Thinking ahead to 2024...

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 have been reading around 10 years and this suggests that they are needing to develop that critical 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 seen 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 discussion and critical thinking can come through. I am trying to build on that while they are completing follow up tasks and working independently. This group of students have started to show an understanding of inferring but are lacking the critical thinking skills to understand the text in greater detail. As a school we have also been talking about the importance of extended discussion and how we can make sure this is happening when the students are not with the teacher. A possible question could be how can I facilitate extended discussion to happen with my students when they are working independently? Another thing that I have been thinking about as I have been looking at my data is the students' understanding of maths terms and vocabulary which could be hindering them from answering questions correctly. 

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

Working with other CoL teachers this year and being able to share in the process of what is going on for my inquiry as well as the inquiry of others has been really beneficial this year. I have been extended in my own thinking which has made me think outside the box. Some key inquiries I have been inspired and interested in have been Robyn Anderson's inquiry from 2022 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. 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. Latini Ilaoa's inquiry around how we can better support students in reading who are ‘stuck’ in their learning (4+ years behind) and prepare them for college. Moving into year 6 next year with the same group of learners I have this year will mean it is even more vital for them to be ready to move from level 3 to 4 of the curriculum and ensure that they are not behind going into college. 

How would your work support Manaiakalani pedagogy and  kaupapa?

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

• It reflects the value of learn, create and share. It reflects the focus of Manaiakalani schools next year looking into raising reading achievement along with how we can ensure that we are planning for and having extended discussions with the students. 
• Collaboration 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?

The opportunities for regular discussions with other colleagues around our inquiries and how we can help and guide each other. I have found this really useful this year. Regular release so that I am able to continue to focus on my target group and where we go 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. Ensuring that at a team level we are spending time in our team meetings looking at our inquiries and how we can help each other as well as sharing our inquiries so that we can use these within our own classes as well. 

Data check in

At our last PLG we were asked to look at what kind of data we have used throughout the year and think forwards to our bursts and bubble presentations coming up in a few weeks. I have used a mixture of both qualitative and quantitate data throughout my inquiry this year. Below I have outlined each of ways that I have collected data and how I will use these data to see how effective the intervention has been. 

Guided Reading Data
This has been obtained through anecdotal notes throughout the year. This has been the best and easy way to keep track of my students throughout the year. It has also given me a way to tweak the intervention as I go and make changes. 

Running Record Data
I have been looking at this data throughout the year to see if there have been improvements from the intervention. I have used this to not only look at reading age and level but which aspects of reading that these students are needing to work on. 

PAT Data
I will use this data to see the changes in reading throughout the year also. I have placed this data into different categories to be able to have a closer and more in-depth look. 

Key into Inference Data 
Unfortunately this has been been an area that I have not been so onto it with documenting but from what I have see and how I have used this tool it has been very informative and successful. 

Monitoring of implementation

It is that time of year where we need to start evaluating what we have been doing throughout the year to make sure that we can see the shift and change of our implementations. One of the first things I have decided to explore is the evidence about the monitoring of my implementation. Here is some of the data that I have collected so far. 

This is a break down of my June running record data. This year I have wanted to focus in on the comprehension part of the test and see if there are any trends in the data. I will then look at the end of year data and compare this with mid year and beginning of the year data. 

I have then looked at my beginning of the year data to see if there has been any changes or shifts in the comprehension part of the running records. Below I have added the beginning of the year data. 

The graph below shows the reading change in reading levels from November 2022 (end of year testing) and June 2023 testing for reports. 

The graph below shows shows the changes in reading ages from November 2022 to June 2023 testing. 

What methods have you used to collect information?​

• PAT testing data
• Running records data
• Anecdotal notes
• Key interference data

​How have you been systematic in that collection?​
I have tired to make sure that especially with my anecdotal data that I have been looking at this weekly and recording this. However I could have placed it in a more collective place where I was able to look at the data better. I have also been collecting the key into inference data but this has been something that sometimes doesn't fit into our rotation for the week or what we are learning so its about keeping myself acceptable and making sure that I make time for it was well. 

What does the data tell you?​
My mid year running records data suggested that what I have put into place has worked. I made sure to test these students before I started the intervention to see if there was any shift from the intervention. This was important to have as a baseline because students could have still made progress from the end of the year. With PAT it is harder to see that data as there is only two points of the year that we do test this so it will be interesting to see that this data shows.  

What are you going to do with the data in terms of ‘tweaking’ your intervention?
From looking at the data of the mid year running records and my anecdotal notes of the students I have been able to tweak the intervention and how it works in the classroom. I tried to make sure that the tweaks where not to large so that I could still use the data as a place to show success. I have used the research and readings that I collected earlier in the year to shape my intervention and what do use in order to make tweaks. 

Key into Inference

One tool that I have been really excited about this year has been the key into inference resource. I have only really just scratched the surface of using this as a tool but from what I have used and see it has been really effective in making my students think critically and not just pick a literal conclusion. I have used this tool as a micro formative tool throughout the year and it has been one of trial and error which I will outline in detail below. 

The first thing I tired was photocopying the tasks for the students and having them complete them during guided reading. This did not work as well as I would have liked. It was one of those things that took a long time to organise because there weren't enough pencils (they have mysteriously vanished as usual). So this was the first part of the hurdle the second part was actually being able to understand what they students had written, some of the writing is very clear and some is very hard to decipher. So after much trial and error this way I decided lets try something else. 

The second thing I have tried is to create these in Google Form for the students to complete either before guided reading or during guided reading. This has proved to be quite useful and an easier way to look at the data and analyse it quickly as it is already in a spreadsheet. The only problem I have encountered with this is making sure that the link is only visible to the students in my class due to copyright. The other issue I am having is teacher error, I have created these forms but each time I have created them there is something that I haven't like about it or something that hasn't been effective. So again this is a work in progress. I know I will be able to continue to use these resources for the rest of the year as well as next year so its about trying to find what works and what doesn't. 

From the few of these that I have completed this has been a really effective tool to quickly gauge where students are and what they need to work on. I am just needing to make it more user friendly for myself and my classroom, so watch this space!

Student Voice

I have been pondering student voice for the last few weeks now and have been trying to think of the best way to a) collate this and b) how to show that there have been changes throughout the year. I always tend to find that this is the last thing I think to look at whereas it should be the first thing we look at. Because the students are the ones who we are needing to see if they are enjoying the changes and if they are working for them. 

I have been lucky enough to be recording Class OnAir again this year and I have been able to capture some great student voice throughout the year. Even though I haven't complete formal assessment of student voice I have been able to gather this anecdotally throughout the year. We have been focusing on how to infer meaning and some of that has been through the development of characters in a story, how they are described and what actions they are showing in a text. 

The more I think about student voice the more I think about to one of my lessons this year, which I thankfully had on camera for a Class OnAir episode. One of the questions was how do we know then the text was written. There were many clues of this in the text however most of the students thought that it must be in olden times because it was about an old lady. But one of my students pointed out that they were watching the show "Brooklyn 99" which is show that has only recently been around. Through this realisation the students made the comment that he was "mind blown" because he could finally see that there are clues through the text that we can use to understand hidden meaning. This was not only a great learning experience for the students but it made the other students excited to find clues as well as complete the follow up task of creating a GIF. 

I have come up with a way to access student voice and this has been more of an anecdotal way this year. At the beginning of the year students set goals for what they wanted to achieve and a lot of these goals were around reading and how to improve. So I will use this as a baseline and then interview each of the students as a goal check in to see how they are going with their goal and how much they understand the key areas that they have been working on in literacy this year. 

Informal and Formal Checkpoint

From our last PLG which I unfortunately missed we have been asked to think out some key checkpoints to see if our intervention is working as well as what we can do to change things to make it better. Below I have outlined some of the ways that I have informal checkups on my learners and how my intervention is working. 

Guided Reading - Informal
This is the best way to be able to complete an informal check in on how the students are going. As I have outlined in previous posts by taking notes during guided reading and having these reflections as anecdotal notes has been a quick way to check in to see if students are able to understand inferring questions as well as new vocabulary that they come across. The follow up tasks from our guided reading sessions also provide a good place to see what the students have learnt and how they applied that knowledge to what they are doing. 

Along with informal checkpoints there is also the need for formal checkpoints. Formal checkpoints allow you to check systematically how learners are experiencing the intervention and whether it is beginning to have the impact on learner outcomes. I have outlined some of the ways that I have completed formal checks to see where my learners are at throughout the year. 

Running Records - Formal
I have completed running records at mid-year testing as well as throughout the year to see how the students are progressing and if the intervention has been impacting learner outcomes. This is a great way to see quickly what areas that the students are still needing to work on. 

Key into Inference - Formal 
Through this tool I have been able to have very quick formal assessments of my students to see how they are going. This tool shows very quickly and clearly if the students are able to infer with small sentences or short paragraphs. The great thing about this tool as that I am able to work with a group of students who are needing extra assistance and then extend the students who have understood. 

PAT and e-AsTTle - Formal
PAT tests are the tests that we complete at the beginning and the end of the year so these are the overall formal assessments that I will be able to use to see shift between the beginning of the year and the end of the year. I have also completed some e-AsTTle tests throughout the year that has provided data for me to look at and decide the next steps for these target learners. 

I think it has been really good to see which types of checkpoints I have used throughout the year as our inquiry starts to wrap up as this has allowed me to think about how I can show these changes and the different forms of assessment that I have used. 

Recording Data

While I was looking at the tools that I have been implementing to my inquiry I have been focused on how best to record data in order to see if what I have implemented has caused shift in my learners. I have outlined some of the key ways that I will be able to record and check data and some of the ways I have reassessed my inquiry with the data that I have recorded. 

Initially I used PAT Star and PAT reading as a guide for the beginning of the year to see where the students were at. This was easy enough to graph but I also just looked at the numbers and thought what is this actually telling me. So what I did was I looked at this data in depth and for my target group I analysed each part of this data to see what needed to be worked on. This is something that I will also be able to look at with end of year testing that will give me data to go off. 

Other reading data I looked at was the students end of 2022 running records. At first I looked at the data of what level each of the students were at but again that only showed what they had achieved. So before having my students in front of me I decided to analyse their end of year running record data to see what areas needed to be worked on. From this is found that the students main areas that needed work were inference questions, applied knowledge and vocabulary. This then allowed a good starting point for when the students were in front of me what we need to work on during guided reading. 

Another way of collecting data has been through my teacher notes from reading with my reading groups. I try at least once or twice a week to hear each of my students read aloud and take down notes of what they are doing well and what they need to work on. During these sessions I also take note of who is sharing their ideas with the group and who is able to answer questions. These anecdotal notes have been really helpful for next steps and also to see the confidence in my students shift. So this is another form of data that I have. 

Finally I have the data of the key into inference resource. This is something that I have been working on with my whole class so it has provided really great information about where students are at and what they are needing to work on. This is a very quick way to see where students are and can group students to work on how to infer meaning from these different levels. 

Overall I think I have used both qualitative and quantitate data to see how well my implementation has worked. There is a good amount of baseline data that I will be able to use to compare end of year data to see if there has been shift with my target group of learners. I think the anecdotal notes will be just as important to see shift in attitudes and confidence throughout the year. 

What have I implemented?

This week I have been reflecting and thinking about what I have implemented and how I can see if there have been changes to what I have implemented with my inquiry. This is something that we discussed at our last PLG. 

"At the end of the inquiry cycle, you want to be able to attribute any changes in learner outcomes (in part) to changes in the experiences of learners. To do this you need to be able to demonstrate exactly how the learning experience has changed for learners"

This is what we have been asked to think about in order to see if what we have implemented has been successful. This is always an area that I forget about so often when I am doing my inquiry so it is a great reminder to think about what I am going to be be able to use data wise as a baseline to see if what I have implemented has caused a change or has been successful. So I have been thinking about the things that I have implemented for my inquiry this year and outlined this in detail below. 

• Picture Questions:
  The first thing I implemented with my reading groups was to have a picture with questions that require the students to think beyond the image that they are looking at. These pictures posed questions such as who is taking the photo along with a range of different questions that required the students to infer meaning. 
  
  
• Photopea GIF:
  Another one of the things that I have implemented was the use of Photopea as a create task in order to have students infer meaning from a story or article. This could be inferring the meaning of a characters feelings or new and unfamiliar words and phrases that we have come across. This has been a simple task to try and have students focus on creating a visual to show hidden meaning from the text. 
  
  
• Key into Inference: 
  Another key tool that I have continued to implement in the Key into Inference resource. This resource starts off by having students infer meaning from a sentence firstly focusing on who, what, why, where, when and how. Then finally as the text's progress the students are then required to infer meaning from paragraphs. This has been a very useful tool as it allows very quick results to see which students have grasped the concept and which students need further help. 
  
  
• Shared Reading:
  This year I have also really focused on having a shared text to read as a whole class. Through this we will unpack a text in detail and look at key questions that require inferring as well applied knowledge questions which are accessible to all learners in the classroom and allows to start focusing on that extended discussion as a class.
  
  
• Guided Reading:
  Finally I have focused on ensuing to explicitly plan for inference questions as well as applied knowledge questions. This is something that I have been doing previously but have made sure to be more explicit about this in my planning and in my teaching. Research and observations from this year have shown that when something is intentionally planned for then teachers are more likely to make time for this during guided reading sessions. 

These are the key things that I have implemented this year in my inquiry. I have found each one of these valuable and interesting in their own ways so far. I have been constantly looking into the effectiveness of each of these implementations and have changed how I use these in the classroom as a best fit for what works. As I outlined earlier it was a thing that started with looking at my target group but some of these implementations were working so well I tried it with a number of other students in my class. 

Restating the Question

At this point of my inquiry it is important to restate my question for this year to see that I am on track and what I can do further with my inquiry. My question for this year is:

How can I help my students reading between the ages of 9 and 10 years make accelerated progress?

I have been looking at this question and thinking about how this has shaped and changed throughout the course of the year. From my mid year data I did have some success with the things that we have been doing in literacy and have been able to add further students to my target group. This has meant that my overall group sample is now quite a large one which will hopefully allow some great data to see at the end of the year. 

As things go it always makes sense to implement these changes with all of the students in the class to see that if it works for not just one group but how it can be seen in the classroom. I think I have been using lots of these tools with a large number of students so I think it is really important to look back at was my initial question was and to make sure I am on track with that part of my inquiry. I think as teachers we sometimes get really excited about what we are changing and try and save the whole world at the same time so it has been good for me to be able to take notice of the initial question and reground myself in this stage of my inquiry. 

Throughout the year I have completed research and observed learning and behaviour around reading. I have looked into running record and PAT data to see what areas need special focus. From this I have found three key areas that I am focusing on this year. 

1. Comprehension strategies: inferencing and applied knowledge.
2. Critical discussions around what students are reading. Thinking about author's purpose.
3. Improving understanding of vocabulary through inferring meaning of these words using clues from the text.

These are the three key areas that I have been focusing on and have identified with my causal chain. I think it has been really important to stop and take stock of what I have been doing so far this year in order to keep my focus on what I started this year looking at. Like I said above we can tend to get a bit carried away when we are excited about something but this restating and looking at what I have been working on has given a new focus and appreciation for what I have done so far and where I am going to go from here. 

CoL PLG 5

Last week we had out CoL PLG where we were able to share what we have done so far with our colleagues and think about the implementation process for our inquiry and thinking about what we might have already done and what we intend to change with our inquiry. I love coming together with colleagues and hearing about their inquires I think it gives you an almost new and refreshed outlook on your inquiry and helps to take stock of what you have done so far and achieved. I have also learnt that I have a bit of work to do in making sure that I am making the most of the learning this term in the classroom. 

From this PLG I have been challenged to think about how to consider and monitor the changes from the intervention. There is still a couple of pieces of literature that I would like to look at from the research that I have already done. One big thing I am going to focus on this week and next week thinking forward to our next PLG is to really make sure that I am using this key into inference tool well in the classroom across multiple groups. I have also started to think about introducing roles to some of my reading groups so that all students are being heard. 

I am really excited to see how this will play out for the rest of the term. We have also had our share staff meetings this week and it was so great to connect with other teachers around the country and to share what we are doing in our inquires and to also have some feedback and maybe some ideas that we can take back to our spaces. I loved the conversations that we had around our inquiries and again this has make going into this week that much more exciting to look at my inquiry and the learners in front of me. 

Causal Chain

One thing that I have been working on when looking at my inquiry is creating a casual chain. Below I have shared my casual chain where I have looked at my inquiry focus question in detail and have thought about how I can show changes in my students achievement. My focus question is 

How can I help my students reading between the ages of 9 and 10 years make accelerated progress?

Some key things that I have been looking at is 

• Comprehension strategies specially applied knowledge and inferring. 
• Extended discussion and how I can help my students to be able to do this independently. 
• Vocabulary that is specific and academic that the students are being exposed to. 

In some of my previous posts I have talked about why I have chosen to look at these areas as well as what I might try differently in the classroom to have accelerated shift in reading. I have outlined these in a lot more detail in my casual chain below. 

Reflection and next steps

Over the holidays I have been looking at my reading data and reassessing my reading groups to see where to next and what I can do to continue to see acceleration in reading. I have decided to add in an extra group of students to my data set and have also decided to continue to monitor my students who are reading above their chronological age and year level at school. A big question I have been asking myself is how to continue to assist these students who are now where they should be at thinking about going into year 6 but also how can I continue to push these students to think more critically and developing their reading. 

I have also had a look at the group of students who did not make any progress from our end of year data to the mid year data. I have also looked at some of my learners who have made progress to this level and have created a reading group that is a lot smaller than some of my groups but they are all at the same level needing to work on the same skills.I am hoping that by having this group a little bit smaller it will help the students grow their confidence as they will be needing to share and not relying on others in the group. For this I am going to take some anecdotal notes as I am reading with this group. I would also like to record some of the sessions to look back on and see what I could do differently. 

My next steps for my inquiry are to continue to use the strategies that I have added into my program so far this year. I want to focus a lot more this term on using key into inference as well as using this alongside the other inferring activities that I have been using with my students. In relation to my students who are excelling in reading I want to move to working on extended discussion and critical thinking so will look at introducing some sort of reciprocal reading with these groups. I am really looking forward to seeing what this term has in store! I am ready to hit the ground running this term and continue to work on creating shift with my students reading between the ages of 9 and 10 years. 

Mid Year Testing Data

 We have just completed our mid year testing which has been the perfect opportunity to have a look at my data in a bit more detail and reassess any changes that I might need to make coming into term 3. It was very interesting looking at my data as I can see that some of my target students have made some incredible gains during mid year testing. This has also made me have to rethink my data set a little bit and potentially add a new group of target students. This is something to ponder over the holidays and see what changes I need to make. Below I have outlined my data so far and what I have found for this inquiry as of mid year testing.

This is a break down of my June running record data. This year I have wanted to focus in on the comprehension part of the test and see if there are any trends in the data. 

I have then looked at my beginning of the year data to see if there has been any changes or shifts in the comprehension part of the running records. Below I have added the beginning of the year data. 

From looking at this data I can see that there was a shift in comprehension scores for some of the texts where they students were able to infer meaning better in our term 2 testing. I can also see that applied knowledge, vocabulary and inferring are key areas of interest to focus on. From looking at this raw data I wanted to have a look at the shift in levels as well as ages for this group of target learners which I have outlined in the graphs below. 

This graph shows the reading change in reading levels from November 2022 (end of year testing) and June 2023 testing for reports. As you can see from the graph there were 3 students who made no shift in level at all and then the rest of this target group were able to make gains of at least one level with some making progress of three levels with their running records. I like to look at this in levels as well as ages as sometimes the students can make progress but this is not reflective in reading age. Below I have added the graph of reading ages.

This graph shows shows the changes in reading ages from November 2022 to June 2023 testing. This is very similar to the reading levels graph and shows the progress and shift from the reading ages. There has been significant shift in some of these learners and their reading ages. 

My take aways from this data is that I need to look at my reading groups again and reorganise these according to the this data I have been looking at. I need to also decide if I will add in extra students to this data pool as I have some students who have moved to these levels that I have been monitoring. I need to have a look at the students who didn't make any shift and see what I can do to help these students and focus on areas that need to be worked on. I really like taking a look at the middle of the year as it is a good point to see what has been working and what might need some changes. So watch this space as I go into the holidays looking at this with fresh eyes coming into term 3. 

Formative and Baseline Information

In an earlier post where I took a stocktake of my CoL inquiry I outlines some of the key formative and baseline information that I will use throughout my inquiry to see provide evidence of shifts in teaching at the end of the year. Below I will outline each of the formative and baseline information that I will use and why I will use this. 

Some of the tools that I have used are 

• Running records data from last year. 
• Running records from start of term 2 to gauge where the students are at and what areas of their reading needed work. 
• PAT data - I have looked into the PAT data of my students fro reading and have pulled out some key information that I will be able to compare with at the end of the year. 
• I have also taken anecdotal notes of my students while they are reading to be able to understand where each of my learners are at and what their individual work ons are. 

I will also be using our mid year running record data to see if my students have made any progress with their reading as well as look at the key areas that we need to work on. I have been having conversations with my students about reading and I would really like to complete some student voice surveys to compare from now and at the end of the year. I have been looking at some previous student voice surveys that have been used in the past and will try and alter this to fit the purpose of this inquiry. I would like to use this data to see if there is a shift in my learners and what they think about reading. 

I think that each of these measures will bring enough data to see if there has been accelerated progress in reading from the changes in practice that have been made. This will be important baseline information that I will check at regular intervals throughout the term to see if what I am doing is working or if I need to tweak it a bit and make additional changes. 

Formulating an Hypothesis

During out CoL PLG's we have been asked to formulate a hypothesis around out research question. We have looked at this serval times over our last few CoL PLG's and have been asked to share thoughts, ideas and readings with our fellow CoL colleagues. I have uploaded a screenshot of my hunches and how they have changed and evolved from having conversations with CoL colleagues as well as other colleagues.

Formulating a Hypothesis

A hypothesis is a tentative answer to your research question that has not yet been tested. 

How to formulate? The simplest way is to use this form: if...then…

1. “If I encourage my students to write for real reasons, then they will be motivated to write.”

2. “If I focus on extending their 'on-task' behaviour with strategies to manage themselves then they will improve their writing.”

3. “An emphasis on behavioural and cognitive engagement as well as teaching social skills will enhance my students’ ability to focus and increase their writing skills"

The readings that I have discussed in prior posts have helped to structure this. As you can see we having been working on this since the very start of May and it is now the beginning of June and there has been a lot of reading, a lot of research and now hopefully a solid hypothesis to my CoL inquiry question. 

Stocktake so far

For our CoL PLG we have been asked to have think about our inquiry so far and to stocktake what we have done and where we are going. I have gone through each of the key parts of my inquiry so far and have taken a stocktake on what I have done and what I need to do in order to progress on CoL inquiry. Check this out below.

Tools and evidence

I have used a range of different tools in the classroom and have gathered a lot of evidence about my students to be able to really understand the needs of this group of students. When we have our parent interviews later on this term I will have conversations with whānu to ensure that I have some whānau voice in my intervention. 

Some of the tools that I have used are 

• Running records data from last year. 
• Running records from start of term 2 to gauge where the students are at and what areas of their reading needed work. 
• PAT data - I have looked into the PAT data of my students fro reading and have pulled out some key information that I will be able to compare with at the end of the year. 
• I have also taken anecdotal notes of my students while they are reading to be able to understand where each of my learners are at and what their individual work ons are. 

I will also be using our mid year running record data to see if my students have made any progress with their reading as well as look at the key areas that we need to work on. I have been having conversations with my students about reading and I would really like to complete some student voice surveys to compare from now and at the end of the year. 

Strengths and development

As we have been having guided reading sessions I have been taking notes of what my students are really good at and what their strengths are in reading. Most of my students are very good at being able to use clues from the text to answer literal questions well and in detail. My students also have really great decoding skills and are able to self correct if what they are reading doesn't;'t make sense. I will be able to use these strengths to help with the areas of development that these students need to work on.

Resources 

I have had some really rich conversations with colleagues around what I think I am seeing with this students and have been given some really great advice and next steps that I can work on with these students. This has also lead to research and reading that I have been recommended and looked at which given some very sound theories.

Measures

As I have stated above I will use a range of data for pre and post to compare students learning these include:

• Running record data 
• PAT data
• Teacher notes from guided reading sessions
• Student voice surveys

There may be some other key things that I look at in time as I have been looking into using the "Key into inference" tool that I could also use as a way to measure progress.

Opportunties

I have tried a few other little bits and pieces with this in the classroom as I know inferencing is something that needs a lot of practice and guidance. So it will be interesting to see if some of these little things have had an impact as well. I will continue to collect this data in guided reading sessions as well as recoding students completing their follow up activities to see if there are continued rich and extended discussions.

I am really excited to think about the changes that I will implement and see where my students can grow from there, watch this space!

 

Academic Reading

For our CoL inquiry we have been asked to look at academic research and readings to help us understand our inquiry focus in more detail as well as see what other studies and research that have been done that could strengthen our inquiries. I have completed some readings over the last couple of weeks and here are some of my thoughts and takeaways from each of the readings and research. I have also had some amazing conversations with my colleagues around what I should look into and how to strengthen my inquiry and my learners progress. 

1. Words as Tools: Learning Academic Vocabulary as Language Acquisition
Nagy, W., & Townsend, D. (2012)

Words are a mean of communicating and thinking about the content of a specific discipline. "Lack of academic vocabulary knowledge has consistency been identified as an obstacle to student success." This research article provides a set of recommendations to improve the practice in the area of academic language. It is interesting to note that there is a significant difference between the academic language and typical conversations and it is important that students have access and the opportunity to be exposed to academic language. Academic language tends to have longer words due to the prefixes and suffixes of the words. This article outlines the six characteristics of academic language and they are:

•  Latin and Greek vocabulary
• Morphologically complex words
• Nouns, adjectives and prepositions
• Grammatical metaphor, including nominalizations 
• Informational density 
• Abstractness

These six characteristics are not seperate facts rather that are all functionally related. I found a two really interesting quotes from this research. "Just because people who read more can read better doesn't mean that if you read more this will make you read better."
AND
"The correlation between the amount of reading and reading ability does not imply a causal relationship."Both of these lines really resinated with me in the fact that so often in relation to the problem we just say children need to read more and they will get better. This is something that is important with reading of course, however this has also shown me how important exposure to topic specific vocabulary is as well as deliberate acts of teaching that can help the students unpack what they are reading. Just because they can read it does not mean that they can unpack what they are reading and think about all of this abstract ideas with text.

This reading has really shown me that we do need to use words as tools and be able to expose our learners to this specific language and explain what it means in order to help them succeed. This research paper gave some great insight into guiding questions for teachers and the role of the teacher to insure that students have access to academic vocabulary. There are some key parts of this that I will use in my guided reading sessions that I will document as evidence to see that there is a change in my students achievement.  

2. Improving Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade
Shanahan, T., Callison, K., Carriere, C., Duke, N. K., Pearson, P. D., Schatschneider, C., & Torgesen, J.

This article provided a large number of recommendations to help with reading comprehension. The five recommendations were outlined in detail with how each of these areas could be improved.  The five recommendations were as follows:

• Teach students how to use reading comprehension strategies.
• Teach students to identify and use the text's organisational structure to comprehend, learn and remember content.
• Guide students through focused, high-quality discussion on the meaning of text. 
• Select texts purposefully to support comprehension development. 
• Establish an engaging and motivating connect in which to teach reading comprehension.

This article outlined a range of different strategies that could be used in the classroom to extend learners and focus on improving reading comprehension in all areas. There was lots to unpack in this article and I will refer to this throughout my inquiry to see if there are some areas that I could strengthen and improve and add some information from the article into my classroom. 

3. Key into inference
Parkin, C., Pool, B., & Parkin, C. (2010).

This was resource that was highly recommended for my learners and is something that I really want to implement into my reading program. Although this is a program I have been able to read the key parts of what key into inference in and how to use this in the classroom. This has also prompted me to look into further readings that have provided research for this which I will try and get access to and then share what I found from the readings in another post later on. 

4. The Reading Book
Cameron, S., & Dempsey, L. (2019).

This was one of the first books that was recommended to me to check out in relation to reading and what I can do to change the way I look at inferring or how I could focus more on my students who need help with inferring. This book gave a great breakdown of guided reading and how to facilitate independent reading with activities as well as how to have share reading with the class that can lead into some of the key overall topics that we look into each week. From this I was then able to find another book of Sheena Cameron's which was the one I have outlined below. 

5. Teaching Reading Comprehension Strategies: A Practical Classroom Guide
Cameron, S. (2009) 

I have read through Sheena Cameron's teaching reading comprehension strategies and have found some really insightful information. This guide has been really great to see the reading comprehension strategies being broken down into key areas. There is a part to this that focuses just on inferring which is an area of interest for me this year with my CoL inquiry. This section of the book explains what inferencing is as well as gives some great inferencing follow up tasks that I will be able to use in the classroom to support this part of reading. 

As I continue on with my inquiry I know that there will be more academic readings that I will want to look into and come across and will update these readings on my blog as they come. This is just a starting point for what I will use for my intervention and build on some incredible work that has already been done. 

References:

Cameron, S. (2009). Teaching reading comprehension strategies. North Shore: Pearson.

Cameron, S., & Dempsey, L. (2019). The Reading Book.

Nagy, W., & Townsend, D. (2012). Words as tools: Learning academic vocabulary as language acquisition. Reading research quarterly, 47(1), 91-108.

Parkin, C., Pool, B., & Parkin, C. (2010). Key Into Inference: Guide & answers. Triune Initiatives Limited.

Shanahan, T., Callison, K., Carriere, C., Duke, N. K., Pearson, P. D., Schatschneider, C., & Torgesen, J. (2010). Improving Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten through 3rd Grade: IES Practice Guide. NCEE 2010-4038. What Works Clearinghouse.

Running Record Data

For the past few weeks I have been completing running records with my target learners to see where the gaps are in their knowledge and understanding. From these running records I have found that my target group of students are able to answer literal questions really well. I have also noticed that some of this group of students tend to make up answers that they think are correct sometimes without even referring back to the text to make sure they understand the question or see if they can find the answer. I have found this very interesting during my guided reading sessions with these students and trying to have them refer back to the text even when it could be an inferential question. A key thing that I have learnt from this is that the students need to go back to the basics of referring back to the text when answering questions and have them point to where they go this information. 

Another thing that I have seen from these running records are three areas that need to be work on and they are 

• Inferring questions
• Applied knowledge from own experiences and understanding of situations. 
• Vocabulary

The last two years I have changed my reading and writing program in order to help students with their understanding of vocabulary which I will continue to work on with this group of students as well as the rest of the class. From reflecting on this I think that topic specific vocabulary needs to be in the forefront of all of my literacy lessons. With continuing to have an overall topic focus each week I think this will be something that can be managed in the setting up of the topic and understanding this in more detail. The data shown below show what I have noted from these running records and how this has linked to my inquiry question and focus. 

As you can see from this data my target students are able to decode the text really well and are reading with a 97% + accuracy level. However they are struggling when it comes to answering questions about what they have read. Most of these students are able to use the text to answer literal questions, but when it comes to inferential, applied knowledge and vocabulary questions that students are unable to answer these correctly. From observations during these running records I noticed that the students would often freeze up when being asked these questions and take a very long time to answer as they were trying to think up an answer as it was a test I could not guide them to look at the text again, however this is something that I will work on when we go back to reading groups. 

Completing running records on these students has been extremely insightful as it has shown me the areas in which the students need to work on and how I can best help these learners in being able to make progress in their reading. I will be testing these students again during term 2 for our school reports so will be interesting to compare data and to test and see if the changes that I am thinking of implementing will make a difference. This will be a very good time to test and see what is working and what I need to change and work on.  

PLG 2

During our CoL PLG today we were asked to work in groups to unpack a text shared with us before the meeting. The article was called "Building Creative Thinking in the Classroom" Emma Gregory, Mariale Hardiman, Julia Yarmolinskaya, Luke Rinne and Charles Limb. We were then asked to read this and find quotes about the following things. 

• find interesting 
• agree or disagree with
• didn’t know
• believe has important practice implications 

Here is a list of quotes that I found from reading this article:

• Page 44: "In the context of education, perhaps the most valuable question to ask is whether or not creativity is fixed."
• Page 44: "Moreover, despite appreciating the value of facilitating creativity, few teachers feel that they are sufficiently trained to support students’ creative potential."
• Page 47: "Content knowledge within a domain has been argued to be the foundation for creative thinking and innovation (e.g.,Weisberg, 2006). According to this view, creative thinking cannot occur unless one has first mastered a body of content knowledge."
• Page 47: "The authors concluded that raising animals at home led children to have a better understanding of a situation, allowing children to construct mental models of the animals.

There were many great points to this article that really made you think as you were reading. The above quotes were just some of the ones that stood out to me. During our CoL PLG we were then tasked with completing "the last word" where we had to share one of our quotes, the people in our group had to locate this quote and give a quick opinion on this and finally we would have the last word to share our final thoughts. I really enjoyed this task as there were key areas pointed out in the text that I might have otherwise looked over and not really thought about in depth. I feel that we had a greater understanding of the text and also how to pick out key ideas as we were reading along. 

During our PLG we also discussed maths and what could be done to help make a shift and change in maths. The key question being what are the three things you think will make the biggest difference in maths? We had a great discussion about this and what we think will help with maths. One key thing I took away from this was the need for vocabulary in maths which is something I am also seeing in reading. So this was just a thought to ponder over. 

Profiling

During my guided reading sessions for the last few weeks I have been making observations about my learners and trying to paint a picture of what the gaps are in the learning especially when it comes to reading. As I outlined in my previous post I was interested in two particular groups of learners 

1. Students reading between the ages of 7 and 8 years. 
2. Students reading between 8.5 and 9.5 years. 

What I have notices with my students who are reading between the ages of 7 and 8 years the decoding is a major part of what is holding my learners back. With this I can see that reading mileage is really important for this group. In 2019 I created a site which was specifically targeted at students reading between these levels. So in reflection what I have decided to do with this group is focus back on this site and adding the students from this year to create resources and read aloud videos for others to enhance that reading milage. 

My students who are reading between 8.5 and 9.5 years make up a large number of my students and have a range of different strategies and areas that need work. Due to having camp I have had less time than I would like to complete running records on these students so this is a priority for the rest of the term to try and see if I can pinpoint some key areas that need to be worked on for this group of students. So far I have had a look at PAT and Star data for this group of students and will analyse this in more detail over the coming weeks and try to break it down and find trends in the data. 

I am still  a bit of a work in progress so far with this inquiry, I have tried to focus most of my profiling from what I can see in front of me with my guided reading sessions. I will take a deeper dive into this for the rest of the term and see if there are any other key things I need to add to my wonderings before I had a solid hypothesis around what I think is going on. 

Class OnAir Hui

Today we had our first Class OnAir hui at school. This was a great chance to connect with everyone doing Class OnAir this year as well as look at examples of lessons and have some PD on reading and what we can show in our episodes going forwards. 

The reading PD with Georgie was really helpful not only with what they are looking for in our episodes but also with my CoL inquiry for this year. The linking of reading and writing is really key and it gave me some really great insight and ideas onto how I could do this in the classroom. It gave us the chance to be the students for a little while and be challenged to come up with phases and ideas that we ask students to do regularly. 

Last year I tried to incorporate reading and writing a little bit more but in reflection with was with a narrow lens. From todays session I can see how I can link reading and writing in many more whys that I am already doing. I know it may seem obvious but in the business of everything going on it is sometimes easy to make these subjects seperate and just focus on some of the key things that need to be worked on rather than the bigger picture and showing the students examples even while we are reading. 

I really got a lot out of todays session and this has left me thinking about some other things that I would like to try and implement in the classroom thinking ahead to term 2. Looking at some examples of Class OnAir episodes was also extremely helpful. Again I was just so focused on my own episodes and trying to get these finished that it is so easy to miss out on other gems that my colleagues have created. So this was a great opportunity to watch others teaching, see some great examples of lessons and teaching as well as technical things that I could use and incorporate in my own Class OnAir episodes. 

I think that having days like today not only help to keep us on track and show us where we need to go but it also makes me feel refreshed with some new ideas and excited for where I can go next with my Class OnAir episodes as well as my CoL inquiry. 

Where to in 2023?

Last year as I interviewed for CoL 2023 and "dreaming" about this year my inquiry focus was to continue to look at reading but this year look at extending my students who are reading at the ages of 9-10 years. I decided upon this from looking at my data in front of me as I had not seen these students in action with reading so to speak. Now that I have come into this year and observed my students and their reading I have come up with some wonderings that I think could shape my inquiry for this year which I will outline in my blog post below.

9-10 year readers

As I have read with this group I have found that they are able to comprehend literal questions directly related to what they are reading. I have also front that with some teacher prompting they are able to start to answer inferential questions. The reason that I wanted to focus on this group of students is because they are currently "at" where they should be for their age. They are reading at their current chronological age. Looking at data from previous year and the data of the year 6's as the progress into year 7 I can see that many of these students then get almost "stuck" for lack of a better word at this reading age and don't progress into that next reading age bracket. So my question around this would be, what can I do to help extend this readers to continue on with reading success.

7-7.5 year readers

I have a number of students who are reading at this age level in my class this year. After reading with them over the last few weeks I can see that they are able to answer the questions really well they are understanding what they are reading, however it is the decoding that is still stopping them from being able to read the text and new words that they come across. I have not had a group of students reading at this level in my class for a few years now so it has been an interesting look into how they are reading and what I can do to help them get to where they need to be as 9 and 10 year old students. My question around this would be how to accelerate these readers so they are at the same reading age as their chronological age. 

Thoughts and Ideas:

As I have been thinking about these two different groups of students and what way my inquiry might lean towards I have been reminded of the end goal of extending those readers and making sure that they are able to access level 4 curriculum reading when they reach year 7 and 8. This has made me think about inquiring into how I can extend those learners further to ensure that as they reach year 6 next year they are at or above their reading age and thinking more critically. Then in a round about way the implementation I have for this group could be applied to the other group of learners and how I can extend them once they have grasped the concept of decoding. The group of students reading between the ages of 7-8 years has made me think about my MIT inquiry I did in 2019 which looked at these students and created a tool that would be perfect for this group this group to utilise. As you can see from this post my thoughts are still all over the place at this stage but I have started to think about which direction I would like to go in. I have spoken to Danni Stone (CoL across schools teacher from Pt England) and I am hoping to have her come into the classroom and observe a reading lesson with some of my students and see if that can spark a more direct inquiry direction, so watch this space!

Where to next?

In the next few weeks I would like to complete running records on both groups that I am thinking about in order to establish the gaps and work ons for these students. As well as seeing how the summer holidays have impacted their reading and

testing. I am also still very much interesting in students reading enjoyment so will be conducting some surveys around this. Overall I just want to establish where my students are at then hopefully have a clearer direction for my inquiry. 

Reflection

In reflection it has been a very interesting few weeks back at school, by now I would have normally established solid routines with my class and my reading sessions would be in full swing however this is not the case. But I have to keep reminding myself we would normally be in week 4 and would have had at least one full week of learning at school. This year we haven't had the most normal start unfortunately with the flooding and then the cyclone that has come through, so we are taking each day at a time and trying to figure out this direction of my inquiry that most importantly with benefit my learners.

"Normal" Start to the Year

 I really wanted to document the start of our year as again it has started off a little bit differently than we would have expected! I was so excited for the start of this year, I think in a way it signified the normalisation of covid and our new reality and that school can go on in person rather than having this back and forth of lock down and hybrid learning. I guess in a way I was looking forward to that "normal" start to the year. Unfortunately that didn't go according to plan, we started a week later than expected due to the devastating floods that occurred in Auckland. Thankfully we were blessed enough to miss this directly however this has impacted many people on our lives and communities. I think as teachers we are very used to this sudden change and try and adapt accordingly.

Week Two?
Finally day one arrived and it was very happy environment and I was all set to get everything up and running as I normally do at the beginning of the year. Week two now became week one again and we were all set up ready to go, reading lessons and expectations set up and directions for my inquiry starting to take shape. We have a weather warning about the following week but treating it as business as usual for our new week 2. Unfortunately again a devastating weather event meant the closure of school and again another interesting week. No school on Monday, Tuesday we were open (We only had 12 students in my space of 54!). Wednesday trying to find that some sort of normal again! 

The last few years have taught me many things about myself and my students and that is we are adaptable. Very much like this inquiry it is adaptable! I think about this as we get ready for our first CoL PLG for the year, that guilt of not having an inquiry set in stone but then the realisation that we are adaptable, my inquiry is adaptable and most importantly my inquiry is about my learners. My learners and what they are going through will have an impact on my inquiry and the shape that it takes. So I take a step back to reflect on the start of the year that we have had and realise that it will come to me eventually, the most important thing at the moment is a happy, resilient classroom set up on the foundation of kindness and support is the best thing to start with.