Catalytic Issue

 Explain why you judge this to be the most important and catalytic issue of learning for this group of learners this year (In chemistry, a catalytic substance is one which increases the speed of a chemical reaction. Catalysts offer an alternate pathway for a reaction to follow, with a 'lower activation energy.')  

To explain why is this a Catalytic issue for my learners I started by look at data on each of the learners in my target group range from level 15-20 a reading age of 6.5-8 years. By the end of the year children should ideally have a great age of 9 years of age. 

My target group is made up of 15 children, 7 reading at 6.5 years. 6 reading at 7 years and 2 reading at 8 years. The group has 9 girls and 6 boys. 

It is interesting to see that for many of these children shifted has been limited in their reading shift across their 3 years at school. 

Why I see this as a catalytic issue is the fact that student shift is so limited. This shows that what we have been doing as not has the deserved impact on student learning and something needs to be done differently. 

From conversations with learners about text their expression of opinions is limited. It often come in the form of a retell or something they directly noticed in the text. For example when asked what do you think about this story one learners said "It was about a bear." 

As such I believe that developing more curiosity about texts and becoming critical of what they read will making reading more meaning full and engage learners in more thinking therefore impacting their achievement in reading more generally.