First off I would like to say a massive Thank You to Fiona Grant for all of her support and guidance during my CoL inquires over the years. I would also like to thank our convenors Carmel Bullôt, Richard Johnston and the whole CoL team for another fantastic year of growth and learning through this CoL inquiry. I would also like to give a special mention to Russell Burt who was the previous CoL convenor for all of my previous years during CoL and Dorothy Burt for all of her wisdom and help throughout the year. I would also like to acknowledge all of my CoL and PES colleagues who have helped me along this journey this year. I have been so fortunate to be part of the CoL teachers since 2021, so this is my 5th year and I have learnt so much. My focus has always been around reading because I am so passionate about everyone be able to read and I truely believe that it is important to be able to access other areas of the curriculum. I have loved my journey through CoL and have built on my inquiry each year, it is not something that is done in isolation or by yourself which is why I feel incredibly privileged to have been part of CoL this year. This is my inquiry for the year in a nutshell, thanks for following along! Although this is the end of CoL it's not the end of my inquiry so I will continue to share my learning along the way! Thanks again to everyone who has made this journey possible.
My inquiry question for this year was: How can the deliberate use of extended group discussions enhance learner confidence and improve engagement and achievement in reading? I identified this as my focus question after noticing that many of my students were reluctant to share during our guided reading sessions. Most of these students were reading just below where they should be. This made me ask the question what I do to help these students become more confident in extended discussion and how to ensure these students are reading at or above where they should be.
To build a picture of my students' learning I looked at a range of different data such as PATs, anecdotal notes from guided reading sessions, probe and running records. 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 have discussions around what they had read. These students were really confident in answering literal questions but were struggling to unpack the text to answer inferential, applied knowledge and vocabulary questions.
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. After exploring research and having discussion with my colleagues I discovered strategies that could have a difference, such as using question cards to encourage students to share their thoughts and ideas during guided reading lessons.
The biggest change I made to my teaching this year was using specific question cards for both fiction and non-fiction texts. These questions are designed to make students think deeply about what they read. To help everyone participate, each student gets a card along with their text they are reading before our guided reading session. This important step gives them time to plan out a good answer they can share confidently. This ensures that everyone shares and lets them have great conversations with each other so they really understand what they have read. We also worked on building confidence through students creating videos of their discussions and creating tasks like interviewing the author.
One of the easiest changes was creating a warm up activities for reading where students would need to infer meaning from an image or to answer inference questions. Some of the challenges included building the students confidence to share with each other during small group reading. We spent a lot of time working on how to have conversations with each other around and building relationships within our reading groups.
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 six months to a year and a half reading progress for the students who have been tested.
A major highlight of this year was creating a book study focused purely on encouraging students to read for enjoyment. While my own class participated positively, the initiative gained significant momentum when I shared it with a colleague. Her students embraced the concept with enthusiastic energy, which unexpectedly sparked a friendly reading competition between the two classes. It's been great seeing the excitement and competition really push both classes to read for enjoyment and not just because they have been told to.
So, what is the most important learning I made about this inquiry? Confidence and conversation are the most powerful tools in engaging students with their reading and driving deeper understanding. By deliberately structuring our group discussions and giving students the specific tools to prepare, we completely shifted the dynamic. My students are now excited about reading, eager to share their ideas, and, most importantly, confidently engaging in rich, extended discussions with one another.
