Term One

My Inquiry focus for this year is: How can I support my students to respond to comprehension questions using more detailed and complete answers? I have identified four students as my focus group. Working closely with these students will enable me to monitor their progress and implement targeted strategies to further develop their oral language and comprehension skills. To gather baseline data for these students, I did the BSLA Oral Language Assessment. I used Vosaic to record the assessments, which allowed me to review the recordings and analyse the students responses more carefully to inform my teaching and next steps. Student AN Teacher talk time was high (64.9%), and most questions focused on factual recall, which limited opportunities for the student to provide extended responses. Student responses were often brief, partially inaccurate, or off-task, indicating a need for further support with oral language development. The teacher used effective scaffolding strategies such as picture prompts, audio modelling, sequential retell prompts, and positive praise, while increasing wait time and maintaining focus would further support deeper responses. Student AP The teacher led the activity with clear instructions, structured sequencing, and visual supports to guide student learning. Student's were supported to retell the story and answer comprehension questions through prompts and vocabulary modelling. While the lesson was highly teacher-directed, positive reinforcement and scaffolding supported student engagement and developing comprehension. Student F The transcript shows some evidence of student understanding during the story retelling activity. The teacher modelled the story clearly and used questions and prompts to support comprehension, although students’ verbal responses were limited or not consistently recorded. This suggests that some students required additional scaffolding, making it difficult to confirm consistent comprehension across the group. Student I The student shows emerging comprehension of the story and was able to identify the main character, Tama, and recall key events, such as going to the park, falling, and Nana coming to help. The explanation of some events was vague and included minor inaccuracies. When prompted, the student found it difficult to add detail or explain events clearly and in sequence, indicating a need for continued support with expressive language and narrative skills. Looking across the four students, two main areas of focus that are common to all of them are: 1. Strengthening Oral Retelling Skills -All students benefit from structured opportunities to verbally retell stories using prompts, sequencing words (e.g., first, next, then, last), visual supports like story maps or picture cards, and scaffolding to organise their ideas. -The goal is to help them produce longer, more complete sentences and confidently explain events in order. 2.Developing Vocabulary and Comprehension Strategies -Each student needs explicit teaching of key story vocabulary, modeling of sentence structures, and support to use new words in context. -Comprehension is strengthened through open-ended, higher-order questions (who, what, where, why, how), prompts for reasoning, and making connections between story events and personal experiences. These two focus areas overlap across the students and will support both expressive language and deeper understanding of stories.