comprehension are closely related to the embodied cultural capital at the participating students’ disposal. The Indigenous participating students were found lacking in the skills that are mainly learned from the school and commonly supported by mainstream embodied cultural capital. This may very well explain why the Indigenous participating students did not generally perform as well as the mainstream students in reading, as the skills mentioned above are required for successful reading comprehension.

6.3.2.3

Language Proficiency

Researchers have found that proficiency in speaking standard English, regardless of students’ knowledge of conventional grammar, has a positive impact on school performance (Wildhagen, 2008). Spoken English proficiency is particularly important in reading as it requires readers to be able to decode, recognise and understand the texts. The importance of language proficiency was confirmed by this study where the Indigenous participating students who spoke English as an additional language struggled to express themselves during the interview due to limited vocabulary. This was found to relate closely to the fact that they use their own language to communicate with family members on a daily basis at home. For two Indigenous participating students, school was the only environment where English was the primary language they used. In general, the Indigenous participating students did not have the same decoding skills as the non-Indigenous participating students. As they communicate using their own languages outside school, insufficient exposure to or practice of English left them unable to pronounce words accurately or apply basic phonetic skills to decode unfamiliar words. The lack of proficiency or competency in the English language resulted in the Indigenous participating students obtaining poor results in the PAT Reading and F&P tests. On multiple occasions during the interviews, the Indigenous participating students also encountered tremendous difficulty describing an event and at times their responses to my questions did not make sense as a result of inadequate language proficiency in English. It is clear from this study that inadequate language proficiency in English contributed to the Indigenous participating students’ poor reading performance in class.

6.3.2.4

Learning Attitude, Personalities, Teacher–Student Relationships and Reading Habits

Bourdieu and Passeron (1990) pointed out that individuals from the same class with similar embedded cultural capital tend to have a similar individual habitus because of the similar objective conditions that they have experienced. When cultural capital, in the embodied form, is transmitted, it greatly contributes to the formation of habitus. The transmission of cultural capital, in its embodied expression, is a major part of

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the formation of the habitus. Bourdieu’s concept of habitus illustrates how members of a particular social group acquire a set of embodied dispositions or way of viewing and living in the world (Browne-Yung et al., 2013). Furthermore, evidence from DiMaggio’s (1982) research also indicates that teachers communicate more easily with students who enjoy similar cultural capital, give them more attention and special assistance, and perceive them as more intelligent or gifted than students who lack similar cultural capital. Students with access to the mainstream capital present themselves with a confident and positive learning attitude, are easy to communicate with, and the teacher will better understand what they need in learning. As a result, these students will benefit from the special assistance given by the teacher and possibly achieve a better learning outcome. In this research, the non-Indigenous participating students showed that they were eager to convey what they thought and to seek clarification of the points they did not understand. This created opportunities for others to know what they already knew, what they wanted to know and what they needed help with. On the other hand, the Indigenous participating students lacked cultural capital and tended to be less confident and to have introverted personalities. The findings in this research show that the Indigenous participating students tended to be shy and reserved, especially when they encountered difficulties in understanding a concept. They generally kept quiet and did not provide feedback or voice their need for help. To be a good reader, it is important to learn to become critical about the story, characters, illustrations, and even authors (Ganzevoort, 1998). By and large, the Indigenous participating students appeared to have introverted personalities because they were quiet most of time in class, kept opinions to themselves and hardly ever critiqued anything they encountered in reading. As revealed in the interviews, this lack of critique among the Indigenous participating students may be associated with the amount of cultural capital at their disposal. The relationship between the classroom teacher and the participating students was found to vary clearly in the study. When the Indigenous participating students stayed quiet in reading sessions, did not speak up and were reluctant to share their learning, I found it hard to ascertain their strengths and weaknesses. Unlike the Indigenous participating students, the non-Indigenous participating students enjoyed telling me personal stories which helped build positive teacher–student relationships. A positive relationship definitely indirectly helps students’ learning as they feel relaxed and comfortable in the learning environment created by the teacher. Proper use of cultural resources from students’ families, communities or prior experiences typically results in success and positive feedback from teachers, and thereby builds children’s self-esteem or confidence, thus contributing to a proactive and positive attitude towards school and learning (Dumais & Ward, 2010). In a sense, learning attitude and personalities can serve as a bridge between cultural capital and educational success. This was evident in this research where the nonIndigenous participating students enjoyed more embodied cultural capital from the dominant culture and achieved more success in reading. The study bears witness that these mainstream students, who generally had good reading habits and routines at home, with bedtime reading on a regular basis, and treated homework seriously,

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obtained better reading test scores and school grades. MS1 and MS2 in this research demonstrated great reading skills which were essential tools for them to comprehend the books they read. Their good reading habits were clearly associated with a positive learning attitude, positive teacher–student relationships, outgoing personalities and successful schooling, and were reflected in their reading performances or test scores and the consequent positive feedback from teachers.

6.3.2.5

Cultural Identity

Bourdieu emphasised that the cultural capital that is accessible to children is usually inherited from their parents. That type of cultural capital becomes a determining factor of a child’s success in school. This research investigated the cultural capital Indigenous students have access to and how this cultural capital impacts their reading achievements. It found that Indigenous students’ view of time and time-related concepts is rather different from mainstream participating students. A large amount of time-related learning resources are available at educational shops and at the school and they are accessible to all students regardless of their family background and skin colour. However, the Indigenous students chose to stick to the way of conceptualising time they felt more comfortable and familiar with. Their preference for using the sun to estimate the time rather than using a clock is deemed to give them a sense of cultural identity. It was found in the study that the Indigenous participating students had preserved their strong cultural identity in a similar manner when it came to the terms that they used to address their family and extended family members, as discussed in Chap. 5. The findings of this study confirm the statement made by Janca and Bullen (2003) that Indigenous students do not perceive time as ‘an exclusively linear category containing past-present-future’ (p. S40). In a sense, the more important and salient events are perceived as being closer in time from their Indigenous perspectives. Such a difference in the perception of time sheds light on why the Indigenous participating students often failed to follow sequences and often shifted from one topic to another apparently randomly during the interview. It also helps explain why the Indigenous participating students deemed the ‘time concept’ too difficult for them to learn. The different way of understanding ‘time’ in a way limited their chances of being successful in learning, and this was reflected in their reading performances. This meant they had numerous difficulties when applying their inherited skill to learning tasks which were designed for learners brought up in the mainstream culture who were endowed with mainstream embodied cultural capital.

6.3.2.6

Effect of Using Reading Resources Based on Indigenous Culture

Reading does not take place in a cultural vacuum, as readers generally interact with a text using their own cultural and linguistic experiences (Horbury & Cottrell, 2007). Many Indigenous students enter school with a low level of English vocabulary

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and mainstream conceptual development compared with their mainstream Englishspeaking peers. As shown in the data generated in the study, the cultural environment of their home and family results in a communication gap between their abilities to communicate in English and their Indigenous mother tongue. This gap in communicative abilities and the availability of related resources can explain why Indigenous parents are seldom involved in their children’s schooling and in partnerships with the school to assist children with their learning. Despite their desire for their children to have a good education, the Indigenous parents of the Indigenous participating students lacked the confidence, skills and knowledge to be involved. English concepts were neither present in their own language nor part of the everyday culture of their family. Lack of basic English language concepts not only creates barriers in communication, but also challenges for the children to learn to read in English. Horbury and Cottrell (2007) pointed out that choice of literature and reading materials plays a major role in supporting minority students’ reading in English as a second language. This is confirmed in this case study of the Indigenous students’ reading in English as an additional language. The research discovered that Indigenous students performed as well as or even better than some non-Indigenous students in comprehending texts which were related to their culture. Even though the Indigenous students made many mistakes in decoding words, they could still understand the text they read and demonstrated excellent skills in comprehending what they read. This does not mean they acquired these learning skills at school, but rather that they utilised their prior knowledge and experiences about the topic to assist and complement their comprehension. The knowledge they inherited from their family and community became a powerful tool to enable them to provide additional information to help non-Indigenous people like myself learn about Indigenous culture. For instance, during the one-to-one reading session, AS1 added detailed descriptions about ‘waterholes’ and was eager to share her additional knowledge with me. She stated: Long, long time ago, we found water and swim, we got a sacred place. When it gets hole, it is nice. We make long foot path to get down to the creek, sometime there is no water. Sometimes there is water, we can swim. Sometimes people call it a different name. It is just creek and water.

It was clear in this instance that the Indigenous cultural text was aligned with her knowledge, experiences and culture. To her, it was an actual story with real meanings and contained Indigenous cultural elements familiar to her. It is fair to say that her comprehension of the text relied on a shared understanding between the text as a sender and her, the reader, as a receiver. It fostered in her a positive attitude towards her mother tongue, improved her self-esteem, and in turn boosted her confidence to tackle English and read in English.

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6.3.3 Institutionalised Cultural Capital Institutionalised cultural capital is cultural capital in the form of academic qualifications and is one way of neutralising some of the properties derived from the fact of being embodied (Bourdieu, 1986, p. 247). In other words, institutionalised cultural capital exists in the form of academic qualifications and recognised professional credentials. According to Pennycook (2001, p. 210), the first two types of cultural capital—objectified and embodied—are often deemed worthless without the establishment ‘sanctification’ provided by institutionalised capital. Therefore, it is arguable that institutionalised cultural capital is the most valuable and the final component of cultural capital. In this study, the participating students were grouped into low, middle and high levels according to their reading credentials credited by the school. This suggests that institutionalised cultural capital was not what the research aimed to investigate, but was adopted as a unit of measurement in the conceptual framework that shaped the design of the research. In other words, academic achievement that objectifies cultural capital and is institutionalised in the school served as the standard against which each participating student was recruited, paired, observed and studied in the inquiry. In this study, Bourdieu’s (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990) concept of institutionalised cultural capital is interpreted as an institutionalised judgement made about the students on the level of their performance in learning. The Indigenous students were found to have difficulty in understanding the standardised measurements of academic attainment adopted at the school they attended. When they were asked to evaluate their own learning, they could not really understand the connection between the results of the standard assessments like PAT Reading and F&P tests on one side and their perceived degrees of mastery of the learning concerned. They tended to give a random numerical value in their self-assessment of their attainment without knowing why or what it might mean. Even if they knew they did not perform well on a test, they still gave 10 out of 10 to indicate their self-assessment of their achievement in the subject. From a metacognitive point of view, knowing how much and how well one has learned is an important tool for one to develop a proper understanding of one’s strengths and thus monitor aspects of learning one may need to make extra effort in or seek extra support for (Boer et al., 2018). In other words, the Indigenous participating students were found to be jeopardised metacognitively by their lack of a proper understanding or interpretation of the institutionalised cultural capital that they should aim to achieve in their academic pursuit in schooling. From a micro perspective, the application of the concept of ‘institutionalised cultural capital’ to learning reading in the context of the research took the form of students’ self-evaluation of their learning, school evaluation and evaluation of books and their authors in conformation with standardised assessments like PAT Reading and F&P tests. Evaluation at school involves making a judgement about how well students perform in learning or a test. The data show that the non-Indigenous participating students were able to accurately evaluate their performance in a standardised test like PAT Maths and elaborate on the concepts they were still struggling with.

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In contrast, their Indigenous counterparts were unable to nominate a proper numerical value to indicate their unsatisfactory performance in the same PAT Maths test, although they were able to explain why they performed badly in the test, and the frustration they experienced in reading the questions during the test. In the participating school, every single test result counts in the education system. It is added to other assessments and eventually leads to the school grades the students receive at the end of each semester. In this sense, the Indigenous participating students were disadvantaged by the micro application of institutional cultural capital due to their inabilities to align with the recognised cultural competence standards of individuals who possess educational credentials (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990).

6.4 Summary The part of Bourdieu’s theory which has been most influential and most fruitful for empirical researchers is the concept of cultural capital. Cultural capital has been found to impact on educational attainment. This study has meta-analysed the factors identified in the previous chapters, especially those presented in Chaps. 4 and 5, in line with Bourdieu’s three types of cultural capital to show the impact of cultural capital on the Indigenous students’ reading performance. The meta-analysis of the findings has shown that most of the factors identified in the study fall within Bourdieu’s category of embodied cultural capital, namely, parental involvement, learners’ skills, language proficiency, learning attitudes, cultural identities and reading resources. In contrast, only a small number of the factors have been found to pertain to the categories of objectified and institutionalised cultural capital. In other words, it was embodied cultural capital that exercised the greatest influence on the participating Indigenous students’ unsatisfactory performance in reading. More specifically, parental involvement is strongly associated with parental social class and their qualifications. These associations support Bourdieu’s view that cultural capital is unequally distributed according to social class and education. Parental involvement is evidenced in parents’ knowledge in selecting cultural activities for their children and in facilitating accidental learning at home. Parents’ partnership with the school was also found to be one of the significant factors relevant to the children’s educational success particularly in reading performance. As reading is strongly associated with academic success, students’ analytic and cognitive skills for reading are significant in improving other learning areas. In other words, an Indigenous student who is a good reader usually demonstrates good performances in other school subjects. The participating Indigenous students who were good readers in the study also tended to have good learning habits outside school. The students’ reading habits, TV programs watched at home, and participation in cultural activities are connected to their linguistic ability, reading level and cultural knowledge. Participating in cultural activities was found to be associated with intellectual and cultural resources which

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help students’ attainment in reading. This research gives no support to the view that teachers are prejudiced against Indigenous students because of their lack of western cultural capital. The reading test results showed that cultural knowledge is rewarded highly with a better score for reading and Indigenous students’ unsatisfactory reading performances were consistent with Bourdieu’s claim that the school fails to give explicitly to everyone what it implicitly demands of everyone. In this study, students from an Indigenous cultural background were disadvantaged because of inadequate cultural capital and thus suffered from a curriculum that was based on the content and learning that are associated with western culture. Institutionally, learning materials that are related to Indigenous culture are absent from the curriculum and the standardised tests lack Indigenous cultural materials particularly in reading. As shown in the study, despite similar linguistic challenges in reading, the Indigenous participating students outperformed or at least performed equally well as their non-Indigenous counterparts in comprehending texts regardless of their reading levels when testing materials about Indigenous culture were adopted. Therefore, it would be desirable to introduce a form of assessment that does not reward culturally biased knowledge. However, it must be noted that personal factors identified in this study might also be cultural such as providing feedback and being able to seek clarification by asking questions when they do not understand. These factors, together with personalities and ability to retain information were also found to be important in developing Indigenous children’s reading performance. In the same vein, living conditions is another factor discovered in the research. The non-Indigenous participating students with reading proficiency tended to have better living conditions than their Indigenous counterparts, but the study did not gather evidence to prove a direct and causal relation between Indigenous children’s unsatisfactory reading performance and their living conditions.

6.5 Reflections Reflecting upon the process of constructing multiple layers of data sources and their critical analysis, the aim of applying this particular method of data analysis was to gain a deeper understanding of why Indigenous students did not perform as well as their counterparts—the mainstream students—in reading. There have been numerous points of view on how education and schooling should benefit Indigenous children in western cultures (Ladson-Billings, 2006; Morrison et al., 2019; Nicol et al., 2013). As noted earlier in this chapter, this research is conducted in relation to Habermas’ (1972) two primary types of knowledge-constitutive interests, namely, technical knowledge-constitutive interests and practical knowledge-constitutive interests, without getting onto the emancipatory aspects of knowledge, which are said to be transformative in nature. It follows therefore that the collection and analysis of the research data in the study were confined to and shaped by the existing contextual restrictions imposed on the research site. That is to say, the testing materials used in

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this study were prescribed and adopted formally by the school and were not orientated to Indigenous culture, and heavily focused on decoding in the early years of schooling, manifesting clearly the current curricula in the existing educational system which does not take Indigenous culture into account. Similarly, in the existing research context, the power relationship between the teacher-researcher and the participating students was clearly lopsided and biased in favour of the teacher-researcher and this did not alter in the formal assessments and in the research data collection. The analysis of the data collected via formal reading tests and interviews was clearly confined to the technical and practical knowledgeconstitutive interests in Habermas’ terms and, therefore, was not designed to move to the emancipatory transformative level to transform or reconstruct the existing lopsided power relationship between the teacher-researcher and the participating students. Although the power relationship between the teacher-researcher and the participating students was not supposed to alter at the Habermas’ technical level in this qualitative inquiry, the analysis and interpretations of the discoveries were designed to move onto the higher level of ‘practical knowledge-constitutive interests’ in Habermas’ three-level system of knowledge. At this level, this study is designed to analyse and interpret what has been discovered in the study about Indigenous students’ unique ways of thinking and learning which differed considerably from non-Indigenous students’ and which were also found to relate causally to some differences in their performances in reading. As a non-Indigenous teacher-researcher, such analysis and interpretations of research data were designed to allow me to take on a dual position in the sense that I see the uniqueness Indigenous students showed in data as an advantage and strength they enjoyed, but at the same time, as an insider working within the system, I can also experience and thus identify the issues and concerns existing in the curricula and pedagogies that disadvantaged Indigenous students. Assuming simultaneously these two opposite positions in this study provides me with an opportunity to take on an organic and unique perspective on why Indigenous students did not perform as well as or better than non-Indigenous students in reading. Finally, it must also be reiterated that the Habermas’ third (transformative) level approach, which goes beyond the first two levels (i.e., technical and practical) and seeks to transform structural capacity and change the power relations involved, does not constitute part of the aim of this book and therefore is an area for future research. In the context of Indigenous education, I do not want to assume a simple split between Indigenous and dominant western cultures; rather I aim to identify and acknowledge the existing problems within the system.

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References Beyer, S. (1995). Maternal employment and children’s academic achievement: Parenting styles as mediating variable. Developmental Review, 15, 212–253. Boer, H., Donker, A., Kostons, D., & Van, G. (2018). Long-term effects of metacognitive strategy instruction on students’ academic performance: A meta-analysis. Education Research Review, 24, 98–115. Bourdieu, P. (1977). Cultural reproduction and social reproduction. Oxford University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 241–258). Greenwood Press. Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J. C. (1990). Reproduction in education, society and culture (R. Nice, Trans.). Sage. Browne-Yung, K., Ziersch, A., Baum, F., & Gallaher, G. (2013). Indigenous Australians’ experience of social capital and its relevance to health and wellbeing in urban settings. Social Science and Medicine, 97, 20–28. De Graaf, N., De Graaf, P., & Kraakamp, G. (2000). Parental cultural capital and educational attainment in the Netherlands: A refinement of the cultural capital perspective. Sociology of Education, 73, 92–111. https://doi.org/10.2307/2673239 DiMaggio, P. (1982). Cultural capital and school success: The impact of status culture participation on the grades of US high school students. American Sociological Review, 47, 189–201. Domina, T. (2005). Levelling the home advantage: Assessing the effectiveness of parental involvement in elementary school. Sociology of Education, 78, 233–249. https://doi.org/10.1177/003804 070507800303 Dumais, S., & Ward, A. (2010). Cultural capital and first-generation college success. Poetics, 38, 245–285. Gaddis, M. S. (2012). The influence of habitus in the relationship between cultural capital and academic achievement. Social Science Research, 42, 1–13. Ganzevoort, R. (1998). Reading by the lines: Proposal for narrative analytical technique in empirical theology. Journal of Empirical Theology, 11(2), 23–40. Habermas, J. (1972). Knowledge and interest. Beacon Press. Hirsch, E. D. (2003). Reading comprehension requires knowledge of words and the world. American Educator, 27(1), 10–29. Horbury, A., & Cottrell, K. (2007). Cultural factors affecting the acquisition of reading strategies in bilingual children. Education 3–13: International Journal of Primary and Early Years Education, 25(1), 24–26. Janca, A., & Bullen, C. (2003). The Indigenous concept of time and its mental health implications. Australasian Psychiatry, 11(1S), S40–S44. Ladson-Billings, G. (2006). ‘Yes, but how do we do it?’: Practising culturally relevant pedagogy. In J. Landsman & C. Lewis (Eds.), White teachers, diverse classrooms: A guide to building inclusive schools, promoting high expectations, and eliminating racism (pp. 29–42). Stylus. Lamborn, S. D., Dornbusch, S. M., & Steinberg, L. (1996). Ethnicity and community context as moderators of the relations between family decision making and adolescent adjustment. Child Development, 67, 283–301. Miller, L. (2006). Contextual knowledge reduces demands on working memory during reading. Memory & Cognition, 34(6), 1355–1367. Morrison, A., Rigney, L., Hattam, R., & Diplock, A. (2019). Toward an Australian culturally responsive pedagogy: A narrative review of the literature. University of South Australia. Nicol, C., Archibald, J., & Baker, J. (2013). Designing a model of culturally responsive mathematics education: Place, relationships and storywork. Mathematics Education Research Journal, 25, 73–89. Pennycook, A. (2001). Critical applied linguistics: A critical introduction. Lawrence Erlbaum.

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Wildhagen, T. (2008). What’s oppositional culture got to do with it? Weighing the empirical evidence for oppositional cultural explanations for Black–White achievement gaps [PhD dissertation]. University of Iowa. Wildhagen, T. (2010). Capitalizing on culture: How cultural capital shapes educational experiences and outcomes. Sociology Compass, 4(7), 519–531.

Chapter 7

Conclusions and Implications of the Study

Abstract This book aims to raise public awareness of the importance of culture to Indigenous students’ literacy learning. In this chapter the analysis of the data I collected is leveraged to provide stakeholders with insights into EALD learners’ literacy learning in mainstream schools, and recommendations for policy reevaluation, thus promoting inclusive and equitable education for all students regardless of their backgrounds. This chapter presents the book’s conclusion including its practical and theoretical contribution, limitations, and future research trajectories. Keywords EALD learner · Literacy · Mainstream · Inclusive · Equitable

7.1 Summary of Findings and Conclusions Many studies have been conducted to investigate Indigenous students’ learning and their culture, but few are classroom-based, let alone involving Indigenous children telling their daily stories in comparison with non-Indigenous counterparts’ reading performance and daily stories (Browne-Yung et al., 2013; Long et al., 1999). This study has investigated and identified the cultural factors that influence young Indigenous students’ reading performance from a unique perspective in that: (1) I was the classroom teacher at the same time; (2) participating students orally shared their daily stories; (3) the participatory and exploratory case study allowed comparisons between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous participating students; and (4) the study included a meta-analysis of layered and interconnected data sets underpinned by a hermeneutic interpretative approach. This research design and focus has never been reported in the literature in the past. This study aimed to address the following three research questions: (1) What are the challenges that the participating young Australian Indigenous students faced in learning reading in English as an additional language (EALD)? This question focused on aspects of learning and how the participating students performed in reading (see Chap. 4). The answer to this question is closely related to the next research question.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 G. Y. A. Yang-Heim, Cultural Perspectives on Indigenous Students’ Reading Performance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9790-7_7

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(2) What are the cultural factors that influence these young Australian Indigenous children’s reading performances? In the process of investigating this question, a range of factors were identified; some were cultural and others were personal or institutional. However, this study showed that cultural factors play a major role in influencing the Indigenous students’ reading performances (see Chap. 5). Connecting the first and the second research question is the third research question: (3) How do the cultural factors influence their EALD reading performance? To address this question, a meta-analysis was conducted and reported in Chap. 6 to examine the findings through the lens of Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital. The research findings have indicated the complexity of the cultural factors that need to be taken into consideration while teaching, learning and designing curriculum. The findings clearly show the inadequacy of the evolution of the concept of cultural capital after Bourdieu as each generation emphasises a single aspect of the theory while overlooking the other sides of the concept. It is imperative to recognise the multiple facets of the concept of cultural capital in order to address the issue of young Indigenous students’ reading lagging far behind the expected national standards. It will require concerted efforts from all parties: parents, schools, children and policy makers. This means parents are encouraged to be more involved in their children’s education, particularly the stage prior to school age. Schools should consider cultural factors by maximising the use of resources related to Indigenous culture in planning, delivery and assessment of Indigenous children’s reading and overall learning. For policy makers, the bar for teachers needs to be raised, and teachers should be required to attain substantial Indigenous cultural knowledge before commencing classroom teaching.

7.1.1 A Brief Summary of Challenges Faced by Indigenous Students in Reading Performance The data presented in Chap. 4 show the Indigenous students in this study performed at a lower level than mainstream non-Indigenous students in reading assessments. A significant gap was found when comparing one Indigenous with one mainstream participant student at the same level. In this study ‘the same level’ is a relative term in that both participating students were ranked at a similar level in their respective groups—the Indigenous and the non-Indigenous group. Mainstream students outperformed their Indigenous counterparts in all reading assessments. The latter group experienced a tremendous amount of challenge in comprehending texts and sounding out unfamiliar words regardless of the degree of difficulty of the text. In particular, all of the Indigenous participating students struggled with questions involving identifying underlying meanings of the text. According to the Australian Curriculum, Year 2 students should be exposed to skills such as inferring, interpreting or synthesising texts, and they are expected to

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be able to apply these reading skills to texts. Clearly, all the participating Indigenous students not only failed to reach the standards, but also performed way below the nonIndigenous students in the same reading assessments. Assessment data in reading also show all the participating Indigenous students encountered difficulties in decoding words in the text. They had a smaller bank of vocabulary than the mainstream students and lacked the skills to apply phonetic strategies to unfamiliar words. The situation changed slightly for the better when the reading material was relevant to Indigenous culture and was familiar to the Indigenous students. On these texts, the Indigenous participating students performed equally or better than mainstream students in terms of comprehension, despite poorly decoding both familiar and unfamiliar words. Bridging the gap in reading performance between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students is increasingly significant for both individuals and society as a whole. Prior to creating policies to bridge the gap, the underlying causes of the poor reading performances of Indigenous children need to be discussed and analysed so as to better target areas for improvement. The comprehensive reading test results brought to light several challenges that the Indigenous students encountered in reading. This answered the first research question – what are the challenges that the participating young Australian Indigenous students face in learning reading in English as an additional language? One of the most pronounced challenges was the lack of knowledge about the topic and the world. In order to identity hidden factors, I conducted one-to-one interviews with the six participating students from my class to obtain evidence of connections between poor reading performances and cultural factors. The six participating students were purposefully chosen to comprise three Indigenous and three non-Indigenous students of low, middle and high levels of reading. Seventeen baseline themes were identified on the basis of initial coding and raw transcripts. The participating students’ voices were introduced to examine the factors from a different perspective. These themes were categorised into much broader themes which are associated with Bourdieu’s conceptual framework of cultural capital with an aim to address the second research question—what are the cultural factors that influence these young Australian Indigenous students’ reading performances?

7.1.2 Indigenous Culture Shapes the Way of Learning As discussed in Chap. 5, the Indigenous participating students had a lot in common in how they responded to my questions. Patterns were identified and some of them are significantly associated with Indigenous students’ low academic achievements especially in reading. One of the most significant factors was the educational level of parents and the level of parental support. Despite the fact that Indigenous students’ extended family members are often involved in children’s lives materially, for instance, purchasing school uniforms and covering everyday expenses, a distinct contrast between Indigenous parents and non-Indigenous parents lies in the degree of parental involvement in their children’s learning. The study showed that

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Indigenous parents’ lack of education has a huge impact on the level of learning support their children can access outside of school. Home reading is an example of this. The Indigenous parents rarely talked about books or discussed characters in the stories with their children during home reading time. Whereas the mainstream students’ parents created opportunities for their children to read for understanding and pleasure, although sometimes the children preferred to read by themselves. In addition, Indigenous culture has shaped the unique way Indigenous students think, respond and act. They tend to contemplate an object, a question or an event from a different perspective to their mainstream counterparts as their thinking is not linear and sequential. As a result, on occasions their responses are confusing to non-Indigenous listeners if their way of thinking is not appropriately interpreted. This is reflected in the interviews when they often deviated from the questions I asked and their answers lacked clarity, or were completely irrelevant to what was asked. They provided answers that linked to what they believed was most important rather than what was most relevant to the questions. This suggests that mainstream schoolteachers may want to tailor the way they instruct to embrace the diversified way of learning and thinking the Indigenous students present. This has perfectly addressed the second research question on the cultural factors that influenced the Indigenous students’ learning to read in English as an additional language. Lack of language proficiency is another major factor contributing to Indigenous students’ poor reading performance. They perform poorly in decoding written texts and are not able to read a text fluently and correctly. The running records data show they are under too much processing stress, reading words letter-by-letter with a limited set of grapho-phonic strategies. Poor readers of English do not have enough experience in reading to be able to identify, decode or appropriate unfamiliar words to extend their repertoire. To an extent, Indigenous students’ decoding skills in standard Australian English is affected by their first language or commonly spoken dialect in their own community. While some Indigenous languages lack a written form, others have a writing system. The Indigenous languages that have a printed form frequently contain vowel systems that do not align with English and Indigenous children are not taught in schools to read and write their own language. Indigenous children can have difficulty distinguishing the English vowels such as /i/ and /e/ and some consonants, and do not distinguish between voiced and voiceless consonants because this distinction does not exist in Indigenous languages. Due to the language barrier, Indigenous children can find it rather challenging to express their ideas or explain an event well enough for others to understand. Finally, personality factors are important contributing factors. Indigenous students are considered relatively shy or reserved. They are concerned about getting things wrong or asking the wrong questions in front of others who may laugh at them. The Indigenous participating students tended to be reluctant to ask for clarification if they were not quite sure about what was asked or if there were certain words they did not understand. As brought up in Chap. 6, testing materials play a role in how Indigenous students comprehend and decode texts. Decoding skills are not dramatically impacted by texts

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related to Indigenous culture; however, these texts contributed most to the participating students’ reading comprehension as the students were able to see their culture accurately portrayed and their existence acknowledged in texts containing elements of their own culture. In a sense, the choice of texts can affect the acquisition of reading skills, which are essential to other learning areas. Australia’s Indigenous people have a culture and history which has continually existed for more than 40,000 years. Massive changes have occurred in the country since the start of European settlement in the eighteenth century. Many of these changes have negatively impacted Indigenous peoples, and the consequences remain today. A disparity in education is one of the major issues which has not been resolved, despite a range of initiatives and efforts implemented to enhance the educational outcomes of Australian Indigenous students over the past decades. Official reports have shown clearly that the majority of the Indigenous children still fall behind their counterparts on the national achievement standards at all levels of education (Long et al., 1999; Sorensen, 2017; Wilson, 2014).

7.1.3 Reflective Thoughts on Educational Policies In Australia, numerous policies have been implemented with a focus on addressing young Indigenous students’ comparatively poor academic results. The federal government has made ongoing efforts and provided enormous funds to improve the educational results of Indigenous students. Yet, these have had little effect. This is partly because ‘the Australian government frames the success or failure of educational programs in terms of whether students are able to bridge the gap or perform as well as their privileged mainstream counterparts’ (Tierney, 2013, p. 28). As Osborne (2015) stressed, what seems to be missing in policy dialogue are the voices and priorities of the families of students who are the target of these policy interventions. In other words, policy makers from non-Indigenous backgrounds rarely succeed because they lack sufficient understanding of Indigenous cultures. For instance, the education sector in the Northern Territory has adopted various programs such as Poly Farmer and Red Dirt (Osborne & Guenther, 2013), and linked school attendance to Centrelink financial support for families. The aim of the latter was to increase the school attendance rate of Indigenous students in order to help them achieve the expected academic results. Even though the Indigenous participating students in this research did not have issues of low attendance, they all struggled with academic learning, including reading. Some non-participating Indigenous students do have very low school attendance, particularly in remote communities. On one hand, it would be a great start to engage Indigenous students at school, and this could potentially improve their academic results. On the other hand, it brings out the question of on what basis the policies and programs were designed. Are the policy makers and parents or carers of Indigenous students on the same page in terms of the critical elements of a foundation for educational success? Osborne (2015) stressed that the stark differences

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in the perspectives on the foundation for Indigenous students’ success in school are based on perceptions of the worth of a child’s family, whereas non-Indigenous policy makers view the families of Indigenous students as ‘a disadvantageous factor’. He also points out that shifting language and assumptions to better reflect positive views of Indigenous parents or carers and their willingness and capacity to provide strong support for their children’s education will be a worthwhile starting point for remote educators and education systems (Osborne, 2015, p. 16). Currently, all the thinking, all the conversations and all the approaches are framed in a way that sees parents of Indigenous students and their identity as a problem. This type of deficit thinking and understanding of Indigenous culture will not help achieve anything. One recommendation to bridge the gap between the policies and Indigenous culture is that representatives of Indigenous parents, educators and even Indigenous students should be involved in the process of designing policy. I would also add that they should be involved in the design of education and practices with which they can identify and that can help maximise Indigenous students’ learning at school. Primary education is a key learning stage for young Indigenous students particularly in English literacy. Gaining fundamental English literacy skills during the early primary years is essential for subsequent learning at school in all subjects. Learning to read at a young age can impact children’s overall success in all subjects, expand their imagination, and help them acquire new information (Richard et al., 2002; Rowe, 1995). The ability to read effectively in the early years is an integral part of a student’s competence. Australian Indigenous students who learn English as an additional language face tremendous challenges in reading, including in the school in which I taught, as noted in Chap. 1. As an effort to address these issues in this research, I recruited some of my own students as participants to investigate: (1) challenges that young Indigenous students in the early years encounter in reading based on the nation-wide standard PAT Reading tests, F&P running records and comprehension results and a teacherdesigned test in F&P format with testing materials related to Indigenous culture; (2) the culture-related factors that influenced the participating students’ reading performances; and (3) how cultural factors have impacted on young Indigenous students’ reading English as an additional language. This chapter is organised to summarise the research findings and conclusions of this study, specify its theoretical contributions to the existing literature, indicate the implications of the study and, finally, acknowledge its limitations and offer recommendations for future research.

7.2 Contributions to the Theory of Cultural Capital Bourdieu originally developed the concept of cultural capital in the 1960s and 1970s, relating French intellectual traditions to ideas from American social science. From then on, American researchers have adopted, developed, and applied the theory of

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cultural capital over three generations. Over several decades across three generations, research on cultural capital has thrived in varied branches. The first generation understood the concept during the 1970s and early 1980s within broader traditions of mobility research and educational stratification. Between the late 1980s and early 2000s, a second generation produced three variants of the concept. Over the past decade, a third generation has elaborated those variants into three distinct branches (Davies & Rizk, 2017). Each branch has taken the concept in a different direction, with scholars developing their individual understandings of the concept in response to criticism and constructive feedback from other researchers. In the first branch, DiMaggio embedded quantitative measurements of cultural capital in status attainment models as Bourdieu’s ideas were overly deterministic. In other words, DiMaggio perceived cultural capital as resources that determine students’ educational outcomes. On the other hand, in the second branch, Lareau criticised DiMaggio’s ideas for overlooking parenting strategies to boost children’s school success, which shaped her research focus on parenting strategies. Lareau used qualitative observations to interpret cultural capital as family strategies that align with schools’ institutional rewards. In the third branch, Collins criticised Bourdieu’s concept for failing to consider status-enhancing symbols in local rituals at the micro level (Davies & Rizk, 2017). Therefore, Collins’ branch offered a micro-level examination of group rituals or processes that can affect schooling. Each of the three branches emphasised one aspect of the theory that can significantly affect school attainment either theoretically or methodologically. This study has found that a range of factors, cultural, personal, and institutional in nature, function in concert and thereby contribute to young Indigenous students’ unsatisfactory reading performances. This is the contribution that the study has made to the application of the theory of cultural capital to education studies. Living standards and the availability of electronic learning devices at home, as identified in this research, suit DiMaggio’s branch, which considers the socio-economic status of the families. However, the study does not show that these two factors are the causal contributing factors in Indigenous students’ unsatisfactory reading performance, but merely that students from better economic family backgrounds have more opportunities to access a wider range of social and cultural learning activities which in return helps them broaden their views of the world and increase their world knowledge. Other factors such as parental support are aligned with Lareau’s family strategies. This study identified that students with a high level of parental support both in daily life and in learning tend to develop better learning habits such as reading at home every day and a strong sense of commitment to homework, all of which are more or less directly translated into good reading outcomes. Nevertheless, parenting is not the only factor that has an impact on students’ reading. In addition, factors like children’s personalities or dispositions shaped by the cultural environment they live in have also been found to contribute to their reading performances. Similarly, a lack of topic knowledge, background knowledge and

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knowledge of the world was found to contribute to Indigenous students’ unsatisfactory performance in reading, particularly in comprehending texts. Lastly, the institutional choice of standardised testing materials that overlook Indigenous culture was also found to contribute to Indigenous students’ unsatisfactory reading performances.

7.3 Implications of This Study In this study I acted not only as an explorer of the issues but also as a full-time participating staff member working at the front line in the research site. This enabled me to collect more authentic and comprehensive research data and conduct more informed analysis than previous studies including the studies conducted by the Department of Education, which led to the policies mentioned above to improve Indigenous students’ educational outcomes. As stated in Chap. 1, the goal of improving Indigenous students’ educational outcomes has not been realised and the poor learning outcomes of Indigenous students have remained almost the same. As a classroom teacher working at the front line at the school, I noticed large gaps between the policies stipulated by the Department of Education and the reality of the implementation of the policies at school, including areas that were overlooked as identified in this research. The reading of the Indigenous participating students indicated a range of challenges Indigenous students faced, and the factors explored in the interviews and participants’ narrative stories confirm that Indigenous cultural factors had a large impact on their poor reading performance. For instance, Indigenous participants displayed a different way of thinking comparing to the mainstream participants, which was shaped by their own culture. The policy of implementing mainstream teaching pedagogies at school may not advantage Indigenous students. On other points, my research suggests the gaps decrease when it comes to comprehension of texts related to Indigenous culture, but the gaps remain in decoding unknown words regardless of the type of text. Looking at key research in my area, I cannot agree more with Osborne (2014) on the importance of a foundation of strong family support, which strengthens identity and connects children to important stories that locate students in the physical, cultural and education landscape. This positions Indigenous students to confidently embrace new and unfamiliar social and knowledge propositions ‘without fear’ and with an ‘open spirit’. Osborne’s research findings show that Indigenous children’s success is wholly dependent on family members building their confidence, identity and aspiration for success in education. As a teacher-researcher in an urban school in the Northern Territory teaching English to Australian urban Indigenous students, I found the power of a strong foundation from the family is undeniable, but it is not the sole factor for Indigenous children’s success in education and in their life. The implications of this study lie in three factors which prevented the participating Indigenous students from progressing academically as required in school:

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1. The teaching content is based almost solely on non-Indigenous culture. 2. Not every teacher has adequate knowledge about Indigenous culture. 3. Not every teacher has been properly trained to teach English as an additional language to Indigenous students. Once the above three aspects have been addressed sufficiently, educators and the education system will be able to reflect on their assumptions, as Osborne (2015) stated, that Indigenous families are a ‘disadvantage’ and that those in positions of power should engage with the families of Indigenous students to build the foundations for success for Indigenous children. This requires a shift of focus to valuing the impact of teaching through evaluating teaching qualities. Some teachers could be great educators in a mainstream context, yet teaching Indigenous students is a different teaching environment which requires additional skills and knowledge. Each year the Department of Education recruits a number of new teachers, but the unresolved problems remain. Has the government made efforts to provide sufficient support for teachers to learn about Indigenous culture, and to learn to teach English as an additional language? Have the schools integrated enough teaching content related to Indigenous culture in school programs? Have teachers really understood the learning needs of Indigenous students? The primary goal of this research has been to examine the factors that might have hindered urban Indigenous students’ reading performance. Schools, parents, students, and administrative stakeholders may take these factors into consideration when tailoring educational programs and teaching instructions to assist Indigenous students’ schooling, and thus help bridge the gap in learning to decode and comprehend texts in English between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. School readiness is another key area that may help address some of the issues identified in this study. All the mainstream participating students were exposed to various types of learning at home such as reading every day, doing extra homework, watching educational programs, and discussing interesting topics with their parents. One nonIndigenous participant, MS1, also stressed that he was exposed to reading at the age of three with and without his parents’ assistance. All the non-Indigenous participating students loved talking about animals, books and educational TV programs during the interview. There is no doubt that they were exposed to many different types of informal or incidental learning before they started school. Otherwise, they would not have been able to show what they knew and how much they knew. If Indigenous students have access to more kinds of incidental learning experiences prior to school age, their learning experiences might be much easier and smoother at school and their interest or curiosity in learning will also be boosted. A result would be the development of a positive learning attitude, which can increase children’s self-esteem and in turn build up their confidence to tackle reading in English. To be able to help Indigenous students succeed in learning, ‘partnership’ is highly recommended, in this research it refers to the connection between the parents or carers and the school. The findings show the significance of the high level of parental involvement in their children’s learning is undeniable. This type of involvement is not just focused on their children’s day-to-day routines outside school; more important

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is aspects of learning such as incidental teaching and learning occurring prior to school age and during the school years particularly in the early years of schooling. With this in place, Indigenous children will not fall far behind at the starting point, and it will be much easier for them to catch up with non-Indigenous students in the schooling setting. However, this recommendation leads to a new question of how the government can provide support for parents in assisting their children outside school. Indigenous students show strong cultural identity at school and they feel proud of who they are. It is important for school communities to support Indigenous students’ learning. While encouraging Indigenous students to embrace aspects of the mainstream culture, it is also important to show them we as non-Indigenous educators respect and appreciate their culture. This could be manifested in the way we teach and the content we teach in school. It requires higher standards of the teachers who must demonstrate the knowledge and skills to teach Indigenous students. Educators need to take account of the context they work in and to be able to connect with the Indigenous children they teach. It might be helpful to teach in a style that allows Indigenous students to refine their skills before showing them to their peers. While an Indigenous student may be shy or may have difficulties with literacy, this does not mean they are unable to learn. Educators will also need to embrace and appreciate Indigenous culture in the way they communicate, act, and teach. It is important that a systematic training program is available in advance so that newly recruited teachers can become familiar with Indigenous cultures and learn additional teaching approaches for Indigenous students who learn English as an additional language. Learning opportunities within the community should be encouraged where children can learn school curriculum through their local culture. Engaging in different pathways to learning could boost Indigenous students’ interest in learning. It would also be beneficial for very young Indigenous children in the early school stage if teachers learn to speak the children’s mother tongue. This could address several issues related to Indigenous children’s learning at school such as the language barrier during learning and teaching, building closer relationships with the children, and it would also be a way of showing respect for their tradition. Directly increasing parents’ wages and level of education will not necessarily effectively and directly translate into improved cultural capital. These factors are not always correlated in the mainstream population. The main question here is how Indigenous children can benefit from better living conditions and better educated parents’ involvement in schooling. Future research is needed to obtain answers to the questions raised here. Now I shall recommend the direction of future research.

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7.4 Limitations of the Study and Recommendations for Future Research There were several limitations of the research and the findings of the study should be applied with due caution. First, the generalisability of the findings in the research is limited due to the nature of a qualitative enquiry like this, with the small number and limited diversity of participating students. Only six students, three Indigenous and three non-Indigenous, participated fully in the study and all these children were from the same class in the same school. The participating students all lived in urban areas within Alice Springs rather than in remote communities, representing a particular insight into the way that cultural factors operated in that urban area. Therefore, the findings of this study should be applied with caution to other contexts where the body of students are bound to be different and the classroom practices are also likely to be different. Nevertheless, the underpinning themes of this study should also be relevant to teaching other young Indigenous students to learn reading in English as an additional language (EALD). Further, the interpretation of the findings of this qualitative case study could be influenced by researcher bias (Johnson & Christensen, 2012). I was also the reading teacher of the participating students. Therefore, when I analysed the data, I could not ignore my prior knowledge about the participating students’ schooling and home life. Lastly, the findings related to the challenges faced by the Indigenous participating students were generated through a traditional reading test consisting of oral reading and comprehension. This testing was deliberately abstract, and did not refer to the students’ context or experiences. This style of reading test is western-oriented and driven by the curriculum, which may have confined the Indigenous participating students in a box where they were not able to draw upon their capacities and strengths in an organic manner. Relationships between teachers and their students should be viewed as collaborative where the decisions on what to study, how to study and how to assess are made as a result of dialogue and equal input between both parties rather than resulting from a pre-set curriculum or decisions mad primarily by the school (Purcell-Gates et al., 2004, 2011). Therefore, diagnostic and culturally appropriately reading tests should be adopted for future research to assess the learning outcomes of Indigenous students more authentically and organically. This research has made a substantial change in the real context in Australia through offering evidence-based recommendations to the policy makers at the Department of Education in Northern Territory, with an intent to creating opportunities for Indigenous students to bring their learning potential in full play. The impact of the study is beyond the scope of Australia as this study also contributes to raising global awareness of learning challenges that Indigenous students from diverse cultural backgrounds may face and to increasing understanding of the needs of research at the global level. It requires context-based research concerning the way that these issues or challenges can be approached in an effective manner to assist Indigenous students optimize their learning outcomes across the world.

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7 Conclusions and Implications of the Study

The recommendations for future research can be presented in the form of questions that could be addressed: 1. What do Indigenous students in urban areas and remote communities share in common in terms of challenges in learning to read in EALD? 2. How do Indigenous students from diverse geographical locations differ in learning? 3. What do Indigenous students across the world share in common and differ in the way they learn English as an Additional Language? 4. How will culturally responsive testing methods differ from the traditional reading tests in term of assessing Indigenous students’ reading performance? A clear understanding of such differences could help better pinpoint the needs of Indigenous students’ learning and thus help to better address those needs in policies to close the gap in Indigenous students’ learning outcomes.

References Browne-Yung, K., Ziersch, A., Baum, F., & Gallaher, G. (2013). Indigenous Australians’ experience of social capital and its relevance to health and wellbeing in urban settings. Social Science & Medicine, 97, 20–28. Davies, S., & Rizk, J. (2017). The three generations of cultural capital research: A narrative review. Review of Educational Research, 88(3), 331–365. Johnson, E., & Christensen, L. (2012). Educational research: Quantitative, qualitative, and mixed approaches (3rd ed.). Sage. Long, M., Frigo, T., & Batten, M. (1999). The school to work transition of Indigenous Australians: A review of the literature and statistical analysis. Australian Council for Educational Research. Osborne, S. (2014). At the heart of learning (Series: Paper 1 of 4): Putuna Kulini: The trouble with ‘hearing.’ AlterNative, 10, 3–14. Osborne, S. (2015). Families as foundation: Anangu perspectives on what else matters in remote education. UNESCO Observatory Multi-disciplinary Journal in the Arts, 4(2), 1–25. Osborne, S., & Guenther, J. (2013). Red dirt thinking on aspiration and success. Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 42, 88–99. Purcell-Gates, V., Jacobson, E., & Degener, S. (2004). Print literacy development: Uniting cognitive and social practice theories. Harvard University Press. Purcell-Gates, V., Perry, H., & Briseno, A. (2011). Analyzing literacy practice: Grounded theory to model. Research in the Teaching of English, 45(4), 439–458. Richard, W. S., Mathew, J., Harvey, F., & Perini, G. M. T. (2002). Reading for academic success. Corwin Press. Rowe, J. K. (1995). Factors affecting students’ progress in reading: Key findings from a longitudinal study. Literacy, Teaching and Learning, 1(2), 57–110. Sorensen, H. (2017, February 15). Closing the gap: Indigenous people still being disadvantaged. NT News. https://www.ntnews.com.au/news/northern-territory/closing-the-gap-indigenous-peo ple-still-being-disadvantaged/news-story/e97c6b8d34663de241a1b8ed7e742243

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Tierney, J. R. (2013). Australia’s faltering educational equity policy and practices: the case of the Indigenous and Torres Strait Islanders [draft]. Academic.edu. https://www.academia.edu/968 0362/Australia_s_faltering_educational_equity_policy_and_practices_the_case_of_the_Indige nous_and_Torres_Strait_Islanders Wilson, B. (2014). Review of indigenous education in the Northern Territory. Department of Education. http://www.education.nt.gov.au/parents-community/students-learning/indigenouseducation-review-1

Chapter 8

Afterword: What’s Next in Reading Research in Schools? Stephen Dobson

Abstract ▇▇▇

This is not a book about decolonisation and how to make up for the injustices of the past. Nor is it about emancipation from the past. Instead, it is about the stage before this, or let us say the two stages before this. By this I mean it is about how to understand the literacy practices, often technical, and the accompanying assessment practices of reading, equally technical, in the Australian school sector that creates such injustices; by what mechanisms and in whose interests. The second stage is revealing the cultures of understanding that have become established and taken for granted as normal amongst the teachers, the pupils and the communities to which they belong. A closer specification of cultures is required, and here we are considering the cultures of teaching, learning and assessment through mapping tests in a general sense with a sustained focus upon reading. Put in the conceptual framework of a sociology of education, the focus is the kinds of cultural capital established and shared amongst those involved or alternatively made invisible and not accumulated or shared in an equitable manner. This involves teaching professionals, parents, students, and communities and, indeed, it is Yang-Heim’s point that the allocation of cultural capital does differ. This book aims to increase understanding of these two foundational stages, the technical practices, and the cultures. They are the essential building blocks of any future attempts to deliver on what has not been delivered to date and future attempts to transform teaching and schooling in a more emancipatory and empowering direction. The inspiration for this kind of argument is rehearsed by Yang-Heim’s reference to the early work of Habermas (1987). He is well known for his understanding that knowledge is not neutral; it can represent different interests and in so doing is laden with values that support these different interests. He proposed a simple and easily grasped typology (or framework) of knowledge interests as technical (means– ends), cultural (acknowledging different cultural points of view) and emancipatory (empowering often forgotten or neglected participants and voices). Put differently, they are: (a) the status quo of delivering what has been planned and framed in a national or state reading curriculum for schools, (b) the cultures supporting and also © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 G. Y. A. Yang-Heim, Cultural Perspectives on Indigenous Students’ Reading Performance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9790-7_8

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explaining the delivering of what has been planned, and (c) the understanding and skills required to break with the dominant practices and cultures. This book is in my view about creating a platform upon which emancipation and its own language and knowledge can be created. This is how the book should be read and judged. Does it prepare us well? Does it offer us a deep understanding of the mechanisms and structures at play in the current technical and cultural practices of literacy, focused upon the teaching, learning and assessment of reading? It is not then a book about emancipation and empowerment, but its forerunner—naming how and why current practices are experienced and have the impact that they do. This said, it does offer glimpses of emancipation, empowerment and thus resistance.

8.1 Australia: A Country Like No Other? Early in the book the author draws attention to the ambitions of the Australian policy aptly entitled Closing the Gap, launched in 2007. This policy identified seven key areas where improvement was a high priority: child mortality, early childhood education, school attendance, literacy (i.e. reading) and numeracy, Year 12 attainment, employment and life expectancy. Each year politicians and those implementing the policy share progress in reports. According to the 2019 report, for example, the difference between the literacy of Indigenous and non-Indigenous students is still high: ‘The target to halve the gap in the share of Indigenous children at or above national minimum standards in reading and numeracy in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 within the decade to 2018 is not on track’ (Australian Government, 2019, p. 78). The report notes that differences in attendance are important and should be understood as an urban-to-remote continuum: ‘In 2018, the attendance rate for Indigenous students ranged from 86% in Inner Regional areas to 63% in Very Remote areas’ (Australian Government, 2019, p. 71). The report also highlights the need to recognise to a greater degree the existing language skills of Indigenous students and, connected with this, to support their language development through the medium of instruction, namely the English language when at school. Generating curriculum resources each child’s mother tongue will always be a challenge when there are over 200 living Indigenous languages in Australia. By way of contrast, in New Zealand the M¯aori population (approximately 15% of the total population) share the same language and the Ministry of Education has the advantage, not always taken I must say, to focus curriculum development including its own curriculum in schools where the M¯aori language is the medium of instruction. It must be noted with a word of caution that the term ‘M¯aori medium school’ contains different meanings as defined by the Ministry of Education: Schools included in this directory are all schools recorded as having at least 1 student enrolled in M¯aori medium education (M¯aori Language Immersion Levels 1–2). This includes 4 types of schools:

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● M¯aori medium school is a school where all Students are recorded as enrolled in M¯aori medium education ● School with M¯aori medium education is a school where some students do M¯aori medium education and the rest do no M¯aori language in education. ● Mixed M¯aori Language in Education School is a school where all students are either involved in M¯aori medium education or M¯aori language in English medium education. ● School with Mixed M¯aori Language in Education School is a school where some students do Maori medium education, some do M¯aori language in English medium education and some do no M¯aori language in education (Education Counts, 2022b).

Translated into numbers, this amounts to a total of 23,161 students as at 1 July 2021, 2.8% of the school population. In other words, there are 305 schools with students enrolled in M¯aori medium and, within this number, ‘104 had all eligible students in M¯aori medium and 161 also offered M¯aori language in English medium’ (Education Counts, 2022a). What I am drawing attention to is that the Australian practice and the focus of this book is school reading practices in English as the medium of schooling. My point is that it is difficult to compare apples with oranges across countries, even if we are considering literacy for First World peoples at a higher level of generality. The local or national context remains important. Returning to my earlier point, despite the advantage of New Zealand M¯aori peoples sharing the same language, Australia and other countries with indigenous peoples share a set of similar challenges. The first of these is the overwhelming presence of a national curriculum in a different language. This sets the dominant parameters for how to judge performance and assessment and constitutes the dominant worldview. For example, the focus inevitably tends to be on a worldview where the individual is regarded as atomistic. The adage might be summed up as: You are your own success. You can influence, direct and control your own environment. You can make your life what you want it to be. In the worldview of indigenous peoples, the individual is always, and in every respect firstly, collective, such that the individual is embedded in a social network of relationships stretching from past ancestors, to present and onwards to the future. In the well-known M¯aori proverb, Kia whakatomuri te haere whakamua (to move forwards you have to look over your shoulder).1 Somewhat ironically, it is often overlooked that this was the starting point and informed the socio-cultural understanding of Vygotsky’s influential work on child development and the associated concept of the zone of proximal development (Haaland & Dobson, 1993). Vygotsky and his students such as Luria were part of the cultural historical school of psychology with roots in post-revolutionary Russia in the 1920s and 30s. They understood the ontogenesis of the individual as firstly acquiring the collective language and cultural understanding in which they are embedded (the young child saying for example in the third person ‘Petra wants an apple’, rather than ‘I want an apple’). Thereafter, the individual gradually makes language their own in 1

Shared in conversation with Pine Southon, Hautohu Matua (Principle M¯aori Advisor), Faculty of Education, Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, 22 July 2022.

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an individual sense, as their personalised view and use of these collective resources. It was not in their view the opposite, namely that the child was first and foremost an atomistic individual, and that culture, language and its rules had to be imposed upon the resistant individual. What is the point I am making? Simply put, if we acknowledge that the worldview and culture of Indigenous peoples are collective rather than individualistically motivated, this might all too easily conflict with the worldview and culture encountered in the practices and culture of schooling in Australia, which is the subject of the author’s empirical research. This is especially so when these schools operate according to the dominant culture of the English medium with its atomistic focus on the individual.

8.2 The Technicalities of Reading and How to Teach Reading and Assess Reading Progress Can anybody agree on the preferred way to teach and to learn to read? For many years there has been talk of the so-called literacy wars—structured literacy, balanced literacy and phonetics are a few of the names associated with the different perspectives (Robinson et al., 2016; Soler, 2017). It is unlikely that agreement will be reached in the near future between the followers of different camps, even amongst those seeking to mediate differences. In broad terms this might be viewed as an example of the Habermas-inspired understanding of technical knowledge constitutive interests, where those with so-called technical and research-based evidence cannot reach overall agreement about best practice. When Yang-Heim draws attention to the ambitions of teachers in Australia who seek to adopt and practise culturally responsive pedagogies, founded upon a deep understanding of the cultural preconditions of Indigenous students, this adds a new level of complexity. It can be understood as a reference to the cultural level of Habermas’s knowledge constitutive interests. Her book contains numerous examples of one culture being privileged in reading tests: in her words the ‘PAT Reading and F&P shared one thing in common, that is, the reading materials are related to nonIndigenous culture’. This impacted upon the reading of the Indigenous students and she highlights the greater difficulties in decoding experienced by Indigenous students working in their additional language of English. Even when the researcher introduced stories familiar to the cultural background of Indigenous students, their reading did not necessarily improve. The level of selfcorrection did not change, indicating that reading in the additional language remained a challenge. She further identified a lack of vocabulary as a contributing factor. This does not mean culturally sensitive material has no role to play. It does improve understanding of the texts, self-confidence and self-esteem, as she clearly notes. This has an important value in itself and supports motivation to learn. But it has its limits, and she sums this up clearly in a telling paragraph:

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I had assumed that the Indigenous students would enjoy some advantage when they read a story about their own culture and that their prior knowledge of culture would facilitate their decoding unfamiliar words. The findings based on the participating students’ testing results showed that prior knowledge of Indigenous culture could enrich Indigenous students’ interpretation and understanding of the known vocabulary they encountered in reading, but it could not enable them to perform better in decoding unknown or unfamiliar vocabulary in the reading materials, regardless of whether they were related to Indigenous or non-Indigenous culture.

The number of informants in her research was small, but the above does suggest directions for future research, not the least the importance of unpacking what culturally responsive pedagogy means or might mean in a future-directed sense. Creating reading resources and assessments such as PAT and F&P that seek to be open to all cultures without privileging one is a difficult if not impossible task. Yet it must not be given up as we move with the support of technology towards forms of assessment that can be adapted to the diverse needs of those taking them. One country where this is clearly voiced is Norway, a place I lived and worked in for many years. Its Education Act retains the overarching principle that ‘education is to be adjusted to the abilities of the individual students, apprentices and those on placement’ (Opplæringa skal tilpassast evnene og føresetnadene hjå den enkelte eleven, lærlingen, praksisbrevkandidaten og lærekandidaten).2 As a Norwegian Green Paper (NOU, 2016, p. 24) has noted in its interpretation of the Act, education is not a goal in itself; it is a means to enhance the inclusion of all students culturally, socially and educationally through the use of differentiated content, assessment practices and so on. What we can take from this is that all education systems seek to include diverse groups and that this is an ongoing challenge. Moreover, sometimes inclusion is about teaching processes, sometimes teaching resources and sometimes assessment practices. The framework I have highlighted, and the one that Yang-Heim adopts, entails combining technical and cultural knowledge interests. It is also about making connections between literacy teaching and learning and how they are applied in contexts familiar to the students where they are additionally able to select key pieces of information from a text. As a good illustration of this I am reminded of my good friend Professor Irabinna Rigney who in his inaugural lecture at the University of South Australia talked of freshwater literacies. This topic was vitally important for the cultural heritage of his own Indigenous people, the Nharangga, and the peninsula of land where they had lived for thousands of years close to water resources (see Yorke Peninsula Council, 2015). If he had as a child received PAT and F&P questions with familiar Indigenous content and words he would have scored highly on these. But two points are worthy of note: firstly the learning would not have been learnt through reading in the traditional sense of words on a page. It would have been founded upon the traditional teachings communicated by elders to him. Secondly, and requoting Yang-Heim, 2

Law for primary and secondary schooling (education) (Lov om grunnskolen og den vidaregåande opplæringa (opplæringslova). § 1–3. https://lovdata.no/dokument/NL/lov/1998-07-17-61#KAP ITTEL_1 (accessed 24 July 2022).

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prior knowledge of Indigenous culture could enrich Indigenous students’ interpretation and understanding of the known vocabulary they encountered in reading, but it could not enable them to perform better in decoding unknown or unfamiliar vocabulary in the reading materials, regardless of whether they were related to Indigenous or non-Indigenous culture.

Rigney and colleagues note that culturally responsive pedagogy still has a way to go, so to speak and in this connection: ‘There is presently no substantial theoretically informed and empirically substantiated Australian version of culturally responsive pedagogy available to Australian educators working in schools, or to those preparing new teachers’ (Morrison et al., 2019, p. 58). Unpacking this, the lack of an Australian culturally responsive pedagogy is in part related to the fact that the predominance of Australian multiculturalism in educational policy and practice has meant that the culture of Indigenous peoples is in danger of being considered along with that of the many waves of migrants to the continent. It risks being diluted and its distinctiveness obscured. The open question that needs to be raised is, what would a culturally responsive form of literacy look like and how would it be reflected in PAT and F&P tests? And why not consider offering specific PAT and F&P tests adjusted to specific cultural backgrounds? What if we encounter cultures who for thousands of years have learnt literacies of importance to them that are not acquired through written words, but orally and in practice?

8.3 Glimpses of Emancipation, Empowerment and Resistance? Throughout this book Yang-Heim is clear in her intention. None more so than in a chapter that seeks to elicit Indigenous student voices: This chapter is not seeking to achieve transformative politics, but to help understand why Indigenous students do not perform well in the dominant western educational paradigm. It does not assume a simple split between western and Indigenous cultures; rather it advocates an understanding of the coexistence of the two cultures.

The way in which she does this is to turn towards narratology. Specifically, she seeks to construct three Indigenous student narrative stories based upon information or data gleaned from her research interviews. In adopting this methodology the reader, as I shall contend, experiences glimpses of emancipation, empowerment and resistance, namely, the third narrative knowledge interests considered by Habermas. The narratives reflect how students view themselves as holistic beings, rather than separated and compartmentalised into life in school, life at home and life in the community. Following my work with Donna Pendergast (Pendergast & Dobson, 2022), I would add that the very act of creating narratives not only indicates who students are in terms of their identities, it also offers insight into how students navigate the often liminal world of in-betweenness as boundaries are crossed, or in YangHeim’s words where different worlds co-exist.

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Could or should the narratives be first person accounts? Yang-Heim is aware of the challenges of this. This awareness is important and I choose to re-state her words in full: Every effort has been made to retain the maximum amount of the original flavour and the tone of the stories AS3 told, including the linguistic errors as long as they do not cause confusion in the interpretation of the stories. In his story, he used several words which have different connotations in the Indigenous context than in mainstream culture. His story also covers some of his experiences which are quite unique to his culture.

In seeking to find and give voice to the lives of Indigenous children as they experience schooling and in particular literacy learning and teaching, Yang-Heim echoes the project of Freire (1993), who sought in similar vein to empower those considered to possess no power. As she explores these narratives we see glimpses of Habermas’s third stage, namely, knowledge constitutive interests supporting emancipation, where empowerment and resistance are central motifs. Yang-Heim notes that her Indigenous informants when talking about their reading and learning at school had challenges with regard to sequencing and communicating the passing of time. This had impacts on both information retention and access, and also the communication of the time between events and when an event took place. To retain and access information has been shown as important in developing skills in reading and was seen to be stronger in the non-Indigenous informants. Moreover, the Indigenous students did not conceive of time as split up in intervals, unlike the non-Indigenous informants. This would seem to suggest not empowerment, but the reverse. In accounting for this difference between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students as they learn to read, Yang-Heim draws upon the following as an explanation, where the language used at home is generally different to the one used in school: English is not the main communication tool for most of the Indigenous families, who speak an Indigenous language at home. During the early years of school, these participating students were at the age in which they simultaneously acquired language at home and learned English at school. However, in Indigenous culture, speaking an Indigenous language is important to their identity both in terms of self-identity and the identity of the community as a whole.

In other words, rather than speaking English when at home, the maintenance of Indigenous language was considered more important for identity reasons. In addition, the Indigenous children in narrating their lives talked of interaction with their extended families, where others such as aunties and uncles played central roles and the children felt supported. This was different to the narratives Yang-Heim told of the non-Indigenous students. What we are talking of here is a well-articulated Indigenous narrative, which places an emphasis on different concepts of family, belonging, cultural practices and the languages used at home, which are not English. Even if it is Yang-Heim who has articulated the narratives, the concepts are different to the ones expressed by the non-Indigenous informants who were interviewed.

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8.4 The Theoretical Lens to Help Us Understand the Cultures of Teaching and Acquiring Reading Skills What theories does the author draw upon to understand the different manner in which Indigenous students construct their worlds as compared to non-Indigenous students? Her choice of theorist can be understood if the question is framed in terms of challenges faced by Indigenous children with respect to reading: linguistical challenges (phonological, grammar and vocabulary), challenges concerning the knowledge of the world (understanding culturally related humour, lack of contextual and topical knowledge, inability to make connections with the world) and challenges of comprehension skills (application of analytical skills, identifying the main ideas of a text, retrieving directly stated information, interpreting information). Yang-Heim offers a good example as she reflects upon her research: when the materials were about Indigenous Dreaming stories the Indigenous students outperformed the mainstream students in using their related contextual knowledge to facilitate their reading comprehension. When reading non-Indigenous texts, the Indigenous participating students had difficulty making sense of the texts as they could not supply the missing information since they did not have sufficient knowledge of the topic concerned.

Yang-Heim draws on the theories of Bourdieu and in particular his concept of cultural capital to understand how knowledge of the non-Indigenous world (one of the points above) impacts the other points above (e.g. vocabulary and interpreting information). Two of the Indigenous informants in this research were challenged in terms of their living spaces outside of school and, connected with this, they had restricted access to learning resources. In a Bourdieusian sense these are indicators of low objectified cultural capital. When children have this form of capital it supports their learning activities outside school and is carried in their skills and knowledge into the school situation to support learning and reading in particular. One of the Indigenous students possessed access to digital resources, including an iPad, computer and internet outside of school, and she also attended ballet classes. This student, while not the best reader in her class, attained the highest level of reading. Her objectified cultural capital was important in advancing her reading. However, even this student was still below the standard level for a Year 2 student, so her cultural capital did not guarantee her success. Drawing these points together, exposure to the objects of cultural capital is no guarantee of familiarity with the dominant culture of society nor of possessing the ability to use it to maximise learning goals, curriculum and testing regimes (e.g. PAT) in a school setting. The students may still lack sufficient knowledge of the non-Indigenous world, its vocabulary and how to interpret it. For Yang-Heim, culture understood as a form of capital is currency that is tangible in objects (access to learning resources, the internet, iPads and so on) and intangible when embodied in students as skills and knowledge that underlie reading progression in schools and its measurement through tests such as PAT. When this cultural capital is typically possessed by non-Indigenous students, and Indigenous students possess

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less of this capital, it is to be expected that it will have a lasting impact on reading performance and learning. This is further compounded when the cultural capital of non-Indigenous students is less recognised in the school setting and its curriculum, and when the medium of instruction is English. If we take a step back, Yang-Heim is interested in the lived experience of Indigenous students in the schooling system in Australia. This connects well with the another of Bourdieu’s concepts, namely habitus. This refers to the manner in which experiences across contexts give rise to socially formed and individually expressed dispositions of a bodily and cognitive character. She does mention this concept on a few occasions, mostly to do with the manner in which family life and experiences impact upon and develop the educational experiences of the students inside and outside of the school setting. Other theoretically inspired perspectives may be of interest. In my research on the life experiences of refugees and the cultures of exile they create (Dobson, 2004), I have drawn inspiration from the work of Merleau-Ponty (1968) and his concept of chiasm. By chiasm he meant the shared intercorporeal space of bodies, signs (signifier, signified) and history working together and giving rise to corporeal experiences of touched–touching, seen–seeing, speaking–spoken to and so on. A good example of this is the handshake or the conversation, or in our context the student and teacher working together on the teaching, learning and testing of reading skills. In the case of the handshake, who is touching and who touched is indivisible. So too in a conversation, where the moment of speaking is indivisible from listening, the speaker also listens to their own voice and listens to how they are heard and received by the other. This also applies to teaching, learning and testing practices. The concept of the chiasm provides a rich description of learning practices, the character of embodiment and how this bridges different settings, not as an encounter between cultures, but as a weave between cultures, where a mix of inclusive exclusion is more often than not the organising motif. With this point in mind, I look forward to Yang-Heim’s further exploration of lived experience in her coming works where the chiasm might usefully complement the concepts of cultural capital and habitus.

8.5 The Drifter? In Te Reo, the language of the M¯aori in New Zealand, there is a word, konene. It means a drifter, a wanderer. To be called such might be thought insulting. Yang-Heim might also feel insulted if called this. She grew up in China, lived in Australia where she taught as a teacher and also conducted doctoral research, and has now migrated to the USA for personal and family reasons. She is in such a sense konene. However, the term also holds the meaning of a person who is like seaweed; they drift in with nutrients and share these on new shores. Yang-Heim might move onwards, but it is not to the detriment of those she leaves and not necessarily a sign of restlessness on her part. For her, and this is my reading, it is more about the need

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to widen and share her understanding in culturally new places and spaces. She may well move to a new country in due course or even return to Australia or China. As a reader and having read this book, I look forward to seeing how her coming research will move towards emancipation and decolonisation. Will she take the words and work of Freire (1993, p. 73) to heart: It is not surprising that the banking concept of education regards men as adaptable, manageable beings. The more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world as transformers of that world. The more completely they accept the passive role imposed on them, the more they tend simply to adapt to the world as it is and to the fragmented view of reality deposited in them.

Paraphrasing him, teaching reading is not about emptying a technique into the mind of the recipient, a so-called banking view of education. It is more about opening the eyes and ears of the reader to see new worlds across and between cultures.

References Australian Government. (2019). Closing the gap report 2019. Commonwealth of Australia. https:// www.niaa.gov.au/sites/default/files/reports/closing-the-gap-2019/sites/default/files/ctg-report20193872.pdf?a=1 Dobson, S. (2004). Cultures of exile and the experience of refugeeness. Peter Lang. Education Counts. (2022a). M¯aori language in schooling. Education Counts, New Zealand Government. https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/statistics/6040 Education Counts. (2022b). M¯aori medium schools. Education Counts, New Zealand Government. https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/directories/maori-medium-schools Freire, P. (1993). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Continuum. Haaland, Ø., & Dobson, S. (1993). Vygotskian perspectives on ethnicity: From science to narrative. Lillehammer College Publications. Habermas, J. (1987). Knowledge and human interest. Polity Press (Original work published, 1968). Merleau-Ponty, M. (1968). The visible and the invisible. Northwestern University Press. Morrison, A., Rigney, L.-I., Hattam, R., & Diplock, A. (2019). Toward an Australian culturally responsive pedagogy: A narrative review of the literature. University of South Australia. NOU. (2016). Mer å hente – Bedre læring for elever med stort læringspotensial [More to achieve— Improved learning for pupils with great potential for learning] (Green Paper). Government of Norway. Pendergast, D., & Dobson, S. (2022). Postcards from a liminal zone: Bullocks, drifters, teenagers— And stories worth telling. Griffith Review, 75, 1–9. https://www.griffithreview.com/articles/pos tcards-from-a-liminal-zone/ Robinson, L., Lambert, M. C., Towner, J., & Caros, J. (2016). A comparison of direct instruction and balanced literacy: An evaluative comparison for a Pacific Northwest rural school district. Reading Improvement, 53(4), 147–164. Soler, J. (2017). The politics of the teaching of reading. Prospects, 46(3–4), 423–433. Yorke Peninsula Council. (2015). The Nharangga. Yorke Peninsula Council. https://yorke.sa.gov. au/discover/local-history-and-heritage/indigenous-culture/the-nharangga/

Appendix 1

F&P Running Records

See Table A1.1. The eight procedural steps that are normally adopted for teachers to take a running record are as follows: 1. Choose a book that approximates the student’s instructional reading level determined based on the previous assessment about two months prior; explain to the student that she/he is to read out loud as the teacher observes and records her/his reading behaviour and performance. 2. With the running record form in hand, sit next to the student so that the teacher can see the text and the student’s finger and eye movements as she/he reads the text, and mark every word on the running record form by using the appropriate running record symbols, as the student reads. The marking conventions are shown in this appendix. 3. Marking a running record form, the following terms are used: • E (errors): if the student does the following: – – – –

substitutes another word for a word in the text omits a word inserts a word has to be told a word

• SC (self-correction): when a child realises her/his error and corrects it • M (meaning): part of the cueing system in which the student takes her/his cue to make sense of text • S (structure): the structure of the language, often referred to as syntax • V (visual information): the look of the letters in a word or the word itself. 4. Mark the running record by circling the appropriate letter for the cue used by the student.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 G. Y. A. Yang-Heim, Cultural Perspectives on Indigenous Students’ Reading Performance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9790-7

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Appendix 1: F&P Running Records

Table A1.1 Running record form Reading behaviour Accurate word reading Substitution (one error if not self-corrected; record one error regardless of the number of incorrect substitutions) Omission (one error)

Marking convention √ above each correctly read word Write each word attempted above the actual word

Long dash

Example √√√ The cat is… √ √ bat The cat is… √

√

The cat is… √ √ ^little The cat is…

Insertion (one error)

^at point of insertion with the inserted word above it

Repetition of one word (no error)

R (one repetition) R2 (two repetitions) R3 (three repetitions)

R The cat is…

Self-correction (no error)

SC after the error to indicate child has corrected error

bat/SC The cat is…

Repetition of phrase (no error)

R with line and arrow to the point of where the reader returned to repeat

← ––––R The cat is…

Intervention/student confused and unwilling to try again (one error)

TA if the teacher needs to tell student to try again and points to where he/she needs to try again, places brackets around part of the text that the child had to try again

TA (The cat is) …

Intervention/unable to read a word (one error)

Write T above word if the teacher tells the child the word after 5–10 s wait

Beginning sound (no error)

Mark the beginning sound above the word if the child says it first, then a check if he/she follows with the correct word

T The cat is… √ C/ The cat is…

5. Calculate the accuracy rate: Accuracy rate = (total words – errors) / total words 6. Identify the fluency: Fluency is usually indicated by the reading rate. It must be noted that reading fluency is about a student’s ability to read fluently and with appropriate expression. The reading rate, on the other hand, is usually measured in words read per minute. Generally speaking, fluency is a bit more subjective, while reading rate usually serves as a key factor in fluency as a whole. 7. Ask the student to recall the main idea of the text as part of the assessment of running records. 8. Design and ask literal and inferential questions to assess the student’s comprehension of the text.

Appendix 2

F&P Comprehension

Comprehension score rubric: • • • •

9–10: excellent comprehension 7–8: satisfactory comprehension 5–6: limited comprehension 0–4: unsatisfactory comprehension.

See Table A2.1. The comprehension questions included in the F&P fall into three categories: (1) within the text; (2) about the text; and (3) beyond the text • Within the text: To answer the question, the student is to gain the literal meaning of the text through solving words, monitoring her/his own understanding and accuracy. The question is usually about what happened or reporting some important facts stated explicitly in the text. • About the text: To answer the question, the student needs have some understanding about the literary elements of the text, recognising the author’s craft and thinking critically about how the text was written. • Beyond the text: To answer the question, the student needs to apply various reading strategies such as predicting, making connections, interpreting, inferring, synthesising, etc. during and after the reading. Table A2.1 Finding independent, instructional and hard levels Accuracy

Comprehension Excellent 9–10

Satisfactory 7–8

Limited 5–6

Unsatisfactory 0–4

98–100%

Independent

Independent

Instructional

Hard

95–97%

Instructional

Instructional

Hard

Hard

Below 95%

Hard

Hard

Hard

Hard

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 G. Y. A. Yang-Heim, Cultural Perspectives on Indigenous Students’ Reading Performance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9790-7

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Appendix 3

PAT Reading

Reading aims to • track students’ literacy progress over time • identify students who require help to develop literacy skills and students who would benefit from literacy extension • confirm school-based assessment • help teachers to plan literacy teaching strategies • monitor the development of spelling skills using Australian normed spelling lists.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 G. Y. A. Yang-Heim, Cultural Perspectives on Indigenous Students’ Reading Performance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9790-7

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