Christine Braid

Doctor of Philosophy, (Education)
Study Completed: 2019
College of Humanities & Social Sciences

Citation

Thesis Title
The influence of teachers' knowledge and teaching practice on outcomes for beginning readers

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Reading outcomes in New Zealand have shown a significant and continuing gap between students who succeed in learning to read and those who struggle to reach an expected level. Despite attempts to improve outcomes, the gap has remained. Ms Braid studied the difference that could be made to reading outcomes for beginning readers by increasing teachers’ knowledge about written code and teaching reading using an explicit and systematic approach. Students whose teachers participated in the intervention had significantly better outcomes than students with a non-participating teacher and there was a notable positive difference for students from schools in lower socio-economic neighbourhoods. Ms Braid found that changes are required at a policy level, in teacher training, and for teaching resources, with a particular need for increased cognisance of studies from the science of reading.

Supervisors
Professor Howard Lee
Professor James Chapman
Associate Professor Alison Arrow