RPI Day 3: Text Selection

Today is day three for RPI and our focus this week was around text selection. I really enjoyed this session as we were able to delve deeper into different text types and think about how we could use these in the classroom. 

Digital and Print Texts 

We started off the morning looking at the different types of texts that we can use in the classroom. Dorothy gave us some really great tools that we can use on our devices and reminded us of the importance of using these tools in sync with our deliberate acts of teaching to strengthen our literacy program. One tool that I am quite excited to look into that I hadn’t heard of before was Vooks so I will be adding that to be checked out over the holidays!

Choosing appropriate texts

This slide really resonated with me during this session as I haven’t thought of flexible grouping in this way. I really liked how we talked about grouping students based on their interests and this doesn't necessarily have to be for a long period of time. I think I focus so much on the groups that I have made and moving students around based on ability that I forget that there are other ways of integrating flexible grouping into our literacy sessions and allowing others to share their thoughts and ideas with others from different abilities to gain a different perspective. 

Planning and Finding texts for your group

I had a really good reminder about some of the key resources that we have access to in order to know what is in a text and the types of vocabulary that will be found in the text before selecting it. I use journal surf all the time and often forget about TKI. This part of the day was a really good reminder to check out TKI and also think about using resources from ARBs. 

Text Coverage 

I really loved this slide from this session and the talking points that came from it. I often forget that we can use images as text and this was a really good reminder that we can pull a lot out of an image. This made me think about how I could use these as a shared reading piece or how we can use images linked to what we are learning to have whole class and small group discussions. This will be a really great way to link reading and writing together as we can pull out the key information and then the students can turn this into descriptive writing. This part of the day was a really good reminder of the different types of texts and how we can pull them together within our literacy programs. I also really want to check out “A New Dawn” which Georgie recommended! Add that to the holiday reading list!

Skill Builder - Summarising

Loved this part of the day where we were given a huge amount of resources that I cannot wait to check out properly over the holidays and have a look at some of the key activities. The one resource that I am really excited to check out is The Grammar Project. 

Selecting Texts for the Wider Reading Program

I have a whole list of new books that I am so excited to check out over the holidays, thankyou Georgie! We had a task for this part of the day where we had to think about the different types of reading we have in our classroom and if we timetable for them or not and I am so guilty of not timetable things I just decide that I am going to do it in the moment. So that has given me a lot of food for thought to make sure that I am timetabling things for myself to remember. I am super excited to try buddy reading in my class next week as this is something that I am not doing in my class at the moment. Another thing I want to add into my classroom program is Shared Reading which I do at times but not well. I am super excited to shake up my literacy program from this session!

 

I really enjoyed today's session and I feel that I have gotten a lot out of text selection and thinking about the different text types that we can use in the classroom. I am very excited to check out the new book recommendations and to add in buddy reading with my students next week! I have lots of new resources and ideas to check out in the holidays which is exciting and I think with week 11 next week I will play around with some of these ideas in the classroom so that I can act on them straight away in week 1 of term 2!