Teaching As Inquiry 2021

 Teaching As Inquiry Focus For 2021

For 2021, I have been part of the ALL Intervention. Accelerated Literacy Learning has helped me to focus on a target group of students to improve their progress in Literacy, with a particular focus on Reading.

Appraisal 2021

 My Appraisal Document for 2021

 Reading Simplified - A Conversation

Throughout my learning of Structured Literacy, I have done some online reading throughout the year.  One of the things I came across was Reading Simplified which has a lot of correlations with the Structured Literacy approach.  

In trying to do the best by the students who I am responsible for teaching Reading, in the holidays I came across this conversation about Reading Simplified.

Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori

 Māori Language Week

Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori is easily my favourite week of the year and I often stretch it out so it's longer than just one week.  This year we had booked visits out to Ngāti Moki Marae however, Covid19 meant we had to change this.  

In our Te Ao Māori Programme, our learning is focused on four areas:  

• Waiata - Songs and Singing
• Karakia - Prayer and Giving Thanks
• Tikanga - Protocol and Values
• Te Reo Māori - Māori Language

All of our learning was based on a visit to a marae and although we had some changes, we continued to work on these things.  

Although the marae trips could not take place, we had another event that we all took part in.  Māori Language Moment is an event where people register and at a specific time on a certain day, stop and do something to do with Māori Language.

The different things can be related to:

• Waiata - Sing
• Pānui - Read
• Tākaro - Play
• Ako - Learn
• Whakarongo - Listen
• Kōrero - Speak

Once we were all registered, teachers were asked to complete a section in a school-wide Google Slide to plan and share what they did.

Every year, I share out a slide with resources and ways we can increase and include Te Reo Māori throughout the school.

Uru Mānuka Toolkits Term Three 2021

 Learn, Create, Share Toolbox

With Heather Matthews from Hornby Primary School

The target audience is for upper primary and secondary levels.  This is an informative presentation for us to explore in our own time.  

Manaiakalani Secondary Support Site has a lot of apps and links for creative ideas.  

Click on image

iFake Text Message can be used to teach direct speech.  You can make mistakes and then go back and correct them.  Conversations can then be posted to blogs etc.

Using emojis in a line, students can be limited in the words they use and have to dig a little deeper and use more descriptive language.

Figment AR...iPads only.  This is a creative way to promote writing.  Could also be used for oral language.  You can go through different portals, look around and can describe what you see.  

Incredibox-This would be good as a motivator for our music unit.  Have kids explore and share their creations to their blogs.  Let's have a go...

Quick Draw - You get given an object to draw and have 25 seconds using your touchpad.  The voice within the app will come up and say what they see.

My takeaways from this session are:  

• Explore more creative tools that students can use to enhance learning and engagement.
• Provide time for exploring things like 

Become confident in using Te Reo Māori in the classroom.

With Muriel Pehi from Wigram School

This session was a sharing of Muriel's journey in learning Te Reo Māori and how it has been for her as she has grown up.  Muriel is a teacher at Wigram primary and has been there for three years.  She spoke highly of the support and genuine caring for Te Reo Māori that her colleagues have and this was evident by the Wigram staff who were there in support of Mureil.

This is Muriel's slide she shared:

Attending this session and hearing about Muriel's journey and her openness about it has helped me to reflect on my own journey.  I have always wanted to grow my learning and feel confident and comfortable with speaking and concerning in Te Reo Māori.  I also want to feel confident when in the classroom and being able to provide a range of levels of learning for students.

My takeaways from this session are:

• To create learning opportunities for myself to develop my learning.
• To create learning tools for students, similar to those in Muriel's slide.
• Speak more Te Reo Māori in different settings.

ALL Network Meeting

 Accelerating Learning in Literacy

June 11 2021

Today I am at the ALL workshop with all of the teachers who are taking part, not just Year 1s.  Today we looked at high impact teaching strategies.  

• High Impact Teaching Strategies

There is a new version.  

The highest effect size is differentiated teaching.  Some of the highest impact strategies are quite simple.  If we did all of these things really well, 

Use this to reflect on what teaching looks like and what could be an area for me to focus on.  

Task.  Given sentence strips and in a group, describe who people are, and use precise nouns and verbs.  Each person has one part to write and then pull together as a group.  

• Response to Intervention
• Reading
• The Key Competencies

Focus on what the learner is doing well and give several positive comments before giving them a direction.

• How Are We Going?

How is ALL going in your school?

What has made a difference?

Key teaching strategies

Interaction with other ALL teachers?

Growing ALL across your school?

Sharing ALL across your school?

Whānau-

Highlights-

Difficulties-

From discussion:  

ALL group time, make it special, whānau engagement, attendance issues, changing mindsets, feedback, expectations, school schedule, maintaining momentum, 

• Reporting - Mid Year- New columns has been added and for mid year, need to show students who have accelerated and the number who are at the curriculum expectation.

At the end of the year, need to do a end of year report and if a mid year one is being done, share with Adie.  It's not an expectation though.

Key Competencies - How are we getting on?

See the charts below.  These indicate that implementation of the key competencies are not where we would expect them to be.

Readings: 

Interesting discussion around the reading war that seems to be going on.  The Science of Reading and Whole Language sides.  What we need to do, is take what works for our learners and go with that.

Task:  Choose a reading and respond:

The key message of the reading-

Something within the reading that you want to think about some more-

I read about Literature Circles.  

Response to Intervention (RTI)

Tier 1 Effective classroom teaching-the majority of students. 60% of students.

Tier 2 Is where ALL fits in.  15% of students.  An intensive for students who just need be be brought back on track.  

Tier 3 Longer term interventions.  Higher needs. 5% of students.  

A curriculum and Achievement Plan

~A living document

~Helpful to new staff members

~Records a live process for supporting students

Teacher Refelction

Ask the question, I wonder if...

Quality teachers will be constantly...

Resources:  

He Meka! He Meka! 

Digital NZ

To Do:  

Have reading times outside of the classroom eg beanbags in the amphitheatre, read to/with juniors, whānau sessions, structured literacy session and home supports, trip to the library, make sure whānau are on Hero so I can share more of their reading learning, ALL section on Takitini site for parents and children to access, Liteature Circles, 

Reading With Sheena and Louise

 Reading Comprehension Workshop

With Sheena Cameron and Louise Dempsey

Link To Notes

Reading strategies have been the most researched.

Three effective strategies in particular:

Self-monitoring

Inferring

Summarising

Reading is what we do to help comprehend.  

Focus on the strategies that kids need and be more intuitive about these.  Strategies are not a subject so don't get caught up in over-teaching them.  

The comprehension process that you use will vary, depending on what you are reading.  Identify what comprehension skills students need for different types of texts.

Tip for teaching inferencing...author and me question.  It won't be in the text, you will need to use what you know too.  

Allowing time to talk.  Students need opportunities to process learning through talk.  

Conversation Prompts:  Available on website Literacy Place 

Cracking the code is decoding and phonemic awareness.  This can be a huge cognitive load for children.  

Strategies

Activating Prior Knowledge

Book walk and introduction for students will help with comprehension.  Discussion can be around language features, vocabulary, images, making connections and questions.  This will support understanding.  Sometimes, we won't need much time with this as kids might be familiar with the content and context.  Ask:  What strategies will we use to support understanding. 

Teach words such as title, characters, setting etc.  You can prepare and share this prior to reading.  

Kids like this because it is evidence of reading.  

Tic Tac Toe can be used to help students predict and make connections to see what the text might be about.  

DOT TO DOT CONNECTIONS

Pre-teach the vocabulary.  This is able to be used across the school.  Could be done visually.  The teacher could scribe.  Children to thinking and discussion prior to reading.  If you give an introduction to a book before reading, can support with engagement.  Talk about things that will come up.    I like this because it takes the guessing out of things. You could laminate and make these independent work when not working with the teacher.  Colour coding the lines to identify relationships and connections is another way to do this when children may not be confident with writing.  

Classes could also do this as a class and have as good evidence for learning throughout a unit.  

Great way to get kids thinking about the words and their meaning.  This helps to get kids involved and discussing ways to understand words.  

Sharing knowledge kids have, building knowledge, pre-teaching vocabulary, teaching organisational structure.  

I LIKE: Creating thinking opportunities, for example, reading a book about a kid going to the beach.  Students do an activity or have a discussion about what they would take to the beach.  Discuss and introduce the book.

Have a look in Reading Comprehensions book PM 29.  Word attack strategies chart. 

One thing to Up to 50% of words have a prefix or a suffix.  Teaching 

Dictionaries- A lot of children don't use a dictionary well.  If we spend time on teaching dictionary skills, it can be a game-changer for being able to comprehend words and build their bank of skills.  

Post it pointers-Pop it on those words that kids don't know yet.  

Word Hippo - Gives support for words.  Synonyms and antonyms.  Sometimes if you try something but still don't understand, you can still look around at other sources.  

Do kids have the tools they need to read?  

Predicting is about engagement.  A smart guess about the information we have in front of us.  Everyone needs to make a prediction or they won't be as engaged.  How do you know this?  What clues do you have?  Revisit predictions otherwise there is no point in doing them.  Predict the future of characters outside of the book.  

How does predicting support comprehension?  

Modelling predicting.  The teacher can model making predictions about a text.  This will show children how predictions can be made by looking at clues that are given.  They can also learn how to do it.  Talking about all the different parts, title, cover, blurb etc.  I do, we do, you do. 

Thinking Hand...wait for five while we think.  Use in think pair share.  The think time is important.  A shared book can provide opportunities to use prediction skills.  Use the words, I predict.  Elaboration question...why do you think that? The teacher can make a wrong prediction to show that our predictions are not always right.

INFERRING

'Author and Me'

I Do, We Do, You Do

In modelling, children just watch the teacher and are not expected to do anything apart from noticing.  

Using the text, read through and model how you infer.  We infer depending on our prior knowledge.  Inferring is cross-curricula.  

Summarising-

Keywords…unlock the meaning of a sentence.    

Note-Taking.  Modelling how to do this will help.  Use abbreviations, graphic organisers, symbols.  

Using text and symbols key competency.  

Summarising chart which can limit the number of words used to summarise a sentence.  Can link to oral language if students are able to work in groups and discuss which words are important.  

Retelling-Recalling all the ideas with the text while summarising is the main point.  

See story path, Hoola hoop activity, ideas for retelling slide.  Using puppets, graphic organisers etc.  Older kids can make puppets for big books and then retell them to younger kids.  STory stones for retelling.  Visual summaries and senses summary.  Uses the senses about a character which also encourages writing.  Story sticks:  Setting, characters, problem. Can add new settings to their sticks.  Can do orally first and then write.  

I like the Story making frame.  Talking strip - retelling.

Activity Article Note-Taking

Jan 1992, storm, 3 containers HK to US.  29000 yel ducks, blu turtles, green frogs.  Spread through sea.  Some frozen, Indo, Aus, Jap, US.  GB. 

Little Ducks book and article that relates.  Available as a download with a dot to dot connections activity.  

Doing things on a regular basis will be more beneficial.  

Good listeners are better comprehenders.  Dictation is good for this.  

Inferencing-

Inferring about what is in the teacher's handbag.  Inferencing about ourselves.  Great idea for the start of the year.  ME BAG.  Create inference bags showing different ideas and items from within a story.  

Creative tasks are the glue that helps stories stick with kids.  Diorama idea.  Looking at quotes that justify ideas about what has been added to the diorama or creative activity.  These creative opportunities are important to run alongside their other tasks.  

Make sure creative tasks are in the reading programme.  

Images can be used to develop inference skills. Comics are great to infer what is happening and what the characters might be saying.  Proverbs can be used to look at what they might mean.  (List of proverbs are on the Literacy site).  

Synthesising - 

A classroom that supports comprehension should include: 

Slow the process down and value the time of talk.

Reciprocal reading is about comprehension and looking deeply into the text.  Too intense to do it all the time.  Check the reading book for prompts and resources.  

Some of the key points for me:  

• Story Sticks - 

• One Goal: Be more creative with the learning activities by using our shared book.  Create activities that kids can make things and talk about them in relating to the text.  

Embedding Oral Language Across the Curriculum

It is important for children to know that it is ok to makes mistakes and not always get things right.  

Discuss how the different types of talk and listening vary depending on the context.  Using to I Do, We Do, You Do model suits oral language and learning about listening and speaking.  Use the model/share approach.  This gives the listener a role too.  

The amount of teacher talk time within my class needs to be something I focus on and improve.  Do my kids know that learning comes from talking?  Interesting about the hands up point.  If we encourage kids to talk in sentences and make the time for it, this could have a positive impact on children being able to develop oral language which then translates across the curriculum.  

Why ask one student to speak when we could give that opportunity to do so?

Developing a Think Pair Culture.

Move from hands up to a structure that looks like this:

This creates opportunitiesfor children to talk.  Research says 5 seconds for thinking time where there is no talking.  Give kids something to talk about.  Be explicit.  We are going to do a prediction, tell them what to think about.  The amount of time for talking varies depending on what they are thinking and talking about.  You don't always have to share back. 

Pairs can become threes.  This is good for new language learners.  

Visual criteria can be good.  Schools can make their own versions of these.  Can create charts to show what good listening looks like.  The hands talking is a great visual to show what a conversation looks like.  Can use the 

Talk partners - Can be daunting for kids if you say get into partners.  If you change partners often, don't worry about ability.  If for longer periods of times, closer in ability works better.  A compass can be used for groups of four so groupings of different sizes can be established.  

If you spoke first last time, let your partner speak first this time.  Choose ways to vary who talks first and second etc.  Use a signal to indicate when to switch.  

Name Selectors-

For those situations where the same person is talking, you could use a name selector.  These can be online, on sticks, stones etc.  

My Goal for Oral Language: Make and use sharing sticks or stones.  Introduce these to the kids through our oral language programme this term.  These can be used for class discussions and sharing when learning.  Do I do this for Literacy groups or is that too much?  

Listening

Students actively listen to each other and not just the teacher.  Louise's Inquiry:

Conversation cards can be used to help students to show good listening.  Do one speech bubble sentence stem in order for children to develop these listen ing and speaking skills.  

Think pair squares, think pair record, think, pair, walk and talk...can be introduced when kids start getting a bit bored with Thinlo Pair Share.

Having own whiteboards for activities, allows all children to have a go at writing/recording.  

Listen to your partner and share what they said.  

Share three ideas, talk and write a new one.  Using name selectors help kids become active listeners.  

Some activities to try: 

Call A Friend - Children sit back to back and have a phone conversation.  Could be for news, lesson review, retelling stories, ideas for writing.  

Activity: Listening to the audio of a video but just listening.  Make three columns and take notes on these.

Setting - On a lake, in a boat

Characters - An old man

What's happening? - Fishing and a fish is 

From Short Shorts on You Tube.

Barrier Games: A barrier between the speaker and the listener.  One explains where to put things.  Great for learning positional language.  Works well with turn-taking, listening, questioning and can become an independent activity.  

Can use in Math for whole class games, tangrams.

Radio New Zealand for listening to stories. I think this will be good as children are so engaged during visual videos so I am keen to give just listening to stories a go.  

QUESTIONING - Asking more open questions.

I wonder - We don't always need an answer but being able to wonder is a lovely thing for kids to do.  

When preparing for guided reading lessons, rather than using your time to create text specific follow up activities, use generic activities that you have taught the kids and they know how to do.  One idea is to use the questions dice to ask and answer questions in pairs.  Why do you think...?  Can I have a fact?  Five or ten minutes but rich and beneficial.  

You don't need evidence for everything!!

Our expectations are not very high when expecting children to speak in sentences. and in speaking in listening.  This can be quite quick to fix.

When children are sharing, expect them to elaborate and make sure children know that they will need to elaborate.  

Close links to reading.  Eg I think she is sad.  I think she is sad and my evidence is... 

Talking Strips

Stop Elaborate and Listen!

Elaboration questions or statements can help the teacher to talk less.  Microphones, talking sticks etc can help the talk be controlled and the children have ownership.  Extend the length of sentences.  

When you're talking, can you talk to the rest of the class?  

Paraphrasing can be helpful but don't overuse it.  Pause and let kids think.  

Pause for think

Play for talk

You can use pause and play symbols to show children when to have thinking time and when to start sharing.  Talk time for 15 seconds.  Teacher may need to count that time.  

Think Aloud -Teacher says what they are thinking and then say what they think.  Kids take about that. 

Make a statement and children talk about that.  

Goal:  Pause and play for thinking time and talking time.    

Using different groupings to increase opportunities for students to talk.

The horse shoe is the best.

Manaiakalani Toolkits June 2021

 Simplifying Testing Using Google Forms

with Jeremy Ferguson

The time of year where Manaiakalani share a vast range of toolkits to support learning for staff and students within Manaiakalani schools has come once again.  Toolkits are learning opportunities that aim to enhance the Learn Create Share pedagogy.  Teachers from around Aotearoa and possibly beyond can join via Google Meet and a facilitator takes people through whatever topic they have knowledge and skills in.  

Today I attended the Simplifying Testing Using Google Forms Toolkit.  Although I have used Google Forms before, I hadn't really used them to gather assessment information and I most certainly haven't used forms with some of the very helpful features that were shared today.

Here is the slide prepared by the host, Jeremy Ferguson:

New Learning For Me:

• To create a new form, in the Omnibox, type forms.new - This instantly opens a new form as an alternative to accessing through your Google Drive.
• You may have to check the settings so the preferred language is set to your preference for date format is what you want.
• Enabling Quiz Mode allows you to allocate points for answers, has an answer key, lets you give test scores back either instantly or at a later time and can lock the screen so students need to submit their test before any other tabs can be accessed.  
• Presentation settings can include a progress bar so students know how far through they are.
• When gathering responses, you can add to an existing sheet which means you can collect and track data over different time periods.  
• Talk & Comment - This Google extension is very exciting.  You can record audio and insert it into your form so students can hear the question.  

With our midyear assessment time coming up, I am now thinking of more creative, time-saving and different ways to collect assessment information.  My next step is to have a go at creating a Google Form for my Combined Basic Facts Test and also have a go at gathering times tables data.

Structured Literacy approach

 Structured Literacy Session #2

Homework from session #2-

PMI Some found it time-consuming to administer the assessment.  

4/5 is not mastery.

Reviewed Scarborough's Rope 

Decoding Strand

Students need to know the alphabetic principle which is:

Scope and Sequence:

What is it?  Used to teach the a alphabetic principle.  Scope is the breadth and depth of content and skills to be covered.

Sequence refers to how these skills and content are ordered and presented to learners over time. 

WHY? Provides a specific list of content and skills so teachers know what to teach.  I do, We do, You do.  Is systematic.  Keeps a cumulative record of what learners know.  Should be aligned to assessment.  Identifies needs and gaps.  Can measure progress over time.  

The sound is the thing to focus on.  If they don't know the letter, focus on the sound.  If learners can cope, teach both.

OPTIONS

Little Learners

Sunshine Phonics

MOE

The Code Liz Kane

Learning Matters 

How to Use in the Classroom:

Introduce groups of letters a week as per scope and sequence.

Be mindful of similar-looking letters.

Word blending is based on letters learned.

Explicit instruction followed. by guided reading.

Frequent monitoring and assessment.

Students learn at different rates.

Decode-read

Encode-spell and write

Create a sound pack and have daily practise of reading and writing.  Your sound pack will grow.  

Heart Words. 

All of these skills need to be worked on before getting to a book.  

Letter sounds to Word level then connected text...dictation, decodable.

Can send home words and phrases, games home etc.

Sound Packs

Decodable Books-contain the letter sounds that students have learned.  

Sight Vocabulary is when words pop off the page and readers do not have to make a conscious effort.  Orthograophic mapping is when it is automatic.  

If student have orthograpgically mapped words incorrectly, we need to go back to the phonemic awareness.

Parent workshops to support parents to understand what structured literacy is.  Rather than sending a book home, sentences can be printed and sent home.  

Stage 6 is equivalent to Green.  

When using decodable texts, still discuss and look at pictures.  Check out the video in the shared drive.

Structured Literacy Workshop #1

 Structured Literacy Session #1

With Jo Jessep and Lillian Dowd

Purpose:

Deepen knowledge of Structured Literacy and share tips and tricks.

Provide confidence, knowledge and resources.

Share a common goal.

Improve literacy teaching practice that is based on scientific research and evidence.

Focus:  What is Structured Literacy and the importance of phonemic awareness.

Why change?

Plummeting Literacy rates and a range of consequences because of this.  

The Power of Evidence-reasearch shows us how children learn to read.  We need to look at the Science of Reading and align that with the education of reading.  

How do children learn to read?  All children learn to read in the same way!

The Simple View Of Reading

Decoding X Language Comprehension = Reading Comprehension

Ability to apply sound and symbol relationships X Ability to understand spoken language=

Helps to understand how children learn to read and what they need in order to be able to read.  

The Reading Brain:  It has been proven that learning to read is not just a visual process.  Learning to read is not a natural process and needs to be taught.  We need to make sure we are using the right parts in order to be able to teach reading. 

How do we encure all children are being taught to read....?

We use a structured, multisensory, literacy approach.

Explicit: Teaching is direct and intentional, teacher modelling I do, we do, you do).  Tecaher led instruction, learning is not implicit or assumed, multi sensory-auditory, visual, kinesthetic.  Reduction in cognitive load theory-take away the unessecary things so they can learn.  

Systematic: Planned in an organised way which moves from simple to complex.

Cumulative: Teaching builds on the previously learned concepts.  Review, move on, review.  

Diagnostic:  assessment, formal and informal, ongoing and informs teaching.  

This is an approach rather than a programme.

The Ladder of Reading:

For 60%, structured literacy is essential and for the other 40% will still benefit and it will be an advantage.  

Phonological Awareness:

Is a key strand and comes under word recognition.

What is phonoligical awareness, phonemic awareness and phonics.  

Add slide 28 here...this is really important and is the foundational information teachers need to know.  

Slide 30 needs to be learned.

My Next Steps:

I feel a little overwhelmed and like I have so much to learn.  My next step is to become more familiar with decodable texts and introduce these to my Literacy group students.  

I also need to do some assessments so I can get a clear picture of what the student needs are.