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.