Adjustment Reflections

Our last RPI session was around our literacy timetables, independent activities, reading apps and making reading-writing links. Since our last session we have been asked to make some tweaks and changes to our practice that aligned with the last session. I have made a few changes and tried out a few new things which I will reflect on in this blog post. 

Timetabling
I haven't had much of a chance to change up my timetable for seeing groups during literacy however I have made changes to what each of these groups are doing when they come and see me. I try to see each of my groups each day during literacy to either have a guided reading session, writing session or a check in with each of the groups. I have made my groups for reading and writing the same so that I am able to change up what we are discussing as required. This has been really helpful in trying to implement new activities. One of the things I have reflection on since our last RPI session is to not be afraid to use group time to go through activities so this has been really helpful. 

Reading Apps
One thing that I have started to implement in the classroom is the read along app where students read aloud to their chromebooks and their voices are picked up and they are given stars for words they get correct and then opportunities to learn how unfamiliar words are said. The students have really loved using this tool and love seeing how many stars that they can get. Another thing I have changed with my reading apps is how I use Epic! I have now been working on giving students extra texts related to the topic of the week so they are having more reading milage on a particular topic. 

Turn-it-in sheets
I had really grand plans of changing my turn-it-in sheets but unfortunately with reports being due and being out of the classroom for a week due to a family matter I haven't had the chance to change this yet. I will work on changing this up over the holidays, my students are already really familiar with using a turn-it-in sheet I just want to make it fancier with a progress bar like some of the ones we looked at during RPI session 5. So watch this space, new layout coming soon!

Reading-writing links
This is something that I have really loved trying to incorporate with my students. I have been making sure to take the time to identify links at any opportunity so that the students are able to see these links a bit better. I tried out the suspenseful beginning task with my class which was an interesting experience. In reflection I should have modelled this better the first time and gone through it step by step to make sure the students understood the brief. There was a lot of confusion along the lesson as I could have made it more explicit, however the end product was great and the students by the end really enjoyed it. I will definitely do this again and I think I will use the same prompt so that the students know what they are doing and will so this as a whole class. Toni Nua came in and observed this lesson and we had a really great conversation after this lesson with some next steps and things that I could have done differently and will definitely take on board when I do this lesson again. 

It has been a great few weeks making tweaks and changes and I am really excited to keep these things going in the classroom. These are also really great tools and ideas that I will take into term 3 with me as well as share with my team so that we can all do this in our space for term 3!