Anita's Teaching as Inquiry Blog

A way of showcasing our Stonefields Values. An opportunity for us to collaborate together and change up the timetable, be immersed in authentic learning and have an enriched literacy programme.

keeping in mind... 3. Lift the achievement in reading for all students, with a particular focus on boys and Māori students (both genders) years 1-13 Sharing the Success Criteria (WILF - what am I looking for?) through digital and visual Using the learning process pack (LLP) to support the understanding Using the framework of a three-level guide how it relates to our Learning Process of Stonefields School

Why do we assess? We assess to inform our practice. If there are gaps in our work attack skills why not teach it? Using school talk to inform where the learner's gaps are also helps to inform our decisions to create authenticity in our learning.

Literacy is now passion lead, reading and writing groups have changed according to breakthrough groups, ensuring a literacy focus.  As learners move through their week they reflect at the end of each session and colour in orange what they are working on, green completed and red not completed yet.  Excited to see learners in action for this tomorrow. Us team of teachers are promoting this idea through out the hub, becoming fluid in our teaching approach.  This allows us to continue to stretch learners and support our target learners. Moving away from a single cell approach in an ILE. Using our environment to benefit the needs of our learners. 

 Working in the Apply Understanding part of the Learning process to compare and justify. Through 'retelling' and 'justifying'

This is my interpretation of how I view 'create' in this digital age. With a focus on how learners are retelling stories and sharing their understanding. Continue to see how learners can create their understanding and express their ideas. 

So how am I going to articulate my theory to practice... If I provide real, authentic learning experiences that relate to culture and learners interest in my teaching, then students (especially Māori and boys) will be more engaged at a deeper level and more of a willingness to learn. If students engage in this way, it will improve their reading, oral language, word attack skills and comprehension levels. Improved oral language and reading ability, will lead to better achievement in Reading because the learning will be real to them, delivered from a context relevant to selves and whanau embedded at a deeper level.

This term is not about trying new initiatives, I feel as though I have created a range of ideas that are evidence based to help reduce barriers in reading. The main sources of evidence from student, teacher and parent voice, and shifts in data. Which have been shared in this blog. Below shows is a critique of the initiatives; looking at how successful they have been which   Which students did this work for? What else do I/we need to do? Elkonin boxes (Sound boxes) Learners applying this learning in their writing, if come across a tricky word I see learners clapping out the CVC Student Voice: “I get to hear the sounds and put them in either 2 or 3 boxes”. “When I see these words in my book I think in my mind about how they would fit into a sound box” “When I am stuck in a word and there are two or three sounds in that word  I know how to sound them out.” When I have trouble sound out a work I can  picture the boxes in my head”. ...

Some great tips in these video's about how to support learners with Dyslexia or behaviours l http://www.beatingdyslexia.com/spelling-help.html These Techniques are taking from the video.  Great idea to look at different ways to learn spelling words.  This is something to be thinking of during guided reading sessions. Making pictures out of words to help retain the words. Just highlighting that some words have silent sounds, ad that is just the way they are spelt.     Techniques to improve Memory Techniques. Beating Dyslexia I created this slide to use with my learners to be able to hear the sounds. Before we do our reading we want to just show case that some letters have different sounds and are used in different ways for particular words.  Hopefully learners will start to make connections to these and their reading books.

Through school talk we are gathering evidence to show a learner has achieved the progression of Self Monitoring.  Our reading strategy bookmarks are helping us to check the text when it doesn't make sense or we are faced with a tricky vowel. 

Connecting Blog Post - Reading Bookmark Prompts Learners are using these bookmarks to help them work through the progressions in school Talk. This learner was looking at how to make connections with the text and his prior experiences e.g, this is similar to me because....

Learners click on each tricky vowel sound, where there is an explain everything project for learners to practise their vowel sounds. Here is some examples of practising learners will do when clicking onto 'ick' vowel sounds.  It is important I acknowledge Trish and the Y1 teachers at Point England who have been all been so willing to share how they are teaching reading and through a 1:1 Ipad lens and sharing of Explain Everything projects. Thank you so much.  Another great example of a collaborative approach to our Inquiry, with depth and rigor.

In School talk I identify where the gaps are for learning to self monitor learning progressions such as: Level: Green Intention:   I independently reread to get meaning from my reading; I stop and check the text when it doesn't make sense, look right, or sound right Level:  Green  Intention:  I search for clues in the words to help me fix up my reading Level:  Green Intention:   I  ask questions, check my predictions, reread and read on Using the learning process to teach learners the strategies to fall back on when in the learning pit.

          Such a great experience to share our Inquiries across the cluster.  Thoroughly enjoyed learning from other CoL teachers and their.  Thanks to the support from our leadership team who were present. Was nice to meet people who had been following my blog and talk to others about how they reducing barriers in reading.     I