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.

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. 

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. 

Casual Chain

We have been looking at a casual chain. 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. 

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.

Causal Chain

In order to identify the causal chain I need to look at the direct acts of teaching that I am going to change in order help vocabulary with my learners that will in turn help with reading comprehension and therefore overall reading progress. 

Changes in my teaching:

• Weekly spelling related to what the students are learning. What I have been doing is gifting a range of spelling words each week that are related to the part of space or earth we are looking at that week. Students are then exposed to that throughout the week in class and I am working on sending these home too in order for students to learn these in more depth. 
• This then allows the students access to more complex vocabulary 
• They can then make connections with these words in their class work and texts related to that this week.
• Expands vocabulary for this topic and works on applied knowledge of the learner.
• Which overall will hopefully lead to greater comprehension strategies which will then help with reading age and ability. 
  
  
  
• Read-Aloud's. This is sometimes a picture book related to the topic that we are learning about or a journal article again related to the topic. I sometimes do this as an introduction to the topic or along the week.
• This then allows the students access to more complex vocabulary 
• Expands vocabulary for this topic and works on applied knowledge of the learner.
• Which overall will hopefully lead to greater comprehension strategies which will then help with reading age and ability.
  
  
• Guided reading sessions focusing on vocabulary development. Focusing on reading in vocabulary in order to make sense or meaning of the words in the context that they are read. 
• This then allows the students access to more complex vocabulary.
• They can then make connections with these words in their class work and texts related to that this week. 
• Expands vocabulary for this topic and works on applied knowledge of the learner.
• Which overall will hopefully lead to greater comprehension strategies which will then help with reading age and ability. 

Some other things that I have been trying to use as an intervention with vocabulary building is having a word wall in my classroom. My students are also currently enjoying the new J. K. Rowling novel. I have really only started pushing some of these ideas towards the end of this term so will continue to make sure these are part of our everyday class instruction and see if this intervention will indeed create a causal chain.