Kia
ora and talofa. My name is Amy Tofa and I am the Year 7&8 teacher at
Glenbrae School. Being a bookworm myself, I have in my career encouraged my
students to read and enjoy reading. Therefore, when I was given the role of CoL
within school, I had already decided my inquiry would be around achievement
challenge 3.
My
inquiry question is, Will daily deep diving into quality, ‘multimodal’ texts,
accompanied by ’rich’ text conversations in which all participate, and with
deliberate attention to words that co-occur to carry meaning, improve students’
reading comprehension and encourage their love of reading?
Throughout
this year, my class and I have been on a journey of exploring texts, deep
diving (really unpacking texts), having discussions about reading materials
where we share our pearls of wisdom with each other and growing together in
learning and as individuals. During our reading sessions we have focussed a lot
on vocabulary and strategies we can use to try and understand the meaning of
words we are not familiar with.
The
format of our reading sessions were tweaked throughout the year. From having three
rotating reading groups around the teacher to empowering students to lead their
discussions about reading materials after scaffolding from the teacher. I often
reflected on the lifting of the reading achievement for all students with a
particular focus on boys part of the achievement challenge because the girls
were often dominating the discussions.
However
through my google form surveys I was pleasantly surprised to see some of the
boys response about their attitudes to reading discussions changing because
they enjoyed listening and sharing their ideas.
This
of course is also a result of building a classroom culture of inclusiveness and
respect for all and in Jannie’s words “Everyone has something to share. We are
all part of this vessel”.
My
inquiry in action:
- The use
of Multimodal texts
- Current
events discussions every morning on a daily basis. A great way to start
the day and it has encouraged the students to learn more about what is
happening around New Zealand and the world. At present we are currently
discussing climate change and pollution on our planet earth. An issue my
students are very concerned about.
- Novel
reading - every day after lunch.
- Guided
reading - which is a sacred time for us because we really enjoy having
rich discussions and exploring texts as a group and at times as a class.
Focusing on chain linking ideas in discussions. This was Jannie introduced
in our class at the beginning of this year. We built on chain linking our
ideas in discussions throughout the year and have witnessed how valuable
it is.
- Rich
discussions about vocabulary. Exploring how words carry meaning for
different purposes and building our vocabulary bank.
- Blogging
our learning and sharing our create work with the world.
- Sharing
reading materials with whanau
- More
awareness of authors - students are more confident in discussing who their
favourite authors and books they have read by different authors.
Moving
forward
Continue
with what I have started this year. I would like to put more effort into
reading with whanau and also more focus on our blogging and commenting.
I would also like to put a lot of focus on the create part of the Learn, Create, Share pedagogy of Manaiakalani. After much reflection I feel this is the area I am steering my inquiry towards for 2020.
Challenges/learning
surprises
Student
voice in giving direction about what they wanted to read. “Miss we have
been reading so much non fiction can we read some fiction now?”
Ongoing
challenge of engaging whanau with the tamariki’s learning
