The catalytic aspect of student learning my inquiry focused on this year was
How will I change my teaching practice to ensure my learners are developing a deeper understanding of vocabulary (in Literacy)?
I identified this as my focus when I noticed
The discrepancy between reading and writing was evident in school wide data but also my class assessment data, leading me to choose reading as my focus area for my coL within school inquiry & focusing on vocabulary as it was the highlighted area of weakness in my class.
To build a rich picture of my students’ learning I used ……. (sources of evidence and data e.g. PAT reading, my own vocabulary test, student voice)
Student Voice - through google forms, padlet, interlead, literacy learner profiles from ALL intervention to collect information about students cultural backgrounds, things that were important to them, their reading interests, attitudes towards reading, what they’d like to read more of, types of texts etc
PAT Vocab results - I’d use these results to help me identify the level of understanding my students have with words.
Samples of Writing - I’d use samples of their writing throughout the year and from summative assessments to assess their standard of vocabulary used. From this, i’d know if they’ve used words correctly and words we’ve learnt and discussed during our reading sessions.
Talanoa with students’ previous teachers, themselves and their whanau - for more insight on students, id approach previous teachers
Blog posts
The main patterns of student learning I identified in the profiling phase were (their strengths and needs)
Strengths - They enjoyed reading through song lyrics, reading myths & legends from their cultural backgrounds, reading about cultural superstitions, visual prompts helped them understand the text more, texts on things they liked/enjoyed & familiarised with
Needs - 3 main areas were: Vocabulary Knowledge, Decoding, Comprehension
My profiling of my own teaching showed that I had strengths in ….
Whole Class teaching
Engaging students
Teaching my way! in a way it made sense to me
But my students would likely make more progress if
I provided students with explicit instructions to build vocabulary
Creating more Cultural experiences for students to be more hands-on and actively involved in.
Constant exposure to new key words and topic-specific vocabulary
The changes I made in my teaching were ….
Changing my Reading programme, Implemented of Daily 5 programme and using a balanced reading structure inspired by Sheena Cameron
Creating Authentic Learning Experiences relating to my students cultural background and using these experiences as points of Talanoa in class, enabling students to be exposed to thematic key understandings relating to our school LCS focus for 2020 which was IDENTITY
Taught through cultural competencies framework - being aware of what was important to my students identity and using that as the hook in my practice this year
Links to the LPF documents
Front-loading students with keywords from the text prior to the delivered lesson
Implemented the Sheena Cameron Vocabulary programme through my guided sessions
Continued to implement ALL strategies
The literature/expertise that helped me decide what changes to make was…
The Reading Book by Sheena Cameron & Louise Dempsey
Effective Literacy Practice in Y5-8
Tapasa cultural competencies framework
What every primary school teacher should know about vocabulary by Jannie Van Hees
Boys in Literacy PD by Marshall Diggs
Talanoa Framework
The easiest and hardest things for me to change were…..
My teacher ownership - giving more authority to the students
Stepping out of my comfort zone and implementing a reading programme that was initially foreign to me
Changing my practice by trying new things that I believed would help my inquiry but also be successful for my students achievement
Overall I would rate the changes in student learning as….
“Work in progress”.
Out of my 6 target students, (L, B, C, T, G, N), 4 made accelerated progress and the other 2 made steady progress. 5 of my students are Y8’s and I can confidently say that most of them are mentally & emotionally ready for high school learning.
5 of the boys are Y8 and they are leaving school with a passion for education and have the drive to persevere with their High School learning next year.
The most important learning I made about …. (my focus of student learning) was that
Talanoa/Story-telling and Oral language provides opportunities for students to dialogue more, enhancing their knowledge of vocabulary in English as well as their first language.
Authentic cultural learning experiences provides opportunities for students to read/write/problem solve - it also encourages teachers to learn more about their students identity
If you want to hit the nail with teaching Pasifika/Maori students you need to invest time into learning about the culture they identify with and what this means to them is key.