| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立高雄師範大學 === 教育學系 === 94 === A Case Study of School-Based Reading Program Development: An Example of Seeds Elementary School
Abstract
The aim of this research is to comprehend the development of school-based reading program at Seeds Elementary School (an alias), including the progress of decision making, planning and designing for the school-based reading program, as well as the roles the related program staffs play and their functions, the factors that affect the development of school-based reading program of Seeds Elementary School and the predicaments, and the influence on school administration, teachers, students, and parents since the implementation of school-based reading program, to signify implications to efficient school-based curriculum development.
To achieve these objectives, this research adopts case study method, collecting data by utilizing some ways such as interview, participation in observation and document analysis and then sorting, analyzing, and drawing conclusions toward the collected data. The major findings of this research are as follows:
I. The progress of school-based reading program development of Seeds Elementary School:
1. The decision making of the reading program relies mainly on the principal’s curriculum leadership.
2. The reading program is integrated into the school curriculum with flexible hours and serves as a theme activity in coordination to school anniversary celebrations.
3. The whole faculty select textbooks and design lesson plans and work sheets for the design of the reading program.
4. The relevant measures of developing reading program are: (1) organizational operation to carry out the difficult tasks by simple way; (2) humanized circumstance and atmosphere on the campus; (3) activities for teachers’ professional development.
5. The implementation of reading program evaluation is based mainly on the assessment of students' work sheets and reading demonstration and performance.
II. The roles the related staffs of the reading program of Seeds Elementary School play and their functions:
1. The principal's role and function: The principal plays a role of a leader, communicator, inspirer and evaluator, providing the functions such as giving guidance, planning and offering teaching resources, promoting teachers’ professional development, solving problems, and reviewing and improving problems, and so on.
2. The administrators' role and function: The administrators play a role of program facilitators and supporters, supporting teachers’ different needs, solving problems for them, and conducting relevant workshops for the promotion of teachers’ professional growth.
3. The teachers’ role and function: They are mainly the program designers, implementing and transforming reading program and becoming a participator in decision making of reading program gradually through class group meetings to provide advice for the improvement of reading program.
4. The parents' role and function: They serve as supporters and supervisors mainly. In addition to offering material resources for reading instruction, they serve as the response of students’ learning situations and demands to supervise the reading program and the implementation of instruction.
III. The factors that affect the development of school-based reading program of Seeds Elementary School and its predicaments
1. The factors that affect the development of school-based reading program includes: the principal’s curriculum leadership, teachers’ professional knowledge, ability, and attitude, school budget and resources, the culture, organization and atmosphere of the school, to name just a few. Among all of them, the most crucial factor that influences school-based curriculum is the principal’s curriculum leadership, followed by teachers’ professional knowledge, ability, and attitude.
2. The predicaments for implementing school-based reading program includes : (1) the difficulty of curriculum management caused by the unclear responsibilities assigned by the administration; (2) the troubles with books exchange due to the limited time for selecting materials and not sufficient discussion among teachers of different grades; (3) too many burdens from work for teachers to make further improvements on reading instruction; (4) insufficient human resources for the library; (5) the diversity of students’ level of reading proficiency; (6) the difficulty for parents to cooperate with the implementation of parent-child shared reading activity.
IV. The influence of the school-based reading program development of Seed Elementary School
1. The influence on school administration: Besides the tendency of democratization of the decision-making mode, the mechanism of “Administrative Meeting” and “Year Tutors Meeting” has been adjusted to integrate the staff functions of “Teams of Curriculum Areas” for the promotion of effectiveness of curriculum and administration.
2. The influence on teachers: Through the participation in decision making in reading program and discussion and design of reading instruction and class group teaching, teachers' professional capacity has been strengthened gradually. In addition, the teachers of Seeds Elementary School are able to develop the capacity of team teaching and curriculum integration through the implementation of team teaching.
3. The influence on students: The increase of the opportunities of students’ demonstration and performance in the class elicits their interest in reading and promotes the student’s ability of drama performance and oral demonstration.
4. The influence on parents: The situations that parents participate in various school educational activities have increased; however, there are still a lot to improve for the coordination of parent-child shared reading activity, which shows parents’ insufficient thoughts toward reading.
To sum up the findings from this research, the researcher provides suggestions in the end of this thesis as a reference for Seeds Elementary School, teachers, parents, administrative organizations, and future research.
Keywords: school-based curriculum development, reading program development
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