Bursts and Bubbles

The catalytic aspect of student learning my inquiry focused on this year was will a focus on spelling conventions foster an environment where word consciousness strengthens connections to the learning?

I identified this as my focus when I noticed while observing students from past years and noticing the actions of our learners this year stop writing completely as well as stop reading and avoid sharing back to the class when they lose the connection to words needed to continue to make sense of the learning. 

To build a rich picture of my students' learning I used T1 and T4 spelling tests, eAsttle writing samples and student voice.

The main patterns of student learning I identified in the profiling phase were the need of my students to expand their vocabulary and feel confident when they felt they wanted to use that word and know how to spell it or at least try to spell it. 

My profiling of my own teaching showed that I had strengths in co-constructing with my students to achieve what areas of vocabulary needed to be looked at to give them the courage to use new words.  But that my students would likely make more progress if I developed in committing to understand where they have come from and what their aspirations are going forward and how I can assist them in that.

The changes I made in my teaching were to listen to what my students wanted to learn and how they wanted to learn, rather than preconceived ideas of what I thought they needed to spell correctly. One major thing I have learnt is to ask for help if you find yourself lost throughout the inquiry process and break it down into smaller more manageable pieces.

The expertise that helped me what changes to make were conversations with Robyn Anderson.  One of the best pieces of advice she gave me after using a resource was to make it your own then you have ownership and understanding.

Overall I would rate the changes in student learning as they have more confidence within themselves to try new vocabulary.  The evidence for my rating is that their in class reading improved as well as their Probe scores, along with eAstle and Spelling test increases.

The most important learning I made about my focus of student learning was that there are many ways to skin a cat but the most effective way is to co-construct and have meaningful conversations. The most important learning I made about inquiry was that you might start at a certain point wanting to reach a certain point but it does not always work out that way. Change is good, and inevitable to be able to progress. Some learnings that would be relevant to other teachers are to ask for help when you need it and to be flexible with where you want your lessons to go.

PLD 2023

 As usual Panmure Bridge School always encourages us to do as much PLD as we can.  This year I have participated in PLD in person and online.

Sheena Cameron and Louise Dempsey: Online                                                                Supporting Students to become Competent and Confident Spellers

This was a 3 hour online PLD that was held of 2 days.  It was looking at how to use simple high-frequency words to build onto to give the students confidence to use those words spell new words.

I used aspects of this PLD in my Teacher Inquiry this year.  Connections to the sounds, words, using the spelling rules as a tool. The use of their spelling tools will be part of my literacy program going forward.

Maori Achieving Success as Maori: Webinar

This was PLD on how, in our schools and the education sector as a whole we can think how we look at ways Maori is Achieving Success and how we can work together to ensure this happens. 

What is it like when you engage in Maori - it's like the pieces fit together!

School should reflect both worlds - that has to be the place we start - where we get to see their worlds. 

This webinar really made me think about how I think and teach and how even with the best intentions that maybe I am doing a disservice to my students. One of the main points I got from this webinar was you have to really understand where the student is coming from and that they need to know that you respect that place and you are trying to ensure that they feel relevant and heard.

T-Shaped Literacy: Online

This has been ongoing PLD with the University of Auckland. This year we looked at 6 units as follows:

• Mood and Atmosphere
• Characterisation
• POV/perspective
• Great Beginnings
• Genre
• Features
• Symbolism

This has been a big learning curve in my thought process and teaching practice. Breaking down a text and looking at an individual unit over a number of texts, exploring it deeper and deeper has been a revelation to not only myself but my students. I am fortunate to have the expertise of my teaching partner Robyn Anderson (PLD on a daily basis) to discuss ideas with, especially when I have trouble understanding the unit or struggling to find a text set to work with. Sometimes the most unlikely texts make the best examples for teaching. Through doing T-Shaped this year the biggest take away for me is to ASK FOR HELP if you need it.

Giving Effect to Te Tiriti of Waitangi: Online

New Zealand School Trustees Association - Board Matters

As the staff rep member for the BOT of Panmure Bridge, I took on this PLD as a matter of being prepared for and understand Te Tiriti of Waitangi when it came up in board matters. Having previously done a webinar Maori achieving success as Maori, they both spoke the same message. Listening to Maori, understanding where they have come from and where they want to go and how they are going to get there. It comes down to equality and equity and how we present that to our community, parents and students.

 

Teacher Inquiry 2023 Reflection

 

Inquiry Question: Will a focus on spelling conventions foster an environment where word consciousness strengthens connections to the learning?

Outcome 1: Increased awareness of vocabulary

Outcome 2: To approach new learning with confidence

Outcome 3: To understand spelling conventions

Intervention:

• Students to complete spelling test (term 1/ term 4)

• Use steps for consistent spelling tasks online.

• Teacher modeling conventions so students see me modelling what I want to see them doing.

• Create an word consciousness list that is visible.

• Timetable opportunities for word consciousness with specific skills.

• Introduce LS2 to specific designed conventions - teacher lead

• Co-construct conventions lists and follow up activities - Listen to and act upon student voice

• Encourage the use of new vocabulary when discussing familiar words.

• Strengthen vocabulary connections to the area of learning 

• Use visual clues to remember the conventions. 

The darker highlights indicate that I feel I have meet these interventions to a good level, where the lighter highlights show that these interventions needed more consistency or more explicit teaching. I found that I didn't leave enough timetabled lesson time to effectively cover the interventions I was hoping to achieve higher outcomes in.

Teacher Learning:

• Analysis spelling test (T1 to T4) - What has changed as a result of our intervention? What do we still need to do?

• Professional readings to strengthen my connections to research findings.

• Strengthen word consciousness by tabletiming opportunities for students to complete steps tasks.

• Create scaffolds to show spelling conventions in a visual sense.

• Co-construct with the learners a list of conventions

Here I have ticked all the boxes but I feel that I have not ticked them as many times as they needed to be. 

• The testing was successful - my target group either stayed the same or increased their spelling, however they got some words wrong in the T4 test that they got right in the T1 test and vice versa. Maybe going through the test itself after it has been marked will allow the students to see where they are going wrong - sometimes its missing out by 1 letter or 2 letters around the wrong way. 
• When it came to Professional Readings, some of the articles made me more confused than I was in the beginning, they just didn't seem to fit with what and how I was thinking. The outcome of this is the more professional readings I do the more they will align with my thinking and vice versa. 
• Timetabling is something that happened but not always when it was meant to or how long it was meant to.  To change this I need to make sure everything is extremely prepared in both my mind and resources so no time is wasted.
• Co-constructing with the learners was an integral part of my inquiry. Listening to what they had to say and discussing how that would work which was valuable.

Student Learning:

• To attempt to use other vocabulary when writing.

• Revisit and repeat the same spelling test to see if our word consciousness has made a difference.

• To participate in the steps program

• To participate actively in co-constructing a conventions list

• To confidently use new vocabulary in their writing.

• To understand the spelling conventions when writing unknown words.

My target group along with the rest of my students were amazing in taking on new learning. I think the biggest win was the conversations we had about words and how different words can come from words and how in some cases words from other languages even have close to the same sounding/spelling so they could also make that connection.

Measurable Outcomes:

• Increased achievement between time 1/time 2 data 

• Analyse changes in student responses in writing survey

• Understand the spelling conventions.

• Increased engagement in timetabled steps opportunities 

• Increased confidence in using their new knowledge of spelling conventions in their writing.

My target group all increased in their writing and one has significantly increased and I believe that this is from the use of new vocabulary and her willing to show confidence in spelling this new language. Increasing their Steps usage has helped with their understanding of words and how they are used. As their teacher I need to change how to include more structured learning when it comes to the spelling conventions.

I feel the main thing is when I look back on my Teachers Inquiry is to ask for help when things get too overwhelming or when you just don't know where you are going or how you are going to get there.

Describing and Explaining the changes or tweaks I have made in my practice along the way.

 Describing and Explaining the changes or tweaks I have made in my practice along the way.

Inquiry question: Will a focus on spelling conventions foster an environment where word consciousness strengthens connections to the learning?

My Thought Process

When I first undertook this inquiry it was to enable my students to have the confidence to be able to use the language the student wanted to use in their writing. In discussions with Robyn Anderson she had also noticed the same scenario within her groups, so we decided we would do a shared Teachers Inquiry. As we shared the classroom this made sense, however activities that were implemented in her groups did not translate in my groups and vice versa.  As a consequence we shared the focus but our implementation was individualised.  

Initial Thoughts of How I Could Achieve My Goal

I was under the naive impression that changing the students confidence in spelling and new language could be done by phonics and 'everyday rules' of spelling conventions.  This however was not the case.  I implemented the use of our school's Steps program ensuring it was timetabled each day as well as entering specific words we were looking on top of their assigned Steps work.  

While Robyns groups were working with affixes and suffixes we were working with beginning phonemes eg ph and f.  After looking at some examples of how that would work, I designed a form for my year 7/8 year group. I thought this would aide in my Teacher Inquiry but it didn't. I had once again over thought what my students needed and put too much on the task sheet and it became too confusing (not only for my students but for myself). 

Changes and Tweaks

I needed to make a few tweaks to the task to enable it to be an effect resource for my students.  This worked for part of the task but not the whole task. My students wanted to learn, but they wanted to learn words not the sounds of the words because they had already done that in the journers. So back to the drawing board, we played a form of a game. I choose a letter we would work with and gave a few examples of high-frequency words and the groups then added to those words by calling out words they knew starting with the same letter - this not only worked but was fun and gave the students some confidence that they knew more words than they thought they did and they could spell them too which was a bonus.

Children must learn to spell some “high-frequency” words conventionally if writing competencies are to develop (Croft, 1983). These high-frequency words are best learnt as a component of writing and not as a result of studying isolated lists of words as this enables teaching that is responsive to the individual child (Croft, 1983). Developmentally, children should be learning to spell words they almost know. These words will fall naturally within the child’s zone of proximal development, which refers to the gap between what a child can do independently and what can be achieved with the help of a teacher (Wood, 1988).

Language Experience

A change in my practice was recognising that when I was having conversations with my students they were taking on board new language that was in our conversations and I was making new discoveries about my students - making stronger connections to their worlds, therefore enabling me to change how I plan my lessons.  

Ashton-Warner (1963) referred to the conversation between the teacher and the child as a “passionate interchange of talk” (p. 66), saying, “I reach a hand into the mind of the child, bring out the stuff I find there, and use that as our first working material” (p. 34). 

At times I think I have taken for granted that the students prior knowledge would have included some of the language we were reading as some of it was what I would consider 'everyday talk'.  I had to change how I was having conversations to think explicitly about what was being said and how I could use that information to inform my planning decisions. 

Changing my Target Group

Looking at Time Point 4 it came apparent that one of my target group did not have the correct data for me to analyse.  I decided to take that student out of my numbers which in turn changed my data. Time Point 1 and 2 Data.   

Language Experience: Teaching for the Integration of Early Literacy Learning by Using What Children Know to Develop Active Problem Solving

Intervention: implementation & monitoring of new approaches

 

Intervention: implementation & monitoring of new approaches 

The 'worksheet' I had designed for my students to enhance their knowledge of how words are connected involved using phonemes that have the same sound, pictures to visibly see the difference of the sound, both familiar and unfamiliar words, an opportunity to define the words as well as being able to look for new words themselves.  Below on the left is my original worksheet and on the right the learners full in the rest of the words themselves and find the root words.  We had to do a lot of unpacking and defining for understanding so my students felt confident in finishing the worksheet. A teacher intentionally calls attention to specific vocabulary terms which heightens the student’s awareness of the new words heard or read (Manzo & Manzo, 2008).

After reflection of my initial concept of designing a word list to show the differences and similarities of phonemes, I realised that my students were still struggling with the beginning of the given words.  While having discussions in the talanoa time it was suggested that I not only make the words visible to my group but to also place a sound bite on each word so that my learners could hear the word.  The fifth framework suggests involving students in original investigations of word and word features.  (Ashlie R. Jack, 2011). When I was discussing how I was going to alter the way I would be doing the word sheet to my students, it then dawned on me that as well as working alongside words the students had searched to expand their knowledge they could place a sound bite on those words so I could navigate their learning by hearing if they are pronouncing each sound correctly that would enable them to have an understanding of how the word sounds as well as being conscious of how the word is spelt. 

With monitoring the trajectory of the understanding the students have with words they have been introduced to and observing how they have the confidence to look up new words to ensure they have not only the spelling correct but also an understanding of the definition given.  

I have really changed my thinking of the teacher teaches the unknown, to the teacher and students co construct through discussions or informal feed forward and feedback of what works for them and which words, sounds, chunks etc  they have difficulty with.

Causal Chain 2023 - Teacher Inquiry

 

My inquiry this year is to see if a focus on spelling conventions foster an environment where word consciousness strengthens connections to the learning? By creating a causal chain this helped me see what I wanted to focus on, where I was and where I wanted to end. This then helped me fill in the chain with my thought processes, data, strategies, interventions and outcomes. In short what is the purpose of my Teacher Inquiry and how can I change my teaching to foster the desired outcome. Working backwards in the map allows you to have a vision and work out step by step how you could get there. It is important to know that not everything will work but when that happens it is a learning opportunity, an opportunity to change your thinking and teaching practice and move on to the next strategy or intervention to get you closer to your inquiry focus.

My Causal Chain (backward map) is shown below.

Causal Chain Link

Robyn and I are doing a collaborative inquiry as we share a class. We have the same vision but we have different groups of learners which means our approach is different yet aligned. We have noticed the same behaviour overall from our learners. When writing they revert to words they either know or can spell rather than expanding their vocabulary by using unfamiliar words. Our hunch is that if our learners have opportunities to have a timetabled sessions of Word Consciousness - understanding the connections of the words, the chunks, decoding the words and spelling conventions, the learners will gain the confidence to begin to use the 'new' words with confidence in their everyday learning.

Qu 4: Collecting evidence and data...

 

Begin to collect evidence and data and come to the next session ready to share your preliminary findings about the nature and extent of the student challenge i.e. using your baseline student data and evidence.

For this inquiry I will be working with a core group of 8 students from a group of 21 year 7/8 students. My inquiry group consists of 3 x y7 girls, 2 x y7 boys and 3 x y8 boys. Looking at the Writing and Spelling data, these students were identified as those that had gaps that needed filling to accelerate them to the level of their year group.

  What I noticed when analysing my groups e-asTTle was that the majority of the year 7 vocabulary scored higher than their spelling, however the level of their vocabulary was lower than expected. Out of my 3 year 8 students, 2 of the students vocabulary was at a higher level than their counterparts, which is showing me they have used higher level language. This could possibly be because of the T-Shaped literacy programme we used last year as well as RFE Robyn introduced in LS2. The other year 8 student was not in our class last year which is evident by his lower vocabulary mark.  The difference in the year 8 and year 7 vocabulary has come with understanding how a basic word can be replaced with a more enticing word in their writing. This was evident with year 8 using words in their e-asTTle writing sample about a community facility like 'affordable' rather than 'cheap'.

My next steps are to familiarize the students with new words and expand their vocabulary knowledge along with learning the spelling conventions, essentially word consciousness. To aide with this I have looked at my hunches, talked to colleagues and have introduced both a digital resource along with each student having their own book to make their own word bank.

Qu 3: Building an accurate profile of students' learning - tools, measures and approaches...

Describe the tools/measures/approaches you plan to use to get a more detailed and accurate profile of students’ learning in relation to that challenge. Justify why you chose these approaches and tools.

Word consciousness encapsulates many aspects of how we look at words. use the words and ultimately being able to follow the conventions of spelling the words. This is where I have noticed that my learners come to a standstill. Writing to them means having to put pen to paper and visually seeing they can not spell the words they can verbalise. This process is a detriment to my learners as they are not able to express fully what they are wanting to say. When asked, many of my learners said they would use an alternative word instead of spelling the word they wanted wrong.  Rather than a learning opportunity, it is looked at as a failure.

Robyn and I are carrying out a collaborative inquiry this year but have chosen at this point to work independently with different groups. I have chosen to work with the students who find spelling a challenge which has left Robyn with the students who are more able spellers. Having collected the baseline data and captured student voice (shared in an earlier post on Robyn's blog), we have decided to adopt the strategy of divide and conquer. Our ongoing conversations about the spelling hurdles we need to 'knock down' have opened our eyes to the fact our students who struggle with spelling need a different intervention than those who have some understanding. We want our students to take risks but are fully aware that those who see themselves as 'not good at spelling' need to revisit the basics in a safe space where they feel empowered. 

The tools/measures/approaches:

Planning changes:

Prioritising is important in a full packed timetable full of equally important areas of teaching. For this to succeed we had to ensure that Word Consciousness was timetabled so it was visible and seen as important to us as teachers as well as the learners. In my group I have a mix of group word work and individual digital program work.

Student Voice:

Student voice is an essential process when developing teaching plans for our learners. This gives us an open and honest reflection of what our students are thinking, where they think they are in the learning journey and where need to go and what we need to do to enable our learners to make connections to the learning.  Robyn and I produced at Spelling survey which will be completed at the end of each term, giving us an opportunity to directly see the changes throughout the term.

Peters/e-asTTLE Assessments:

Analysing these results gives us a clear picture of what our students can do and where our knowledge gaps are.  We will use these results to inform our planning and identify shifts in achievement. 

Next steps:

• Explore creative and fun ways we can grow our word consciousness culture in our class
• Make word consciousness visible in our class
• Explore success in our school, other schools and other clusters 
• Professional Readings/ PLD
• Use student created DLOs as exemplars 

To sum up, we think limited word knowledge is the problem and now need to find out why it is the problem. It is not about weekly spelling lists, but rather meeting, noticing, unpacking, understanding, exploring and using a wider variety of words across the curriculum that will hopefully strengthen the spelling ability and word consciousness of the students in LS2 2023. Looking forward we feel that by addressing this now we will open the doors of learning wider when it comes to the transition into Year 9.

Qu. #2 - Why we judge this to be the most important and catalytic issue of learning for this group of learners this year...

Robyn Anderson was reminded of the Reading for Enjoyment survey she did last year to get to know our learners as readers. In a conversation with Robyn, she suggested that we could try to create a similar survey that would help us get to know our learners as spellers. Our Principal understands our concerns with regards to spelling abilities in our current class and is fully supportive of our proposed inquiry into word consciousness. 

The results of this survey are below.

Link to presentation

We judge this to be the most important and catalytic issue of learning for this group of learners this year as the results here affirm our initial thinking that a deficit in word consciousness and a 'fear' of getting words wrong, limits the level of vocabulary used in independent writing, and causes meaning to be lost in reading. It will be interesting to analyse the self efficacy rating and the spelling level given when the e-asTTle writing assessment data is complete. (NB: Our plan is to look at the current and historical data of the e-asTTle writing, PAT Reading and the Peter's spelling test to identify trends). 

Question 1: Student Inquiry Focus

 

This year Robyn Anderson and I will be undertaking a collaborative inquiry. What this will look like exactly at this stage is still in the early stages although we do know our purpose. This year we want to find out if a focus on spelling conventions will foster an environment where word consciousness strengthens connections to the learning.

We teach a Year 7/8 class with 40 learners, all who bring different connections to the conventions of spelling to the table. We know from observing students from past years and  noticing the actions of our learners this year stop writing completely as well as stop reading and avoid sharing back to the class when they lose the connection to words needed to continue to make sense of the learning. There are many reasons as to why this happens but rather than focus solely on that, we want to focus on how we can prevent this pattern from continuing as time goes on and being a challenge that becomes too much to overcome. Our thinking is that if we begin to develop these skills and understandings, the transition to language of instruction used in Y9 may be strengthened by stronger connections to word knowledge.

Once we had decided on our inquiry focus this year, Robyn and I spoke with Anna Salmon, our Reading Recovery teacher about the barriers children in the junior school face with spelling, and how she helps the students she is working with to overcome these barriers. We came away from a very rich learning conversation with lots of ideas to pull together a tentative pathway forward. Here are the notes we made to help us formulate a plan going forward.

'Word consciousness involves being aware and interested in words and word meanings (Anderson & Nagy, 1992; Graves & Watts-Taffe, 2002) and anything new is a matter of linking this new knowledge in some way with the already known (Laurence R. Sipe, 2001). Individuals who are word conscious are motivated to learn new words and able to use them skilfully '(Sourced here). Our challenge now is to find out why their is a gap in their knowledge and how we can close that gap. Robyn and I co-constructed a survey that we plan to use to get to know our learners as spellers. To do this we will be looking at shift or change in:

• Disposition
• Data
• Word consciousness
• Student voice
• Strategies used to make sense of new or unfamiliar words

Further Reading/PLD to grow my own knowledge kete:

• Supporting students to become competent and confident spellers - Louise Dempsy

• The Vocabulary-Rich Classroom: Modeling Sophisticated Word Use to Promote Word Consciousness and Vocabulary Growth
• Invention, convention, and intervention: Invented spelling and the teacher's role

2022 COL Interview

 What achievement challenge are you considering as an area of focus in 2023 and why? Include in your WHY both evidence and your own passion/expertise

Achievement Challenge 2  (Lifting achievement for boys writing in years 1-10) is the area I would like to focus on through my 2023 teaching inquiry. I work in a shared learning environment with Robyn Anderson and we have realised the benefits a joint inquiry can have for both us and our learners this year. It meant we had a shared vision and gave a shared message, no matter who was leading the teaching. We decided we would like to do another collaborative approach next year. After looking at our EOY data we found that a focus on spelling was needed in our class. That got both of us talking about spelling when we were at school. I remember as a child I wanted to use the words I could say in my writing but the sense of failure each red line brought with it meant I didn't. The fear was real.

What learnings from the 2017 - 2022 CoL teacher inquiries have informed or inspired your thinking.

Since I have been at Panmure Bridge I have had numerous discussions with Robyn about her inquiry and other CoL teachers' inquiries which have informed my thinking, often this was because she said ‘I saw such and such you should try it’. In 2019 my inquiry was based around NE essential spelling making connections with their comprehension.  Relooking at that inquiry after looking at our data has inspired me/us to look more closely at spelling, only this time on a different level with the focus on increasing both our learner’s confidence and skill level.

How would your work support Manaiakalani pedagogy and kaupapa? 

Learning, creating and sharing is vital for increasing our learners' engagement. Collaborating with colleagues will give them a greater sense of empowerment when working through their inquiry.

Which elements of the extensive Manaiakalani research findings inform or challenge you as you think about this?

With reading being the focus of Manaiakalani this year, it was evident to me that there were many words our learners came across when reading their books that they didn't know the meaning of.  We realised that our learners almost always didn't know how to spell the words.

How would you like to be supported in 2023 as you undertake this inquiry?

The support I would be looking for as a first time COL teacher will come from the CoL meetings, discussions with other teachers, opportunities to make new connections along with the continuing support Robyn promised me. I am looking forward to being open to hearing new ideas and strategies that will help me change my own teacher practice. 

How would you plan to support your colleagues in your school with THEIR inquiries and/or teaching in the area you are exploring?

Robyn and I have talked about this and if we are both successful in getting a CoL position, as I would be new to this role, I would support the teachers new to our school and Robyn would support the more experienced teachers. This is my first time applying for this role so guiding the newer teachers would allow me to learn alongside them. I’m excited to take on this new challenge and know that I have the full support of Robyn.

Causal Chain - Term 3 update

Inquiry Focus: Will a focus on Reading for Enjoyment increase student efficacy and capability in Reading?

Reaching Term 3 and reflecting back on our inquiry has been quite eye opening in the way that Reading for Enjoyment (RFE) has infiltrated our students. I have noticed that there has been an increase in not only their reading ability and capability but also in their confidence when talking about reading and books. This increased vocabulary knowledge has aided with the students understanding of not only 'reading' but with all the curriculum subjects.

One of my goals from last term was to ensure the students saw me as one of their teaches read, so when we were RFE we were ALL RFE. At first as teachers we would remind our students that it was RFE time, now the students remind me.

A noticeable difference is that not only is the new vocabulary used but the self-efficacy to utilise that body of newly acquired words in their speeches.

 

T-Shaped Literacy Unit 2 - Characterisation

This term our T shaped literacy unit focused on characterisation in texts. We decided that we would do this unit with the whole class with the students being grouped in mixed ability groups. Robyn lead the last unit so this time around I took the lead. After creating our unit we remembered or more able students shared with us that they feel frustrated when they have to take the lead in groups instead of being able to work alongside others who work at their speed and at their ability level. To rectify this we made the decision that Robyn would take a small group characterisation unit that ran alongside my unit. To keep this entirely separate we used different texts for each group although our learning intentions were the same. I used the text 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' and Robyn used 'Wolves' in children's literature. As I had a much larger group I was supported by our TA Linda.

Like last time we began by introducing the word characterisation so that everyone understood what is was that we would be focusing on. To help our students and ourselves strengthen our connections to this focus we used the excerpt from the text 'Beans' that Aaron shared with us in our PD sessions. These activities can be found on here on slides 2 - 9. Both Robyn and I then front loaded our groups with vocabulary they would be needing to make sense of the learning. This can be found here on slides 14 - 19.

We chose to collate all the tasks in a Google presentation again this time around as it kept everything in one place. The DLO below is my teaching DLO. Each group had a response DLO where all their responses were recorded.  Robyn's group had an individual response DLO as it was a much smaller group. Again, it kept everything in one place and made following up on tasks manageable. The purpose of the response DLO is to have a holding place for the learning along the way. Their learning conversations were rich and their create tasks looked quite different. 

The Charlie and the Chocolate Factory unit focused on the way author influenced the perception we have of the many characters as readers.  As we explored this text we found similarities between the words used to describe the appearance of different characters. My students then filled tables that reflected their first impressions and synthesised their findings across the range of texts we were exploring. Each character from the text was unpacked and they had the same follow up activities so again that allowed opportunities for connections to be strengthened. In place of sharing the activities created I have chosen this time to highlight the student's work via their blog links and a collaborative DLO. Not everything we did was blogged as not everything was a 'create' task. 

Building a picture of a character - This was a collaborative group task that shared ideas and rich discussion opportunities. When building a picture of the character each group defined what 'Characterisation' was. They then choose one character which they analysed and answered questions on a DLO.  Word art was another way we used the vocabulary gathered during the unit in a creative way relating to each students chosen chartater. 

Oscar's Characterisation blog

First impressions of Character Analysis - This was also a collaborative task that showcased connections made to the learning and to synthesise the comparisons of the characters. You will see from reading these that connections were made.

Kingston's First Impressions blog

Describing the scene - This was something that worked well with our Mood and Atmosphere unit and worked just as well in this Characterisation Unit.  Below I have two examples of this - one being from 

Sasuke's Describing the scene blog

This was another powerful unit of learning. Upon reflection and after observing some of Robyn teaching her unit, Charlie and the Chocolate factory was not the most effective choice of text to use for this unit. At first it seemed like a good example of characterisation with having multiple characters, but when looking at each character on a deeper level it did not afford the students the luxury of digging as deep as they might have if we had used multiple texts enabling the comparison of like characters in differing circumstances. 

Click here to find Robyn's blog and her reflection of her T shaped Characterisation unit.

T Shaped Literacy Unit 1 - Mood and Atmosphere...

This is my reflection of our first T shaped literacy unit that focused on the mood and emotions in a text. We decided that we would do this unit with the whole class with the students being grouped in mixed ability groups, except for our two 'top' groups. We kept these groups separate as we wanted to see how they would rise to the challenges set. This group of students have shared with us that they feel frustrated when they have to take the lead in groups instead of being able to work alongside others who work at their speed and at their ability level. This proved to be an excellent decision as it not only allowed the two groups to realise their full potential, but saw other students who would normally take a more passive role, stepping up. 

We began by introducing the words mood and atmosphere so that everyone understood what is was that we would be focusing on. These lessons were shared in an earlier post.

Our provocation that underpinned our learning was: ‘Man should die fighting hard like the struggling shark not tamely submitting like the lazy Tarakihi.’ Should the men of the native contingent have had the right to prove their mettle at the front?

Robyn was responsible for creating and running this unit. As I had never planned a T shaped literacy unit before we decided together that Robyn would take the lead. We will be reversing the roles in the next unit. Doing it this way allowed me to observe Robyn and give her regular feedback, in addition to supporting the student learning. We chose to collate all the tasks in a Google presentation as it kept everything in one place. The DLO below is Robyn's teaching DLO. Each group had a response DLO where all their responses were recorded. Again, it kept everything in one place and made following up on tasks manageable. We do realise this looks like creativity was a bit stifled, and to some extent I agree. In the past when Robyn has run T shaped units her groups have all naturally changed the look of their response DLOs, but this year they didn't. Perhaps because these students needed the scaffolding in place. The purpose of the response DLO was to have a holding place for the learning along the way. Their learning conversations were rich and their create tasks looked quite different. 

The master copy of the response DLO. Each group made a copy and used this as the place they recorded their thinking and added the links to their recorded learning conversations. Really useful additions to this DLO were the 'Questions we have' slide and the 'Vocabulary we don’t understand' slide. Discussing the content of these slides at the start of each lesson meant that we learnt with and from each other the whole way through. 

What has amazed us throughout this learning experience is the way our students have connected to the learning. I don't recall ever having asked them to look closely at the way the author uses mood and atmosphere in the text before, so this focus was completely new. Their understanding is reflected in the discussions that we chose to record on Screencastify and in their DLOs. 

One of the highlights of this unit for us was when a student who finds many aspects of reading a challenge called Robyn over to his group and said, "Mrs Anderson we can't believe they had racial profiling back then.... The men of Te Hokowhitu-a-tu were overlooked because of the colour of their skin.... I can't believe that some people in England thought the Maori men wouldn't be safe if they had guns, that's just dumb!" She was so shocked by what he said that she wrote it down as soon as they had finished talking. This just proves the importance of helping our students make connections to the learning. His 'ah ha' moment set the tone for the rest of his learning. He confidently contributed to class and group discussions from then on, and on a number of occasions took on a leadership role in his group. Something he usually shies away from.

I'm excited to see how we can transfer this learning across our wider literacy program.

The impact of reading 20 mins each day...

 

'Children who read for just 20 minutes per day see 1.8 million words each year and have scores on standardised tests in the 90th percentile (because they have experienced so many words!). Compare this with the child who is reading for just 1 minute per day, they only see 8000 words each year and have scores in the 10th percentile on standardised tests. A small amount of reading each day makes an incredible difference!' (Nagy and Herman, 1987) Infographic sourced here.

Robyn saw this poster online and shared it with our class last week then asked them to talk about the purpose of the message in the poster. We didn't focus on the test scores rather the amount of word knowledge you gain if you find 20 minutes a day to read. This resulted in a rich discussion as connections were made as to why reading is so important.