Reading

Inquiry Focus Term 2 July from Team 1 PES on Vimeo.

Inquiry Focus Update - Term 2

My inquiry was looking at Reading and helping children learn and spell high frequency words fast and fluency. The Explain Everything Spelling Test activity presented in my earlier blog post is used by a group of children almost everyday. The children are showing growth in confidence, they know how to spell some words fast and accurately and at the same time they know that they can search for the word on the alphabet card or ask for assistance from their peers or the teacher. They are aware of which words they know and what word to learn next.  They starting to notice shape of letters and use their letter sound knowledge to write words.
It is a difficult concept  for our little ones but they just need to keep revisiting and continue practicing until they know it and can make connections when reading these words in different contexts.

To aide this process I have started doing spelling tests. They have been successful and I have a group children who just love the competition and the rewards. They are making pleasing progress and I now I am adding words that they will need in their writing and come across in their reading. For my priority learners we have been introducing one new word per week.

"Slow and steady wins the race."

In conclusion I will continue with what I am doing and create more activities on Explain Everything to help my children move forward.

Spelling Test on Explain Everything.

Inquiry Term 2

Read read, read!

My inquiry focus for 2016 is:

Reading

Learning how to read requires several complex accomplishments. Children face many challenges as they learn how sounds are connected to print, as they develop fluency, and as they learn to construct meaning from print.

 We know from research that reading is a language-based activity. Reading does not develop naturally, and for many children, specific decoding, word recognition, and reading comprehension skills must be taught directly and systematically. We have also learned that children benefit significantly from being read to.

For my inquiry I will be focusing on a group of children reading PM books at Red, Level 3. These children are also my priority learners. I will be looking at the development of reading comprehension skills, the development of phoneme awareness, phonics, word recognition, reading fluency and getting them to read more frequently.

Inquiry Reflection

Term 4- Collaborative Inquiry

In this afternoons session our Inquiry Group discussed :

How to introduce a book when reading in a  small group and how much information do teachers need to scaffold to make text meaningful and purposeful?

Various behaviour management strategies during mat time. Children sit in a group on the mat so they are more focussed, positive praise for good behaviour, use Incredible Years strategies, point system, rewards for acceptable behaviour, children seated in a specific arrangement.

We looked at how teachers can extend vocabulary so that its relevant in multiple contexts. Encouraging children to use these words in their writing to create rich text. Quality instead of quantity.

Developing more independence in writing in Year 1. Children learning to write a simple sentence. Children say their sentence to the teacher then to a friend to help them retain the words in the sentence and then  they attempt to write some known words( high frequency words) with some support from the teacher. Teacher continue to conference with children and work in small groups.

Creating Explain Everything activities for reading levels 15 and up for Year 1 children. Looking at the progressions when creating these activities for children at this level.  Teachers in Year 2 have created some amazing resources- How can Year One teachers use these activities and change, add to it, so that it is appropriate  for our young learners.

Overall we had interesting conversations and it was good to have a  mixture of teachers from different areas of the school. Teachers were very supportive and their suggestions and comments were much appreciated. I will take on board what they have suggested and give it a go during the course of the term.

Term 3 Writing focus

This term my focus was on writing and creating rich word groups which were created around stories during our classroom brainstorm sessions. The children can access these word charts through their class site which made it much easier for children who had difficulty retaining the letters in a word.  I have also displayed them around the classroom.