Anita's Teaching as Inquiry Blog

A huge success, parents engaged and eager to learn. Loved their involvement. The demonstrations of what to do and what not to do was powerful and helped parents with strategies to support their child with reading. It was helpful to start with parents experiences of what reading with their child at home was like and how they felt about helping their child.  This workshop was open to all Junior hubs, wonderful collaboration from the teams of teachers who were there to support.  This was the biggest turn out we have ever had at Stonefields School. Some comments from the Reading Together Workshop Some great takeaways from this Reading Together workshop, parents want these workshops to continue as they are helpful for parents to support their children with reading, therefore this supports teachers and raises student achievement.  Some great ideas here too with providing handouts with questions parents could ask about the book and how to support children f...

Taking agency Making Meaning of how the three level guide fits into the Learning Process Having a go at the three level guide questions to infer into the book. Excited to give this a try with my learners. Engage them in collaboration, oral language and empowering them to make meaning of the text.

We ended on a high at the end of Term 1, last day of term Hub 1&2 performed and shared their Mihi to their families and other families. This term hub 1&2 are continuing or conceptual understanding of ‘our place our identity’ by dedicating a block every Friday to integrate Te Reo into art, movement and oracy.   We’re we are team teaching and becoming a learner with each other and our children. Our learning on a Friday has been a good build up to our visit to Te Tahawai Marae, we were immersed in the culture and made many connections. Our trip tied into our Marae Noho, our parents were in the learner seat through Te Ao Kori Personally, I feel hungry learn and continue building my knowledge in Te Reo and Maori culture so I’ve put myself in the learner seat by joining the Kapa Haka. Reading is also about creating experiences and connecting with our Maori learners. Finding out what are their hooks for creating a willingness to read.

With our new design in teaching, we are grouping our learners by their passions. I have a group of learners who are interested in gardening and are using our surrounding environment. Our groups are mixed ability to increase the oracy in reading and in ability groups when required for a guided work attack session.  These learners took their passion for their garden to another level where they wrote a proposal for a shade sail. They presented this to our Principal Sarah Martin. The learners were involved in real authentic learning, all based around literacy. Check out some of their slides

It was interesting to see how many learniers felt we need to read more in the hub. Some take away (student voice) from this survey were... Spend more time reading eg 10 minutes per day as a hub Keep D.E.A.R going more Going to the hub library and getting a book to read Reading outside more Having Mike come back to us and read Maybe we could suggest some books and you could bring them.

When I think about the barriers in roadblocks in reading are: Phonological knowledge is not all about the strategies of how to decode it's about the involvement in reading and the quality of oral language during reading. How can we create high cognitive  and behaviourally engagement in reading? Exchanging in  Elaborative response / elaborative gifting not about asking what you already know, not just asking questions. How am I going to do this?... A video of what the three-level guide works. Why do we Think, Pair, Share - metagonition. talking together - chain linking, modeling chain linking sentence,  Conversation not someone talking to you, it's about connectedness and you learn alot. Using the three level guide to moving from learner to teacher to 'us' Mixedabilityy vs abiltity grouping.  Level One Literal (reading ‘on’ the lines – factual statements from the text). Level Two Interpretation (re...

This article was such a great read, thank you Jannie van Hees.  Have attached some quotes Reading aloud is associated with a range of literacy skills and cognitive benefits. Reading to children in the early years has been linked to related language growth, emergent literacy and reading achievement (Bus et al., 1995). A recent analysis of 29 studies found “significant, positive effects for read-aloud interventions on children’s language, phonological awareness, print concepts, comprehension, and vocabulary outcomes” suggesting that read-aloud interventions “provide children at-risk of reading difficulties with higher literacy outcomes than children who do not participate in these interventions” (Swanson et al. 2012, p. 13). So as a team we may want to introduce D.E.A.R (drop everything and read), with a song or certain sound. Introduce this a daily item. All building learners capacity to and desire to read, increase the enjoyment and motivation. Create a love for readin...

Making word attack a part of the everyday reading programme has been a hit. Learners were driving their own learning to work towards their progressions. This allowed me to have more directed time to focus on reading strategies during guided reading sessions.

What have I tried?                                    What was successful?                   Where to next? Hitting the Word attack Progressions Creating student agency through making learning choices to cover word attack strategies. Student Voice “I knew where to go and what to do when I am not with the teacher.’ “I have about 7 work attack progressions which I work on in the week.’ ‘I like taking charge in reading, I am doing really well.’ “This is fun because I can tick off what I have done.’ Noticings: Learners who find it challenging to work independently, need one on one support to maintain concentration.  This way learners are taking more control of their learning and are accountable fo...

          What have I tried?                                    What was successful?                   Where to next? Reading Strategies Bookmarks Blog post using bookmarks Learners have a tangible resource to support them when they are in the learning pit with sounding out a word and making meaning of it. Student Voice: “It reminds to look at the pictures first and not sound out each letter, like I use to’. ‘ it helps a lot, it’s getting easier and easier every day.’. “If I don’t know a word I just get my bookmark and it reminds me what to do when I am stuck on a word.’ Parent Voice: ‘Helps with Ruby’s confidence to have something there to help her.’ Noticings For...

This cohort below is my exciting new challenge for heading into Term 4. My Magenta, Yellow and Blue Readers are below National Standards. My goal is to continue to identify what these barriers are for these readers and how to reduce the barriers to raise student achievement. 

Results to be proud of.. Essential Spelling List test out of 230 words.   We tested our learners in Term 1 (blue bars), Retested the same learners in Term 3 (Red bars) Look at the progress made!! Much to celebrate in Hub 10. Together in our Reading and Writing programmes we have made it an big emphasis to learn to chunk our words, extend our vocabulary and push learning spelling at home.  We are sharing this with our learners and parents through our blog. This is also a great way for our new learners in Hub 10 to look at how hard work pays off! Our new learners did not all start in Term 1 so were tested for the first time. This data has not been included as there are no results to compare this too.  

Wahoo!! Look at this shift in data Our Y1/2 learners are making progress.  Term 1 we had 12 learners who were below National Standards. Term 2 we have 4 below the National Standards.  Really excited, and hugely motivated to continue to create this shift in Reading.  In Hub Wai we are taking a collaborative approach to reduce the barriers in reading.

Teaching reading and viewing Guide for Years 1–3 October 2010 Excited to find some more research with practical ideas and strategies to be mindful of been thorough and highlighted what I am doing in green and what I could do more of... see next post.