How to teach spelling like a pirate?

Roll on Term 3 and Hub Whenua are already into assessments with our mid year snapshot of learners spelling ability.

The learners who I am supporting with their writing have come such a long way with their spelling as detailed in this graph where I compared their result at the beginning of the year to what they were able to achieve this week.

This success has come from the learners being determined, fantastic support from whanau and the inclusion of spelling into my practice each week.  However while these results are fantastic, I am not seeing the transition of this confidence with vocabulary when the learners are crafting their writing.

This has got me thinking about how I can redefine the spelling component of my practice.  How can I turn something that has the potential to become 'boring' and 'repetitive' into something that learners want to engage with and can make links with while writing.

I am currently reading "Teach Like A Pirate" by Dave Burgess and one of the first areas of passion that he writes about is content.  While I consider myself to be a confident speller, I really need to up my game with knowledge to be able to confidently pass these skills onto learners.  I am fortunate to have worked with our PE specialist Rachel and she has introduced me to activities to help develop confidence with spelling but I feel that I need to continue to explore this area too so I have a kete of resources to use.

Stay tuned - this pirates spelling ship is just setting sail!  Always grateful for ideas or insight into others spelling programmes.

Mid Year Reflection: My Practice in Writing

As with reflecting on reading and numeracy, I also reflected on my writing practice this term and gathered voice from the learners.  I was a bit nervous to see what these learners would feel about my instruction as they had both been a focus for our Term 1 inquiry as well as the focus for my dissertation this year.

Looking at the above chart, I am not surprised by these results.  Some of the learners (18.2%) have been vocal about not enjoying writing hence the reason why I have tried to keep my practice fluid and find ways to engage with them based on their interests.  

The tension I have had this term has been balancing the need for aspects like handwriting and spelling and finding ways to get technology to aid us in the writing process.  From the feedback, it looks like I have had some success with using Explain Everything to help us with our planning and crafting sessions.  Learners have been able to use the voice recording aspect to capture their ideas and plan on their device to help them then go onto craft, refine and publish.  While I had intended to have the group create a full narrative on an animation we had watched, I found that we needed to spend more time on the first part of a narrative where critical elements such as characters and setting are introduced.  The group have achieved some amazing results this term where we were able to share and celebrate via our hub blog (please leave a comment if you can):

I also chose to ask them about an element of my dissertation inquiry where the group reflected on their writing progress each week.

I do wish to carry on with a scaled down version of this reflection process for next term so will gather some more information from the group on how I can make this less of an event and more a natural part of the process.  Over the term break, I will start to analyse the data collected from this term so hopefully some other insights will spring from that.

I feel that I have grown the most in my practice in relation to teaching writing.  While I enjoy writing, I need to realise that it can be a difficult process to others and feedback from both the learners and their families is that they are unable to see progress in their writing (in contrast to both reading and writing).  This has made me think about how I can use the tools available to help learners see their own progress but also celebrate shift more.

Another takeout I have taken from gathering this feedback is that I am working with a group who may not enjoy writing and how can I make this more enjoyable or the learning not as teacher directed as it may have been in the past.  I was fortunate to go and observe a colleague as she used stations to keep the energy high when teaching phonics so I will look into how I can incorporate movement and rotations into teaching aspects such as handwriting and spelling more. 

Mid Year Reflection: My Practice in Numeracy

Similar to the learners I work with in reading, I collected voice from my numeracy groups to analyse both engagement and shift.

In relation to results, all the groups have maintained their 'At' call in National Standards as they are all now working towards operating at early Level 2 of the NZ Curriculum.

Term One was about consolidating all the learners knowledge and strategies at Stage 4 as I had learners working at all different parts of this so this term has been developing and building their confidence in Stage 5 Number Knowledge and introducing them to a number of the strategies for both Addition/Subtraction and Multiplication/Division.  As you can see in some of their responses, some of these strategies have really stuck with them.

One of the main differences that I did this term was to create four sub groups within the group so I could differentiate learning to the level appropriate for the learners.  This helped me challenge particular learners as well as support and develop confidence in others.  Here is the snapshot at where the current engagement levels are at:

This goes with my gut on how I felt learners were feeling about their numeracy learners.  The four learners (21.1%) are learners who have developed the confidence to tell me when they are stuck in their learning and this has taken a couple of terms to build this ability.  

The biggest learning curve this year in numeracy has been my own PCK - last year I was working more with our Year 2 learners in Stages 3 and 4 so moving into Early Stage 5 has been both exciting and challenging as I think of ways to engage with learners.

Using the kids love of Pokemon to teach place value was something that I thought was a bit random at first however the kids loved it and I managed to help some learners overcome the obstacle of regrouping with this activity.

That is the key to keeping thing fresh - teaching numeracy can be black or white.  Either you know the strategy and get the answer correct or you don't.  So my personal challenge is to look to develop my creative skills in teaching numeracy to continue the engagement for both the learners and myself!

Mid Year Reflection: My Practice in Reading

Following on from last term's reflection, I reached out to my learners in order to gauge their voice in my teaching and to analyse the shift.

I chose to add one question to the ones I asked last term, this being:

• What are some things that you have learned this term?  This was more out of interest to see what learners could remember from this term.

The first question I ask of the learners is how much they have enjoyed the learning this term, with them being able to rate it on a likert scale from 1 ("I haven't enjoyed it!") to 3 ("I have enjoyed it a lot!").  

Great to see that 4 learners (16.7%) are sitting between the two choices, this means that I still have a bit of work to build engagement with reading.  This group of learners are very engaged with their reading to the point where they are planning their own time when it comes to reading.  Here is a slide that I add to each groups modelling books to help them do so.

It was great to read what learners had both enjoyed reading and learned this term.  I had worked to have learners make connections through different texts, using both readers and journals alongside using apps like GetEpic!.  The learners have really enjoyed using this as an additional resource for books and I have used it to build collections on similar topics so they can analyse and decided whether texts are appropriate for their use.

It is also great to see that some of the additional writing activities made the lists like our alliteration activity and you might notice that a lot of the group mentioned learning about Haikus which was a follow activity where we looked at syllables and how we can use this knowledge to help us when we need to chunk new words we encounter in our reading.  Check out the groups great poems below (note two links due to labels):

Reading through the challenging comments from the learners, great to see that learners had reflected on some of the learning that I chose to focus on this term.  We spent a lot of time working on the differences between retelling and summarising as a lot of the group found it difficult being able to identify and utilise these skills.  We also spent time developing our word attack skills so activities like the ones above helped learners build their confidence in these strategies.

Looking at shift, the majority of the group have maintained their skills and I have mapped out their shift based on a resource our SLT helped created for us and reflecting on this, some of the comments about how I can help learners progress stand out for me.

A few of the learners mentioned about how they would like me to help them further understand their follow up activities so I will reassess how I am creating modelling books and ask my mentor to come observe me in relation to instruction with these groups.  Great to see the honesty with some learners requiring further assistance with summarising - this was a note that I communicated to whānau these holidays along with the links to the resources to help learners practice over the holidays if they wanted to.

In summary, I am very fortunate to working alongside this group of learners as they are so engaged with their readers.  Stay tuned for an update on what Term 3 is going to look like for my reading practice!

Pai tū, pai hinga!

Currently our staff are fortunate to be having a weekly PL session with Rosalie Reiri on our use of Te Reo in our practice.  When I first heard that this would be running each Monday afternoon for the remainder of Term Two, my first thoughts were the following:

• "But I have so much to do, when will I get the time back?"
• "I'm already using Te Reo in the hub!"
• "I hope I don't have to say anything in front of anyone - my pronunciation is terrible!"

Notice how these thoughts go to self doubt and time constraints - I didn't and it wasn't until this week that I realised this.

The sessions so far have been pretty insightful more on how much I still have to learn about using Te Reo in my practice.  I reflected on how I felt hard done with the Te Reo course at university which gave me a great perspective of the bicultural nature of our education system but did not set me up for success with any practical application for my practice.

Rosalie shared with us this video where Janelle Riki-Waaka speaks of the schools of Aotearoa.  It is a great video to watch if you are reflecting on how you are using Te Reo as I came away from watching this with a new sense of purpose on ensuring that I am trying my best to show our school as one that is of Aotearoa.  The first thing I did do after our initial session was to learn how to add tohutō (macrons) to the vowels to ensure that if I am using Te Reo in emails or planning that I was reflecting the correct use.

Another thing helping my confidence grow is the 'homework' tasks that Rosalie is giving us to develop our skills!  Here is one of the examples where I was able to create a short stop motion to illustrate the difference between tēnā koe and tēnā kōrua:

These sessions have also given me more confidence with teaching - the learners in our hub have decided that they want to share some Te Reo with the rest of the junior school at our upcoming assembly.  Normally I would be quite nervous with helping the learners practice and ensuring that we we saying words properly however we shared with them how the teachers were all learning Te Reo and our practices now seem more natural.  I feel more confident to help learners with pronunciation and am looking forward to seeing the hub perform this week.

Term One Reflection and Next Steps for Term Two

Something that I have noticed Ashley do really well is reflect on each term using the voice from her students to help her take stock of her teaching practice and help inform her next steps.  It was something that I wanted to put into practice for this year, especially with my dissertation focusing on the use of feedback.

This term I chose to do this with both my reading and numeracy groups as my writing groups will be focused on next term with my dissertation intervention.  With each group, I asked the following questions:

• How had they enjoyed the learning this term?  Learners could rank this on a likert scale from 1 to 3.
• What did they enjoy during the term?  This is free text where learners could give me some insight into what they enjoyed in the particular learning area.
• What did they find challenging this term? Again free text response to help me understand if I need to clarify or revisit some areas.
• What can I help each learner with in Term 2?  Hopefully getting some voice from the learners on areas that they felt they needed assistance from myself on.

Learners were given time to reflect through the term using both their progressions and modelling books and then could respond via a Google Form that I had set up for each group.

READING

I have really enjoyed the term with my reading groups.  We have managed to click as a wider group and each group has formed a close bond even with learners moving in and out of groups based on their current reading level.  In regards to levels, 85% of the group have moved at least one reading level and I am now looking at how I bridge some learners from the end of Year 3 standard into the beginning of Year 4 standards.

In relation to engagement, this graph shows that 74% of the group scored 3 meaning that they have enjoyed reading a lot this term.

From the responses, I seem to be hitting the mark with the texts I am selecting and the follow ups that I am creating however I was more excited to read some of the comments with what the learners were finding challenging or required assistance with next term.  A lot of the learners are developing their awareness as readers and I had noticed a trend with them that our word attack strategies were an area that we needed to develop further so this is a great goal for Term 2 to achieve with the learners.  I also need to look at how I am modelling and giving instructions with the follow ups as a lot of learners remarked that they were finding these difficult.

NUMERACY

It was interesting to compare the responses from my numeracy learners.  In regards to engagement, the number of learners that enjoyed it is sitting around 60%.  As the learners are at a similar stage, I had been doing a lot of whole group teaching and running opt in workshops for those learners who wanted further assistance and my gut is telling me that this approach may not be hitting the mark with some of my group.  What I have decided to do for Term Two is create numeracy groups and I will work with these groups based on their needs.  While this may require more planning time, I should be able to focus the time with each group better.

I felt that the responses from this group have really allowed me to see where I need to focus on the learning for next term.  We are all moving into Stage 5 number knowledge and continuing to develop our multiplication and division strategies.  I found it interesting that both Kahoot and Prodigy (read Chelsea's blogpost on it) had got a few mentions seeing how I had only introduced both to the group in Week 8.  I have shared Prodigy with families as a way for the learners to practice their maths skills at home so great to see that the engagement with this tool at home.

CONCEPT

I am starting to investigate our Term Two concept of "being our best self" by looking at the school's wellbeing progressions - we are meeting next week for our planning days but I am excited to be delving into this part of the curriculum.  Stay tuned for an update on both this and how I am going to be planning for my writing groups.

PLG - Visible Teaching and Learning

Today's PLG was an insightful one as it challenged my thinking as a teacher.  When designing learning, am I creating experiences that will inspire and empower my learners or am I tailoring these lessons for a style of learning which mirrors my own?  Interesting to stop and ponder on this as I feel that I am defaulting to the latter subconsciously.

The focus of today's session was to help us understand further on how visible teaching and learning could help accelerate shift.

We were fortunate to watch a short video from Chrissie Butler from Core Education where she spoke about the Universal Design for Learning and this stuck home with me.  Was I limiting my learners ability to learn by only offering them a choice of two to three resources and if I were to create more multimodal learning opportunities, how would this impact on my learners?

I particular enjoyed this next slide as it helped give me more awareness and confidence to use more resources when designing learning.

By recognising the use of texts in these different formats, I could then support learners better by offering them a choice of how they would prefer to engage with the topics.  Please note, where you see the word "text", this does not mean an actual book - it may mean a video, an audio file or an article online.

The remainder of the day was left to us to use some of this knowledge to help develop some tools that we could use for the remainder of the year or next year in some cases (check out Georgia's post about her plans for next year!).

I chose to look at some elements to my literacy programme that could open up links to other curriculum areas which again is something to aspire to.  We are focusing on reading picture books to our learners at the moment to develop their discussion skills and I was very keen to read them some stories that I read when I was their age.  I did stop here for a moment and thought about whether I was defaulting to a learning style that I enjoyed however thought that this could be the springboard to some different elements.  Here is the initial brainstorm:

Next steps is to discuss this brainstorm with my mentor and look at creating some different resources based on the feedback from that conversation.  Stay tuned for an update on how this may look - I'm pretty excited!

PLG - Visit to Point England School

Today Juliana and I went to Pt England School as part of our PLG focus.  As we both teach Years 2/3, we went with the focuses on seeing the following:

• Year 1s - seeing the level of ability our learners are coming from and how the design of learning is set at that level.
• Year 4s - we wanted to see how the design of learning was set at this level and how we can prepare our Year 3 learners for the transition.

We were greeted by one of the most impressive assemblies that I have attended - the air of celebration was present as we watched learners get their sport awards.  We also saw a new house captain being elected which was announced with such mana!

Shortly after, we went into two Year 1 classes - these learners are adept in using Explain Everything (the app that we use in our hub) and were very keen to show us their learning.  The learners that I spent time with showed me how they use the sound bytes which their teachers record with their explanations or instructions to assist them.

After morning tea, we moved into the pavilion where we visited a Year 4 learning space - this was two classes that were merged into one with two teachers.  The learners were working through a list of activities from the week in the block called "Finishing Friday" - I helped some learners with an activity that they were working through with geometry and I got a fair few "presents" with them all keen to show me their proficiency with symmetry.  I got this awesome example from a learner who understood the concept and explained it to me very efficiently.

Both experiences have made me consider the following with my own practice:

• How can I use digital affordances (such as the sound bytes in Explain Everything) to allow my learners more opportunities for rewindable learning?
• Am I generating enough choice for my learners in regard to their learning?
• How can we incorporate more opportunities to celebrate our successes in our learning?  I was blown away by the attitude of the learners at their assembly!

Such a humbling experience being welcomed into other schools in our area - I am grateful to part of a community of learning!  Thank you to all the teachers that let us come into their spaces and observe!