Dreaming of 2023

After a chance of reflection from my Burts and Bubbles presentation and looking at some of the data of my students for next year I am excited for what I could inquire into next year!

What achievement challenge are you considering as an area of focus in 2023 and why? Include in your WHY both evidence and your own passion/expertise

Achievement challenge 3 lifting reading achievement. I believe that reading is key for our students to be able to do well as it opens access to all other areas of the curriculum. My passion is reading for this reason and I believe is one of the reasons that I enjoy teaching it as it is not just closed off to one curriculum area. The data that I have seen so far shows that many of my students are reading around 9 and 10 years and this suggests that they are needing to develop that critican thinking and extended discussion during reading. From previous data I have found that students are struggling to read and comprehend the questions that they are seeing in PAT maths and Star along with reading. It can be see that that they are unable to infer meaning or apply knowledge. I have found that many students do enjoy reading while they are in a guided reading session and that extended discssion and critical thinking can come through it it trying to build on that while they are completing follow up tasks and working independently. 

What learnings from the 2017 - 2022 CoL teacher inquiries have informed or inspired your thinking.

Talking with Robyn about her inquiry this year has inspired me to think about the enjoyment and passion that students have for reading and to take ownership of choosing books to read for enjoyment along with what we are reading and learning about in class. Looking at Clarelle’s inquiry from 2021 where she looked at the critical thinking of students linked in with my 2021 inquiry using vocabulary to strengthen students knowledge which I have also linked into my 2022 inquiry. 

How would your work support Manaiakalani pedagogy and  kaupapa?

There are many ways that this work would supposred Manaiakalani pedagogy and kaupapa:

• It reflects the value of learn, create and share. 

• It reflects that focus of Manaiakalani schools next year looking into raising reading achievement along with trying to strengthen that vocabulary in maths which is another focus next year. 

• Collaboatation with other colleagues as well as students. 

• Supporting connected and empowered learners. 

Which elements of the extensive Manaiakalani research findings inform or challenge you as you think about this?

Manaiakalani observations have shown that extended discussion is an area that could have some development and be seen more in teaching. Manaiakalani research further investigates critical thinking and the use of generic reading tasks in order to focus more time and energy into planning as well being able to hopefully allow for that extended discussion of learners. 

How would you like to be supported in 2023 as you undertake this inquiry?
Regular release so that I am able to continue to focus on my target group and where we go to next throughout my inquiry. Along with the support of other teachers as well as the Manaiakalani team. 

How would you plan to support your colleagues in your school with THEIR inquiries and/or teaching in the area you are exploring?

Being available for collaboration with others within my school with similar inquiries. Supporting other teachers within my own team with findings from my inquiry to help build on their own inquiries as well as the direction we are going in a team. Supporting my colleagues through the running of workshops, sharing knowledge and offering assistance and ideas where needed. Working collaboratively within my team and other teams in the school. 

Burts and Bubbles 2022

 

My inquiry question for this year was: How to enhance well being and enjoyment while accelerating reading achievement for those students reading between the ages of 8 and 9 years? I identified this as my focus question when I noticed that a large group of my students were reading between the ages of 8 and 9 years, below where they should be reading at a year 5 level. Initially my only inquiry focus was on accelerating reading achievement, however with the nature of this year and ever changing events throughout I also decided to focus on the well being of my students and enhancing their enjoyment for reading. 

To build a picture of my students learning in reading I looked at a range of different data such as PAT reading, Star, Running Records, Spelling lists and Student Voice. To build a picture of student well being and reading for enjoyment I conducted surveys at various stages of the year. Which was fascinating to see what they thought. I have broken this down extensively on my blog. 

The main patterns of student learning I identified in the profiling phase was that these students were able to read the text fluently with great decoding, however when it came time to answer the questions they were unable to infer meaning or answer questions related to vocabulary. Another thing I found was that my students didn't want to participate in reading outside of our guided reading sessions, there was a clear lack of enjoyment. 

From speaking to other colleagues I found that enjoyment for reading and vocabulary were key elements that many of our students were struggling with. I explored what the literature said looking at academic research that I have discussed in detail in one of my blog posts. 

The changes that I made to my teaching was integrating reading and writing with an overall topic focus each week. This allowed my students to immerse themselves in the topic specific vocabulary in both reading and writing. I implemented a spelling test using a pre and post test each week with the same words to gauge the retention of this new vocabulary. I also started taking my class to the library where they were able to choose what they would like to read in their own time. 

The easiest thing to change was the integration of reading and writing especially with the spelling lists. Some of the challenges were creating writing tasks that did fit in with the topic as well as being interesting and exciting for the students.

Overall there were some key markers of success. Students showed an eagerness to read independently from having that choice of what they wanted to read. My target showed more confidence in reading unfamiliar words and used new vocabulary more purposefully in writing tasks. 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. Student well being and reading for enjoyment surveys showed a shift with many of my students stating that they enjoyed reading for fun and felt confident and supported being at school. 

A highlight from this year was the change in attitude of my students towards “super silent reading” as they call it. At the beginning of the year none of my students really wanted to participate in sustained silent reading but we persevered. Now my students ask if they can silently read when they have finished their work or when they come in from play time which is a huge change!

The most important learning I made about my inquiry was the integration of reading and writing and the focus on student enjoyment for reading. By encouraging the enjoyment of reading with my learners they were more excited to complete reading tasks and participate in guided reading lessons. My students are now excited to share what they have learnt and are eager to find out more about the topic. The excitement that they have in reading has led to greater engagement and focus during reading. 

Evaulating and Reflecting

To what extent was the intervention successful in changing factors such as teaching? To what extent were those changes in teaching effective in changing patterns of student learning?

From what I can see so far the intervention success can be seen through the use of vocabulary of my learners in their writing as well as an understanding of key words associated with a specific topic. I think that these changes have allowed the students the confidence to be able to try and understand new words and read them into the tex. Another thing I have noticed how my students have changed to have an excitement in reading and wanting to have SSR as well as go to the library and choose books that they want to read.

Reflection on professional learning through this inquiry cycle:

I have learnt a lot professionally through this inquiry one of the key ones I think which is so important is being it back to the well being of students and teachers. This year has been by far one of the most challenge in my teaching career with all of the uncertainty of what covid was going to being this year and by opening up the community it was a very strange and interesting experience. I think by allowing my time to think about how I was feeling at these times made me relate to my students and stop and think well if I am feeling this then what are my students and their whanau feeling? It has been a very long and stressful year this year with so much going on and I think coming back to thinking about well being as been so important for everyone. I had also always viewed reading and writing differently in my planning for some reason but this year by trying to link them has made my planning easier and I have found that my students are more engaged with writing, it has also meant that I can focus on other key elements of writing through the topic which has been great for writing structure and language features. I really have learnt a lot from this years inquiry and think that there is a lot more to learn in this area to continue on looking into.

Qualitative Data & Quantitative Data

For our last PLG we were asked to think about our data collection and if it was qualitative or quantitate. We were then to have discussions in groups around what data we would share for our bursts and bubbles presentations. What I have found for my inquiry this year as I have a mixture of both and think that I will share a range of different evidence that I have found using both qualitative and quantitate data. I have outlined this in a bit more detail below:

Qualitative Data

• Notes and reflections from my guided reading sessions that I have had with my target groups and target learners. 
• Notes made from running records at mid year and then analysing the notes made from the tester of running records at the end of the year to see if there have been shifts and changes (unfortunately these will not be ready in time for bursts and bubbles but I will still check them out once I receive them.)
• Discussions with students and direct quotes about their reading and enjoyment.

Quantitative Data

• Running record data showing the difference from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. 
• PAT reading data and star data, while I am waiting for running records data I will be able to use this to see if there are changes and improvements. 
• Well being survey data this will show how students are feeling now in comparison to the beginning of the year. 
• Reading enjoyment survey data this will show how students are feeling now in comparison to the beginning of the year. 
• Spelling data from the pre and post tests that I have been conducting. 
• Writing data? I think I would be interested to make comparisons between the vocabulary scores again I am unsure if I will have this data before bursts and bubbles but will be an interesting thing to analyse and see if there is a difference. 

So I do have lots of options of data I know just need to decide what I will be able to share in my 3 minute snap shot of my inquiry. In reflection I think it will be really important to show the changes in reading data as well as well being and reading enjoyment so I think I will focus on these three areas however will also analyse all of the other data and share this on my blog at a later date. 

Class OnAir: Claude Monet Art

Last term our school theme was "Art Works" and our teams focus question was how can I express myself through the arts. I created a lesson for Class OnAir this term that incorporated my reading and writing through art. I thought this lesson fit in really well with my inquiry and shows the links that I have been trying to make between reading and writing. This term I was lucky enough to add art into the mix. Please check out my lesson below:

The learning intention for this lesson was to research, investigate and understand the artist Claude Monet and his famous artworks. This lesson shows a whole class reading lesson where the students learn all about Claude Monet's life and paintings. This lesson also shows the students sharing their facts and ideas with each other. Finally this lesson shows the students creating one of Claude Monet's famous paintings. 

I really enjoyed teaching this lesson even though it was a bit stressful with the paint! You can check out the full lesson plan and extended reflection here. During the term we had also been an art critic looking at some of Claude Monet's work which was really nice to tie in at the end of the term. 

Reflections and tweaks explained

 Explain the reflections and tweaks you have made along the way and the reasons why you made these changes. Share your evidence for these decisions.

This year has been interesting with my inquiry and I have found that I have needed
to be adaptable along the way. While my focus question has continued to look at reading achievement I have also focused on well being as well as reading for enjoyment. The reason for this change was looking at term 1 and all of the changes and interruptions we were having the most important thing for me and my class was student well being and trying to get all of my students to come back to school. I made this the focus for the whole of term 1 as it was a very uncertain time for everyone and I wanted to make sure that my students were doing okay and felt comfortable to come back to school. So I guess you could say reading took a bit of a back seat, we were still reading as a class just in more spaced out groups with masks on and it was hard to have those detailed conversations. 

Through this change in direction I also found myself thinking about reading for enjoyment and enhancing this. As it was a lot harder to have reading groups and being able to share it became really important for my students to want to be able to read by themselves and select books for enjoyment rather than just being told to read something. Social distancing meant that my students were working a lot more independently so therefor the change to my reading program came about. We started going to the library and students had a lot more choice. Reflecting on this has shown a really great outcome my students now love going to the library and ask for SSR (Super Silent Reading) as it is a change for them to unwind and explore what they are reading. 

I have continued to focus on linking reading and writing which was another thing that came out of the all of the changes this year. I think this has had a great impact on literacy for my class and I am finding that my students are able to link these together and begin to use different vocabulary in their writing. 

I have made all of these changes to ensure the best for my learners. I think by being able to be flexible and reflective at every step has helped shape my program this year and although it might have not been to plan for my original inquiry I have found some key things that I would add into my inquiry next time and would really like to explore this in a lot more detail again with my class next year.

Describing my evidence

Describe the evidence you have so far about the effects of your changed practices or intervention on desired learner outcomes and how you summarised and recorded these:

One of the key things that I have been looking at this week is the evidence that I am using for my inquiry and how I can best describe and show this looking at my data. Below I have outlined some of the key data that I have been collecting and how it has been summarised and recorded. 

• Spelling tests - I have been using spelling words that are related to our reading topic for the week and trying to link this into writing as well. In order to see if this is working and being used in writing I have been conducting spelling tests each week and looking at the students writing to see if these words have been coming up. Each week the class will have a pre test where I record down the results of the words they spelt correctly or incorrectly in a spreadsheet. I then complete a post test at the end of the week where the students have learnt the words and taken them home for homework and again I record down the words that were correct and incorrect and compare this with the beginning of the week. What I have noticed so far is that my students who have been working at home to learn these words as well as completing the weekly spelling tasks tend to spell more words correctly on a Friday as well as use these words in writing for the week. 
• Running record data - I have used beginning and mid year data to see how my students are tracking. This gave me a detailed indication of the next steps for my learners and what they need in order to progress to the next level. The running records show the levels that my students are at and can advised my next teaching steps. These also give a clear indication if my inquiry is working and any tweaks that I needed to make. Running records are something that I have continued to use throughout the year if I felt a student had made progress. 
• PAT reading and star data - I used this data at the beginning of the year as a base for where to group my students especially those who were not at school for the last part of 2021. I will use this data from the end of year testing and compare to the beginning of the year to see if there has been any shift. 
• Well being survey - I have stored this data in a spreadsheet where I can see how the students have felt with their well being at school. I will again conduct this same survey to see if there are improvements in the students well being. 
• Reading for enjoyment survey - I have stored this data in a spreadsheet where I can see how the students have felt with reading and their enjoyment. I will again conduct this same survey to see if there are improvements in the students student enjoyment for reading. 

These are a few of the ways that I have gathered data for my inquiry and the results from the data have provided insight into my implementation and I have made changes as I have needed.

Harness the digital

During one of our CoL PLG's we were asked about how we were going to harness the digital. Basically how am I going to harness the affordances of technologies to do the following things:

• Transform the way we learn
  
• Offer new experiences
• Offer new opportunities 

I have been reflecting and thinking about this lately and have come back to this question as I have been looking at my data and my next steps especially around implementation. Technology has transformed the way the students have access to vocabulary and the understanding on the meaning of these words. I have tried to utilise this in a lot of my spelling activities by exposing the students to dictionary tools and how they can find the meaning of a word they are unsure of at anytime using this tool. I think this is such a powerful thing that the students have access to as they can use it at any time in their reading with any word that they might be stuck on. 

This made me reflect on what we needed to do when we were at school to find the meaning of a word we would have to get the dictionary and this would take 5 to 10 minutes and you would have lost track of what you were even reading. I am going to try and use this digital tool as much as possible because I think it is really useful and it is something that I use when I am reading as well when I am unsure of a word or phrase. 

This is a very small way of harnessing the digital in my inquiry and I am sure there are other things that I will come across along the way. One really great thing about harnessing the digital is the access we have lots of research and readings digitally which has helped shape my inquiry and given me access to a range of different strategies and research that I otherwise wouldn't have access to. 

Implementation

During our last CoL PLG we were asked to discuss our implementation and answer some key questions to see how we are tracking. In this blog post I will outline these questions and my answers in detail.  

Question One:
Share data/info that you have collected/recorded about the implementation of your changed practices or intervention (what evidence do you have about what you did differently?)​ What methods have you used to collect information?​ ​- How have you been systematic in that collection? - What does the data tell you? - What are you going to do with the data in terms of ‘tweaking’ your intervention?

The evidence that I have to show about my implementation is my spelling tracking that I have been trying to remember to do each week. I do have a bit of data to share about this. This is where I test my students on a Monday before they have seen the spelling words. This way I am able to introduce them before we begin reading and place them into a sentence that is in context with what we are learning about for the week. The students then have a spelling task each week to complete and take these words home in list form to practice after school. I then complete a post test on Friday where I test to see how many words they were able to get right, using the same sentence. I then compare the data, for the most part I have seen my students make progress with their spelling words from the beginning to the end of the week. This is something I need to continue to work on remembering to do as I quite often forget to add the data.

I have also been using my reading data which I have in a spreadsheet for tracking. The surveys that I have been completing are also in a spreadsheet where I can analyse the data. I do need to do this survey again soon. Another way I have been collecting data is through taking notes during our guided reading sessions and compiling these together along with my next steps. I have changed some of my implementations over time which have been documented in my inquiry blog.

Question Two: Describe the evidence you have so far about the effects of your changed practices/intervention on desired learner outcomes and how you summarised and recorded these: What methods have you used to collect information?​ - How have you been systematic in that collection?​ - What does the data/information tell you?​ - What are you going to do with the data/information in terms of ‘tweaking’ your intervention?​

What I have found so far is that linking the reading and writing is working. I can see this from my students use of new vocabulary in their writing throughout the week. The students are also showing that they are understanding these words while they are reading in our guided reading sessions. I am also finding that the students who are practicing their spelling words throughout the week have shown that they are able to make progress in the learning and understanding of these words. Again these have been recorded and outlined in my blog and are recorded in my CoL data sheets that I have been using throughout the year.

Question Three: Explain the reflections and tweaks you have made along the way and the reasons why you made these changes. Share your evidence for these decisions. What methods have you used to collect information about the tweaks? - How have you been systematic in that collection? - What does the information tell you? - What are you going to do with the information in terms of understanding what needed ‘tweaking’ and why?

Some of the tweaks I have made is changing the spelling words of my students from the essential spelling list and just overall topic specific vocabulary to focusing on new words that the students are coming across through their reading texts in guided reading sessions. Another tweak I have made it chaining from 3 writing groups to 4 and these follow along with my reading groups. I do have specific writing sessions that are group according to my three groups but making sure that the spelling and language in writing is related. I decided to start tracking spelling progress as well which has been great but I also do keep forgetting to do this unfortunately.

Through this discussion at the meeting I have been able to clarify my implementations as well as reflect on what is working and what I might need to tweak a little bit more.

Restating my question

Creating and looking at my casual chain in my last post was really helpful to see what I changes I can make through intervention. This also gave me a clear understanding of my expectations as a teacher and what I need to achieve. This also gave me clearer direction for my students and the expectations that I have set out. This will also help with the success criteria for my students so they also understand what is expected from them during learning. 

It has now come to the time where I need to restate my inquiry question and think about my next steps, where I am going with my inquiry as well as highlighting interventions that I will use. Firstly here is my restated inquiry question:

How to enhance well being and enjoyment and accelerate reading achievement for those students reading between the ages of 8 and 9 years.

Initially I was just going to look at accelerating reading achievement but reflecting on the changes and things that have happened in previous years and this year has highlighted the importance to wellbeing as well as student enjoyment which will in turn have an affect on achievement. 

My next steps are:

• Continue to joining reading and writing with an overall focus for both for the week so that the students are exposed to key vocabulary throughout the week and know how to use these words in different contexts. 
• Take my students to the library as much a possible to expose them to different types of text and work on choosing books for enjoyment rather than just reading because they have to. 
• Assess student wellbeing through our mitey framework lessons as well as completing the survey I completed at the beginning of the year to see how students feel coming to school. 
• Continue to have spelling words directly related to the text to expose students to these words. 
• Continue class read alouds related to the topic that we are learning about for the week again to continue to build vocabulary development.
• Incorporate art, dance and drama into my reading sessions so that students can learn about these in different ways. 

I have some key things that I want to implement into my literacy program and by restating my inquiry question again I have clarity over what I am trying to achieve and the direction that I want this to take.

Casual Chain

We have been looking at a casual chain. A causal chain is when a cause leads to an effect and that effect becomes the cause of another effect A leads to B. B leads to C. C leads to D. During the process of my inquiry these year there have been several events that have occurred that have lead to changes in my focus as well as my own practice. Below I have completed my casual chain of events that have led to changes and improvements to my inquiry. This also outlines the roles that I as a teacher play in these changes as well as what is expected from the students and the changes in their roles. 

Through these implementations and changes I have been able to solidify my inquiry focus and my next steps in order to see if these implementations are successful. I hope that the changes that I have made throughout this inquiry will continue to show results in academic achievement as well as student overall wellbeing and enjoyment for reading.

June reflection on data

After looking at my data in more detail I have decided on some changes that I would like to make towards my intervention. One of the key things that I want to continue to work on is having an overall topic for the week for reading. After discussions with colleagues I have decided that I will make the focus of my writing task based on what we are learning in literacy for the week to maximise vocabulary retention and understanding. This won't be possible in all of the areas I am focusing in writing but one of my bug takeaways is making sure that the students have access to vocabulary from the text for the whole week. This will mean that I create my spelling list for the week based on the text the that students are reading and the words they will come across along with this linking to the overall topic focus for the week. That why the students are having access to these words and are able to see them as well as understand the meaning in serval different contexts. 

Another key thing I want to work on is the confidence my students have with their own reading. I want them to feel comfortable in sharing reading with others along with their ideas and opinions. I have started to move away from the hands up approach and allowing my students to have discussions where they know it is okay to disagree with someone else's point of view. 

Inferring questions, applied knowledge and vocabulary are my key areas to work on with my students during reading so I want to maximise this in my guided reading sessions. I can see that some of my students have a long way to go in order to match reading age and actual age so I will have a large focus on guided reading as well as using this knowledge in writing and even try and link this in to maths. I think they key is exposure to language so this will be my focus going forward. 

I have seen that my students are all keen to learn so I want to focus in on this. Again I still want to focus on wellbeing as I see this as a key to success as well. My next steps are to incorporate that I have learnt from the data into my guided reading lessons along with the follow up tasks and all key learning that we are doing for the week. Analysing this data has been very beneficial and has shown me the key next steps to take, which I am very excited for and keen to share!

Looking at my data Term 2

We have just finished our term 2 testing in preparation for school reports. This is a great opportunity to see where my students are at with their confidence in reading and reading strategies they are using to answer questions as well as decode information. This data is also helpful to see if my students have made any progress with their reading and what my next steps could be in order to make sure they are gaining the shift that I am looking for in this inquiry. Below I have used graphs to show my data this will compare the start of the year data to the data I have found from completing the running records along with observational data that I have collect from the comments I have made during guided reading sessions and also from sitting one on one with the students to complete the running records. 

This first graph shows the changes in reading level according to the running records using the PM kit. This data shows that most of my students moved up at least one reading level from the start of the year with some showing movements of up to 2 levels. From analysing this data the students who showed little to no movement were my students who were quite often away or late to our reading sessions. Some of these students also had not been at school since August 2021 and when they were retested on the return to school had moved back several reading levels. This was something I had to take into account when assessing the data. One thing I did do for these students was to test them until they passed a level with some needing to move back or stay on the same level as the decoding or comprehension was not satisfactory. This gave me a really good insight into their next steps as well as a clear picture of where the gaps were in the learning. 

This graph shows the reading ages that students moved from the beginning of the year to the middle of the year. As you can see in this graph below again I have some students who made no progress in reading age with some making up to 1 years progress. The reason I showed the level data first is the move from 8 to 8.5 and 8.5 to 9 years requires the student to pass 2 levels to make the change in reading age. So although some of my students did not make gains in reading age they moved up at least one level. This data also highlighted some of the key areas that need to be worked on. 

Finally this graph shows the reading age after mid year testing in comparison to chronological age of the students. This shows that most of my students are still currently below where they should be for their reading age. This data has shown me that there is still some progress to make before these students reach year 6 so that they do't fall further behind where they should be for their age. Again I have analysed all running records to see if there is trend and what I can best change in my teacher practice for these students. 

Overall comparing this data has been really insightful to my inquiry and has shown the gaps in the learning and what I need to change in my practice to make sure that term 3 and term 4 are the most beneficial for my learners in terms of their reading achievement. I have decided not to reassess my wellbeing and engagement in reading surveys as this was something I did when most of my students had returned to school so will wait until term 4 to see the progress made from these surveys. In the meantime I have taken the time to ask my students these questions during guided reading sessions to see the answers and have noted these down and will continue to do so which will impact my next teaching steps going forward.