Summarise evidence of key shifts

2. Summarise evidence about key shifts in the problem of student learning.

The shift I have seen in Student learning are improved length of writing. This can been seen here in this blog post with evidence from one of my inquiry focus group. However I expected this to translate into improve E-Asstle writing score which it did not. I believe this is due to quantity not equalling quality of writing. E-Asttle score levels show overall only Two learners have moved beyond 1B while the rest remain as 1B writers with little to no change in scale score they.

I believe this lack of change is not due to a lack of changed practice but due to a lack on time spent on this changed practice. Perhaps it is many changes that were not implemented over a long enough period of time that lead to this lack of change in writing. 

At the beginning of this inquiry I hypothesise that a connections between reading and writing programs would help by 1B writers move beyond 1B while using practice I know work to improve reading. 

What I have found is that I can maintain the improvements learners make in reading however I am not yet able to make these same improvements in writing. 

My reading data when compared the reading level data on the same children from 2017-2018 that 9 out of the 11 learners have made more then one years shift compared the the slow shift of 6-9months they made in the 2018 school year. It also shows that 2 of the learners have made 2 or more years shift. Out of the group two learners did not make significant shift. These learners were both boys. One had large length of time away from school. The other has some interesting reading behaviour including very slow disconnected reading which I would like to explore more.

It is interesting looking at the shift termly and seeing that for most learners the shift happened pretty consistently throughout the year. 

These graphs show the same data but this time by reading age. Two learners in this focus group have moved to expected age for year 3, additional 6 have moved from over 2 years behind to just 1 year behind expected age. One learners made very little shift in age but made many levels and this is significant for him as he faces a number of other challenges in his learning. 

While I am disappointed in the key shifts this year in writing the reading data gives me great hope. I do feel I need to think more about the characteristic of reading shown by the two learners who made limited shift and what I can do to address this. Much more thinking is needed to my part around writing reading connections and who I can pull my strengths in reading teaching to support my teaching in writing.