Anita's Teaching as Inquiry Blog

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

Found my learners so engaged in reading today, loved the energy, calmness and culture we are creating in our hub basing our reading groups on passion led groups. 

Student Voice I want to know what learners view on reading is and how to unlock ways for learners to experience success in reading.   Do you like Reading? Why? What are your favourite things to read? Who reads to you? When? What do you find challenging about reading? How can I help you more in your reading  Please see this link to hook into what some of my learners are saying? 

Collecting teacher voice from the Junior teachers to make this work. Great to have so many that are keen to support with the running of it. This time around I am thinking of modifying it so that it suits the needs of our parents and is tailer to suit 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. 

Engaging our learners including our boys and Māori learners to read their Pepehā to their whanāu.  This has been a meaningful experience to learn about each other and  grow in confidence in our reading. 

Some great discussion around engaging our Maori Parents and whanau more to raise student achievement at our last Thursday's PLD at Stonefields School. Our hub team came up with... Having a shared morning tea, invite parents in to discuss what they see could help parents more in supporting their children.  Talk about what does currently happen, how could we continue to support you (parents)? Get to know the parents more, who they are, their background, their heritage and what is important to them. Another idea is to keep our Maori learners on a separate group in school talk as a way to communicate with parents, teacher aides and teachers to monitor the progress and make learning visible. We have regular connects with our Maori leaner parents and they respond well to these connects. We would like to continue these and now try these suggestions we have come up with.

What have I tried?                                    What was successful?                   Where to next? Ocean Phonics Student Voice: “The balancing is helping me hold my pencil and write and not get squiggly lines, I can write up and down.” “The jumping the words out because it helps me read and remember the words better.’ “Eye tracking it helps me to get to the words and concentrating and not just taking to my friends “Jumping on the words is cool, I can remember the words better.’ Noticings: Creates student agency. Next steps: How can we collect evidence through school talk, maximise progressions eg learner qualities, graduate profile, work attack skills in Reading… Learner video ea...

What have I tried?                                    What was successful?                   Where to next? Reading Together workshops Reading together blog post Had a great Parent turnout, helped to build relationships with parents too. 18 Parents came. Parent Voice “Thank you for explaining so clearly how we read with my child.’ “This has been great for me to see how take the pressure off, and have less battles at night.’ ‘Broch really hits home, now I see why my child would struggle.’ Next Steps Timely to do another one now that we have new learners and learners at a higher end now so it’s about modifying the workshop to cater for both extremes.   Core 5 and STEPS professional developmen...

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? Learners are beginning to use the prompts now to help them with making inferences about the text. Student Voice “These bookmarks help me when I am reading. I like the learning pit one because I say to myself I feel…, and then I can say I want to feel…’ ‘When I am self aware in reading I think about what the characters could have differently.’ Learners who have moved to a strong ‘Orange’ level are more confident to use the bookmarks. Where to next? More scaffolding required with learners who are blue and green readers. Re-create a bookmark with the learning process broken up and verbs - e.g....

          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 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”. ...

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. 

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.