Kia Ora, Namaste and Bula Vinaka! Welcome to my professional blog! I am a Year 6 teacher at Glen Innes School. This year I am taking on the role of the Community of Learning within school teacher at my school. Thank you for following my journey.
Incorporating interactive and diverse reading activities, such as guided group discussions, storytelling, and creative writing exercises, will positively impact students' reading comprehension, critical thinking skills, and overall literacy development. As a result, students in my Reading class will demonstrate improved reading proficiency, increased interest in reading, and higher levels of academic achievement compared to those in traditional lecture-based reading classes.
As such I came up with three hunches that I have learnt so far about my students and the learning environment.
If I encourage my students to do more active reading such as making predictions, asking questions, and making connections then this will lead to improved comprehension.
If I discuss the vocabulary related to the text prior to my Guided reading session, then they will find it much easier to understand the text.
If I provide opportunities for an extended discussion of text meaning and interpretation it will help my students gain more confidence and improve their thinking skills.
My Inquiry so far
Using a range of evidence, tools, assessments, student voice, and whanau voice to understand the students learning.
Understanding their strengths and the next learning steps.
On Friday, June 2nd we had our cluster Teacher Only Day at Pt England School.
"During our Kahui Ako workshops, teachers from the Community of Learning (COL) took the initiative to share and exchange ideas on how to incorporate "create" activities in their classrooms. I have always had a great passion for weaving, and I had the opportunity to try it with my class last year. We even went to Te Oro during the Matariki celebration and engaged in more weaving with flax. Therefore, I decided that weaving with Harakeke would be the best 'create activity' to share with my colleagues during the Hanga Meeting. So, I had a chat with my colleague, Rebecca, who is a new entrant teacher at our school and is also part of the COL teachers. Knowing her passion for weaving with her little ones, I was sure she would be interested, and we embarked on a perfect collaboration for this 'create' meeting.
The slide presentation we shared with our group started with a 'Karakia' (blessing), followed by explaining the 'Tikanga' (customs) surrounding the activity. We then shared the learning intentions with our fellow teachers. The meeting turned out to be a resounding success, and Rebecca and I were thrilled because it was our first 'Create' meeting, and the teachers in the group were actively engaged, busily crafting whetu (stars) from Harakeke (flax)."
Provide opportunities for an extended
discussion of text meaning and
interpretation
Providing students with the opportunity to participate in effective discussions
regarding the significance or meaning of a text in all content areas is a way
to improve reading comprehension. Teachers may guide a whole classroom
discussion or monitor students as they discuss in small groups. Effective
discussions may include constructing comprehension and investigating
outcomes both through cognition, relating what one knows, and listening to
what others have to say.
Reference:
Kamil, M. L., Borman, G. D., Dole, J., Kral, C. C., Salinger, T., & Torgesen, J.
(2008). Improving adolescent literacy: Effective classroom and intervention practices
(NCEE 2008-4027). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education
Sciences, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance.
Teaching students with comprehension difficulties
Issues with reading comprehension occur when students struggle to understand the meaning behind words, phrases and other texts.
Signs that may indicate a reading comprehension difficulty include:
the trouble with letter and word recognition
difficulty understanding words and ideas
slow reading speed and fluency
limited vocabulary or underdeveloped oral language skills
difficulty answering questions about or discussing a text.
When supporting students with comprehension difficulties, it is vital to understand the reason(s) behind their difficulties.
The approaches include:
building students' vocabulary
building students' background knowledge
modelled reading
shared reading
guided reading
reciprocal teaching
close reading.
Key elements of guided reading
Guided reading sessions are made up of three parts:
before reading discussion
independent reading
after reading discussion
The main goal of guided reading is to help students use reading strategies whilst reading for meaning independently.
Why use guided reading
Guided reading is informed by Vygotsky’s (1978) Zone of Proximal Development and Bruner’s (1986) notion of scaffolding, informed by Vygotsky’s research. The practice of guided reading is based on the belief that the optimal learning for a reader occurs when they are assisted by an educator, or expert ‘other’, to read and understand a text with clear but limited guidance. Guided reading allows students to practise and consolidate effective reading strategies.
Reciprocal Teaching is a contemporary application of Vygotsky's theories; it is used to improve students' ability to learn from text. In this method, teachers and students collaborate in learning and practising four key skills: summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting.
Timepoint one data (shared and analysed in this blog post) was captured through:
Informal teacher observation
Student voice through Google forms
Assessment (PAT & e-asTTle)
Recording my lesson
The PAT and e-asTTle assessments were carried out in Week 5. I am really looking forward to seeing an accelerated shift later in Term 3 and Term 4. I believe Term 1 data collection will help me to make clear comparisons at the end of the year.
The challenge for my students this year is to make an accelerated shift in Reading by being more culturally visible and making use of prior knowledge that will boost confidence and capability in Reading.
One of the significant challenges my priority group is facing is the inability to connect ideas in a text, lack of concentration during reading, needing more prior knowledge and most importantly understanding the meaning between the lines.
How to overcome these challenges?
I am trying to incorporate different ideas and thinking strategies such as Reciprocal Teaching ( Tuakana Teina), more scaffolding and providing opportunities for an extended discussion of the text.
Some of the strategies that I have already started working on it are :
More structured lessons - I have made some changes in my Reading Plan such as using multimodal planning.
Activating prior knowledge
Explicit teaching like using small steps to allow students to understand and practise.
Choosing texts and activities that are appropriate and matched to their level of ability.
Collaborative learning - I am trying to incorporate more peer learning.
I am working on my feedback as well, trying to be more explicit.
I actually created a Workbook to keep a record of the texts and the reflections.
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