Reading Reflection

Reflecting on our reading journey with 4 children has been interesting.  Once the children came back to school, I made time to hear the children reading individually.  They enjoyed using this time together to show me their skills and to gain individual tuition on sticking points without the others putting their ideas forward.  They have found that using previous technics of mumbling an unknown word or quickly turning a page before it is finished being read, don't work when you are flying solo!

I have found the prompts useful - learning how to help a child without supplying too much information but to guide them towards their mistakes.  Having a prompt sheet on the table during reading is a reminder to me, what I need to do during a reading lesson.  

My four readers have made progress despite having their learning disrupted for two periods this year.  They began as a group together but they have moved at different paces and learnt different skills.  

Child A is now at Level 5/6.  He has gained more HFW, is beginning to use strategies and attempts to respond to prompts.  He is noticing similarities and this is giving him more confidence as he reads more fluently.

Child B is reading at Level 7 and is still not focused on his reading but just wants to get reading over and done with.  He doesn't listen to the discussion before reading a new book when I use some of the words I think will trip him up.  Rushing his reading means he doesn't notice endings and words that are very similar (came and come) so the prompt, "Did that sound right?" often gets answered with "I don't know."

Child C is reading at Level 5/6.  Giving her the words to practice that she had not been able to decode has helped Child C become more confident.  When she rereads the familiar book the next day her reading is fluent.

Child D is taking a little more time to acquire the skills and is reading at Level 4.  He is beginning to see the connection between written words and alphabet sound knowledge, looks carefully at the text and is able to answer questions about the text.  He should begin to make greater gains with these strategies. 

Where to from here for me?  There is still work to do so that the prompts become more automatic and are the correct one to help, not confuse the child.  I am also trying to master the skill of asking a question which contains the unknown word a child wants but asking it in such a way that the child still needs to do some work to solve the problem.  

   

Manaiakalani Create Workshops 2020

 The Tamaki cluster of the Manaiakalani schools got together to explore the "create" aspect of "learn, create, share".  It was an opportunity to choose an area of digital learning to explore.  I choose two coding workshops as this is a fun way to introduce children to digital technology.

The first workshop was how to introduce children to coding using Bee-Bots.  A Bee-Bot is a programable floor robot that looks like a bee.  They have seven instructions - forward, backward, turn left, turn right, pause, memory clear and start, so they are an ideal introductory tool.  They allow children to create, explore and solve problems in a fun way and they can be integrated into all curriculum areas using different mats such as alphabets, numbers, retelling a story.  The children can also design their own mats. 

 The second workshop was using Codey Rocky.  Codey Rocky is another programable robot.  It has two separate parts - a wheel base and a digital screen.  We used a scratch programme to enter a code to make the robot talk and move.  It allows for lots of creativity and is a step up from the Bee-Bot robots.

The workshops were a great way to be thinking about the digital curriculum and to share ideas with others.  Thanks to those who gave up their time to make the presentations and present them to us.

Inquiry Reading Focus Term 3 2020

The process of learning to read is a complex process that requires the teaching of various skills and strategies such as knowing the relationship between letters and sounds and phonemic awareness.  It is a process that takes time to acquire and plenty of practise to maintain these skills.  Some children readily learn how to "break the alphabet code" working out that the alphabet is a symbol system of sounds and words, while for other children it is a lengthy process. 

The school wide Inquiry focus on Reading is to lift the achievement of students who are below the expected  achievement level.  It is hoped that through our Inquiry we will learn more about our priority student's reading behaviour and help them to overcome their problems.

When listening to children read individually, one can quickly observe what reading strategies they use.  What do they do when they come to an unknown word?  Do they appeal?  Or use only visual clues?  Wait for someone else in the group to supply the word?  Or have a wild guess?

I have focused on a group of children who have some knowledge of the "alphabet code" and are trying to make meaning out of print.  They are reading at red level and know some high frequency words.  These are the observations I made. 

Child A: His reading lacks fluency.  He reads slowly, "voice pointing" at each word, as if he lacks confidence in his own reading ability.   He came to an unknown word , hesitated then turned to the title saying it was a bit like this.  He noticed the word in the title had an upper case initial letter and he asked if it was the same word.  We compared the letters and he then agreed it was the same word. He also used the picture to confirm his "guess" of an unknown interest word further on in the story.

Child B: Read very fast and he did not pick up his errors.  He was not looking at the whole word but guessed from the initial letter.  He is not noticing or using any punctuation but did commented at one stage that the reading didn't make sense but did not attempt to fix it.  He lacked focus on the task and was constantly glancing around at what else was happening in the class.

Child C: Although she has a good alphabet sound knowledge, Child C has not made as much progress as I had expected.  She lacks confidence and does not like to get a word wrong so constantly stops and appeals at an unknown word.   She gets the high frequency words "come" and "here" mixed up and she has not got the confidence to check if she has the correct word.  

Child D: Also reads slowly and appeals when he comes to an unknown word.  He reads each night which is beginning to help him recognise more high frequency words but this does not help him with unknown words.  He knows most of his alphabet sounds but has not made the connection between alphabet sound knowledge and how to attempt to use it to help with his reading.

Hearing the children read individually was helpful to pin point some of their reading behaviours.

  

     

Back at School!

It is great to be back at school, to see the children and to begin to learn again.  The last two weeks have been busy getting use to new routines and for the children to renew friendships.

Learning from home was enjoyable but I did miss the contact with the children.  As the children in my class are only 5 years old, I had emails from parents and saw some of the children in class and team hangouts if parents were available to help the children join the hangouts. 

 On the first day back it was all a bit different.  Everyone was learning to use the new routines and the children found this tiring.  We just took things slowly, doing fun things, eating when they said they were hungry and doing Engage activities to help break up the day.  The children are being kind with their words when reminding others what needs to be done.  They are seated apart but we have had fun doing exercises, blowing bubbles, doing lots of art activities and even making "social distancing" hats!

We all agree on one thing - it's great to be back at school. 

The new normal look of our class- with social distancing seating

Finding new ways to tell our friends we want to be friends even if we have to stay apart

One of our fun activities making "social distancing" hats.

Writing in Room 16

I chose writing as a focus curriculum area because many of the children have difficulty sharing ideas in a sentence and physically recording these ideas in a written form.

Prior to lockdown, when school was still open, we began group writing lessons in the manner of Dr Gwenneth Phillips' writing programme.  The children were ability grouped so they wouldn't feel overawed by someone who could express themselves more easily.  A co- constructed sentence was written in a modelling book with the children all helping with ideas for the sentence.The sentence is recorded by the teacher with unfamiliar words sounded out, and attention was given to direction, orientation and sequencing and hearing and recording sounds.  The children were shown how to use familiar class spelling resources correctly.

The co- constructed sentence was read out loud by the group to recall the words in the sentence and the order in which they are written.  The next step was not part of Dr Phillips' programme but it was a solution to the problem of children finding it difficult to remember the words in the shared sentence.  The children took a photo of the shared sentence on their iPad and did an audio recording on the group reading the story.  This way there was both a visual and an auditory reminder for the children to manage and rewind their learning if and when they needed to.  Some of this may have been the novelty of using their iPad during writing time but at least they were able to write the sentence correctly in their books.

The programme was only going for a short period of time before lockdown so I have no data to draw conclusions on whether the writing programme was making any difference.  What I did notice was the engagement and participation of the children in making a co constructed sentence.  Because we were working in smaller groups, it was easier for children to focus on the task at hand.

Smaller groups also meant we could spend time where it was needed most.  We accepted all suggestions as the children were attempting to sound out words and form the sentence, working through the suggestions to find the correct way to say the sentence in English.  Sometimes explanations were met with a shrug of the shoulders but for others they felt they were heard and not dismissed out of hand.

It will be interested to see if the children were able to continue to practise their self management skills from the Engage programme or whether we will need to start the programme all over again and also see if there has been any development of their writing skills.   

Lockdown, Home Learning and Engage

On March 23 New Zealand went to Level 4 lockdown which means our school are closed.  The holidays were brought forward to help teachers prepare for a very different type of learning.  While our children remain at home, we have been preparing remote learning lessons for our children to start Term 2 on April 15.

We are attempting to deliver a range of curriculum lessons on line.  When making slides and videos about maths, writing and reading I have also made some videos of Engage games and use Engage cues to help the children participate in the games at home.

At a stressful time it is important to try and keep routines going and help the children maintain a link to school programmes.  I hope some of our children will practise these games and demonstrate them to their parents, showing the benefits of self regulation.

Using the Engage Programme For Inquiry 2020

This year I am using the Engage programme in my Inquiry to help children learn to manage their own learning and behaviour and in doing so, help them learn strategies to improve their achievement in writing.

My focus question will be:

Will using the Engage programme help children become more focused on their ability to write and help them make progress? 

The children I have chosen for my priority learners are a group of children who started school this year as well as one child who started at the end of last year.  They have a range of previous experiences of writing.  Some find the writing experience of generating a sentence and turning their ideas into a written sentence a challenge.  They are not confident and rely heavily on teacher support.  The "I can't.." attitude leads to them not attempting to write but sitting back and waiting for help.  They find difficulty focusing on instructions and some are constantly on the move.

I am hoping to help this group see that once they can learn and practise self regulation skills to manage their emotions and behaviour in an appropriate way, they will find that learning writing skills will be easier.

What is the Engage Programme?

The Engage programme developed by the University of Otago is a series of games that help the children practise self regulation skills. During the games the children are told what the game is teaching them in language they can understand - "Big slow breathing can help us to feel calm and relaxed." These cues can be used at other times throughout the day to remind the children when they need to be calm to help them learn.

The Engage programme has three domains to help the children to control their emotions (feelings), thoughts (thinking) and behaviours (doing). The emotional domain recognises and regulates emotions through breathing, movement and mindfulness. These games help children express themselves appropriately and manage their emotions. In the cognitive domain, the games help children attend to what is important, to ignore distractions and focus on and overcome a problem. Controlling impulses, taking turns and being patient are all part of the behavioural domain.

As the Engage programme can be used as a whole class activity, the children have time to practise the three domains each school day. By explicitly teaching these skills and talking about their emotions, the children are becoming more aware that they can control the outcome of their emotions. "Sprinkling" these ideas and skills over all the class, not just the priority group won't harm them but will benefit all. Already, it has made some children more aware of how to help those who find self regulation difficult.

What data will be gathered and how will it be assessed?

Data to assess their self regulation will be gathered, approximately every 5 weeks using a formal assessment observational rating scale used by the Engage programme ( Basc- 2 Behavioural Assessment scheme for children to assess functioning and SQD strengths and difficulties questionnaire which is an emotional and behaviour questionnaire).

Writing will be assessed using a checklist to assess skills they are using ie how they are developing their skills and how they are using their resilience to help themselves.  Do they sit back and expect the teacher to do all the work? Do they attempt to draw a picture and then make some marks for their story? Do they attempt to write their name and then seek help?  Or through self regulation understand that, I can remember what the teacher was telling me to do, I can keep going with difficult tasks and ignore my neighbour, I can deal with things not going to plan but I do need to try and it is OK to ask for help.

I will also gather audio recordings from our writing sessions perhaps once a fortnight to show progress. It is often the conversations between children that provide evidence of how they try and use the Engage programme to help them to stay focused, listen to and follow instructions and complete a task.

I hope this data, the check list and the audio will show if there has been any movement on the engage Programme scale and any corresponding progress with the children's writing.

  

2020 "Kai manu tonu te tumanako: Never Lose Hope"

Our school wide focus for 2020 is "kai manu tone te tumanako" or Never lose hope.  This is an important value - we all have hopes and dreams and we need to hold on to them.

As teachers we want to help our students hold on to their hopes and dream and help them succeed.  Teaching them confidence and creativity so that they can reach their goals in school as well as in life is one of the most important things we can do for our students.

To be able to help our students succeed we need to set clear and attainable goals, to help them develop strategies to obtain these goals and keep them motivated to use these strategies.  I am using the engage programme to help my students develop strategies to manage their emotions and behaviour  in an appropriate way so that they can use these strategies to attain their learning goals.

The Engage Programme

Self regulation allows children to manage their emotions, behaviour and body movement when they are faced with a difficult situation.  The Engage programme helps children learn to manage their emotions and behaviour in appropriate ways.  It teaches children how to think of different solutions when a situation changes - to stop and reflect on the situation and come up with a solution that keeps them calm instead of going into sensory overload and giving into frustrating outbursts.

Self regulation skills develop gradually.  Children need time to practise these skills and adults need to acknowledge that it is sometimes hard.  Giving children choices throughout the day gives them opportunities to practise and develop decision making skills and it also gives them a sense of having a sense of mastery over their own life.

"Tired Flopsy Bunnies"

The best way to help children practise self regulation is to play games.  Games are fun and present different challenges that are important.  You need to follow rules, take turns, pay attention, shift your focus and inhibit impulses if you want to win.

I introduced the programme to my class using the breathing and relaxation exercises.  Most children responded well.  They listened to the instructions and were able to take big slow breathes to help them feel calm.  Those who find it hard to keep calm during class found it hard to lie still but with practise and seeing others doing the exercises they realised it was important to try and keep calm to be like the others.

Games like "Musical Statues" and "Duck, Duck, Goose" were already favourites but by giving them information on why we were playing them it gave a different emphasis to the games.  Other games such as "Think or Say" also helped in reinforcing the idea of kindness and the Point England Way of doing things.

Cognitive and thinking games requiring reminding that if they didn't succeed at first someone could always join in and help them.  This form of cooperation helped overcome initial reluctance of some of the children to do puzzles.  "Hot Potato" was one of the few games that the children found it difficult to remain calm.  There were often arguments when someone passed the object on too quickly when the music stopped which resulted in discussions about how and why we were playing the game to try to calm the situation.

Behavioural and Doing activities were sometimes modified when the weather didn't permit us to get outside and use a bigger space.  For example "Hide and Seek" was modified to a circle game of one person hiding a small object and getting someone to guess who had the object.

Curled up like a hedgehog

By the end of the term the children were adapting other games they knew.  "Whispers" was used to give simple instructions and they thought of other animal poses to add to their yoga exercises.  This came about after a trip to the zoo or from a story that suggested a way an animal behaved.

In 2020 I want to plan the exercises to be included in class activities, three times a day, but also allow for spontaneity so that if a different game would be more appropriate to be prepared to swap games.  I would like to inquire into how useful the Engage programme is in helping children remember instructions, ignore distractions and work well with others. 

"I'm like a hanging bat," said AJ

Small trees or shrubs

A forest of trees.

Looking out the window at the trees inspired Ace to try and be a tree.  "It's harder than you think," said Ace

Helping children to develop these skills will be something that I hope will be of huge value through out their life.