Inquiry Update & Target Group Pondering

Yesterday we have had our inquiry meeting where we had the opportunity to discuss our inquires with other teachers at school. The group that I decided to collaborate with was those with a focus group of children who are reading to learn. As I am inquiring into my students who are beginning to read to learn. As I was listening to some of the others in my inquiry group it made me think about pervious years of inquiry that I have done in year 6 and seeing a number of students reading between the ages of 9-9.5 years. 

Target group pondering: 

As I am thinking about my hypothesis and what are some of the things that might be important to my inquiry it has made me reflect on my previous years inquiries. This year my target group is my students in year 5 who are reading between the ages of 7.5-8.5 years. While I have been focusing on these group of students I have also been thinking about my students who are reading at 9 years. 

What is the significance of these readers at 9 years?

This is something that I have been wondering about as I focus on my students reading under 8.5 years.These group of students are just below the reading age for their level by the end of the year they should be reading at the age of 10 years. I have about 10 or 11 students at this level. The reason I am thinking about these group of learners is the importance of the shift they need to also make this year. From observing previous year 6 students there does seem to be a number of them reading between the ages of 9 and 9.5 in year 6 which also seems to be a level where students get "stuck" with making progress. I'm not changing my target group however this is another group that I will keep a close eye on with reading and will continue to observe and record this group in order to see what I can do to make sure that these students don't become year 6 students reading at 9 and 9.5 years. 

Just an interesting observation I thought that I would share. I will continue to update on this throughout the year also. 

CoL Inquiry: tools/measures/approaches

After looking at my data and having guided reading sessions with this group I have come up with a number of tools, measures and approaches that I will use with this group. 

Manaiakalani CoL Achievement Challenge: 
Lift the achievement in Reading for all students, with a particular focus on boys and Māori students (both genders) years 1-13. 

This is what I have identified in my classroom for this year as the challenge or area that needs to be focused on for my learners. 

Testing:
I will be using a range of different measures in order to track my learners and their progress throughout they year. I will look at:

• PAT Star
• PAT Comprehension
• Running Records
• ARBS 
• Guided reading notes

These measures will be used throughout the year in order to check where students are and see if they are making progress and what other areas they require progress.

Approaches:

At the end of last term I was updating my MIT reading site that I created in 2019 as part of the MIT program and I found a new passion to get this back up in running in the classroom. This is perfect for this group of learners as it is aimed at their reading level. I want to try and incorporate this in my guided reading session for the rest of the term as an extra recourse. From what I have seen so far my students love completing the activity where they record themselves reading and share it on their blog. I will later add these to my recorded stories section where others will be able to listen to them reading their stories.

Data: 

I am continuing to look through the data I have collected and look at each individual learner and what they are requiring. From my guided reading sessions this week I can see that vocabulary is a major part of what we are needing to focus on. I am in the process of finding key words that my students are unfamiliar with and creating a spelling list each week for them to take home and learn. 

TOD: Students listening to students read

 Today we are lucky enough to have a Manaiakalani cluster teacher only day with all of our school. Our Keynote Speaker for the day was Dr Rae Si'ilata. She had some many fantastic ideas to share with us as a cluster which was incredibly helpful. I was also lucky enough to be able to present in the breakout sessions. 

My session was on "Students Listening to Students Read." This was a site that I had created in 2019 as part of my MIT inquiry and was something that if I am honest had been on the back burner of my mind and in my classroom rotation. By setting up for this session and sharing my ideas with others it brought back my passion for my site which actually fits in really well with my inquiry this year. 

Todays PD was extremely helpful and also highlighted some key areas that I would like to work on next term. The session that I attended at the PD were also really insightful and have given me a lot to think about and work into my reading program next term. I have added my slide presentation for my session above for anyone who wants to check it out!

CoL Inquiry: Data Collection, Tools & Measures

My target group consists of 7 year 5 students who are reading between the ages of 7.5 and 8.5 years. There are 4 boys and 3 girls in this group. I have given each student a letter which I will refer to throughout the year. 

• Student A - Year 5 boy reading at 7.5 years. He attends class regularly but is often distracted in class. He will need to be reminded to stay on task and what he is supposed to be doing. Can read high frequency words well but can struggle to read in new vocabulary for meaning. 
• Student B - Year 5 girl reading at 7.5 years. She attends class regularly but requires a lot of one on one support when completing independent tasks. Struggles with new vocabulary she comes across and is not able to read it in for meaning. Student B is part of our school reading support program. 
• Student C - Year 5 girl reading at 7.5 years. She attends class regularly and is confident in our guided reading sessions. She is able to decode fluently but often doesn't comprehend what she has read. Student C is part of our school reading support program. 
• Student D - Year 5 boy reading at 8 years. He tries to attend class regularly however is often late and will miss out on our guided reading sessions. He is able to self correct however sometimes needs to be prompted in order to check that it makes sense. Needs to work on reading for meaning so that he can retell what he has read. 
• Student E - Year 5 boy reading at 8 years. Attendance can sometimes be an issue and like Student D will often miss our reading sessions. Is a confident reader who is able to try and read in new words however needs to work on reading for meaning. 
• Student F - Year 5 girl reading at 8 years. Has regular attendance at school and is very confident in guided reading sessions. Is able to decode and comprehend quite well in a group setting or 1:1. Does struggle to stay on task when not with the teacher. 
• Student G - Year 5 boy reading at 8.5 years. He attends class regularly and is confident in his reading. Is able to decode fluently however sometimes reads too fats and can miss the point of the story or is unable to retell key information. 

I have been having a look at each of the learners in this target group and have been gathering data from guided reading sessions, running records from 2020 and PAT data from the beginning of this year. 

Running Records 2020 Data:
This is data that was collected at the end of 2020 when these students where in year 5. I used this data to group my students at the beginning of the year and as a base for what their instructional level is. We have been graphing our data as a school this year so have added in actual age as a guideline to see where they need to be by the end of the year. 

Student	Actual Age	Reading Age	Reading Level PM
A	9	7.5	20
B	9	7.5	20
C	9.5	7.5	20
D	9.5	8	21
E	9.5	8	22
F	8.5	8	22
G	9	8.5	24

PAT Star Test Data:
This was from our testing at the beginning of the year. This was our first test for the year but has shown some interesting results with vocabulary and comprehension. The word recognition is also an interesting result that I will explore further for each individual student to see what has happened and which ones they have mixed up. 

Student	Raw Score Select range	Scale Score Select range	Word Recognition	Sentence Comprehension	Paragraph Comprehension	Vocabulary	Stanine
A	11 / 50	69 ± 3.9	4 / 10	3 / 10	0 / 20	4 / 10	1
B	9 / 41	65.7 ± 4.2	4 / 10	4 / 10	1 / 20	0 / 10	1
C	17 / 50	77.3 ± 3.6	8 / 10	4 / 10	4 / 20	1 / 10	2
D	21 / 50	82.3 ± 3.5	8 / 10	6 / 10	4 / 20	3 / 10	3
E	25 / 50	87.2 ± 3.5	9 / 10	4 / 10	8 / 20	4 / 10	4
F	32 / 50	96.1 ± 3.7	7 / 10	7 / 10	11 / 20	7 / 10	5
G	24 / 32	86 ± 3.5	10 / 10	7 / 10	7 / 20	0 / 10	3

PAT Comprehension Test Data:
This data is from the PAT comprehension test at the start of the year. Again like that Star data I will need to look at each individual student and see which questions they have gotten wrong and see if there are trend in the types of questions and the answers that have been given. 

Student	Stanine	Scale Score	Raw Score
A	3	21.6 ± 4	9/37
B	3	24.6 ± 3.8	11/37
C	1	11.2 ± 5.4	4/37
D	2	16.1 ± 4.6	6/37
E	4	32.4 ± 3.5	17/37
F	4	26 ± 3.7	12/37
G	5	34.8 ± 3.5	19/37

Collecting this data has been useful to see where some of the gaps might be in the learning and also gives me a base to see what other areas of reading I need to explore with these students. It gives a clearer picture of the individual learner as well as the group as a whole. From my guided reading sessions I can see that vocabulary and reading this in is a key part of what we need to work on as a group. 

CoL: Speed dating

Today in our CoL meeting we will be talking to each other to get an idea and gauge on who is doing similar inquiries to us. We are going to be doing "speed dating" at our session and have been asked to find some others in CoL who we would like to have conversations with during this time. I have used the template to organise who I would like to talk to and what some of the questions I would like to ask might be. I have added my "speed dating" card below with some of the key questions along with what their inquires are and how we could work together with our inquires. 

We had a number of really productive and positive comments about our inquires in today's meetings. Along with some common questions that we are going to explore. 

Key take aways and questions:

• Is the vocabulary of my learners stopping them from making progress in reading. How can I change up my vocabulary session not just in my inquiry but also during my reading program?
• Is it reading milage? Do we need to be getting these students reading more, at home, silent reading?
• Check PAT data and maybe even ARBS to have a clearer picture of these learners and what they are needing?

There are a number of questions and avenues for me to explore from these discussions that I have had today. 

 

CoL Inquiry: Identifying the problem

This year I am going to again inquire into reading. I had the opportunity to have fantastic reading PD which I would like to continue working on and developing in my class this year. I have a large number of year 5 learners who are reading between the ages of 7.5 and 9 years. This is a trend that I have also seen when teaching in year 6. This seems to be an age and level where a lot of our learners are "stuck" (for lack of a better word). This is something that I have been keeping an eye on over the last few years and now teaching in a year 5 space would like to try and figure out what is holding these learners back at this reading age. 

Collaboration: 

I have had a discussion with Latini Ilaoa one of the year 7/8 teachers at Pt England School who is also looking into reading as her inquiry this year also. Latini has a number of learners who are reading between the ages of 8-9.5 years also. We would like to work with together this year and along with some other teachers to look into this. 

Target group:

So far I have identified my target group of students shown in the table below. For the next few weeks I will continue to note down what I am seeing from each of these students during  guided reading sessions and see if there are patterns in what they are struggling with and if they are similar. 

Student	Actual Age	Reading Age	Reading Level PM
A	9	7.5	20
B	9	7.5	20
C	9.5	7.5	20
D	9.5	8	21
E	9.5	8	22
F	8.5	8	22
G	9	8.5	24

Next steps: 

I would like to look back at the last few years of students running records and see if there is a trend with their data and achievement. I will also look at each of their running records and see if there is a specific area that is holding these students back from making progress in their reading. I would also like to talk with some of the other CoL teachers regarding their inquires and see if there are any links or similarities that we are finding. 

CoL Inquiry: Finding my Inquiry

What is new?

I am really excited for what is in store for 2021! 
I am so looking forward to taking on a within schools CoL position, Class OnAir and a brand new classroom! This year I have moved across the porch to a new classroom and a new age group of learners. In previous years I have had year 5 and 6 learners and this year I have an amazing bunch of year 4 and 5 learners. This year I will also be teaching back alongside Migi Siō in our shared space of about 60 learners. This will be a great change and challenge coming for an innovative learning environment with three teachers to just being the two of us. 

What to inquire about?

At Pt England school we have been having in house professional development around reading and maths. This has been extremely helpful in how to approach finding my target learners and what I would like to inquire into. I believe that reading is an important tool and learning area for all learners to have access to and excel in. Without reading learners can struggle to access other parts of the curriculum such as maths as that reading can be a barrier. One of my biggest questions that I keep coming to is why are our learners stuck reading between the ages of 8 - 9 years? I have been looking at the data from not only this year but previous years and have continued to see a trend of our learners in year 5 and 6 seeming to be stuck (for lack of a better word) reading in these levels. 

From looking at this data I think it is still a really important area to inquire into and see how we can raise reading achievement in these learners so that they are better prepared and equipped to access the curriculum in year 7 and 8 and onto high school. Last year I looked at making accelerated shift with my learners reading between the ages of 7-8 years and I am wondering if using these skills that I worked on with these learners last year will be a good starting base for my learners this year reading at 8 - 9 years.  

Key questions:

• Is it the decoding of my learners?
• Is it the comprehension of my learners?
• It is a combination of both decoding and comprehension?
• Are they making progress in reading but not showing in their reading age?
• Are there other holes in their reading that is holding them back but pushing in these higher levels and pushing them forward in the lower levels?

After looking at these questions it has given me a basis to start my inquiry and what to look for in these learners. 

Where to next?

I am going to spend the next few weeks having smaller guided reading sessions with these target students. I will also look into what works well for my learners working above and below these levels to see what I can incorporate into accelerated reading for these groups of learners. I will also look into how to frame my inquiry question this year and speak other CoL teachers and teachers at Pt England and see if they finding any of the same trends and how we could look at this as a collaborative inquiry.