STEPS - The Learning Staircase.



For many of the learners I have they are involved in the STEPS programme. The most effective approach of this programme is to develop all of the underlying processing and cognitive skills at the same time as teaching the literacy knowledge.

This is done by ensuring that the learner sees and uses the word in a wide variety of contexts. The learner will do a whole series of activities in the order specified to make sure that he/she can:
  • Read the word confidently and without hesitation
  • Recognise the word instantaneously
  • Put the word into context
  • Spell the word
  • Break the word into individual sounds
  • Blend the word together (from sounds or chunks)
  • Define the word
  • Type or write the word
The carefully designed structure means that a non-specialist teacher/teacher-aide or parent can use the program effectively, even if they don’t have an indepth theoretical knowledge of this field.
The graph above shows the accelerated progress made in 20 weeks for these specific learners.  Great results!!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My story this year...

My openness to facing the challenge of reducing barriers in reading. As part of my community of learning Teaching  inquiry goal I’ve been looking into what are the barriers in reading and identify what we can do to overcome these barriers. I work in an innovative learning environment, in a hub with 86 learners and 4 teachers. 12 of the learners have been below national standards in reading. This has allowed me to work intensely with learners who are below their chronological age group throughout the year. After looking at the huge range of challenges these learners are faced with, it’s given me a sense of urgency and motivation to build their learning capacity and cognitively engage these learners so they can make an accelerated shift in their achievement. We are a 1:1 Ipad hub, so students have the opportunity to become digitally literate and drive their learning. I’ve created rich tasks that specifically work on decoding, phonological awareness and comprehension dependi...
Read more

'…reflective, critiquing…inspired and willing to be discomforted'.

Image
    Today I was inspired by Jannie van Hees who later thanked me for being ' …reflective, critiquing…inspired and willing to be discomforted'.  I began to think.. Why do we group our learners according to their colour level? Is that what is going to give us bang for buck ? Maori learners data from end of 2017 shows... How am I ensuring a balance between the digital world and hands on experiences to create a love for reading? The struggling reader, how do I open a new world of reading for them? Are learning spelling words helping learners to read? Are these words transferring in their writing?  Do I know my learner's knowledge about reading? wouldn't reading about learners breakthrough passions help to increase their vocabulary, knowledge and language? Link to this article So when I read this article I see some areas to work on: Organise reading challenges  "We challenged students to read one book, fiction or non-f...
Read more

STOP - REFLECT - REFINE & TAKE ACTION

Image
Time to dig deeper in my analysis and ask myself... "what happens in the classroom when I apply my learning" Dimension 4.    What is adaptive expertise? Adaptive expertise is about being self-aware, having agency over your ability to make a difference, and striving for the best outcomes for your students. Engaging in effective professional conversations can support you to. This video has made me look at my own practise and looking at the agency and urgency I have developed in making a difference. After having many conversations around 'Am I really making a difference". I am now able to dig deeper into my inquiry.   When reviewing Helen Timperly's research on the spiral of Inquiry I am at the checking phase now. So I am thinking about which learners are still struggling and facing some of the barriers in reading I have found.  I am wondering if my deliberate tools and strategies created and using are successfu...
Read more