CoL Inquiry 2018 - takeaways for teachers

Here is some 'takeaways for teachers' that have emerged from my CoL Inquiry from 2018. 

Please keep in mind that my Inquiry focused on 3 specific students. 

Any comments about Autism, what worked/didn't work were specific to my 3 students and may or may not work for your lovelies.

Also this is not about key competency development - that depends on the individual child and their needs. I can only advise you to focus first on the key competencies, and develop the holistic child, rather than only trying to raise their achievement levels.
This is more about what I tried and what worked/didn't work for my additional needs students that I focused my inquiry on.

Would love to hear some feedback in the comments! 

(What else would you like to know? Does anything need further elaboration?)

CoL Update (Term 3, Week 6).

OVERALL COMMENTS

This week has been really interesting, and again another week where I haven't been in class for a full 5 days (CRT on Friday). 

Ryan has had awesome days and terrible days. Last week I gave all my students 'spots' or desks to sit in instead of letting them sit wherever they wanted, as they weren't being responsible and looking after classroom equipment (including Netbooks). Ryan took his spot and really made it his own. He bought over the labelled container he keeps all his stuff in, started putting things in his desk, set up three walls around him and decorated them with his own work/books (including moving the teaching station to make his third wall). This has worked really well for him, and I am so impressed that he has taken his 'spot' in a positive way and made it his own. I took this photo of him one day when I randomly noticed he was wearing the ear muffs (something we have tried/failed at many times) and was quietly working away. 

TALK ABOUT MANAGING SELF!

Paul really surprised me again one day when during a DMIC session, he said to his group "I know it, I'll do it", and took the piece of paper and solved the problem. For context, the boy sitting next to him is the top maths student in the class, and yet Paul is the one who solved it. I love that because his friend is giving him the chance to succeed and lead, even though he could have solved it himself. This boy (the friend) understands what I have been trying to do with him, and is trying to do the same. I also LOVE IT because he is leading and participating and contributing in a maths lesson, without ANY teacher input. 

Side note - he also got it right (adding fractions with different denominators - BOOYAH!)

He then later tried to help other groups explain their maths thinking because he understood it and others didn't.. He wanted to get up in front of the class and explain where somebody else had gone wrong in their maths thinking. AMAZING.

Another time, I was working with a group of about 10 boys on an inquiry task. The task was a group task to sort (compare and contrast) different natural disasters - there was no reading and writing involved, only sorting and explaining/justifying. In the video (although you can't see their faces so you might not notice), both Paul and Kian ask for a picture in the beginning, then discuss with their friends where it should go and why. 

ACTIVE PARTICIPATION ANYONE?

I find that with Kian and Paul, they are more involved with group/whole class tasks when they don't involve reading and writing. This makes sense, as they are both lower (ability wise) than the rest of the class and know it, so are scared to make mistakes or say something silly. To try and get them to participate, I think reading the text with them before hand or giving them a different text (in groups), so then they could access the information without feeling awkward, shy or scared.

CoL Update (Term 3, Week 5)

As the Manaiakalani Hui is this week, I really wanted to analyse my student achievement data so I could say with confidence if they have moved or not.

Reading.

	TERM 1
	PROBE	PM BENCHMARK
Kian	F 5 - 6 YRS	Level 10
Ryan	F 7.5 - 8.5 YRS	NA
Paul	F 5.5 - 6.5 YRS	Level 18

	TERM 2
	PROBE	PM BENCHMARK
Kian	F 5.5 - 6.5 YRS	Level 10
Ryan	8 - 9 YRS	NA
Paul	6 - 7 YRS	Level 18

	mid TERM 3
	PROBE	PM BENCHMARK
Kian		Level 12
Ryan	8 - 9 YRS	NA
Paul	7.5-8.5 YRS	Level 21

Paul has made SIGNIFICANT shift this year. I definitely think that it down to him yes knowing more English, but also that he works with others and learns from them. Putting him and Kian in mixed-ability reading groups for the second half of Term 2 and so far this term has made huge shifts.

I would expect this area to have the most significant shift, as this is the area we work on the most in targeted groups and also the learning area I have paid most attention to in terms of the students Key Comps.

Maths.

Kian - No shift, but a huge achievement that he maintained his Term 1 achievement levels

Paul - shift in all areas of GLOSS test.

Ryan - Shift in his add/sub, maintained all other areas.

KIAN	S5E	S5	S5E	S5E
PAUL	S5E	S6	S5E	S4
RYAN	S5	S6E	S5	S5

Spelling.

In Term 1 we did Schonnell spelling and in Term 2 we did Peters.

Paul and Kian also do Essential spelling list because they don't do amazingly well on Schonnel.

Term 1 - Schonnell.

Kian - 10 (6 years old)

Paul - 12 (6 years old)

Ryan - 36 (8.6 years old)

Term 2 - Peters.

Kian - 11 words correct.

Paul - 17 words correct.

Ryan - 37 words correct.

Term 3 Essential spelling test.

 Paul

 Kian

Non-academic changes
Ryan - Ryan is more settled and is doing more learning now than he ever has before. Although he is in a rough spot right now with a million and one things happening in his life, he is doing really well and is able to manage himself so he can get some learning done.

Kian - Kian's learning has shifted since the beginning of the year. His maths is more focused on maintenance and not forgetting what he can do, but his reading and writing have hugely improved. He used voice typing to write because it works better for him and this differentiation has provided him with the opportunity for success. He loves working with other people and typically gets more learning completed as well, however he has some confidence issues to work through when working inpedendantly.

Paul - Paul has made huge shifts in learning, but also is a lot more confident to participate and share ideas regardless of the context. He works with more people (including girls) and will offer help to others when he knows what he is doing. He can confidently ask other adults questions or deliver objects/messages to other teachers in the school.

CoL Update (Term 3, Week 3)

 Paul - relating to others/participating and contributing.

Last week I tested Paul on PM Benchmark and moved him up to level 21. This week, while reading levels 19-21 with him for 'guided' reading, I noticed he didn't need me much apart from to prompt him when he came to a new word. He is getting better at sounding out words, or making connections to other words he knows (e.g. should, would, could), but often gets stuck on high-interest or topic words he has never seen before (e.g. desert foxes, thick stems).

I PROBE'd him on Tuesday as I wanted to see if his comprehension was moving at the same accelerated pace his decoding was. Firstly, I gave him the story 'SNAP'. 

He passed with 100% on comprehension.

Next I gave him 'Teeth' (which is the same age level, but non-fiction).

Again, passed with 100%. 

His reading was pretty accurate as well considering he doesn't normally read non-fiction texts.

Next I put him up one level (age bracket), and tried him on fiction.

And again, 100% comprehension.

The same age bracket, but non-fiction.

This one he struggled with. There were words he has never seen written before (e.g. sandy, spikes, plants) but he tried to sound them out or connect to other words (e.g. he said planets for plants because he knows the word planets). Although he didn't actually know what a desert was, he got most of the questions (enough to pass anyway). I thought his answer to question 8 was sweet, because he had learnt about lizards and desert foxes for the first time in this story and wanted to see them in real life. 

Although he technically passed the story 'Desert life', I felt his confidence drop and he took a lot longer to read it, and think about his answers.

Even though he got lots of words wrong, this is still useful information for me as I can see where he gets the words he did say from. 

small=smile (sm sound and shape of the word)

thought-threw (th sound at the beginning)

tired=tried (same letters but in a different order)

Mr=Mrs (not noticing the s)

onto=into (not noticing the first o?, knows the word into)

settled=sitted (noticed the 'ed' at the end of the word, both have the same shape and have 's' at the beginning and 't' in the middle, possibly didn't notice the 'l')

give=gave (confusion of tenses possibly, or maybe didn't noticed the 'i')

would=could (knows the word could, maybe didn't notice the 'w')

He could answer the first question very easily - the others.. not so much. 

I am still very impressed with this piece of evidence as it shows that his decoding and comprehension are both improving at an accelerated rate. I 100% think this is because of the group work he has been doing while still reading at his own level. 

Ryan - managing self
As I mentioned in last week's update, Ryan has a LOT going on for him in his wider circle (home life, RTLB and other agencies, family stuff, friendship stuff) and so he has really been in a darker space this week. I know that for him RIGHT NOW, being at school everyday, being safe and having an outlet for his thoughts is what he needs. Right now, he doesn't need to be pushed into reading groups and growled for not completing his work. Right now, he needs a bit of love. A lot of love. So right now, that is what he is getting. I have not been pushing him to join in discussions or anything. He is doing small amounts of work each day and right now, that is enough for him.

 Kian - managing self
Kian is continuing to learn at his own pace. He is way more confident in his reading than he was last term and enjoys being able to choose books from his own 'box'. He doesn't choose from the 'lowest' box so thinks he is really smart by getting 'hard' books.

CoL Update (Term 3, Week 2)

Ryan - managing self
Kian - managing self
Paul - relating to others/participating and contributing.

All three students have been working very hard, especially in reading where they are in a group together reading (or listening to..) a chapter book.

On Friday Ryan came to the group for the first time all week, sat for about 30 minutes and even offered to read aloud to the group. This is amazing! This is the LONGEST he has sat in a reading group EVER. Add the fact that he was reading aloud for the others to listen to, and contributed to the discussion about what had happened is AWESOME.
After reading the group went away and had to draw an illustration about something that had happened, find 10 new words and write 3-5 sentences of a summary about what happened. All 3 students completed this task.

I have been reflecting on the type of work I give them, and wether that work actually offers them a chance at success or not. Sometimes, my high expectations might be too high and the task I want the students to complete is either too hard for them, too hard to do without teacher help, or I don't give them enough time to complete it.
I have also found that when I give them different tasks to complete (i.e. roles for literacy circles where one person is the illustrator and the other is word master), they really struggled to complete it. When I gave both students both tasks to do, they could do it.
So maybe it's not the task itself, but it's that they couldn't do it together.



Ryan has a lot going on for him at the moment at home and in other aspects of his life. I have noticed he has started making forts again. I don't usually growl him for doing this, as he is trying to protect himself from overstimulation or needs a bit of quiet time by himself.



Evidence of shift

This week I tested Kian and Paul's reading level using PM Benchmark. Kian passed level 12 and Paul passed level 21.

I know that Kian hates being tested and typically doesn't do well on tests. For guided reading, he is currently reading level 15-16, but only just got instructional on Level 12 on his tests. I will keep him reading levels 15-16 for guided reading because he is able to read them. 

Paul has made huge shifts to be instructional level 21 at this point in the year. He only started school 1 year ago, and started on Red (level 3).

For Kian I noticed that he often looks at the first letter or sound and guesses the word. Sometimes the word he guesses is close enough to the actual word that it might make sense, but often not.. I noticed that on line 12, he read the word 'ride' as 'run', kept reading, got to the end of the sentence, realised it didn't make sense and started the line again (and got 'ride' correct). This shows me he is trying to make sense and make meaning while reading, not just reading fast and incorrectly to 'get through it' and 'get it over with'. I hope this shows he is starting to enjoy reading.

A lot of the errors Paul makes are because he doesn't know the word in the first place. He still has come small errors with p/b sounds but has gotten so much better at sounding out words.

I notice with both of them that in long words (three or four syllables), they sound out words letter by letter. And because the words are so long, they forget what it started with by the time they get to the end of the word and have to start again or give up and ask me what the word is. 

I think we need to work on blends and chunking words into pieces, rather than sounding it out letter by letter. 

CoL Update (Term 3, Week 1)

Ryan - managing self

Ryan has been on-task for longer and longer periods of time since he started a new strategy. He has participated in group discussions for guided reading a few times and will actually read the text along with his group which is a huge improvement. His learning definitely is improving now that he can sit and stay focused for longer periods. To help him manage himself, we have continued doing brain breaks. At the moment, these usually involve him eating at non-eating times (e.g. having morning tea at 10am, then again at 11am), or going for walks. Ryan has a lot of other things going on for him other than his learning goals, so he is doing extremely well at the moment.


Kian - managing self

Kian got glasses at the end of Term 2, and we are starting to get used to wearing them. I was nervous he wouldn't want to wear them at all (because of his not wanting to wear hearing aids) but he was okay about it because Ryan also got glasses. When he saw that nobody laughed at or teased Ryan, he was happy to wear them himself. He says he can see way better so I am hopeful it will really impact his reading.
A highlight this week was when Kian answered a DMIC maths question in a way nobody else did - counting in halves. I got him up to present his strategy and he could explain it and model it using his fingers. I was so proud that he had thought of it by himself, and understood it well enough to explain it to the half-class. He is trying really hard and his learning is definitely looking up.
I was also very impressed on Tuesday when he was struggling to do the maths we were doing as a class, so asked if he could work on his STEPS instead. Of course I agreed. I thought it was awesome that he recognised he was starting to feel down and loose motivation, and wanted to do something that he knew he could feel successful at instead. Good on him!


Paul - relating to others/participating and contributing.

Paul has been quiet since the holidays and hasn't actively participated in groups as much this week. I have challenged all 3 of these boys to read a chapter book in literacy circles. For Paul and Kian, this is quite the academic challenge. On Monday Paul read along where he could when another group member was reading aloud. On Tuesday, I read it to him and he just listened. I think his confidence in reading has gone down a bit because I am challenging him with more complex texts. To build it back up, I will read his levelled books with him as well as encouraging him to stay in his group.

CoL update (Term 2, Week 10)

Ryan - managing self









This doesn't hurt him or anyone else so I don't reprimand him for doing this. He needs a bit of a break and that is his way of getting it. Sometimes he does it because the class is too bright/loud as well.
Ryan has been doing more work in the past few weeks than ever before.
I sent him with his maths book to our team leader and DP so they could praise him (after I had) for his hard work. One of his goals in his IEP is for him to try new forms of maths (other than addition in algorithm) so this is amazing for him. He doesn't like to copy the questions off the board, but I think that is because the whiteboard reflects a lot of the sunshine so it's too bright for him to look at. So I write the questions down for him, and he will answer them. His converting improper to proper fractions was cool because he could explain what he was doing and what his drawing meant, this showed he really understood it.




He
is doing so much learning because he can manage himself so much better now.
He also brought in his new glasses this week and has no qualms about wearing them so hopefully that will make a positive difference as well.




This week has been good overall for Ryan. I can tell he is getting tired so some quirks that I haven't seen in a while are reemerging, such as hiding under tables/making forts.


Kian - managing self





Kian struggles with working in groups. However, with the help of 3 wonderful students, he was able to present a display at Ako Evening. He was able to read off a script I helped him write (in his own words) which said -


"Hello my name is Kian and my inquiry was about the Earth. I learnt that the Earth has everything we need which is oxygen, food, and water. Earth is the 3rd planet from the sun and we only have one moon. Earth is in the goldilocks zone which means it’s not too hot or too cold. Earth and Venus are the same size. Earth’s coldest spot is Antarctica."


He was able to talk about the Earth in his own words which showed he had truly learnt something and understood it completely.






Paul - relating to others/participating and contributing


Paul works well in groups but often doesn't have a lot to contribute as he doesn't have the same level of understanding of the content, as the rest of his group. They know he shares what he can so don't begrudge him for it.


Paul was able to prepare and present a display about the sun for Ako evening. He could talk about the sun in his own words and read off the script they had prepared as well. He even went and got a book from the library about the sun and talked about it using the pictures to help him explain.
















I would really like Paul to be able to admit he doesn't know or can't do something, and ask for help, rather than sit pretending he does. I want to him to be okay with asking questions to help him understand something.

CoL update (Term 2 Week 7)

Ryan - managing self

Ryan has been very settled thanks to his new strategy implementation and has shown small changes in his behaviour and learning, such as: being able to keep his voice level appropriate for the classroom; keeping hands and feet to himself; being able to focus for longer periods of time and enduring/attempting learning challenges for 5-10 minutes. He has shown, in many, small ways, huge change over the past week. Communication with his RTLBs is on-going and he had an IEP meeting this week as well, targeting his learning goals and next steps.
On Tuesday he asked if he could go to one of the junior classes, and after agreeing he could go if he stayed and completed maths first (which he did), he was very welcome in the junior classroom. I checked on him to see if all was well and managed to grab this photo.

He had a group of young students sitting in a circle watching him as he instructed them on "how to count". He even had counters out to use. It was so sweet to see him working so well with the younger students, but amazing that he was leading them in actual learning. He was focused, prepared and loved handing out tokens to his little students once his lesson was over. The teacher of the class he was in reported he did an awesome job and she would happily have him back.
This is just one example of how he can be very calm and focused for long periods of time.

Kian  - managing self

After being away for a week, Kian was able to manage himself inside the classroom well. I was quite proud of him when as part of a DMIC maths lesson, he got up and tried his best to help explain how his group had gotten their answer. Although he needed help in the end, it was awesome to see him managing himself to a level where he could actively participate in group tasks.

Paul - relating to others/participating and contributing.

Paul is getting more and more confident in group situations and it is awesome to see how far he has come. He has really stepped up in the past few weeks in terms of leading learning. He wants to be the one who draws/explains/shows/helps etc. He is learning how to be part of a group and is building skills such as taking turns, negotiating, helping somebody else explain if they get stuck etc. He confidently speaks to the class when presenting from the front of the room as well.

Paul is still loving being in a proper reading group, although I still require him to read books at his own level during school and at home to practice his decoding and comprehension skills. The reading groups have changed (post-testing) and he was a little upset that his friend wasn't in the group anymore, but he has since made new friends and will be okay. In this context he is again practising how to be part of a group (i.e. taking turns, agreeing with people, replying to something they say) and is gaining confidence in doing so. 

#CoLweeklyupdate (T1W82018)

Here is my #CoLweeklyupdate for Week 8!

Next steps

If possible, I would like to..

• do more academic reading about Autism, ODC, ADHD and Dyslexia - get the book my DP talked about and read it.
• keep trying out the ear muffs, see if it is actually making a difference to learning or is it just a novelty.
• try out strategies suggested by Donna.
• do more small group focused teaching E.g. how to form a sentence, 
• practice how to hold your tongue to make certain sounds (for Paul and the new girl) E.g. the 'th' in thought; you put your tongue between your teeth at the front of your mouth and sort of blow air out?. 

#CoLweeklyupdate (T1W72018)

Here is my #CoLweeklyupdate for Week 7!

Next steps

If possible, I would like to..

• do more academic reading about Autism, ODC, ADHD and Dyslexia.
• do more bold things to help Ryan in particular (possibly buying ear muffs?).
• send academic data to Donna.