Intervention COL Inquiry#7: Sounding out key words

Phonetics is a great way to reinforce a key concept and today our class were practicing with concepts around Government.  Here is an example of us learning about the 3 branches of the government:  legislative, judicial and executive.  

It was a good exercise in reminding students about the way we sound out words and how important the beat is.

Structured Literacy PLD with Dr Jannie

Today we were honoured to have Dr Jannie Van Hees lead us through a PLD around Structured Literacy. 

With my inquiry around reading it is timely and relevant. Here are my notes from her presentation:

This language is tricky, so many layers in focus.  Systems of English.  The Morphology of words.

Knowing how to read and for writing structure is important.

Words are made of sounds.  Language is culture.  K, s, t, o.  Raising awareness of the trickiness of English.

Sounds written down. /e/ -ai- ou

This is very helpful for decoding and spelling.

Comprehension is different:  Noun, verb, adverb, adjective, pronouns.

Metaphorical words are word groups.  Eg. holey - full of holes, holy-devine, wholly.

Question:  when would we find the time to do this? How can A.I help with this?  What are the primary schools doing.

Bite size.  It’s the language that’s tricky, not you.  Eg. Government Concepts.

Make no assumptions that students can read.  And they can’t pronounce it.  

To know a word, say it, read it, write it is the easy bit.  Knowing and explaining the meaning of words is the powerhouse of reading and writing English. 

Context: using the word in utterance and sentences - appropriate and detailed usage.

Explanation ready:  explaining the word’s meaning without using the word.

Create vocab list relevant lists for each subject at the start of the unit (Key concepts and vocab).  

Team Implementation:  Discuss and review, make no assumptions, plan and start now, increase your knowledge and awareness.

Primary school level. More preventive on top of what we already do. Confidence.  Self-efficacy and fixed mindset coming into secondary school with this, it will be harder to unlearn.  The blame should be on the language not the student.  It’s all catch-up the workload it puts teacher on us, in a perfect environment. We are relieving subject areas and I want are relieving.

Streaming kids is important to support structured literacy for that stream. 

Supporting our students in the Literacy Reading Co-requisites

One of the challenges we are having this year is how to best support students to pass the Literacy reading co-requisite.  In May of this year, our first group sat it and of the 148 students tested, 122 were Stanine 5 and below.  As a result of those chosen to sit the corequisite reading assessment only 5 of the 30 who sat the test succeeded which is very low. To support students before their next attempt in September, our level up crew ran a number of intensives where a core group of Heads of Learning provided time during their non-contacts to guide students through revision. We pitched our idea to our curriculum meeting.

In my session today, I decided I would be a fia poto (know it all) and read aloud the co-requisite text and guide the students through the questions. Below are two example of the texts and questions I read aloud.

Straight away, I could see and hear the complexities of the text in them not understanding the context or words that were unfamiliar to them.  I asked students to think about replacing the word with another word that they would know to try and make it make sense.  I also asked them think of the sound the word made.  I was trying to pull out all the strategies.

At the end of the session, I discussed the challenges with Marc who shared his updated literacy plan and he agreed with the challenges saying 'The texts and questions above highlight the need for our students to experience a wide variety of texts during their junior years at secondary school. Many of our junior students do not distinguish between fiction and non-fiction'.

Similarly, the text on Polynesian food, although relatable still remained a challenge for some students because they rushed ahead thinking they could answer it without reading the text. This was a challenge that Marc also identified as a "lack of engagement with the texts in this practice test is symptomatic of their comprehension skills. These skills need to be taught systematically". (Marc Literacy @ T.C doc)

This experience has reminded me about the need to be prepare my year 9's with their reading by going wide and deep and ensuring creater care is taken by the students to engage with the reading fully before answering the questions.

COL Inquiry #9: My casual chain

Explain in detail your theories about why that intervention would positively impact on the problem of student learning (i.e. explain the causal chain you theorised).

"A causal chain is when a cause leads to an effect and that effect becomes the cause of another effect.  A leads to B. B leads to C. C leads to D.  Any intervention you design will (consciously or not) be based on a causal chain you have in mind - this is your theory of action." (Link here)

Reading strategies and frameworks with Marc Milford

Our literacy expert Marc Milford shared a literacy framework that he had researched as one that could potentially support our learners in their journey to become better readers.  Green Bay High School had been identified by the Ministry as a school that had effective practices that got kids ready for CAA and had supportive teacher practices that caused shifts in their practice (link here for the Green Bay High example).

They seemed really on to it and the Science of Learning and Reading has been embedded in their school like our RISE values are at our school.

One of the strategies that students have identified as helping them was called 'a literacy system' that has been embedded across the school.  Below is one of their posters and also a copy of Marc's notes that he has shared with staff.

NCEA Common Assessment Tasks 

Green Bay High School’s structured literacy approach

Key Points:

• the Green Bay example is looking for teacher consistency in conveying reading skills.

• Students ask, how do I approach a text, what do I do next.

• Teachers asked, how can our strategies be inclusive of all students

• how can our approach be informed by the science of learning and the science of 

reading

• how can we engage in deliberate acts of reading instruction

What I want to do is use a few of the interventions as strategies to support my year 9 learners.