I have a lovely class of Year One students. All of the students started school last year so they all have a well developed idea of school and learning. They have formed some good relationships with each other because they have been in an open learning space environment in the previous year.
My inquiry will focus on the CoL Achievement Challenge:
#2. Lift the achievement for boy's writing Years 1-10.
Inquiry Focus: My focus is on writing.
I will be working on building phonological awareness, teaching students how words work so that they can read and write efficiently.
I have 6 students in my focus group. They can identify high frequency words, some alphabet names and sounds.They have interesting ideas to share and can write a sentence with support.
Over the last few weeks I have been working on identifying letter sounds. During our writing
session we have been writing a dictated sentence. This is a simple sentence which includes
many high frequency words and just one or two unknown words.
Below is a presentation showing examples of the writing we have been doing thus far.
I have been using visual images to support the dictation which has been working
really well thus far.
I have noticed that I may need to change my writing programme as this does not cater for my higher ability and independent writers.
For the next few days I will be grouping the children in class according to their abilities and have a focus for each group.
Most of the children in my class have common confusions when identifying letter names, for example: d b p q w m letters sound confusions for c and s , g and j.
My focus for the next 5 weeks.
-Teach the mouth formation for each letter sound.
For Example,
When you say the sound for b your lips are together.
When you say the sound for d sound your lips are open and your tongue is on the roof of your mouth.
You can use a mirror so students can see their own gorgeous faces forming the correct sounds associated with each letter.
-Alphabet flashcards - focus on letter names and sounds for letters b d s c j g w m p q.
