COL Inquiry #5: Summarise your key findings

1. Summarise your key findings about the nature and extent of the student problem

After gathering data from PAT results, discussing how to identify struggling readers with a literacy expert and gathering student voice as well as my own observations, I have summarised some key findings to the nature and extent of the student problem.

• Most students want to read but there are some barriers which push it to the background, like trying to get used to new classmates, new systems, new ways of teaching.
• The Science of reading needs to be explored better through structured literacy so that kids who are feeling forced to read and don't understand the mechanics and the why of reading.
• Boys would rather play sport then sit and read.
• Regular reading needs to be a learnt habit.
• Reading in short bursts works best because kids become distracted.

In summary, my hunch is that my year 9's are still transitioning and moving into specialist curriculum areas that all have different approaches to reading is a struggle.  They tell me that time constraints may not allow them time they want to process information, even though we had moved to one hour periods.  

I need the students to be critical thinkers which is an important social science skill to have and this needs to be built through understanding the why of reading better. Unfortunately, the reality for the majority of my year 9 kids right now is that they struggle to get one task completed during our class time.  This is leading to a lack of engagement by the less able students and a lack of motivation by the more able.  By making things like their PAT tests more transparent and understandable, students may be more likely to feel invested in their learning.

2. Explain how some of the data you have used to build a profile of the students’ learning will be used as baseline data at the end of the year.

The data I will look at will be PAT reading results to compare test 1 to test 2 as well as mid-term exams.