Interpreting my data collection

Question 1: What professional development you have completed that covered reading instruction/practices?

Sheena Cameron X2

Literacy workshop with Erina Law

Yolanda Soryl

Mary Wooton professional development

Ready to read programme

Question 2: If you completed PLD, was it useful in your teaching?

Yes X 3

No

Question 3:Describe the key components of effective reading instruction in your classroom:

Unpack vocabulary-meaning of new words

Check in with comprehension

Focus on a WALT for 2 weeks (e.g, We are learning to visualise what we read)

Using guided reading time to hone in on reading skills/strategies, and provide follow up activities to check understanding

Rotations X2

phonemic awareness - words are made up of separate units of sound

phonics - how words are created

fluency - the ability to recognise words in a text rapidly and with accuracy

vocabulary - the words we need to communicate

comprehension - making meaning of what we read by making connection with the text and our prior knowledge.

Question 4: What approaches do you use to accelerate reading achievement progress?

Read aloud

Round Robin

Sending reading materials home

Testing

Mixed ability grouping

Multimodal texts

Guided reading

Reciprocal reading

Question 5:What challenges do you have in planning your reading programme?

Text selection X3 - finding texts to cater for student levels which relates to the Inquiry topic

Aligning texts for reading with writing genre

Planning 

Creating effective follow up tasks

Question 6: How many times a week do you teach reading in your class? Reading Rotation...

Three times a week X 2

Four times a week X4

Question 7:How do you plan the WALTs for your reading programme?

Literacy Language Progressions X3

Kids speak colour wheel

Question 8:What is a successful reading lesson for you?

When students are meeting the learning outcome

Students are able to explain what they have learnt

Students are able to go away with the learning skills they have learnt

Students are able to unpack the WALT and success criteria X2

Students are able to complete the CREATE activities 

Question 9:Do you involve whanau in your reading programme? How?

Sending journals home soon

Not getting whanau involved at the moment

Sending reading app for whanau to use with students

Whanau is involved to some extent (did not mention how)

Question 9: Who have you seen or believe has an effective reading programme that you would like to take ideas from?

Colleagues X2

Sharp Reading programme seen at another school

CoL teacher

The responses from the teacher group have highlighted some really important aspects of where support is needed for our team. 

Text selection stood significantly. Teachers feel that there is a challenge in finding texts which relate to the inquiry topics and also relate to the genres being taught for writing. (We are working on integrating Reading and Writing where the genre for reading materials is also the genre of focus for writing). 

It is very obvious that all teachers have had different types of professional development in reading. Also very common that they all feel, they are needing more support in how to plan and teach reading. I think it is very important to have on going discussions with our teacher group and planning together so we are all on the same understanding and working on the same planning format. One of my next steps (URGENTLY) is to sit down with the teacher group to go over the survey summary and look at our where now steps. I have sent an email to the teacher group with the summary of the survey along with the FALA planning model so they can familiarise themselves with the FALA planning model before we meet. I know it is very important to gain the voice of all the teachers about using the FALA model and using the FALA model to suit our needs and how we plan as a team. Therefore, I do not intend on prescribing the Fala model but rather using the FALA model as a guide to plan from. We already do some of the aspects of the FALA model we need to integrate what we are all doing in a way where it is practical for our team.

This week for our staff meeting we are looking at the Glenbrae Student profile. I think it is also important for our teacher group to complete a Reader's Profile. 

Whanau involvement in reading is not evident as indicated from the survey responses. Again, it is another conversation which needs to happen with a plan for action. How can we involve our whanau with the reading programmes we have in class? 

I always say data tells a story and this data is highlighting that the inquiry I have for this year in working with our teachers is much needed to bring collaboration and uniformity to our planning and teaching. The aim is to bring reading enjoyment to the reading of our akongā as well as accelerating their progress.

Good inquiry happens in teams

Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi engari, he toa takitini

Success is not the work of one but, the work of many

I have been supporting my colleagues with their teaching as inquiry. I find a lot of value in the professional discussions we have when we are discussing how we can improve our practice to accelerate the progress of our students. 

Reflecting on our practice

A very important aspect of professional discussions about teaching as inquiry is around what is currently happening in the teacher's practice. Our practice determines how students learn. If we want our students to change their current achievement or accelerate then we have to reflect on what we need to change in our own practice. I understand there are times we feel we are doing well in our practice and that is great but if our achievement data is showing our students are not achieving where they should be for their year levels then something needs to change. 

The importance of data

I have this saying "data tells a story". When I analysed our school data last year, I was amazed the learning I gained from looking at the school wide data. The student achievement data do tell us a story about the learning of our students. It is very important for your TAI to gather the starting data for your sample group at the beginning of your inquiry. This will be your measuring point for the end of your inquiry.

Student voice

As the recipients of our practice, our students views and voice is vital to our teaching as inquiry. As well as having conversations, I like to collect student voice through google forms. It is good to give students time and space to think about their responses and that is why google forms are effective. Below are some student voice I collected last year for my TAI about self efficacy. I have always been surprised by what students share through their student voice and it often challenges my own beliefs about what I am doing in my teaching. 

Record your TAI journey

TAI is a learning journey for teachers. Reflections are very important because it enables us to analyse what is currently happening and our next steps. Whether you have a professional blog or not, it is important to document your teaching as inquiry. It is a learning journey which you can look back on.

He waka eke noa

Having professional discussions with your colleagues and professional leaders about your TAI will be a great resource for you. On going discussions are much more valuable than one off presentations at the end of TAI cycles. We need to be challenged and questioned about what we are currently doing. When we explain our rationale for what we are doing in our practice, we often explore aspects of our practice we did not think about before.