What we think Children...

As part of my Inquiry I worked with Hannah and Danni to create surveys for the learners,  Leadership team and children about maths at our school. 

By far the most interesting and influential of the surveys was reading what the kids had to say about their maths. 

What I found interesting was the level of recognition they had about their strengths and needs. Many identified the need for more times table knowledge and the attitudes of learner in maths were very different from the completely positive view the children had when we did a reading survey earlier in the term. 

I appreciated the honesty that come through when the children wrote about what they wanted their teacher to know. 

Below are the results from the Child Survey found here. 

What we think teachers...

As part of my Inquiry I worked with Hannah and Danni to create surveys for the learners,  Leadership team and children about maths at our school. 

It has been interesting to see what the teachers think are the key areas of need and to read descriptions of what is happening in each year level. 

What I found most interesting was that well teachers felt they were teaching basic facts with a whole class approach through song, movement, Xtramath, Mathwhizz. It was also an area in which they felt there was a big need for children that wasn't being addressed. 

They also mentioned the different between strand and number knowledge teaching and the pressure this creates for doing everything well which was similarly mentioned in the SMT survey. 

What I liked and appreciated about this was the clear links to what the children thought about their maths (although these were only year 4 learners) and what the teachers noticed as needs.  

Below are the results from the Teachers Survey found here. 

What do you think SMT...

 As part of my Inquiry I worked with Hannah and Danni to create surveys for the learners,  Leadership team and children about maths at our school. 

Looking at the results has given me an interesting preceptive on what are believed to be shared challenges across the school and what are challenges that only the children identified. 

Below are the results from the Leadership Survey found here. 

The first view I wanted to share was that from one of our management team. I share that basic facts, place value and foundation teaching are strength, well more consistency, earlier teaching of multiplication and teacher knowledge building are gaps that we need to work on improving. 

Thinking about the problem

The challenge in student learning that I have identified for this inquiry is the ranging abilities in maths and how do we address these within the classroom setting while drawing the strength of all students. 

This is important to me because initial testing with the children along with Manaiakalani data has shown that there is an increasing gap between the ability of children in mathematics.  This is representative of the wider issues in New Zealand education. Overall this leads to a problem of data suggesting that children are failing in mathematics when in fact what I've noticed in my classroom is that many children are excelling in particular areas of mathematics while others are struggling in the same areas.

Over the years many teachers have identified the complexity of language in mathematics and have explored this in their inquiries. Over the past few years Manaiakalani has identified a shared pedagogy for reading and writing. At the school we are aware of the increasing challenge and catering to all students in mathematics and making sure that learning in mathematics is accelerated over the year. As such, Danni Stone, Hannah West and I have come together to think about the way in which we can accelerate mathematics by using opportunities for extension groups and collaboration within the classroom. 

Our initial plan: In her role as creative space teacher Hannah has the opportunity to pull children out and work with them on specific targeted projects which will allow them to accelerate. As such we have discussed that she may take out a group of extension children from year three and four to work on their gaps and push them to think creatively in mathematics. From this wonderful opportunity I hope to draw what she is doing in her extension program and look at ways to create collaboration within my maths classroom. I believe that there is a real need for children to be aware of their gaps and strengths and how these can be developed over the year.

 I wish to include more assessment and discussion with children about their learning and gaps in order to make sure that they are able to fully understand their next steps. At this stage in my inquiry I'm looking at gathering data to fully understand each child's gabs and strength and formulate a plan for sharing these with the children in a way that is meaningful. Look forward to continuing to collaborate in this inquiry and hope it will provide a way forward for maths in a diverse classroom.

Chit Chat about Math

We discussed a number of challenges that we felt were important to student learning and I've left of these below.

- Children having a range of knowledge but not being able to apply it correctly.

- Children revert to early number strategies as these are the most prominent in their brain even though they have more effective ways of solving problems.

-Children having gaps in knowledge either from Covid or from not retaining knowledge from previous years.

- Children not understanding how they can move onto the next step in their learning.

- Children not having the self-confidence or self-efficacy to learn from others and apply that learning in different contexts.

As we reflect on the many challenges we have identified in mathematics we realise that this is a massive area to study and look into. We wanted to choose the biggest ticket items for each class or group and really understand how we can make a difference for the children and there is. I told her up, perhaps looking at children understanding the gaps and their next steps as being something I could do in my classroom. I also discussed how building self-efficacy, self-confidence and sharing of knowledge could link nicely to Hannah's extension group.

My class

 The start to 2023 has been anything but normal, with storms raging across New Zealand meaning a later start to the year then planned and the school closing for a day so that we could all stay safe. 

Another surprise which perhaps shouldn't have been a surprise coming off 2022 was the way in which my class jumped straight into learning, talking, sharing ideas and pushing themselves to both complete set tasks and extend their thinking. 

With this exciting development I have started to rethink my inquiry focus. In 2022 I was thinking of focusing on reading specifically critical and collaborative literacy. As a look around the room in week 2 of the term I can already see these elements developing from my current practice. As such I wonder whether this focus is needed. 

As I reflect on the conversational groups I see and the details in literacy I am reminded of the stark contrast with mathematics in my room. During maths time children appear to be less collaborative and see maths as less of a discussion and more of an independent activity.  

As such I am beginning to question which approach would be most beneficial to my learners this year. 

In saying this no matter which approach I take I want the goal for learning to be around collaboration and critical thinking and for my inquiry to no longer be a solo endeavour but rather a collaborative quest in which the burden and rewards are shared. 

Looking forward to 2023

As I reflect on 2022 as a year I look back to see many positive, many Challenges and many possible next steps forward for myself as a teacher and the learners I teach. While Literacy as not been an inquiry focus for me this year I realise that critical and collaborative literacy are areas that has not been as central to my practice as I would like. 

What achievement challenge are you considering as an area of focus in 2023 and why? Include in your WHY both evidence and your own passion/expertise? 

As a result I would like to focus again on Achievement Challenge 3:  Lift the achievement in Reading for all students, with a particular focus on boys and Māori students (both genders) years 1-13 with a specific focus on critical literacy and collaboration. 

While I have many able reader in my class this year the area in which they struggled most has been making connections between text, connecting what they read to their own experiences and asking questions about the author and reliability of the texts they read. This was reflected in group discussions. 

I am passion about this as I know that being inquisitive, critical, collaborative and thoughtful helps children to create and share in a way that is meaningful for them and help them to build a strong understand of the world around them. 

What learnings from the 2017 - 2022 CoL teacher inquiries have informed or inspired your thinking.

There have been so many wonderful inquires into the area of reading and within the cluster there are many amazing resources. 

Two inquiry on Robyns inspired me and provide a great spring board. In 2019 she looked into comprehension strategies in reading and this year the enjoyment of reading. 

Another inquiry that has influenced my thinking has been Hannah West inquiry looking the at impact of vocabulary last year. This connected closely to my own inquiry in 2020 and we both found that vocabulary played a huge role in literacy achievement. 

This year Jo Gormly inquiry around vocabulary was also inspiring for me. It puts into perspective the ideas that teachers have a responsibility to gift model and support the language they expect from learner, Which I believe could be a key fact in forming the collaborative and critical in the classroom and way of engaging with each other. 

How would your work support Manaiakalani pedagogy and  kaupapa?

There ware many ways this focus would connect and support the Manaiakalani pedagogy:

• It reflects the values of learn, create and share. 
• It connects to the valued reading practices that a known to get shift for learners. 
• Skills for learning that are transferable across the curriculum. 
• Collaboration 
• Most of all it focus on supporting connected and empowered learners. 

Which elements of the extensive Manaiakalani research findings inform or challenge you as you think about this?

This is support by the research from Manaiaklani surveys around reading and high leverage practices. Both Collaboration and critical thinking are points that have regularly been discussed drawing on Manaiakalani research but also wider research. 

Some examples of this research are:

T-Shaped Literacy

Developing in Digital worlds

How would you like to be supported in 2023 as you undertake this inquiry?

In 2023 I would like to connect more in my inquiry. It has been great being back together this year and having the time to talk and discuss. In 2023 I would like to actively collaborate in the creation of tools to access progress and interventions with others who have a similar interests and whose learners have similar needs. 

I also great value and will continue to rely on the many experts in the Manaiakalni team. 

How would you plan to support your colleagues in your school with THEIR inquiries and/or teaching in the area you are exploring?

I and I feel anyone who know me would agree love to share and discuss. I think this is the way in which I will most benefit and support others in my inquires in 2023. I also love to listen to others ideas and have in my years in as a CoL leader heard many ideas of others and pointed people to research, blogs or other teacher who might support them. 

Reflecting back and developing knowledge.

 

Mathematics has been an area in which I have seen a lot of change in values and perceptions during my 6 and a half years of teacher and even prior to this in my training. 

Looking back through my blog and earlier Inquiries I saw that impact of this quote:  

"Mathematics research is marked by debates over how to define mathematics, and these debates influence how maths is taught. Some schools of thought define maths as a set of formal rules and procedures that must be mastered to the point of automaticity, while others see it as a creative endeavour and a space for discovery." Education Hub 

DMiC which we focused on in 2019 had a strong focus on maths as discussion, as argument and creative thinking. It suggested that by solving problems concepts of mathematics would become known and develop and build student skills and ideas. 

Earlier in 2017 we focused on  the skill set required for mathematical understanding. How do we assess specific skills and teaching to develop from one stage of knowledge to another. How do we make sure children know where they are at and where they are going? What facts do they know and need to learn. 

Since then I like many teachers I am sure have struggled to find a balance. The curriculum for mathematic is wide reaching and covers so much ground each year with year 1 building into year 2 and that building into year 3 and so on. 

The Education Hub suggests that we don't let these ideas knowledge vs creativity become dichotomous but rather look at how they support each other. 

We all know that effective mathematics teaching is central to developing well rounded children who can grow to take an active role in society but what does effective maths teaching look like. 

Teaching and learning mathematics at primary school written by Fiona Ell and Dr Lisa Darragh for the Education Hub in 2021 suggests it is: 

• In Mathematics one size fits all approach can be the easy way out for teachers, a text book or web sit. This however does not address the needs of learners and teachers are better placing themselves as adaptive experts using data and observation to carefully plan for learners needs.
• Teacher knowledge is central to the teaching of mathematic. There are often sticking points that teachers and learners struggle with that can lead to confusing down the line. 
• Readiness or teacher perception of readiness can impact what they cover with learners. 
• "Ability" can become a limiting factor for  teachers and students 
• The idea of a trajectory while useful can also mean learners get stuck because it is seen that one piece of knowledge is needed for moving on. 
• Engagement and understanding that engagement in central to all learning including mathematic is important for teachers to have. 

So what now. I fully understand that mathematic is a context area of teaching and learning and that I need to examine my values, ideas and skill as a teacher in Mathematics. I plan to look at more literature that discusses how mathematics can be best taught.  

Why this challenge?

Describe how and why you have selected this challenge of student learning. Locate your inquiry in the context of patterns of student learning in Manaiakalani overall. 

It is never easy selecting only one challenge when I am thinking about inquiry. I always find myself asking what will have the most impact for my learners, my teaching and support other teachers. 

It became very clear at our sense-making presentation at the beginning of the year that there is a lot of work to be done around drawing on what we already do well in writing and capitalising on this in reading. It is also clear that my class fit the the pattern of reading data from Manaiakalani as a whole and our school data. They have not been making accelerated progress but are making small steps in the right direction. 

We chose to look at the critical thinking and creative responses as we saw from the data shared by Rebecca that while we as teacher feel this is an area we do well in it is really not at this stage. We theorised that if we put more responsibility on learners to think and create they will think more in depth about the texts they read. 

 

Summary of my teaching strength and next steps

Write a reflection in which you summarise your main learning about your teaching and next steps. This will prepare you to design an intervention next time. (WFQ 10)

What have I learned about my strengths?

From all the data I have gather it is clear that one of my teaching strength in reading is getting children excited to and wanting to read. Even my target group who struggle with reading for the most part love doing it. Only one children said he didn't like it and I suspect this is due to not doing it regularly enough to gain enjoyment from it. 

I also feel Mileage is a strength but an area I can continue to work on. The children did feel listen to and that they had an opportunity to talk and I noted that I often use why questions during lessons. This I feel is a real positive and was an area I might have jumped to as a need when perhaps it is not. 

Next steps:

Sight words and building word knowledge. I really feel from this data that words are the gap, the sticking point and an area I should be able to change quickly and with thoughtful planning maintain. I think part of this is text selection and being clear on why I am choosing not just one book but a series of books. 

I also need to think about the talking that is happening in groups. Is it all Me to the children and them back like I saw in the video. If so how can I change this? or is this what it should be? What is the best use of this limited group time? I noticed kids were not asking questions. What is the impact of this? Is a question I will be asking and researching moving forward. 

I have already made changes in my teaching to adjust for some of these learning but I have many more to make if I want to really fill the gaps and make a meaningful difference in reading achievement. 

Self study- Reading site review

Present findings from this inquiry about your teaching. Ensure qualitative data includes rich descriptions of your teaching and quantitative data is clearly presented. (WFQ 9)

In this reflection on my teaching I looked at 2 books for each of my three reading groups that make up my target learners for this inquiry. The group in made up of children reading below Green (Level 12, reading age 6 years). I looked at the word count for each book. Main sight words, main topic specific words and made a judgment on overall change. As they are all levelled texts challenge is some what obvious but this gave me a better picture of my text selection early in the year. 

Rowing (Red, reading age 5.3 years)

Books 1, I like worms (Sunshine classics)

Word count: 86

Sight words: I, like, for, and, in, my, a 

Sample of topic specific words: worms, lunch, tea, skinny, soup, pizza. 

Book 2: Kitty Cat (PM)

Word count: 57

Sight word: here, is, a, look, at, comes, the. 

Sample of topic specific words Kitty cat, hungry, butterfly, Lizard, Fat?, 

Word family at, cat, fat

Teacher notes stated "Students were excited to read." "They need a lot of prompting to fix errors." "They were not looking at beginning words of sight words and were guessing, until prompted." "They struggled with I like worms due to the increased difficulty of the vocab."

Rugby (Yellow, reading age 5.6 years)

Book 1 Mothers day (PM)

Word count: 118

Sight words: Look, at, my, said, will, where, are, the, they, here, like, in, is, I, am, and, up, a, for, he, day, dad, mum, 

Sample of topic specific words: Mother, card, Emma, pens, forgot, breakfast, tray. 

Book 2 The little car (PM)

Word count: 123

Key sight words: Back, come, his it, will

Other sight words: said, look, my, and, the, can, go, here, is, little, where, for, big, not, see, in, went, away. 

Sample of topic specific words: Rachel, Sam, car, green, leaves, garage. 

Teacher notes stated "Group have come back with more confidence and are attempting more words." "Need prompting to go back and fix mistakes." "One child really struggling with topic specific words, said bucket for bowl, need word on noticing middle letters." "Did not know the word was in Mother's day." "Need to word on word family ay, ake."

Surfing (Blue, reading age 5.9)

Book 1: Open your mouth (Sunshine)

word count 185

Sight word:your, the, big, said, to, little, I'm, going, you, a, an, little, and, some, is, it, or, no, come. 

Sample of topic specific words: cat, kitten, hen chick, puppy, dog, surprise, eyes, mouth, open, close, give. 

Book 2: The missing socks (Ready to reads)

Words count: 205

Sight word: was, for, his, and, but, were, the, on, dad, I can't, my, are, they, no, said, she, in, the, ask, have, you, look, looked, mum, saw, taken, ran, out, through, across, into. 

Sample of topic specific words: socks, Jack, Noodle, pounced, rugby, boots, bedroom, pulled, lounge. 

Teacher notes stated,  " they are struggling when they make errors to notice that it does not make sense." "Keep working on sight words and noticing as this is a real need."

Overall from this analysis what I have noticed are three main this:

1: There is a real difference between PM, Sunshine and Ready to reads at the same level, PMs have high sight words with limited topic specific, Sunshine have more equal sight word to topic specific and ready to read step up in complexity significantly. 

2: I am not very good at reflecting on specific word errors, sound errors and comp issues. My reflections are very general and lack the detail needed to really dive into changes and issues.

3: Sight words, sight words, sight words, this is a big issue for all group but I don't spend enough time on it. I also need to be more careful in my text selection to make sure this are covered. 

I also have a question for my self about text length. if 205 words is all they are exposed to is that enough? If I am not exposed to a year 3 text can I become a year 3 reader? or year 4 text and year 4 reader? What is the right level of challenge, independent and shared text for these kids and how often should they read them? 

Self Study- Observations of my past reading teaching

Present findings from this inquiry about your teaching. Ensure qualitative data includes rich descriptions of your teaching and quantitative data is clearly presented. (WFQ 9)

This post shows the what I noticed about my teaching through observing a video. I looked back at the Class Onair lesson and noted what I saw in the first 5 minutes of direct instruction using the questions I had planned when identifying the areas to best help me identify my strength and gaps, see this blog post. 

Sadly I did not have an opportunity to get another teacher to observe at this stage of my inquiry due to Covid 19 measure and time restrictions. I hope to video more and get support for an outside observer to help me unpack this more in term 3. 

This video shows part reading lesson with my target group in early 2020. It is looking at a non fiction text and I wanted to look back a note how often I used the key strategies I hypotheses would cause change in reading achievement and reflect on these. 

How often do I provide specific vocabulary instruction? 

I got children to use the pictures to help them understand vocabulary. We used the the content page to look at words we did not know. During the lesson most of the focus was on topic specific vocabulary. I pulled out two words with the whole group to look closely at. Before reading students identified children 6 topic specific words. 

What does this vocabulary instruction look like? 

The instruction look like writing on specific words on the table. We broke them apart and some sight words were mentioned. It also used visuals like the pictured to get children to state words they would encounter in the book before they had to decode them. 

Does it relate to a sight word or topic specific word? 

Material is a topic specific word. We did look at the word 'mat' which is a word family sight word but missed the opportunity to look at how it connected word families. 

Funnel- Again this is a topic specific word. They used syllables to work it out and the sight word fun. 

How often do the children talk about the book? 

At the beginning of the lesson I used lots of why questions to get the children talking. They did not ask questions. Children had lots of opportunity to explain they words. However one child took control of this most the time. They did not take turns speaking and I did not step in to help them with this. 

Is this retell, connecting to their experience or asking a question?

The discussion centred round the words in the story. Child were not encouraged to ask questions or retell the story. This in part was due to the nature of the text. We did talk about what the book said. 

Strength:

From this video I can see that I have a strength in introducing and supporting children with topic specific words and finding small words in bigger words. I am also good at asking why question and open questions like "What do you notice about..." I noticed that I got the children to explain the content page, but not really what a funnel was and that was a missed opportunity. I am good at listen to the children and catching moments to ask them to check for errors or help them understand words. 

Areas to work on:

There was no support in this lesson for sight word knowledge building, which I see as a real gap. I know that this group know a lot of sight words but they definitely still have gaps or they would be moving much faster. I did not give the children opportunities to ask questions and most of the the discussion was student to teacher not student to student. How can I get this more and skill be their to support them? 

Preliminary findings

Begin to collect evidence and data  and come to the next session ready to share your preliminary findings about the nature and extent of the student challenge. (WFRC #4)

Before the Covid-19 Lockdown, I began to look closely at and collect data to identify and explore my student challenges. However due to the Covid-19 lockdown I was not able to collect all the data I intended to as stated in my previous blog post. 

When looking at my class I noticed that their is huge disparity between learners in my space. I have a large group of children reading at or above year 3 level. I also have a group of learners who are still struggling at a year 1 level. Sadly a number of these children are the year 4s in my class making them almost 3 years behind their current age. When looking at their reading I looked at running record data, star data and my own notes and reflections on student learning. Intended to do a survey however many of these learners and not online currently. 

My target group have reading levels range from 1-13 this means they are all working at a year 1 level. This is well below the expected level and the level of the peers in my class. 

The star data paints a similar picture for me. Student in my target group are scoring a scale score of between 35 and 55 while others in my class score as high as a 75 or even 95.   

Looking Back and Taking Stock

#1... Use the ‘inquiry stocktake’ doc to reflect on and write about what you aim to learn about inquiry this year.

As we start to think more about 2020 and our teacher inquiry it is important to look back and ask, how well did I inquire last year. In this process I began to think about the planning for inquiry and the process of recording the changes I made. I also though about all the good intentions I had that didn't become reality.

Having been sick for the CoL meeting I spent a great deal of time looking at the Stocktake doc and thinking about what applied to me and how this could help me move forward in 2020.



What worked well in 2019
In 2019 I developed a lot of ideas and tried a lot of things which gave lots of diversity in practice and learning opportunities. I had great success in reading and found that learner could rise to the high expectations and absorb a lot of new vocabulary in this area.

My Challenges in 2019
My biggest challenge was consistency in my approach and giving things time to work. I think this was due to a lack of forward planning at the beginning of my inquiry. While I did a lot of research I didn't have a clear vision for my class and when I believed something was not working I changed it possibly without enough hard evidence.

I also found the challenge of time. In my CoL across school role I am out of the classroom 2 day a week and this can also lead to a lack of consistency in my room.

The Support I need in 2020
I am going to reach out to other teachers and members of the Woolf Fisher research team and the Manaiakalani team to help me connect with effective practice in reading specifically around dialogic discussion and vocabulary. I want to have a clear idea of where I am heading before I leap in. I also want to have a strong foundation in research and more check point which I will need help developing and implementing as this will give me a richer picture of student achievement.

Term 2 Inquiry Update

In Term 1 I collected and collated the achievement data for reading at writing for a sample of learners working at 1B and reading below green (reading age 6). I wanted to look at how the connection between reading and writing teaching could impact on progress for these learners. See this blog post for more details.

At the end of term 2 I tested the learners using PM running records and compared this to the data collected in term 1. What I found was that the data was very mixed however the girls have made more progress than the boys. However only 3 learners had made expected to significant shift 0.5-1 year.


You can see the raw data here.

What I also found was the learners may have not shifted in age level but had made shifts in their reading level. Two learners sadly went down in their levels and I have not yet been able to account for this.



I have also been looking at their writing and seen from written samples both in their writing books and created digitally that the volume of writing has increased.

In teachers reflective notes from myself and my co-teacher there are a number of notes that relate to learners increased focus and willingness to attempt new unknown words.

As a result of these findings it is clear that more changes need to be made. I am wondering if increased content gifting and reading to write might be the next steps in my inquiry.

Most Important hypothesis and evidence I will collect.

8. and 9. Explain the hypotheses about teaching that you decided were MOST worth testing, and why and explain how you will test it and what evidence would support (or refute) that hypothesis.

Scaffolding and Gifting
I choose this hypotheses because I felt it has the most value in terms of developing students writing and reading ability. We often talk about the power of teacher supports for students learning and I believe a close look at and changes to the way I scaffold could have a big impact on students learning. I know this because of the conversation we have had with Rebecca Jesson and Dr Jannie van Hees. By looking closely at my scaffolding I will become more critical of what I am scaffolding, why I am scaffolding and how children feel about these scaffolds.

How will I test this:
First I want to make a list of all the types of scaffolds I use, what they aim to scaffold and identify exactly what I am doing. I will also get some to come in and develop and observation tool for looking at how children are engaging with the scaffolds. I will also use a survey to ask children how they feel.

Connections between reading and writing and sight words. 
I have wanted to make connections between my reading and writing program particularly in terms of developing vocabulary. I believe this will be a good hypotheses to test because I have noticed that students engagement and excitement reading in much higher than in writing time.

How will I test this:
I will use my reflections in reading and writing to see if the ideas and links are being made. I will also video both reading and writing lesson, looking at engagement and vocabulary connections. I will also look at samples of writing and look at what sight words they are using that they learnt in reading time. I will do a sight word test on target group, reading and writing sight words.

What can I change my practice?

6. Develop a set of hypotheses about patterns in your teaching that could be changed to more effectively address the student learning focus.

Reflecting back on my teaching practice I have asked myself many questions. In this post I have been quite critical of myself. I believe that this will help me develop.

Hypothese:

Scaffolding: 
Am I under scaffolding, how much scaffolding is right? I have read a lot and had a lot of professional conversations about scaffolding. I have also been thinking a lot about this and I often think I limit scaffolding sometime because I value independence particularly in writing. So How much scaffolding is right?


Gifting: 
Am I gifting the right amount and how much should I be gifting? This links to my pervious idea and this blog post. I currently do quite a lot of gifting. I do it in dictation, word walls, examples and shared writing. I do wonder though how much is too much and what should I gift. I have some writers for whom even simple words are challenging how much do I gift and how much do I expect them to try on their own?


Connections between reading and Writing: 
Am I helping students to see the connections between reading and writing? I have seen more shift in reading than in writing, at this early stage in the year. It leads me to wonder am I making enough of a connection between reading and writing.

Sight words: 
Am I supporting sight word development in my classroom in both reading and writing? Currently sight word practice happens mostly in reading and focuses on the reading of sight words. Would linking this more to writing, through speed sight word writing games, dictation and word work support writing speed and increasing independent writing ability? How would I make this fun and different?

Rewindable:
Am I providing enough opportunities for children to rewind and revisit their learning? 
Well we capture a lot of the learning and ideas we share. I have noticed that I am not providing the time I think learner need to revisit this themselves. We often revisit as a group but how to I empower students to take responsibility for finding what they need when they need it.

Feedback: 
Can I development better feedback loops, teacher to student and student to student? 
We have a system of feedback that is very teacher to student. This limits the amount of feedback they get. How can I expand this feedback?

Student choice:
How can I cater for student choice and student voice when children need a lot of scaffolding and gifting to write? The thing I have really noticed is that many of the children in my class who struggle to write have great ideas they can share orally and even record but when they come to write them they freeze because they can't spell it, or they struggle to get the words onto the paper. I have found gifting and dictations work well for them but this limits their creative voice. So how do I cater for their individual stories and gift for their individual stories when they are all different and there are over 30 of them?

Process of developing hypotheses

7. Describe your process for developing hypotheses (what you read, who you talked with).

Professional conversations:
Rebecca Jesson, Looked at writing samples with me and we discussed what data I could collect next and how to look at the closer break down of writing sample data.
Russell Burt, Discuss how ideas could develop and what value they might have for others.
Christine Eadie, Constantly discussing the children's writing and reading data and observations that we make.
Team conversations: In our team we have noticed treads and have been talking about these and what we can do.


Blogs I have connected with:
CoL within school teachers,
Naomi, has a similar inquiry focus to me and looking at her ideas has helped me form questions and develop my thinking.
Angela, Her 2018 inquiry looked at vocabulary and using Dr Jannie Van Hees strategies and this has helped me thinking.
Helen, Is doing a lot with sound and word knowledge to fill gaps.

Research
Jannie's Book: What every primary school teacher should know about vocabulary
Effective literacy Practices years 1-4
Colleen Hayes: The Effects of Sight Word Instruction on Students'Reading Abilities

Digital Storytelling with Fiona Thomas

I choose this session today because my focus of my inquiry this year is writing and engaging children in writing. 

I am excited to get going and try some new ways of engaging with story tell that may motivate my wonderful learner to push them more. We want our children to be creators not just consumers of  content. We want to encourage learners to use their skills to create and be a positive member of a group. 

Writing can be one of the most challenge task for students to undertake and we want to push students to the point that they have the skills to write for a lot of different purposes. We want children to have multiple options for expressing ideas and learning the structure and idea creation of story writing.

We want children to have access, the ability to express themselves and engage with the learning. This is where students feel empowered. 

Who do I want to focus on:

We want children to start their stories by grabbing their readers attention. She talked about this as being a sizzling start. This came from a writing process model they used. 

We looked at this picture then had to write our own start. 

Disasters has struck! I was all ready running late for work when I released that my hair drier was broken. Not broken in the normal way where it wouldn't work but in the way where it created a wind storm. 

"Sitting in my field all day is boring," Said Poppy. She was the only daisy in the field who had any clue about the world. Yes she knew that the daisy being called Poppy was silly but that just shows how clueless her parents were. 

"What are you?" asked the little girl as she pulled me from my home. I felt violated so my reply was short, "A fuzzle!" I yelled.  

After a hard day in the classroom what else am I meant to do. I had been working so hard on my diet but all the running, jumping and crawling of our maze had made me do it. 

Technology should add value to learning. 

This tool was not at all my favourite. It closes if you stop writing. 

This is a fun looking tool in which you can create fake text message conversations to show conversations between characters or to and author. Best for higher up the primary and secondary. 

This is a tool that gives you picture to match your picture. 

You can create a class with a topic pack for everyone to have a go with. You can create your own cartoon you and create a class photo. 

I have seen some amazing ThingLink. This is a great tool for creating amazing picture that share information. You can create links to more content from one image. 

This is a comic creator that allows you to create comic of all kinds. 

Over Languaging Learning - How much gifting is too much gifting

I was so excited after our last CoL PLG that I jumped straight into languaging learning. My co-teacher and I had decided we were going to do narratives about owls with our class as this integrated nicely with what we had been doing in art and the stories we had been reading in class.

I was working with the 1B writers which are my target group for my inquiry. I had had them for a few weeks and they seemed to be doing well with the gifted language and creating sentences with support.

I decided that I would Language learning and that I wanted to give them choice as these were two big things we had talked about in our PLG. I created an explain everything with lots of gifted words and sound bites for each gifted word or phrase. The first lesson went really well but what I found was that there was so much choice and so many new words that the children felt overwhelmed and only those with the ability to face challenges head on kept going and the rest became highly dependant on me.

So with the help of the colleagues I started to ask, How much is too much? Is simple better? When are high expectation too high? How can I come at this group from a place they know and build in an exciting and fun way? How does choice feature for these learner or does it?

This writing task really made me question myself. One thing I did find work was students recording their sentences and using this to help them write, almost like a self created dictation. It allowed for a clear connection between speech. I also found when gifted words were connected with a meaningful picture they were more likely to be remembered.

I still have a lot to learn in terms of languaging learning, especially in writing. I would love to hear what others are doing so please leave me a comment.