For the detailed report on 2007 student progress, and other student progress reports, return to the NALP Reports page.

 

NALP Reports

Northern Territory student progress 2007

Student progress (compared to previous years) for students participating in the National Accelerated Literacy Program during 2007.

Participation

  • At the end of the 2007 school year, there were 58 schools participating in the National Accelerated Literacy Program (NALP).
  • 60 schools throughout 2007 had schools with recorded assessments in the Accelerated Literacy Information Analysis System (ALIAS).
  • There were 5,167 students participating in the Accelerated Literacy program at the end of Week 8 of Term 4 2007
  • There were 6,781 students who participated in the Accelerated Literacy program at some time during 2007.

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 2007, the average progress rate for students with an IL assessment sequence on the IL scale was 1.18 reading year levels per year. There were 1,599 students included in this calculation.
  • Approximately 34.8% (855 of 2,454) 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 2007, there were 591 students whose IL assessment sequences indicated that they progressed at 2 or more reading year levels per year.

Tests of Reading Comprehension (TORCH) assessment sequences

  • In 2007, the average progress rate for students with a TORCH assessment sequence was 1.35 reading year levels per year. There were 548 students included in this calculation. 
  • For TORCH, there were 264 students who progressed at 2 or more reading year levels per year during 2007. 

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 IRL or TORCH) in more than one term.

Comparing 2005, 2006, and 2007

Average IL student progress rate – 2005, 2006 and 2007

 

2005

2006
2007

IL student progress

 

 

  

Number of students – Term 4

2,534

4,165
5,167

Students with assessment sequences (on scale)

526

 

914
1,599

Progress rate

1.67

1.74
1.18

TORCH student progress

 

 

  

Number of students – Term 4

2,534

4,165
5,167

Students with assessment sequences (on scale)

212

415
548

Progress rate

1.34

1.22
1.35

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 2007, 84.6% (or 5,738 of 6,781) of the students who participated in the Accelerated Literacy program were Indigenous.
  • There were 852 students with IL pre-scale assessment sequences during 2007 (ie these students were unsuccessful at Transition level for both assessments in the sequence).  The majority (805 or 94.5%) of these students were Indigenous.
  • Of the 583 students with a TORCH sequence during 2007, Indigenous students were under-represented with 273 (or 46.8%).

 

Summary – student progress groups

  • In 2007, there were 591 students whose IL assessment sequences indicated that they progressed at 2 or more reading year levels per year. For TORCH, there were 264 students who progressed at 2 or more reading year levels per year.
  • 85 of the 362 students whose IL assessment sequences indicated No Progress were assessed as reading at Year 8.
  • During 2007, there were 4,765 students with one or more IL assessments recorded. Of these, there were 2,306 students (or 48.4%) who were assessed as 'unsuccessful at transition' at some stage during the year.