CoL Inquiry: Data Collection, Tools & Measures

My target group consists of 7 year 5 students who are reading between the ages of 7.5 and 8.5 years. There are 4 boys and 3 girls in this group. I have given each student a letter which I will refer to throughout the year. 

• Student A - Year 5 boy reading at 7.5 years. He attends class regularly but is often distracted in class. He will need to be reminded to stay on task and what he is supposed to be doing. Can read high frequency words well but can struggle to read in new vocabulary for meaning. 
• Student B - Year 5 girl reading at 7.5 years. She attends class regularly but requires a lot of one on one support when completing independent tasks. Struggles with new vocabulary she comes across and is not able to read it in for meaning. Student B is part of our school reading support program. 
• Student C - Year 5 girl reading at 7.5 years. She attends class regularly and is confident in our guided reading sessions. She is able to decode fluently but often doesn't comprehend what she has read. Student C is part of our school reading support program. 
• Student D - Year 5 boy reading at 8 years. He tries to attend class regularly however is often late and will miss out on our guided reading sessions. He is able to self correct however sometimes needs to be prompted in order to check that it makes sense. Needs to work on reading for meaning so that he can retell what he has read. 
• Student E - Year 5 boy reading at 8 years. Attendance can sometimes be an issue and like Student D will often miss our reading sessions. Is a confident reader who is able to try and read in new words however needs to work on reading for meaning. 
• Student F - Year 5 girl reading at 8 years. Has regular attendance at school and is very confident in guided reading sessions. Is able to decode and comprehend quite well in a group setting or 1:1. Does struggle to stay on task when not with the teacher. 
• Student G - Year 5 boy reading at 8.5 years. He attends class regularly and is confident in his reading. Is able to decode fluently however sometimes reads too fats and can miss the point of the story or is unable to retell key information. 

I have been having a look at each of the learners in this target group and have been gathering data from guided reading sessions, running records from 2020 and PAT data from the beginning of this year. 

Running Records 2020 Data:
This is data that was collected at the end of 2020 when these students where in year 5. I used this data to group my students at the beginning of the year and as a base for what their instructional level is. We have been graphing our data as a school this year so have added in actual age as a guideline to see where they need to be by the end of the year. 

Student	Actual Age	Reading Age	Reading Level PM
A	9	7.5	20
B	9	7.5	20
C	9.5	7.5	20
D	9.5	8	21
E	9.5	8	22
F	8.5	8	22
G	9	8.5	24

PAT Star Test Data:
This was from our testing at the beginning of the year. This was our first test for the year but has shown some interesting results with vocabulary and comprehension. The word recognition is also an interesting result that I will explore further for each individual student to see what has happened and which ones they have mixed up. 

Student	Raw Score Select range	Scale Score Select range	Word Recognition	Sentence Comprehension	Paragraph Comprehension	Vocabulary	Stanine
A	11 / 50	69 ± 3.9	4 / 10	3 / 10	0 / 20	4 / 10	1
B	9 / 41	65.7 ± 4.2	4 / 10	4 / 10	1 / 20	0 / 10	1
C	17 / 50	77.3 ± 3.6	8 / 10	4 / 10	4 / 20	1 / 10	2
D	21 / 50	82.3 ± 3.5	8 / 10	6 / 10	4 / 20	3 / 10	3
E	25 / 50	87.2 ± 3.5	9 / 10	4 / 10	8 / 20	4 / 10	4
F	32 / 50	96.1 ± 3.7	7 / 10	7 / 10	11 / 20	7 / 10	5
G	24 / 32	86 ± 3.5	10 / 10	7 / 10	7 / 20	0 / 10	3

PAT Comprehension Test Data:
This data is from the PAT comprehension test at the start of the year. Again like that Star data I will need to look at each individual student and see which questions they have gotten wrong and see if there are trend in the types of questions and the answers that have been given. 

Student	Stanine	Scale Score	Raw Score
A	3	21.6 ± 4	9/37
B	3	24.6 ± 3.8	11/37
C	1	11.2 ± 5.4	4/37
D	2	16.1 ± 4.6	6/37
E	4	32.4 ± 3.5	17/37
F	4	26 ± 3.7	12/37
G	5	34.8 ± 3.5	19/37

Collecting this data has been useful to see where some of the gaps might be in the learning and also gives me a base to see what other areas of reading I need to explore with these students. It gives a clearer picture of the individual learner as well as the group as a whole. From my guided reading sessions I can see that vocabulary and reading this in is a key part of what we need to work on as a group. 

CoL: Speed dating

Today in our CoL meeting we will be talking to each other to get an idea and gauge on who is doing similar inquiries to us. We are going to be doing "speed dating" at our session and have been asked to find some others in CoL who we would like to have conversations with during this time. I have used the template to organise who I would like to talk to and what some of the questions I would like to ask might be. I have added my "speed dating" card below with some of the key questions along with what their inquires are and how we could work together with our inquires. 

We had a number of really productive and positive comments about our inquires in today's meetings. Along with some common questions that we are going to explore. 

Key take aways and questions:

• Is the vocabulary of my learners stopping them from making progress in reading. How can I change up my vocabulary session not just in my inquiry but also during my reading program?
• Is it reading milage? Do we need to be getting these students reading more, at home, silent reading?
• Check PAT data and maybe even ARBS to have a clearer picture of these learners and what they are needing?

There are a number of questions and avenues for me to explore from these discussions that I have had today. 

 

CoL Inquiry: Identifying the problem

This year I am going to again inquire into reading. I had the opportunity to have fantastic reading PD which I would like to continue working on and developing in my class this year. I have a large number of year 5 learners who are reading between the ages of 7.5 and 9 years. This is a trend that I have also seen when teaching in year 6. This seems to be an age and level where a lot of our learners are "stuck" (for lack of a better word). This is something that I have been keeping an eye on over the last few years and now teaching in a year 5 space would like to try and figure out what is holding these learners back at this reading age. 

Collaboration: 

I have had a discussion with Latini Ilaoa one of the year 7/8 teachers at Pt England School who is also looking into reading as her inquiry this year also. Latini has a number of learners who are reading between the ages of 8-9.5 years also. We would like to work with together this year and along with some other teachers to look into this. 

Target group:

So far I have identified my target group of students shown in the table below. For the next few weeks I will continue to note down what I am seeing from each of these students during  guided reading sessions and see if there are patterns in what they are struggling with and if they are similar. 

Student	Actual Age	Reading Age	Reading Level PM
A	9	7.5	20
B	9	7.5	20
C	9.5	7.5	20
D	9.5	8	21
E	9.5	8	22
F	8.5	8	22
G	9	8.5	24

Next steps: 

I would like to look back at the last few years of students running records and see if there is a trend with their data and achievement. I will also look at each of their running records and see if there is a specific area that is holding these students back from making progress in their reading. I would also like to talk with some of the other CoL teachers regarding their inquires and see if there are any links or similarities that we are finding.