CoL Inquiry: Finding my Inquiry

What is new?

I am really excited for what is in store for 2021! 
I am so looking forward to taking on a within schools CoL position, Class OnAir and a brand new classroom! This year I have moved across the porch to a new classroom and a new age group of learners. In previous years I have had year 5 and 6 learners and this year I have an amazing bunch of year 4 and 5 learners. This year I will also be teaching back alongside Migi Siō in our shared space of about 60 learners. This will be a great change and challenge coming for an innovative learning environment with three teachers to just being the two of us. 

What to inquire about?

At Pt England school we have been having in house professional development around reading and maths. This has been extremely helpful in how to approach finding my target learners and what I would like to inquire into. I believe that reading is an important tool and learning area for all learners to have access to and excel in. Without reading learners can struggle to access other parts of the curriculum such as maths as that reading can be a barrier. One of my biggest questions that I keep coming to is why are our learners stuck reading between the ages of 8 - 9 years? I have been looking at the data from not only this year but previous years and have continued to see a trend of our learners in year 5 and 6 seeming to be stuck (for lack of a better word) reading in these levels. 

From looking at this data I think it is still a really important area to inquire into and see how we can raise reading achievement in these learners so that they are better prepared and equipped to access the curriculum in year 7 and 8 and onto high school. Last year I looked at making accelerated shift with my learners reading between the ages of 7-8 years and I am wondering if using these skills that I worked on with these learners last year will be a good starting base for my learners this year reading at 8 - 9 years.  

Key questions:

• Is it the decoding of my learners?
• Is it the comprehension of my learners?
• It is a combination of both decoding and comprehension?
• Are they making progress in reading but not showing in their reading age?
• Are there other holes in their reading that is holding them back but pushing in these higher levels and pushing them forward in the lower levels?

After looking at these questions it has given me a basis to start my inquiry and what to look for in these learners. 

Where to next?

I am going to spend the next few weeks having smaller guided reading sessions with these target students. I will also look into what works well for my learners working above and below these levels to see what I can incorporate into accelerated reading for these groups of learners. I will also look into how to frame my inquiry question this year and speak other CoL teachers and teachers at Pt England and see if they finding any of the same trends and how we could look at this as a collaborative inquiry.