Evaluation of my inquiry for 2019

The focus on my inquiry this year was to improve the reading comprehension of my students and also encourage my target group and class to enjoy reading for enjoyment.

My inquiry question was 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?'

Changes I made to my practice were:

• specific focus on reading materials which challenged the students in comprehension
• changed the format of reading lessons where I put a lot of focus on discussing and unpacking reading materials
• the use of wait time is essential 
• focus on unpacking vocabulary and strategies to use when coming across unknown vocabulary (root words, reading around the text...)
• empowering the students to be confident in leading reading discussions with each other
• gathering student voice 

Group results

Final reflection 

The students made progress but no accelerated progress. There are several factors which hindered the progress of the students. Their progress with their reading ages is measurable and shown in the table above. Their engagement in reading and building a passion to be readers were measured by observations and student voice Student voice T4. 

Moving forward

Four of the students in this inquiry group will be in my class next year. I need to reconsider my focus group and make a judgement about which students will be in my focus group for 2020. I have also decided next year, I will focus on the Learn, Create, Share pedagogy more by incorporating more create work from the students. 

Burst and bubbles speech

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

Tweaking my practice

The achievement challenge I have focussed on this year is to Lift the achievement in reading for all students, with a focus on boys and Maori students of both genders.

Throughout the year I have struggled with engaging certain boys in my inquiry group because of other factors in their lives affecting their learning. I quickly identified the boys were able to read but comprehending texts was a challenge for them. There is always the challenge of their attitude towards reading and learning.

Upon reflection, I started to have one to one conversations with the boys to reflect on how they found the reading lessons and materials. One of the responses I received was an eye opener when one of the boys told me "Miss I am getting bored with reading non fiction. Can we read some fiction?". I realised with our Genomics course and our camp pre work and post work, a lot of what we have been reading have been non fiction texts. Our class novel was a fiction text but I feel he wanted to read some non fiction as a group and discuss the materials in depth. The student's response was powerful. 

In the holidays I looked up some materials which can be used in class which links to our topic of Genomics. I found the TKI Literacy online site to be very helpful. They provide materials in digital form and also teacher support materials. 

Term 4 is always a very busy term with assessments and end of year activities for the school especially in a Year 7&8 class. However, I am determined to finish my this year off with a last great push with my COL inquiry. 

Rich discussions

Rich discussions have been an integral focus of my inquiry. At the beginning of the year Jannie worked with my class in making connections and building on in conversation about texts and social conversations. 

Recently I took a stocktake of a discussion my target group had about their current novel study. The whole group are currently reading Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo. Throughout the discussion, I had to note down how many times individuals shared their ideas and also what the ideas were. 

I noticed the students were inferring more from the text. Their confidence to locate information to support their ideas have definitely improved. Throughout the discussion, the students were able to build on their ideas collaboratively to unpack and deep dive into what they have read in the novel. 

Private Peaceful is a novel which my target group are enjoying. It is a hard read for some of the students but during the discussions I have observed these students who are struggling with reading the novel are listening intently to the ideas being shared and also sharing what they understand from the novel. 

Using multimodal materials

My class and I are currently preparing for our school camp. We are travelling to the Bay of Islands to learn about the history of New Zealand and the Treaty of Waitangi. We will also learn a lot about early settlers who travelled in the seas to settle in Aotearoa and how the Maori lived before and after settlers arrived.

Through our learning we have used a lot of multimodal resources. We have integrated our inquiry learning with literacy which has been effective in gathering information and for the students to understand more about the history of New Zealand.

In Writing group discussions today, I realised the students now have a lot of understanding about the Treaty of Waitangi. They are able to express their personal views about the reading materials they have been reading.

In our novel reading we have been reading a book called A New Song in the Land by Fleur Beale which the students have followed with great interest.

We have watched videos reenacting what happened before and after the treaty was signed.

We have also been reading materials on different sites as well as reading books about the Treaty of Waitangi.

The use of multimodal learning materials stimulated interest and created different learning opportunities for the students.

Manaiakalani 2019 Hui

I attended my first Manaiakalani Hui this year. It was a very exciting and educational opportunity for me.

With every presenter, they brought to the discussion their part of being the collaborators in the education of our tamariki. It really brought the big picture into perspective for me. So many involved with Manaiakalani from the Ministry of Education, edcuators, health boards, businesses, researchers and more.

I could not help but think how very fortunate we are to be part of Manaiakalani with so much support and work being done to help the learners of not only the Tamaki area but the outreach schools.

Post hui, I have shared the slides from the hui with my colleagues at Glenbrae school along with the notes I took from the hui. I also sent an invitation to approach me for a professional discussion about what I gathered.

Collecting achievement and reflecting on progress

Using google forms for quizzes is enabling me to take a snapshot of the whole class with their progress with not only Reading but also in Maths.

The students are driven to do better than their last test and they are also working hard during the week to learn and question if they do not understand. The instant marking of the google form enables them to see how they did in the test.

It is also teaching my students about taking tests and the absolute focus and perseverance needed when trying to complete a test.

I am limiting our testing to one test in different curriculum areas a week because I do not want to be focussing on just taking tests.

Here is the second maths test I created for our fractions unit.