Dreaming of 2025...

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 - 2024 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 

• Dee Karl 2024 - Bringing real-world texts and experiences into literacy activities. Focusing not just on students reading books but allowing the students to have texts that are meaningful and relevant to their own lives so that they can see themselves in the texts. 

• 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. 

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. Being part of Manaiakalani Reading Practice intensive this year I hope to carry on my learnings from this and the research that we have looked at to further strengthen my own teaching as well as aligning with Manaialakani research findings. 

How would you like to be supported in 2025 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. Continuing to focus on academic data and research to make changes to my own practice. 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. 

CoL Evaluation 2024

The time has come to evaluate my CoL inquiry from this year. I have really enjoyed completing my inquiry this year and I feel that it was more focused around student input and engagement. With being part of RPI this year I also had the opportunity to work alongside some experts in the field of reading and make changes to my practice that were meaningful and well research. If you have check out my bursts and bubbles presentation you will see that I have rated my intervention as successful and I will outline some of these key successes in this blog post below.

Students Confidence It has been great to see over the year how the confidence of my readers has grown not only with their read aloud's but also being able to have conversations with each other as they are reading. One of the best things that I did was make these groups slightly smaller breaking my target group into two small subsets of a group. From this I also made sure that there was a mixture of already established friendships in the class which allowed for the students to feel more comfortable sharing with each other. This had a huge impact on the discussions that were happening during guided reading as well as during follow up task time. With having a few year 5's in this group I am looking forward to continuing to develop this going into 2025.

Reading Achievement As I said in my bursts and bubbles pretension I have some running record data back from our tester and have seen that at least two of my students so far have made 1.5 years progress within a year with reading. I will be continuing to conduct PROBE tests with this group to compare data from the beginning and end of year. I will continue to update the data as it comes in and hope in the next few weeks I will be able to share this data in a graph.

Students Attitudes and Beliefs Another great piece of data that I have been able to collect this year was the reader profile survey data. This was incredibly interesting to track and follow. I am please to say that the majority of my class rated themselves as good reader who love to read for enjoyment and not just because they have to at school. It was also incredible to see the shift in views of how the students feel that their teachers and whānau view them as readers.

Teacher Changes As I said above I really enjoyed this inquiry this year and I feel that I have grown a lot as a teacher from this. I have more focused reading planning and have a range of different tools and resources that I am now using in the classroom. I am excited to continue on using these tools into next year, I feel that I have found my passion again for reading and am really enjoying my reading planning that I am doing.

I think this has been an overall successful inquiry for the students in my class this year. The key takeaway for me at the moment is to make sure that I am following through with this again next year to see how this can impact my next lot of learners and I am sure there are a multitude of changes that I will continue to make to my practice along the way.

Bursts & Bubbles

Last week I had the pleasure to present my CoL inquiry at Bursts and Bubbles which was hosted by Panmure Bridge School. I have just added in the video recording of my pretension incase you missed it and want to check it out, I have also added in a previous blog post my script if you would prefer to read than watch the presentation. 

Reflection - Bursts and Bubbles

My inquiry question for this year was: Will implementing talk moves and collaborative activities during guided reading sessions enhance my students' confidence, facilitate meaningful group discussions, and improve their reading comprehension? I identified this as my focus after noticing many students were reading below their expected reading level and often couldn’t explain what they’d just read to their peers. This made me ask the question: what is really holding these students back and what can I do in my teaching to help these students become more confident readers.

To build a picture of my students' learning I looked at a range of different data such as Running Records, Probe, PAT’s, Anecdotal notes and reader profile surveys. I've broken this down extensively on my blog. 

The main patterns of student learning I identified in the profiling stage was that while students understood what they were reading, they struggled to put it into words for their group. These students were also able to answer literal questions from the text but got stuck on anything that required deeper thinking or making inferences.

From speaking to other colleagues, I found that many of our students encountered similar obstacles—building confidence and engaging in extended discussions was challenging for them. I was fortunate enough to be part of the Manaiakalani Reading Practice Intensive this year which provided me with a range of tools and resources to explore. After exploring research, I discovered strategies that could make a difference, such as using open-ended questions to encourage students to elaborate on their thoughts or respectfully challenge each other’s ideas.

The changes I made to my teaching was first introducing ground rules for talk, giving students a safe space to share, talk, and be heard. We started things off with light-hearted “Would you rather?” questions to ease students in and build their confidence. Gradually, we moved on to sharing their thoughts about what they were reading. I also added activities where students recorded themselves reading, completed response to text tasks, and worked together on vocabulary activities. We even used picture prompts to practise inferencing and discuss what the students had observed.

One of the easiest changes was creating structured follow-up activities for collaborative work after guided reading. Some of the challenges included building students' confidence to share with each other during small group reading. We spent a lot of time working on smaller, approachable conversation starters as a group. 

Overall, I would rate the changes in my students' learning as successful. My students can now confidently discuss texts with each other, leading to richer, more meaningful discussions. My mid-year data showed that most of my students made at least six months' progress. The small end-of-year data that I have available so far indicates a further year's reading progress for some of my students. 

A highlight from this year for me was comparing students' reader profile surveys from Term 1 to Term 4. Most students now genuinely enjoy reading, both in and out of school. The majority of my students also now see themselves as good readers—and believe their teachers and whānau share this view.

So what's the most important learning I made about my inquiry? Confidence and conversation are powerful tools in engaging students with their reading and helping them make inferences. My target students are now excited about reading and eager to share their ideas with each other.

Summary Student Learning

My focus question for this year has been:

"Will implementing ground rules for talk and collaborative activities during guided reading sessions enhance my students' confidence, facilitate meaningful group discussions, and improve their reading comprehension?"

In this blog post I am going to summarise evidence about key shifts in the problem of student learning that I have seen so far. We will be completing testing this term and I will be able to evaluate some other key finds from this in another blog post later this term.

One key thing I have noticed is the confidence students now have in their reading, there is a lot more engagement and students are excited to have guided reading sessions as well and start reading the texts that have for the week. There is a lot more student agency and my class have really loved completing the reading challenge that was created by Robyn Anderson from Panmure Bridge School.

Another thing I have noticed is the students willingness to share with each other and have discussions after guided reading sessions has also greatly increased. I think from having the reading tumble this has helped students to have a visual representation of what they should be doing during that time and has lead to more focused literacy classes as well a guided reading sessions.

Students are really enjoying their follow up tasks in reading and are really putting in a lot of effort with their create tasks that are associated with this follow up activities. Students attitudes towards reading have also changed which is great to see. I am looking forward to completing the reader profile survey again this term to see if there have been any more changes to the way students perceive reading at school and their own reading.

It’s been really rewarding to see the shifts happening in my students’ confidence and engagement with reading this year. Implementing ground rules for talk and focusing on collaboration during guided reading sessions has truly made a difference, from boosting student excitement around reading to encouraging meaningful discussions and stronger group connections. The reading challenge has been a big hit, and I’m so proud of how much effort the students are putting into their follow-up and create tasks.

Seeing their positive attitudes towards reading grow has been a highlight, and I’m excited to check in again with the reader profile survey to see if more changes have taken root. I know there’s still more to learn and build on, but so far, it’s been great seeing the impact these changes are having in our classroom. I’m looking forward to continuing this journey with my students and keeping their love for reading alive!

Summary Key Changes

In this blog post, I’m going to summarise some of the key changes I’ve made in my teaching practice and explore other factors that have influenced student learning from my inquiry so far this year. It’s been a journey of reflection, observation, and tweaking to find what works best to engage and support my students. I’ll be sharing some of the shifts I’ve noticed, what’s had the biggest impact, and where I’m heading next.

Ground rules for talk

By implementing this with my students this year I have found that the majority of my students have gained the confidence to share their thoughts and ideas during guided reading sessions as well as when completing follow up tasks with their peers after guided reading. This has not just had an impact during reading but has had a flow on effect to other subject areas. I will continue to use this in my classroom for the rest of the year and will build on this again next year in my reading program. 

Picture prompts

I have found this to be a really great starting place to get students thinking critically about a text. By having a single image and then asking inference questions the students have started to think beyond the text and using clues from what they can see to infer deeper meaning. Also having would you rather questions at the beginning of whole class reading or guided reading sessions has allowed the students the opportunity to share their own opinions which has then had a follow on effect with reading. 

Response to text tasks

These have been working really well. It has been really clear to see the link between what we have been learning in guided reading and then focused on after reading either independently or as a whole group. By having the create element to this task the students have had the opportunity to explain key pars of the text in a different way that is meaningful to them.

Reading Tumble

Yes I have brought back the reading tumble and I wish I had done this sooner. It gives students clear direction of what they are needing to be doing during literacy time. This has also given the students the opportunity to read the text before coming to guided reading sessions where they have the opportunity to ask questions and it also means that we can delve deeper into the text during these sessions.

Reading Challenge and Library Time

By having the reading challenge alongside our reading program this year has allowed students to explore different types of texts and well as choosing what they want to read. I have also loved having the students visit the school library more often this year which has given the students more reading milage as well as finding reading exciting and interesting again. 

It’s been an exciting journey to see how these changes and approaches have shaped student learning this year. The ground rules for talk have boosted student confidence across different subjects, and I’m keen to build on this even more next year. Picture prompts have encouraged deeper thinking and made students more confident in sharing their inferences, while response-to-text tasks have let them show their understanding in meaningful ways.

Bringing back the reading tumble was a game-changer. It’s given students clearer direction and helped make guided reading sessions much more focused and productive. The reading challenge and increased library visits have also helped reignite a love for reading, giving students more freedom to explore and discover texts that interest them.

I’m proud of the progress made so far and am looking forward to continuing this journey, building on what’s working and staying open to new ways of supporting our students to grow as readers and thinkers.

Quantitative data & Qualitative Data

For our next PLG we have been asked to look at our data and evaluate what types of data we have used. In this blog post I will outline the key quantitative and qualitative data that I have used throughout my inquiry this year.

Quantitative Data

• PAT Reading comprehension - I used this data at the beginning of the year to see where the students were at with reading comprehension. I will then compare this to the data at the end of the year when students complete this test again. 
• PAT Reading STAR - This data was analyzed at the beginning of the year and I will again analyse this data at the end of the year to see if there is any shift. 
• PROBE - For our mid and end of year testing we use running records until students pass level 30. What I have done this year was use a probe test with my students in term one and I will then complete another probe test at the end of the year and compare the data. 
• Running Records - I have looked at 2023 running records for all of my students and then compared this with the running records that I completed for mid year testing. I will then compare this with running records that students will complete at the end of the year. 
• Student survey - So far I have completed two learner reading profile surveys and compared the results in a previous blog post. I will then complete this again in term 4 in order to have a full overview of students attitudes towards reading. 

Qualitative Data 

• Teacher Reflections - After each guided reading session I have completed detailed teacher reflections on the group as a whole as well as individual students. I will use this data to compare students learning throughout the year as well as their overall confidence in reading. 
• Observations - I have kept a record of observations from my RPI coach Toni. As a school we have also started to record some of our lessons and then put these recorded lessons through a program called Vosaic. This tool uses AI to analyse the lesson and from there we can generate our own prompts to gain feedback on our lessons and next steps. I will use this data to compare my teaching for the rest of the year. 

I have used a range of different types of data throughout the year and will continue to use these different tools to see if there has been shift in my students reading as well as my own teaching practice. 

RPI Day 9: Sharing

Connecting
This is a part of the day that I really love being able to connect with what I have been doing in the classroom as well as hearing some thoughts and ideas from other colleagues who are part of RPI. This week Georgie gave us a would you rather link to check out which I'm really excited to try in the classroom as a warm-up activity or a way to facilitate extended discussions. Another thing I am excited to look into in more detail is my reader profile survey. I just had a thought that I would really like to look at my target group and see how much change there has been with their views on reading.

Manaiakalani: Sharing in reading
Sharing creates a connection, this really resonated with me from this session as it really shows the importance of sharing and giving the students that opportunity to share with each other and on their blogs. One thing I am keen to try in the classroom is creating a vlog style post where the students show a video of their learning and are able to be reflective on their learning. This is really powerful as it gives voice to the students and allows them to really share, I am thinking this could also be quite cool to do as a podcast where the students are able to share with each other and ask questions. 

Participating in a community of readers
Linking back to the why was really  important because it shows  where we are needing to make that shift in reading.  I would really like to set up text recommendations from the children to each other as part of our literacy rotation so that they're getting exposed to more text sets. One thing I'm really keen to check out is chapter chat. I think this will be a really cool way for me to be able to find new texts to share with the class as well as a way to find books that might be exciting and interesting that are relevant.  and another thing I really took away from this part of today was making sure that I'm planning for sharing I definitely need to update my classroom timetable to allow the opportunity  for learners to share their work on the blogs with each other with the class so that's definitely something that I will be working on in the next few weeks.

Visible reading and learning 

This was a really cool way to think about why students post on their blogs and it gives them a record of learning over time.  I think it just really reminded me of the importance of being able to share and also learners being able to share on their blogs and it's not just a blog post it's something that they can refer back to. I really liked this quote “When paired with affected instructional design, their review found that blogging can promote students' self-expression and create opportunities for higher order thinking.” It was also a really good reminder to have a blog checklist so that we are focusing on quality blog posts as well as giving me the opportunity to think about what I want the learners to blog on their blog each week.

Feedback and reflection
We looked at feedback and feed forward and the quality of feedback not the quantity. This also give me an opportunity to think about learner feedback I'm constantly giving feedback to my students on things that they are doing but I often forget about giving students the opportunity to give feedback to each other.  This is definitely something that I'm going to be adding into the classroom. Another thing that I'm excited to use is Google read and write to be able to give voice notes as feedback. Georgie also made a good point about having a writing doc for the term and being able to add new tasks each week so that feedback is still available for students so they can refer back to their writing the following week.

Collaboration and connectionI am definitely going to be adding a collaborative element into my response to text tasks where the students are able to collaborate with each other and be able to have those conversations as part of their follow-up task. Thinking ahead to next year I would like to have more opportunities for my students to read with other students within the school. Maybe set up a buddy reading system or give students the opportunity to read aloud in the library at lunchtimes. 

Whānau engagement 
This is definitely an area that I would like to work on in order to link school and home reading. I do send books home with some of my lower readers but I often forget about my high level readers and how I can make sure that they're reading at home as well and whānau are engaged with what they are reading. There were some really cool suggestions from this part of today that I'm excited to check out and use. 

Skill Builder
The skill builder today was looking at creating a kete of resources. This is something that we have as a team but it’s not currently viable. I am thinking that we spend one or two team meetings creating tasks that focus on specific skills where we have a bank of resources for ourselves  as well as our learners. 

I really enjoyed today's session looking at sharing as well as pulling the RPI together. I am very thankful to have been given the opportunity to participate in the reading practice incentive this year. I have learnt so much from all of the 9 days and I am excited to keep using this in the classroom. I am also really excited to share back with my team and think about how we can all use this going forward into next year. Huge thank you to Noami, Anna and Georgie for delivering the RPI to us over these 9 sessions, I have learnt so much! Special mention to Georgie who was my breakout group facilitator, the discussions and suggestions were really helpful, so thank you! Also massive thank you to my school leaders for allowing me this opportunity and my mentor Toni Nua who has given me some great insight and feedback onto my teaching practice in reading.

Monitoring - Check in

After our last PLG we were asked to describe and explain the changes of tweaks that we have made in our practice along the way. This blog post will outline some of the tweaks and changes that I have made along with another observation that I have had from my coach from RPI and what changes I made from that observation.

Ground rules for talk
I have continued to work on tweaking and changing this to fit in with my students. We have spent a lot of time during guided reading sessions talking about how we can make this work effectively. I have listened to what my students have shared and changed up how we use this so that all of the students are feeling successful. One key thing I have added in is a reflection for the students to fill in as a group and rate how well they have done with this for the week. From there we have had group discussions around how we can make this work more effectively in the classroom. I have also continued on with either a picture prompt or would you rather question at the beginning of guided reading sessions so that we can go over ground rules for talk and getting the whole group involved. 

Response to Text & Vocabulary Tasks
I have continued to shape and develop these tasks each week for after guided reading. I have now incorporated the vocabulary tasks into the response to text task. With the spotlight task I used to have the students do this collaboratively but was finding that some of the students were reluctant to share in a larger group so I have made this an independent activity for each of the students to complete before coming to guided reading sessions. This then allows the students to think about it before we come together as a group and ask questions if they need clarification. After reading the students then work together to find the meaning of each of these words from the text. 

Observations
As part of RPI we have been asked to have our coach come and observe lessons and provide feedback on what we can focus on in our practice to make guided reading sessions better. From one of my observations I found that there were a few students who would sit back and allow the other students in the group to answer all the questions. They were focused during these sessions they just didn't have the confidence to share with the rest of the group. One of the key things Toni and I talked about was gifting these students some of the questions as they are reading so that they have had time to frame their answer and are not just put on the spot. One change that I have made it writing down some of the key questions for these students to have in front of them while they are reading to see if that can help with confidence in sharing with the rest of the group. This as been working with some of the students but I will continue to do this so that all of the students feel confident to share in the group.

Next steps
I will continue to implement these changes to my practice and monitor some of the things that are working and some parts of this that might need continued change throughout the rest of this term and into term 4. 

RPI Day 8 Reflections

For our homework from our last session we needed to complete another reader profile survey on our students as well as provide some create tasks that we had looked into at our last session. 

Create Tasks 
I really love the text Sunday Hero as it has a lot of key ideas to pull out from it. For my create task for this I had the students design keys that show how Oma remembered things from the past. The students then had to describe what they keys were showing and then share this with someone else in their group to respond to what they keys made them think of from the story. The one thing that was really difficult was copy and pasting the keys into Photopea which is where most of my students enjoy doing their create tasks. So next time I think I will have a PNG download of the image that they can save and then upload into Photopea. I do think it went really well having the outline of the key for them ready to go as they were then able to create with the outline already there. Some of them came up with some really cool designs which they have linked on their blog. I did really enjoy this task and I think the students did too.

Reader Profile Survey 
I did this again with the class and there was some shift but not as much as I thought their might be. One of the things that was positive though was the students rating themselves slightly higher on liking reading at school, "I am good at reading" and "My teacher thinks I am good at reading." It was also a good reminder to see what kind of texts that my students enjoy reading so I am thinking for the rest of there I will try and incorporate some of these different texts into our reading program so that the students are being exposed to a range of different texts. 

I have really enjoyed changing up my create tasks and response to texts tasks in the last few weeks and am excited to keep these going in the classroom. I have also enjoyed looking at the data from the reader profile survey and thinking about how I can add and change to my reading program to try and push those results more in a positive direction. I would like to complete this one more time next term to see if any of the other changes I have in class will make an impact. I will share this again next term!

Student Voice - Reader Profile Survey

At the beginning of the year I completed a reader profile survey as part of RPI. Yesterday I asked the students to complete the survey again so that I could compare the results and see if there has been any shift in students opinions and feelings towards reading as a whole and their own reading. I have created a presentation that compares side by side the data from the beginning of the year and the end of the year which I have added to this blog post. 

From comparing the data from term 1 and term 3 I have found that there have been some slight changes in some key areas with other key areas remaining similar or the same. One of the questions asks what types of books the students like to read, so I am going to look over this in a bit more detail and see if I can add in these types of texts to our reading program. Below I have outlined some of my key findings from the two surveys. 

1. I like reading at school - I saw a slight positive shift in this question with more students answering that they like reading at school. Even though it was a small shift it is great to see that more students are enjoying reading at school. 
2. Going to the library - Again there was another small shift in the number of students who are going to the library to borrow books. This is something that I have implemented in my home class by going to the school library more which could have had an impact on this question. 
3. Borrowing books - There was a slight shift in this question with more students answering that they are borrowing books from the library more often. Again I wonder if this is linked to utilizing the library more during school time. 
4. I think I am good at reading - There was a positive shift in students beliefs in their own reading which is encouraging to see. 
5. My teacher thinks I am good at reading - This question also showed a positive shift with the majority of the class scoring either 3 or 4 for this answer. It is great to see that the students think that I believe they are good at reading. 

There were some really positive shifts in the data and I can't wait to keep working on changing the students views around reading. I will complete this survey again in term 4 and then compare the results from each key time point. If you want to see all of the data and comparisons check out the presentation that I have inculded above in this blog post. 

RPI: Day 8 Create!

I really enjoyed todays session as it allowed us to be creative as well as to think about what create does look like in the classroom. I often spend a lot of time trying to come up with the prefect create task that I sometimes forget about that simpler create tasks that can be just as effective with learning and also makes all students to be able to feel successful in their tasks and their own learning. I am excited to make some changes to my create tasks in the next few weeks and gain student feedback on the types of tasks that they enjoy doing. 

Reflecting

It it always really good to start our RPI sessions looking at the homework and reflecting on what has been working in the classroom. As part of our homework we needed to have an observation of one of our reading sessions looking provocations and having group discussions. For this I was able to record one of my sessions and then go through it with my mentor Toni Nua and talk about some of the things that I could change to make sure that all of my students are sharing with each other during reading sessions. I have a small group of girls who tend to sit quietly and not engage with others during guided reading and will let others share so I was able to share this with my group this morning and gain some other ideas to try in the classroom. Thankyou Georgie! I am looking forward to trying out the post it notes with this group next week. I was also able to reflect on my own teacher wait time, I often will just answer the question and move on without giving the students the chance to agree or disagree with each other or add in something new. So I am going to be going back to basics with my ground rules for talk and allowing the students the opportunity to share during guided reading. These students are moving into the reading to learn phase of their reading journeys and we don't need to go through every single question or part of the text when we meet during guided reading they are able to be more independent with their reading and my focus for the next little while will be fostering those critical thinking conversations. 

Create 
Dorothy Burt came to talk to us about create this morning and made us think about why our learners create. This was a really great part of RPI today because it brought it back to the reason that we do create in the classroom. It was really interesting and positive to see that New Zealand has ranked 5th in the world for creativity with our 15 year olds! I think this really highlighted the importance of create and why we do it.

This morning we were asked to read a part of the poem and then design our slide with what the poem was showing. I used Crayon AI to come up with these images. It was a really interesting process as I couldn't quite get exactly what I was wanting from the images. It was really fun at the end to then compare what we had done and the imagery that was given from the poem. I do get a bit nervous with creativity myself as I feel like I am not very artistic but being about to use these tools made me feel a lot more confident in being able to share my take on the image. 

Routine Opportunities
We looked at a range of different create tasks and were able to create some tasks that were asking the students to design and create. This was a really nice time to be reminded that not all of these create tasks need to be elaborate but we can do this smaller design tasks that I think will allow the students to be able to feel successful in what they are doing in reading. I love the text Sunday Hero and it was really fun to come up with a stencil task for this. I am really excited to do this in class and see what the students can create. 

Choice 

I really enjoyed looking at some different things that we can try in the classroom and have students to use to create. I often forget about the great tools like "Storyboard That!" and using quizzes for students to be able to create. I have been looking at this as a follow up task using a doc and having students ask each other questions but I really like the idea of making this into a activity where students can create their own quiz to share with each other. 

Book Trailer

This was a really fun activity, we were able to create a book trailer for a book that we really like to be able to sell to someone else. I actually really enjoyed doing this and this is definitely something that I will try and do in the classroom. It will be really interesting to see students recommending books to each other. 

Longer Create Tasks

I really liked looking at the novel study sites and am thinking how cool this would be to have in our space as a resource. I always have good intentions to start a novel study but it never comes to fruition we get half way through and stop. I feel like creating a site where the students can go will keep me accountable in being able to complete this until the end of the book. 

Overall I really enjoyed today and I got so much out of it to bring into the classroom in the next three weeks. I am looking forward to implementing some of these create tasks and seeing how the students go. I am also looking forward to working on the collaboration aspects with my students because I know they love to work and share together so it will be really fun to see what types of things we create in the next few weeks!

Implementations

In this blog post I will outline some the implementations that I have used throughout my inquiry so far. This is a helpful way to see what I have been changing in my practice so I can see if there is a change at the end of the year.

Ground rules for talk
This is something that I have implemented into the classroom since term 1 as part of our homework for RPI. I have been using this during guided reading and have also set this up in a task form for follow up tasks. One thing I have noticed so far is that some of my students are starting to feel more comfortable sharing their ideas with each other during guided reading. One area that I need to improve this in is having the students continue these discussion with each other after reading with the teacher. Other colleagues of mine have been using this in their classrooms as well and have created a presentation that I have also been using with my class. 

Vocabulary Tasks

One thing that we have been focusing on during RPI is vocabulary and how we can create tasks that are specifically linked to key words from the text. I have been adding these into my follow up tasks. One of these tasks that I really love is word associations as it make the students think about other words that fit best with the new word they have come across and it allows them to really grasp the meaning of these key words. Another activity that my class really loves is the spotlight activity where before reading the students need to place a tick in a box for each word under one of these categories:

• Never seen this word before
• Seen it but don’t know what it means
• Sort of know what is means
• Can explain what it means

After they have finished reading the text they then need to be able to explain what this word means using the text. It also allows the students to see that they have been able to locate the word and can now explain what it means. 

Response to text tasks

Another key thing that I have implemented from RPI is follow up tasks that are really linked to the text and there is a learn, create and share element to this. By having a create task at the end of this task it allows the student to be able to create an image that will continue to solidify the meaning of the text and link to our learning intention from that week. I have also been more intentional with my questions in these follow up tasks. One key thing I have taken away from this is to have a really focused response to text task for the first text of the week. I then will have key questions from the text for the other text with follow up questions and then focus on using generic follow up activities that the students can choose from to continue to develop that skill but with a bigger focus on that first text and using the second text to supplement understanding. 

Picture prompts

Another key element that I have added into my follow up tasks and guided reading sessions are pictures. From these pictures I then ask a range of different questions that require the students to infer meaning from what they are seeing. Pictures are a powerful tool as they are a screenshot in time and are a less invasive way of getting the students to think critically about a text. 

I have used a range of different implementations so far and I will continue to evaluate these and check in with students to see that they are working. These are the key ones that I have been looking at with my inquiry and I will continue to develop and change these over the course of this term and term 4.

Restating the Question - 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. 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. 

My focus question for this year is:

"Will implementing ground rules for talk and collaborative activities during guided reading sessions enhance my students' confidence, facilitate meaningful group discussions, and improve their reading comprehension?" 

Some key things that I have been looking at is 

• Facilitating ground rules for talk so that students are able to share thoughts and ideas about the text with each other and think more critically about what they are reading. 
• Being able to have critical discussions around what students are reading. Thinking about author's purpose. Through this I hope to build extended discussions with my students so they can do this independently. 
• Improving understanding of comprehension through inferring, applied knowledge and understanding vocabulary.

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 above. 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.

RPI Day 7: Thinking

Sharing and reflecting
This morning we started with sharing about our successes and challenges since our last session. I really enjoy this part of the session as we are able to share different thoughts and ideas with each other. During this time I was reflecting on how I am completing my vocabulary and word work activities. I have been doing this separately and having a spelling task for overall words but what I would like to try next week is have my vocabulary tasks instead of overall spelling and they will hopefully nicely link my reading and writing. Some other suggestions to check out from this morning is using the Cambridge dictionary and online voice recorder to record discussions. I am also really keen to check out other people's vocabulary tasks that they have created and try to incorporate some of these into my own planning.

Smart thinking for smart learners
I really enjoyed hearing from Dorothy and being connected to some different tools that we can use in the classroom to engage our learners to make them think. I will definitely be looking into the fake news sites that have been created and link my class and team back to the fake news Cybersmart lessons as a way to introduce this to the students. I am really excited to look into Squiz Kids and use this in the classroom. We have also been looking at podcasts as a school and I am really excited to use this with the students as I think it will be a really great tool for students to be able to record themselves reading and remove all of that background noise from the classroom. 

Higher Order Thinking
It was really great to look at different examples of questions that we can be asking our students during guided reading sessions dn then incorporating these into follow up activities as well. I think I often can create literal and interpretive questions but I often leave out the evaluative questions where students need to make a judgement based on the information from the text. I know that my students will really love this challenge and I am looking forward to using this in the classroom in the coming weeks.

Analysis

We looked at Blooms in detail during this part of the day which was really interesting. I have seen this model before but never really deep dived into it and we were given a really great explanation of it and how we can use this in the classroom. I have learnt a new tool of using highlight on PDF which I am very excited to use in the classroom. I have previously been printing off the text for the students to highlight old school so I am really keen to try this out. One big takeaway from this session was showing a competing definition of a word to counter the evidence as this will really make the students think a lot more critically. I will be using this in my planning next week so will let you know how this goes! 

Explore 
One key thing we discussed today that has stuck with me is students not just being passive consumers of a text, we want them to be able to think critically about what they are reading. We looked at a range of different digital organisers that support the exploration of texts. I am quite excited to create some of these and use these in the classroom in the coming weeks. 

Critical Analysis 
We also had a deep dive into perspectives and positioning and how we can make sure to add this into our literacy program. With perspectives we looked at creating provocations about a theme in a text, this was something that I initially struggled with because I think I was thinking too much about it. However once I started to read the text and pick out the key messages and ideas I could feel the cogs in my brain turning to find a provocation linked to my text. I am really excited to bring this to my reading groups next week and focus on having those discussions during and after our sessions. I am interested to see how the students tackle this for the first time and can’t wait to hear their thoughts and ideas around the topic. As I think about this I also remember a key thing from this part of the day and that is exploring the fact that disagreement can be risky and we need to make sure that we have a discussion around what it means to share a thought and opinion as a group. So I may start out with an introduction piece to get the students comfortable with having a position or idea that not everyone might agree with. 

We also explored how to be purposeful and to add bias for the students into texts that can lead to discussions. I really liked how Naomi had used the text Jump and taken other parts out of this text to lead to a bias that the students could very easily see once it was pointed out as well as a great way to build and foster conversations and discussion around this. This really made me think about how I need to be more intentional with some of the key messages and ideas that I pull out of the text as well as explicitly bringing these ideas out during guided reading. I have reflected during this time that this is something that I need to work on, I need to explicitly put this information in my planning so that we are able to bring it out during our guided reading sessions. 

Response to text
Finally today we looked at how to create a response to text task that will really make the students think critically about what they are reading. We were given the opportunity to plan for a group for next week and I am looking forward to seeing what my students create from this text, guided reading and response to text task. 

I thoroughly enjoyed today's session and I have taken a lot away with me. We had a chance to reflect on Planning for Higher Order Thinking and what we could change in our teaching practice to ensure that this is happening in the classroom. You can see from the image I have added above I have lots of areas that I would like to work on in the next three weeks in order to plan for Higher Order Thinking. So I am very excited to see what the next three weeks brings and I cannot wait to share what my students come up with and share with each other during discussions. 

RPI Day 6 Reflection and Changes

After our last RPI session we were asked to have a look at our word work and see how we were timetabling for this in the classroom. This was something that I was focusing on during guided reading and pointing out key words as we were reading however I wasn't actively involving this into my follow up tasks. I have tried a few new things since our last RPI day and I have loved putting them together and my students have enjoyed looking at key words in greater detail. One thing I have really focused on brining back to my literacy program is spelling words and linking these back to the texts that we are reading to give the students more opportunities to see and use these words. 

Spotlight
This has been a great activity that I have been trying in small groups as well as the whole
class. The thing I really like about this activity is that it make the students think about each of the words before we even begin reading the text and allows some of the students who do know what the words mean the opportunity to share with their peers. This activity has also been really beneficial after reading. I have been working with groups through this step so far but it has been great to locate the word with the students and have them reread the sentence or paragraph to find clues about what each word could mean. I am interested to see how the students go working together without teacher input for this part of the activity, so watch this space I will report back with how that goes and the best way to monitor that. 

Word Associations
This has been another activity that I have tried in the last few weeks and the students really enjoy it with being about to connect these words to different words to make sense of the word or to make meaning. After the initial stress of trying to find words that are associated I have also enjoyed preparing this task and walking the students through it and I think it has been really beneficial. 

When have/might you ..?
This is another thing that I have added in which is still developing with my groups. I have
found they are able to think about where the answer but need to elaborate on the answer. The one thing I have found hard with this is finding a good voice recording tool for the students to use on their chromebooks so that I am able to hear the discussions that they are having. 

Next steps
After meeting with my RPI mentor Toni Nua we have come up with a few other things that I can try in the classroom to develop students understanding and knowledge of words. One thing that I am going to try as an overview of a topic or an introduction to a topic is Wordplosion. This will help the students to be able to look at the root words and then be able to build on these words looking at the word families as well as looking at synonyms for words. I am quite excited to try this and I think it lends itself really nicely with our topic for this term.