For the detailed report on 2008 student progress, and other student progress reports, return to the NALP Reports page.

 

NALP Reports

Northern Territory student progress 2008

Student progress (compared to previous years) for students participating in the National Accelerated Literacy Program during 2008.

Participation

  • At the end of the 2008 school year, there were 63 schools participating in the National Accelerated Literacy Program (NALP).
  • 66 schools participated in the Accelerated Literacy Program at some time in 2008.
  • There were 6,560 students participating in the Accelerated Literacy program at the end of Week 8 of Term 4 2008
  • There were 8,412 students who participated in the Accelerated Literacy program at some time during 2008.

Participating students are students that are receiving literacy instruction using the Accelerated Literacy methodology.

 

Student Progress

Care must be taken when interpreting student progress results as these measures were calculated using a small subset of students.

Individual Level (IL) assessment sequences

  • In 2008, the average progress rate for students with an IL assessment sequence on the IL scale was 1.24 reading year levels per year. There were 1,952 students included in this calculation.
  • Approximately 36.4% (1,115 of 3,067) of the IL assessment sequences were unable to be included in calculations as both assessments were below the IL scale. That is, the students were assessed to be unsuccessful using the easiest text for both assessments in the sequence. 
  • In 2008, there were 725 students whose IL assessment sequences indicated that they progressed at 2 or more reading year levels per year, an increase of 22.6% from 2007 (591 students).

Tests of Reading Comprehension (TORCH) assessment sequences

  • In 2008, the average progress rate for students with a TORCH assessment sequence was 1.40 reading year levels per year. There were 590 students included in this calculation. 
  • For TORCH, there were 289 students who progressed at 2 or more reading year levels per year during 2008, an increase of 9.5% from 2007 (264 students). 

Note: 1 reading year level per year is considered to be normal.

 

Individual Level (IL) assesses reading from texts which have not been taught in class and which are sometimes known as ‘unseen’, ‘unfamiliar’ or ‘unsupported’ texts. These texts have been assigned a ‘benchmark’ level matching them with a school year level.

TORCH assessment is another reading test that is administered to students with a successful IL at Year 4 or above. It is an assessment of how well the student comprehends an unseen text.

Assessment sequence is a series of student assessments of the same type (ie IL or TORCH) in more than one term.

Comparing 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008

Average IL student progress rate – 2005, 2006 and 2007

 

2005

2006
2007
2008

IL student progress

 

 

    

Number of students – Term 4

2,534

4,165
5,167
6,560

Students with assessment sequences (on scale)

526

 

914
1,599
1,952

Progress rate

1.67

1.74
1.18
1.24

TORCH student progress

 

 

    

Number of students – Term 4

2,534

4,165
5,167
6,560

Students with assessment sequences (on scale)

212

415
548
590

Progress rate

1.34

1.22
1.35
1.40

Care must be taken when interpreting the information in this table as some 2006 assessment information was updated during 2007.  It will vary slightly from the information reported in the 2006 Student Progress Report.

 

Indigenous students

  • During 2008, 80.8% (or 7,111 of 8,412) of the students who participated in the Accelerated Literacy program were Indigenous.
  • There were 1,112 students with IL pre-scale assessment sequences during 2008 (ie these students were unsuccessful at Transition level for both assessments in the sequence).  The majority (1,061 or 95.4%) of these students were Indigenous.
  • Of the 633 students with a TORCH sequence during 2008, Indigenous students were under-represented with 335 (or 52.9%).

 

Summary – student progress groups

  • In 2008, there were 725 students whose IL assessment sequences indicated that they progressed at 2 or more reading year levels per year. For TORCH, there were 289 students who progressed at 2 or more reading year levels per year.
  • 86 of the 448 students whose IL assessment sequences indicated No Progress were assessed as reading at Transition.  There were also 81 students who were re-tested on the highest-level IL assessment  (Year 8) and could not demonstrate progress.
  • During 2008, there were 4,840 students with one or more IL assessments recorded. Of these, there were 1,568 students (or 32.4%) who were assessed as 'unsuccessful at transition' at some stage during the year, a decrease of 16% from 2007 (2,306 students).