As I am the sole teacher of reading in our team I am constantly thinking about reading-how it's going, what's working/what's not, getting feedback from the students, changing/improving things and also updating. Over the year (last year 2015) I began to form a hunch that things just weren't quite working. And after focusing further with my reading students I started to notice some common things. At the time students were grouped by ability and this caused the problem of student 'knowing' if they were good readers or at the other end of the scale in their eyes bad readers. This then lead to two other problems some students lost confidents in their reading abilities and interest and at the other end of the scale some students thought they were so good at reading they didn't need to try or work hard in this area anymore. Reading was mainly focused on Book club and students weren't up to date with there reading and the quality of their reading roles was a concern.
From these concerns I started thinking about the following things. Did they need to be grouped based on ability? Had I set high enough expectations at the beginning of the year? Could there be more to reading that just book club? How could I build confidence in the students who thought they were bad readers? How could I continue to challenge students who were good readers and encourage them to share their expertise in this area?
After reading John Hattie's ranking of influences on achievement-students being in ability groups is not the most effective way of teaching. Something I have always believed is that mixed ability teaches all students different things. There are different types of discussion, students can lead in different ways, they bring different strengths and weaknesses to the group, everyone has different skills etc. From this I thought with in reason for Book Bash this year I would group students by the books they wanted to read from the reading survey they did and regardless of their reading age mixed ability group the students in Marama.
Thursday, 19 May 2016
Reading targets-teacher inquiry
This year for my teacher inquiry I really want to focus on reading targets. My aim is help student build more confidence in their reading ability and also to finds something they enjoy reading.
So far for my inquiry I have got everyone in the Marama Team (including targets) to complete a reading questionnaire about themselves. I have also used the information gathered on here to make groups for Book Bash or other reading activities based on interests. Here is the survey:
After looking at what this is really telling me I found some interesting things. I analysed our 19 target students Reading surveys and found the following things.
For the question How would you rate how much you love reading 1-10 (1 not very much-10 you love reading)
2 rated reading as 1-3
11 said 4-6
6 said 7-10
For the following question I think reading is..... where they had to finish the sentence I got the following replies:
I think reading is not a thing for me because I don’t enjoy sitting down and read a book because I like to move around and use my body.
I think reading is _Amazing because it helps you in the future
I think reading is Reading through book clearly to others.
I think reading is______4_
I think reading is___cool and fun.
What is reading?I think reading is when read a book
I think reading is nice to read by myself somewhere quite.
I think reading is-Reading is fun but you just have to find a book you like
I think reading, is ok, I don’t love it but I don’t hate it either.
I think reading is__Fun_if I am interested in the book I think reading is fun and interesting and gives you lots of information
I think reading is____Awesome_and_fun
I think reading is______AwesomeI think reading is__Kinda fun.
I think reading is a good way for me to be a good reader
I think reading is_not fun because it’s just not something I like.
I think reading is cool
And two students didn't answer.
I found this very interesting. Only 2 of these students seem to dislike reading which showed through the ratings and the comments. What I found really positive is that most of these students don't mind reading and that some really like it. After thinking more about this it makes me think that most of these students do like reading but maybe they don't like how we do reading at school and that I need to do some further investigating with these students.
So far for my inquiry I have got everyone in the Marama Team (including targets) to complete a reading questionnaire about themselves. I have also used the information gathered on here to make groups for Book Bash or other reading activities based on interests. Here is the survey:
After looking at what this is really telling me I found some interesting things. I analysed our 19 target students Reading surveys and found the following things.
For the question How would you rate how much you love reading 1-10 (1 not very much-10 you love reading)
2 rated reading as 1-3
11 said 4-6
6 said 7-10
For the following question I think reading is..... where they had to finish the sentence I got the following replies:
I think reading is not a thing for me because I don’t enjoy sitting down and read a book because I like to move around and use my body.
I think reading is _Amazing because it helps you in the future
I think reading is Reading through book clearly to others.
I think reading is______4_
I think reading is___cool and fun.
What is reading?I think reading is when read a book
I think reading is nice to read by myself somewhere quite.
I think reading is-Reading is fun but you just have to find a book you like
I think reading, is ok, I don’t love it but I don’t hate it either.
I think reading is__Fun_if I am interested in the book I think reading is fun and interesting and gives you lots of information
I think reading is____Awesome_and_fun
I think reading is______AwesomeI think reading is__Kinda fun.
I think reading is a good way for me to be a good reader
I think reading is_not fun because it’s just not something I like.
I think reading is cool
And two students didn't answer.
I found this very interesting. Only 2 of these students seem to dislike reading which showed through the ratings and the comments. What I found really positive is that most of these students don't mind reading and that some really like it. After thinking more about this it makes me think that most of these students do like reading but maybe they don't like how we do reading at school and that I need to do some further investigating with these students.
Agency and Ownership: why the how? Steve Mouldy
ULearn
*Agency-ownership and responsibility of learning
*curiosity enables students to find their own learning paths
*creativity empowers you to create change in the world around u live in
*wonder wall, curiosity tables-don't go back to that question a week later
*question storms-good way to find deeper q's
*formed 50 questions around medical artificial intelligence, then refine to to 8 really important questions, then change a closed questions to open and open to closed then choose 4 to investigate.
*throw prompts to help think of new questions-whats the silliest question you can think of? what is a should question etc
*inquiry-research not everything.
I found this breakout really interesting in terms of questioning. We were asked to look at a picture and write down as many questions as we can and it was really hard. He said to get to around 40, because after a certain amount of questions deeper questions start to come out. I think this will be a useful task for when we look at the students IMPACTS or inquires.
*Agency-ownership and responsibility of learning
*curiosity enables students to find their own learning paths
*creativity empowers you to create change in the world around u live in
*wonder wall, curiosity tables-don't go back to that question a week later
*question storms-good way to find deeper q's
*formed 50 questions around medical artificial intelligence, then refine to to 8 really important questions, then change a closed questions to open and open to closed then choose 4 to investigate.
*throw prompts to help think of new questions-whats the silliest question you can think of? what is a should question etc
*inquiry-research not everything.
I found this breakout really interesting in terms of questioning. We were asked to look at a picture and write down as many questions as we can and it was really hard. He said to get to around 40, because after a certain amount of questions deeper questions start to come out. I think this will be a useful task for when we look at the students IMPACTS or inquires.
Learning without limits-Jumping in boots in all Peachgrove Intermediate School
I just found this blog post from last year at Ulearn. It's great to re-look at notes to refresh my memory.
I have really enjoyed listening to Peachgrove Intermediates "Story of learning and change-from the leaders perspective". A lot of things spoken about linked or connected with things we are doing at school.
Before change and new learning you must self review and be critical. Emerging adolescents-group of kids are still learning but are ready and are wanting to get out into the world.
BED/OAR/ORA-
you can go to bed-blame, excuses, denial
row the oar-ownership, accountability, responsibility
ora-
Peachgrove PRIDE
Positive
Respectful
Inclusive
Determine
Engaged
*John Edwards-mentor helped along their journey.
*learning, unlearning, relearning
*the schools original symbol was a lion-linked with the values 'PRIDE'
*pace of change-society cant cope with it-only way to cope is to be a good learner
*graduate student-by the time the are finished
*"it's not about the furniture"
*wake up everybody-things are changing
I have really enjoyed listening to Peachgrove Intermediates "Story of learning and change-from the leaders perspective". A lot of things spoken about linked or connected with things we are doing at school.
Before change and new learning you must self review and be critical. Emerging adolescents-group of kids are still learning but are ready and are wanting to get out into the world.
BED/OAR/ORA-
you can go to bed-blame, excuses, denial
row the oar-ownership, accountability, responsibility
ora-
Peachgrove PRIDE
Positive
Respectful
Inclusive
Determine
Engaged
*John Edwards-mentor helped along their journey.
*learning, unlearning, relearning
*the schools original symbol was a lion-linked with the values 'PRIDE'
*pace of change-society cant cope with it-only way to cope is to be a good learner
*graduate student-by the time the are finished
*"it's not about the furniture"
*wake up everybody-things are changing
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