Formative Information through Observations

Formative Information

One of the really useful parts of RPI has been having my mentor, Toni Nua, come in to observe my literacy and guided reading sessions. It’s given us a chance to have some great conversations about what’s going well and where I can keep growing to make my literacy program even better. Recently, Toni watched a lesson I did on "Suspenseful Beginnings." In this activity, I gave students a suspenseful start to a story, and they had to add their own powerful vocabulary to create an opening the grabbed the attention of the audience. 

From this observation, a couple of things really stood out. One big takeaway was making sure to set clear expectations at the start so the students know what the session will look like and what they’ll be doing. I also realised I need to give them more space to share their ideas. Adding a bit more "wait time" in discussions lets them think things through and contribute more, rather than me jumping in with answers or prompts too quickly.

I've also started recording some of my sessions with groups so I can look back and reflect on my practice. My aim is to have at least two recorded lessons each term to track my progress and spot areas that could use some tweaking. Watching these back will help me see what’s working well and what might need a different approach. It also means I can share these recordings with Toni to get more feedback on specific areas, especially within guided reading, to keep improving.

I’ve added a few examples of our suspenseful beginnings creations to this blog post. After the students wrote their suspenseful openings, I decided to use CrayonAI to generate images based on what they’d written. This was a really fun activity, and the students loved seeing their words come to life visually. 

Formative and Baseline Information

In an earlier post where I took a stocktake of my CoL inquiry I outlines some of the key formative and baseline information that I will use throughout my inquiry to see provide evidence of shifts in teaching at the end of the year. Below I will outline each of the formative and baseline information that I will use and why I will use this. 

Some of the tools that I have used are 

• Running records data from last year. 
• Running records from start of term 2 to gauge where the students are at and what areas of their reading needed work. 
• PAT data - I have looked into the PAT data of my students fro reading and have pulled out some key information that I will be able to compare with at the end of the year. 
• I have also taken anecdotal notes of my students while they are reading to be able to understand where each of my learners are at and what their individual work ons are. 

I will also be using our mid year running record data to see if my students have made any progress with their reading as well as look at the key areas that we need to work on. I have been having conversations with my students about reading and I would really like to complete some student voice surveys to compare from now and at the end of the year. I have been looking at some previous student voice surveys that have been used in the past and will try and alter this to fit the purpose of this inquiry. I would like to use this data to see if there is a shift in my learners and what they think about reading. 

I think that each of these measures will bring enough data to see if there has been accelerated progress in reading from the changes in practice that have been made. This will be important baseline information that I will check at regular intervals throughout the term to see if what I am doing is working or if I need to tweak it a bit and make additional changes.