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 7)

CoL Update

This week has been crazy as it was Tongan language week, however a couple key things I can talk about are 1) my first social story and 2) moving up reading levels.

Social stories are something I learnt about from Donna Ryan  at a PD session a while ago. The PD session was about visual aids in the classroom, but she mentioned social stories because they are visual aids to help children understand what to do in a social situation. They can be made about ANYTHING. The one I felt was necessary to make was 'how to sit on the mat', as Ryan often struggles to do this in what could be called the 'expected' way. 

I explained to my class that I wanted them to pose for pictures and not to worry about why, so they were happy to do so. (Thank you 10 year old photographer!)

Then I made the social story.

It was simple and easy to make, and I kept the 'instruction-ey' part simple. The pictures show what the words describe. 

My plan is to give this to Ryan during mat time to help him remember what he should be doing and manage himself. I find that I am almost constantly asking him to turn around, sit down, face the front etc. 

Don't get me wrong - I understand and acknowledge that sometimes he isn't able and ready to do these things and that is okay. But sometimes he is ready and able, so needs a gentle reminder. 

Also because I am aware of the social precariousness of 10 year old boys, I have made 5 copies of this social story and will give them to anybody who needs a reminder. That way Ryan doesn't feel targeted or picked on in any way. I will only give it to students when they need a reminder - not giving it to them straight away and assuming they won't/can't do it. Only when they need it.

Another highlight of this week was that I rejigged my reading boxes. I have these tubs to store colour-wheel level books for Paul and Kian (and another ESOL student who I have mentioned a couple times). Previously, these started at Level 9-10 (blue) and went through to Level 21-22 (Gold). I finally decided that if Kian is going to move I kinda have to force him. Due to his learning differences, he has been sitting around levels 10-15 for the past few years. He moves up, slides backwards over the holidays, moves up again, slides backwards, etc etc. He is currently reading Orange books (Level 15-16) with me at 'guided' level, and was reading level 9-14 for independent reading. However, he wasn't really doing any independent reading. The books that go home come back unread and he refuses (due to confidence) to read to anybody but me or Paul in class. Hence, I got rid of the level 9-14 tubs and he is now going to only be reading orange or higher. There are a mixture of types of books to give variety (and level of complexity, as PM books and sunshine books are different even though they are graded at the same level). I really want to challenge him and build his confidence so he can and will read these books. He is capable of it and I want him to see that. When I explained that I was going to get rid of the blue/green books and he was only going to read orange, he didn't really care. So no opposition! 

I put in Level 23-26 books with the spare 2 containers I know have. Even though I only moved Paul a few weeks ago onto Level 21, he can pretty much read them first time, independently, so hence I am not challenging him enough. 

Paul (and the other ESOL student) read with me both together and separately, and they will read to and with other students as well. They get a lot of mileage because of this. 

For Paul, this participation and contribution, and be willing to work with others in different ways and in different contexts has really accelerated his learning. 

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 4)

 What did I do this week?

This week I used my CRT day to prepare resources for my literacy and maths target groups, but also for ‘The A team’ which includes Kian and Paul. I prepared targeted activities or tools as to where they are at and what they need to work on.

For Kian and Paul, this includes blends (to help them sound out longer words easier) and tenses (mainly the difference between current and past tense).

Blends flip book - we are going to do a couple pages per day, saying and writing any words that start with or have that blend in them. For the third member of the A team (not Kian or Paul), pronunciation is a big issue so we are going to sound out each word and practice how to say the blend lots and lots of times.

Loop game for current/past tense.

Loop game for initial sounds and blends.

Blends flash cards.

Paul - relating to others/participating and contributing

Kian - managing self

Paul and Kian have loved the blends flip books, although Kian decides he "can't" write using a pencil but still sits and listens to us practising the words, then writes them in later anyway. The blends with three letters (e.g. scr) were difficult for Paul to pronounce and he is still having small issues with p/b sounds, but a HUGE improvement all round.

We met together and went through blends three times this week, on top of me reading with them and them reading with others as well.

On reflection and in discussion with the students families, I realise that we focus A LOT on reading (to try and catch them up to their peers) but I don't do much writing with them. Kian using voice typing to write which is fine, but Paul needs to work on his writing. 

Ryan - managing self

Ryan is still in a difficult time so I have not been pushing him a lot, but just loving him. That's all he needs right now. He has good and bad days, but has moments of clarity where he explicitly states what he is going to do (or not do..) in order to manage himself better. These are mostly social goals at the moment, but he is still trying his best.

He loves the inquiry topic we are doing this term and often sends me summaries about tornadoes and hurricanes, or draws pictures of them. This counts as learning for me because he is able to talk about what he has drawn or written in his own words.

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 meeting - 26th July 2018

Our job is not to tell, but to influence with good reflective practice.

Term 3 is the best term - no testing, no report writing.
we need to
- deliver the curriculum really well
- make sure its visible
- have high expectations

We are letting kids 'dumb down' their own language. 

- When kids don't understand what to do, the learning, or they misbehave, how do we speak to them? how do we speak to them when it matters? Do we speak to them in the 'language of success' or in 'dumbed down' English?

- We should be treating our children, no matter their age, like when they are learning languages for the first term (E.g. 0-5 year olds). Don't reprimand them all the time, just rephrase it and say it back to them in the correct way.

- We are forgetting their heritage and roots; expectations of White Sunday and other cultural oracy. They CAN do it, but we aren't expecting them too. 

- Build into planning that vocab needs to be revisited.

Challenge - 

literacy planning should be designed to have as many experiences of reading/writing/listening/speaking/thinking/viewing or presenting. 

Colouring does none of these. 

High value activity that do this. 

Link to Rebecca's slideshow

So it worked for Jimmy, but not for Rosie? Yes, we can think about

DON'T ONLY THINK ABOUT - why did the dolphins end up in a different place?
THINK ABOUT - What will cause learning under the water?


*students need to listen and respond to each other, not just have parallel conversations*

What am I going to refine?

I need to do more frequent, small format data collection E.g. timing how long and often Ryan sits in a reading group, how long he stays on task, how many times Paul will say something in reading group. 

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 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.