Dreaming of 2022

This week I have been thinking about my next steps for my inquiry for next year. I want to use what I have discovered and found out this year and build on this again for 2022. This is what I have been thinking about so far...

The achievement challenge that I am considering as an area of focus in 2022 is “Lift the achievement in Reading for all students, with a particular focus on boys and Māori students (both genders) years 1-13. “ I am passionate about reading as I believe it is an important curriculum subject which leads into maths and writing. Reading can have an impact on learners' ability to access these other curricular areas and succeed in them. 

 This was a focus of my MIT inquiry in 2019 which I have continued to inquire into throughout this year. My MIT inquiry focused on my learners reading between the ages of 7-9 years creating a digital tool for reading levels purple, silver and gold. I have continued to use this tool in the classroom this year and as a team have used many of these generic templates while working with our reading groups. Looking ahead to 2021 the data of our year 5’s currently show we have a large number of readers who are reading below the age of 7 years and many stuck in that 7-8 age bracket. 

 As a school this year we have been having in-depth reading PD which has been valuable in my own teaching practice and working on this with my learners in the classroom. In our reading PD this year I have learnt many skills in how to work with our learners who are considered to be below and well below in reading. I believe that continuing to focus on this as an inquiry for next year will benefit my learners in reading achievement and help strengthen my teaching in this area. 

I have looked into some of the other CoL teachers from this year and their inquiries. One which stood out was Latini’s inquiry looking into raising reading achievement in her year 7 and 8 learners and getting them ready for high school. Looking at her data many of these learners are reading between and below that 8-9 age bracket. By inquiring into this next year I think it would be helpful in order to get our year 5 and 6 learners to accelerate learning past these levels in order for our year 7 and 8 teachers to focus on other areas for our students to be successful in high school. Christine’s inquiry has also shown that vocabulary is an important area in reading to focus on which I will take on board into my inquiry next year. Vocabulary is an area that my learners also need to focus on in order to make an accelerated shift in reading. 

Focus on acceleration of reading using learn, create and share. Having the students share reading which is giving different ways of sharing reading and in a context that is familiar to the learners. This will focus on having 1.5 x acceleration in reading through the learn, create and share model. 

Woolf fisher research has shown that we need to focus on explicit teaching of reading and not just have follow up tasks that are questions straight from the text. We have worked as a team this year to use generic reading tasks which allow us as teachers focus on deliberate teaching of skills. The learners can then take ownership of their learning and read other journals and then have tasks that are generic and able to be completed without deliberate teaching of that particular journal article or story. 

I would like to continue PD on reading and how best to teach this in the classroom. Being involved in CoL PLD will help with my learning and knowledge in this area and think critically about what I am doing and why I am doing it.  I got so much out of the PLG from CoL this year and new ways of teaching and collaborating ideas with other teachers with the same purpose of teaching and learning so I think that it is an important part of sharing and learning with others. I hope to be able to share not only with my team at school and others within my school but also with other teachers in the CoL. 

Bursts and Bubbles 2021

 

Due to being in Level 3 in Auckland for our Bursts and Bubbles this year we conducted this online. Above is the video I recorded about my inquiry this year and what I have found out. This year was far from normal but there was still some great data and evidence that came out of my inquiry. Please feel free to check it out or read through my script below. 

Bursts and Bubbles script

My inquiry question for this year was: Will a focus on vocabulary and interest specific texts have an impact on reading achievement for my learners reading below 8 years? I identified this as my focus when I noticed that a group of my students were reading below the age of 8 years. This made me ask the question what is holding these learners back and what are some things that I can do in my teaching to help these students reach their expected reading age.

To build a picture of my students' learning I looked at a range of different data such as PAT reading, Star, Running Records and Student voice. I’ve broken this down extensively on my blog. 

The main patterns of student learning I identified in the profiling phase were that these students were able to read and sound out the words correctly but they didn’t understand or have the strategies to understand what these words meant.  By not understanding key and specific vocabulary it was making it difficult for the students to comprehend the text and answer vocabulary and inferential questions. 

From speaking to other colleagues I found that vocabulary was a key element that many of our learners were struggling with.  I explored what the literature said looking at “Vocabulary developments during read-alouds” and “Utilizing nonfiction texts to enhance reading comprehension and vocabulary in primary grades.”

The changes I made to my teaching were having a visual word wall in the classroom and online that was accessible to all learners. I changed our overall reading focus each week and made it a whole class activity. Each reading group would learn about the same topic where they would need to complete research. I introduced spelling activities each week where students were exposed to new vocabulary and would have a pre and post test. I tried to incorporate text specific journal articles where students would be exposed to the vocabulary during guided reading sessions. During our learning online my team stuck to this similar format of having specific topics each day with a research component along with word work. 

The easiest thing to change was having an overall topic each week for the students to explore. Some of the challenges were finding specific non-fiction texts related to the overall topic and at the level of these students. 

Overall I would rate the changes in students' learning as partially successful. Students were really engaged with learning about new topics. My target group showed more confidence with reading in new vocabulary and working out the meaning using clues from the text. My mid year data showed improvements in reading ages for some of my students. This data also showed key areas that needed to be worked on during our guided reading. Student voice showed a shift, with many of my students saying they enjoyed reading and could understand what they were reading. 

A highlight from this year was when we spent a lot of time learning about the earth spheres. After learning about this for a few weeks we began our swimming lessons and one of my students called over to me in excitement to say that they were currently swimming in the hydrosphere. 

The most important learning I made about my inquiry was that language and vocabulary is very powerful and once students know how to use clues and not be afraid to ask questions they are able to work out meaning. My target learners are more inquisitive about new vocabulary and understand that if they read words into the context of the story or article they are able to understand the meaning. My students are more engaged and excited about reading which has had a huge impact on how and what they choose to read.