RPI Day 3: Text Selection

Today is day three for RPI and our focus this week was around text selection. I really enjoyed this session as we were able to delve deeper into different text types and think about how we could use these in the classroom. 

Digital and Print Texts 

We started off the morning looking at the different types of texts that we can use in the classroom. Dorothy gave us some really great tools that we can use on our devices and reminded us of the importance of using these tools in sync with our deliberate acts of teaching to strengthen our literacy program. One tool that I am quite excited to look into that I hadn’t heard of before was Vooks so I will be adding that to be checked out over the holidays!

Choosing appropriate texts

This slide really resonated with me during this session as I haven’t thought of flexible grouping in this way. I really liked how we talked about grouping students based on their interests and this doesn't necessarily have to be for a long period of time. I think I focus so much on the groups that I have made and moving students around based on ability that I forget that there are other ways of integrating flexible grouping into our literacy sessions and allowing others to share their thoughts and ideas with others from different abilities to gain a different perspective. 

Planning and Finding texts for your group

I had a really good reminder about some of the key resources that we have access to in order to know what is in a text and the types of vocabulary that will be found in the text before selecting it. I use journal surf all the time and often forget about TKI. This part of the day was a really good reminder to check out TKI and also think about using resources from ARBs. 

Text Coverage 

I really loved this slide from this session and the talking points that came from it. I often forget that we can use images as text and this was a really good reminder that we can pull a lot out of an image. This made me think about how I could use these as a shared reading piece or how we can use images linked to what we are learning to have whole class and small group discussions. This will be a really great way to link reading and writing together as we can pull out the key information and then the students can turn this into descriptive writing. This part of the day was a really good reminder of the different types of texts and how we can pull them together within our literacy programs. I also really want to check out “A New Dawn” which Georgie recommended! Add that to the holiday reading list!

Skill Builder - Summarising

Loved this part of the day where we were given a huge amount of resources that I cannot wait to check out properly over the holidays and have a look at some of the key activities. The one resource that I am really excited to check out is The Grammar Project. 

Selecting Texts for the Wider Reading Program

I have a whole list of new books that I am so excited to check out over the holidays, thankyou Georgie! We had a task for this part of the day where we had to think about the different types of reading we have in our classroom and if we timetable for them or not and I am so guilty of not timetable things I just decide that I am going to do it in the moment. So that has given me a lot of food for thought to make sure that I am timetabling things for myself to remember. I am super excited to try buddy reading in my class next week as this is something that I am not doing in my class at the moment. Another thing I want to add into my classroom program is Shared Reading which I do at times but not well. I am super excited to shake up my literacy program from this session!

 

I really enjoyed today's session and I feel that I have gotten a lot out of text selection and thinking about the different text types that we can use in the classroom. I am very excited to check out the new book recommendations and to add in buddy reading with my students next week! I have lots of new resources and ideas to check out in the holidays which is exciting and I think with week 11 next week I will play around with some of these ideas in the classroom so that I can act on them straight away in week 1 of term 2!

Academic Reading

Our next CoL PLG is this afternoon and we have been asked to read a piece of academic reading and to highlight some quote from the text to share with our colleagues. We have only been tasked to read the first few pages however I have found it very interesting so far so I think I will continue reading it to the end. The reading is "Analysis and Discussion of Classroom and Achievement Data to Raise Student Achievement" by Mei Kuin Lai and Stuart McNaughton. This is a very fitting article as I have been looking at my data for both my CoL inquiry and RPI that I am currently taking part in. From the first part of the article here are the five key quotes from the text that stood out to me. 

• In the late 1990s, research on schools involved in Ministry of Education projects indicate that there were a sizeable proportion of schools that did not analyse and use achievement data to improve their practices, but recent research indicated that most schools now regularly use data to inform their practices (Lai and McNaughton 2010). 
• Using a broad range of data is recommended, including data from assessments, observation of students in class, homework and ‘student voice’ (e.g., student questionnaires).
• The literature indicates that focusing primarily on achievement information, such as on national standards or high-stakes assessment, has failed to improve students’ literacy achievement (and by implication, failed to improve teachers’ practices).
• It could be one or several of these issues that is the cause of the poor score, and teachers need to know how to put together a teaching programme that can address these issues.
• For all these reasons, we argue that connecting achievement patterns to teaching patterns is essential if teachers are to draw the appropriate inferences from the achievement information to develop more effective teaching practices.

I am looking forward to discussing these key points this afternoon during our CoL PLG and will reflect on this on my blog after our meeting, so watch this space!

RPI Day Two: Know your Learners as Readers

For our week 2 RPI I had to jump in a few days early as we have our year 5 and 6 camp starting this week! So I was very lucky to be able to join the Tuesday crew and learn all about knowing our learners as readers. This has been a really enjoyable session as it has reminded me of some hidden gems in PAT as well as taught me some new things that I am very excited to try out in my classroom over the next few weeks.

Assessment 101
For the start of our session today we look at formal and informal assessment data and how this can lead to more reliable judgement. This was a really great start to reflect on the things that I am doing in the classroom for formal and informal assessment and what I can also add to strengthen this. I do notice things about my students as we are reading and often just keep these in my head rather than writing them down or sharing them with others in my space to read. This got me thinking about out first week of RPI when we talked about modelling books and having somewhere to store this information so that it is shared with others in my team and my release teacher. So that again has been added to the to do list so watch this space!!

Keeping track of learning
We were introduced to the teacher workbook, which upon reflection is a great resource that has been shared and there are so many things that I will take out of this and use for my own tracking and planning. This is also something that I hope to share with my team so that we are all on the same page with our planning and tracking. The assessment part of this workbook is something that I will start using. I have been using something similar however they are all under a range of different tabs so I like the idea of having this all in the same place. I am really excited to use this with my data collection.

Assessment Tools 
I really enjoyed this part of the session as it made me think about all of the wonderful things elements that are available with PAT data. I have used some of these areas previously in my inquiry however have forgotten some of the gems that there are. I do really love looking at data and cannot wait to have a look at all of my data in depth in the next few weeks. One thing that I found really cool was being able to look at the class or group as a whole in comparison to the norm. This was something I had not used before and I can't wait to explore it in more detail. 

Learning intensions and success criteria
The final part of our session today was looking at learning intentions and success criteria. I really enjoyed using the planning part of the workbook. I currently use sheets but I think the way this has been set out is something that I will implement. It is such a good tool to look across groups and to keep track of students reading ages and levels. I think again this is something that I will trial myself for the rest of the term and see how it goes and if successful will share with the rest of my team for planning next term. 

I really enjoyed today's session and getting to meet the Tuesday cohort of RPI teachers. I have definitely learnt a lot and cannot wait until after camp to reset my reading program in my classroom!

Profile Survey Reflection

One thing that we were asked to complete after our first RPI session was a reader profile survey. I have completed this with my literacy class and after looking at what I have found out I think I will do this with my home class learners as well so that I can get a better picture of all of my learners. From this survey I have found some really interesting things out about my learners and have added a few of my findings to this blog post. 

One thing that I was pleasantly surprised about was the question that asked if the learners were currently reading anything for enjoyment. As you can see in the graph below 60% of my students answered yes to reading a book for enjoyment with 40% saying they were not. It is great to see that my learners are able to find something to read for enjoyment rather than just what I have put in front of them. 

Another result I found interesting was the answers that the learners gave to the questions I like to receive books as gifts? As you can see from the graph below many of my learners don't like receiving books as gifts. I think the reason I found it so interesting was when I was that age I loved to receive books as presents. It has made me reflect on what different forms of "books" we can have now with audio books and books being read online through video services has potentially changed what getting a physical book looks like. There are so many digital tools to have e-books now to so I wonder if that has been a change.

Finally one other thing I found really interesting were the results for the questions "List the skills you need to be a good reader and when it comes to reading, I want to get better at" many of the answers to these questions were learners saying that they need to be better at learning and understanding hard words. They also shared that to be a good reader you need to be able to say and understand hard and difficult words. This was really interesting and has allowed me to think about how I can add this into my teaching program. Previously I have had spelling words linked to the text that learners are reading and pull out challenging and new vocabulary that we come across from reading. So think that I will focus on adding this into my class program again. One other written answer I loved was that to be a good reader you have to use expression! 

I really enjoyed looking at the responses for my learners and I will refer back to this throughout the year. I have really liked being able to see what the leaners like to read and what some of their favourites are which will help me be able to recommend books when we go tot the library, watch this space for some book recommendations from room 7!