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.
