Day 6 - Vocab

 

Another great day of learning. One of the takeaways for me today is the implementation of the word wall or vocab wall. These are the words of the week, topic words or simply words from the guided reading sessions which had been unpacked during discussions. Once placed on the wall visible to all, this can be used by the learners in their writing as well.

Another activity to increase awareness of vocabulary is the Word Associations

These could be done as part of the independent activity after teacher session or before guided sessions so students have a greater understanding when they encounter these words in their reading building on their understanding of the text.

Including word games such as the following:

A great way to engage students in finding the words.

Day 5 - Implementing "Great Beginnings" Writing

One thing that stood out from Day 5 learning was the writing on "Great Beginnings". Once I shared with the learners the sample writing, they all had a lot to contribute. All learners were very excited and even the struggling writers couldn't stop writing. Every learner had a voice and came up with good writing. 

Day 5 - Planning a Reading Programme

 Highlights of the day were as follows:

Reflecting back to what we had already covered and giving the learners the opportunity to look where they are and how they are tracking. Saying to them it's okay to be where you are at, and make your way up. It is perfectly okay to be in the pit but start thinking the changes you'll make, the help/support you need from your buddy/teacher to help you RISE UP again. I will be keen to sharing this again with my learners.

The idea of stocktake is great. The green shows what I am confident at doing. Yellow is what I am currently working on and Red is what I would like to implement in my timetable as this is what I am struggling at or have not thought about it until it was shared. 

Doing this above activity where we had to pull out our plans and check to see if we are doing what we should be doing was very promising as it's already up in our plans every week.

Also the use of ARBs, JournalSurf is great as we build up on the resources, teacher notes and follow up activities for students which are meaningful and require them to go back to the text read to pull out evidences.

Spending quality time going over the apps was great as these are well structured/monitored and is a useful resource for independent activity. One thing I would like to implement in my timetable is making sure that I give feedback at appropriate times and not wait for long. 

Currently my feedback is limited to when I am marking student work or when conferencing a group. Doing this, those who are doing independent work miss out on the relevant feedback as I don't have time, but when it is time tabled, there will be no excuse.

Something that I look forward to implementing is the Use of "Great Beginnings". 

Another great day at the workshop. Looking forward to Day 6. 

Day 3 - Reflection "Text Selection"

My takeaways from todays session could be summarised in pictures below: 

1. Exploring Journal Surf for Books at correct levels with audio/pdf copies for students. This makes it easier when finding books at different levels with different areas of reading. A great tool for finding books.

2. Another way of looking at what I can do on a weekly basis with my reading program. A great STOCK TAKE of reading program. Some things that I can add on to my reading program are Read to and Long texts (novels/chapter books).

3. Finally looking at one place to see what my groups have done. Making sure I strike a balance in all areas of reading.

Another great day spent looking at various reading that I can implement in my program. Lots to take in but I am glad I chose the three I will work on for the next few weeks.

Day 2 - Homework

 

A good lesson with my group about ancient navigators. Feeding the vocab to the group before the reading session made it easier for them to understand the text. 

I used the reciprocal reading concept (similar to book club) and it gave all members a voice and they felt proud to contribute to the discussion.

Me and Mary are in the same learning space with three classes so collaborative planning makes life easy.

Ground rules have now become part of our reading program and students know it well. 

Planning the taskboard together 

RPI Day 2 - Knowing your learners as Readers

 Another interesting day today looking at various areas in Reading and how to get started with a design of learning that engages learners to become good readers.

A good amount of time spent on understanding PAT data and looking at strengths and new learning areas for my students. 

This task made it simpler to look into the focus areas for my learners and also break it down into different groups such as gender, ethnicity to get a wider picture.

Also making use of the ARBS resource which is clearly linked to the different question types and examples to do with the students.

Finally started to realise the benefits of a log book to keep record of everything we do with the learners. This acts as a "one stop shop" for us and is very helpful planning the next steps with Learning intentions, success criterias and tasks with the whole design of learning concept.

Over the next couple of weeks, I will look into making use of these resources gained today to make a better design for my reading program to benefit my students.

RPI Day 1 Follow Up Task Reflection

 Introduction to ground rules

I took on board the ground rules and implemented it to one of our reading groups. The rules were no different to what they are already used to but I made it really explicit and said we will reflect on it and the end of our session. 

The results are as follows:

Next step for the group is to look at both sides of the issue.

The reason students gave a one to asking questions was because they understood the text well and had nothing to ask. Maybe the text was easy for them. I will need to ensure that there are challenging texts for the group but too difficult that they lose the plot completely.

Results of the Reading Survey from our LEARNERS

Basically, many are only limited to the books they read during our guided reading sessions. Next step is to encourage more independent reading and finding books they enjoy so they become hooked more into reading.