Black Robins
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Approach:  Station
Level: Year 4 & year 8
Focus: Comprehending literal meaning  
Resources:
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FRAME 136Kb
Questions/instructions:  


Read the article about Black Robins.

[The article describes the location of the Chatham Islands, once the home to a thriving population of black robins. It then describes Mangere Island, the only island which the black robins now inhabit. This tiny island is uninhabitable for people due to the lack of fresh water and the difficulty of accessing the steep cliffs.

The cats and rats which arrived with Europeans started to threaten the bird population, gradually restricting the habitat of the black robins to Mangere Island only.

Unfortunately, even this island came under threat after almost a hundred years, as seabirds sought out new breeding grounds, due to the loss of land to farming on the other Chatham Islands.

For the specific reading refer to:
Morris, R. (1980). Seven Black Robins. School Journal Part 1 No. 3, 1980. 22-23.]
 
% responses
y4
y8
1. Put a line under each of the reasons why no-one lives on Mangere Island.
   
Line under:
“no fresh water”
66
89
“only way on to the island is up steep cliffs”
38
71
2. Put a tick above each of the animals that are a threat to Black Robins.
Ticked above:
“cats”
68
91
“rats”
67
91
“seabirds”
20
23
3. Put a dotted line under what was killing the trees in the forest.
Dotted line under “seabirds” AND “trampled”:
both
4
16
only one
53
66
4. Put a circle around how long the robins have lived on the island.
Circled around:
“for nearly a hundred years”/ or “almost a century”
11
25
“a hundred years” or “century”
34
44
5. Humans have affected sea birds too. Highlight the part that tells you this.
Highlighted sentence:
(“Their breeding grounds on other islands had been taken over for farmland”)
whole sentence, or part of it with key words included "breeding grounds...taken over”
15
35

Total score:
8–10
4
18
6–7
22
49
4–5
35
23
2–3
23
6
0–1
16
4
Subgroup Analysis [Click on charts to enlarge] :
Year 4
Year 8
Commentary:
Many students marked partial rather than complete answers to questions 2, 3, 4 and 5. This led to comparatively few very high scores. The text was also quite demanding for many year 4 students, resulting in a wide spread of marks. Year 4 Pakeha students scored markedly higher, on average, than their Mäori and Pasifika counterparts, but at year 8 level performances were more similar.