Apps to help struggling learners with the surface features of writing.

This week I have come across two apps to assist my struggling writers and dyslexic students with their writing.

Often struggling writers have good imaginations and stories but lack the skills to turn this into written text.  Through prompting and oral discussions, many of these students come up with fantastic stories yet when they go to write their ideas down, there is a significant mismatch between what they want to write and what they have actually written.  This challenge was highlighted for me after a discussion I had around writing with my 7 year old daughter who not only is new to Year 3, but also has mild dyslexia.

My daughter was describing something she had eaten.  She used brilliant descriptive language when she was telling me about it.  Her sentence was "That was so delicious.  It was a bit spicy and made my tongue feel a bit tingly".  I told her how great that sentence was and asked her to try and write it down.  When she showed me what she had written, what was on the page was 'It was really yum'  When I asked her what happened to all the fancy words she used to describe what she had eaten, her response was "I don't use them because I don't know how to write those words and spell them'.  I was pretty sad to here this answer because what a difference her writing achievement would be if she included this descriptive language.  I am sure I would also see a big improvement in her self-belief and confidence as a writer too if she were able to write what she thought.

I reflected on her response and set out to find apps that I could use in my class to help my students overcome this hurdle.   I have managed to find the speech recognition app for google docs and the voice recognition setting on i-pads.  Both of these apps require the person to speak to the device.  It then types their speech into words.  These apps will be able to be used in all areas of the writing process.  I hope to see my struggling writers using devices each time they write.  Initially to plan their ideas and thoughts, then draft, then again for proofreading and editing their work.

After trialling this today with one of my dyslexic learners during the proof-reading and editing stage of writing, the smile on his face when a word he wanted to use but didn't know how to spell it, appeared on the screen on front of him, was priceless.  Instantly a weight was lifted off his shoulders.  His ability to independently proof-read and self-correct his work has increased significantly, resulting in greater student agency.

These apps will hopefully see a big shift in student agency and student confidence as they can now be more independent with their writing instead of having to rely heavily on the teacher to scribe, or decode their writing.

What do I hope to see?

• Improved spelling
• Greater details and descriptions used
• Increase in a range of language features
• Increased self-belief and confidence in writing
• Improved accuracy and fluency of writing
• Greater independence.

What next?

• Have devices available for students to use during writing time
• Show the students how to use the apps
• Ensure students are using the apps when writing.
• Monitor the accuracy of their surface features.

Growth Mindset

Last night I came across this motivating clip on you tube which I have since shared with my Year 6 students.  The clip is a great way to introduce Growth Mindset and get students thinking about their goals and ambitions.

Growth Mindset Clip

Since watching this clip, my students have been asked to go home and think about their goals which they are going to write down and display on the class wall.  We will then work towards our stepping stones for achieving our goals.

I have reminded them it is perfectly fine to dream big.  If they have an ultimate goal which may take years to achieve, we will just work backwards from our ultimate goal and create mini goals (stepping stones) to help achieve it.  These goals will also help me think about my teaching and what I need to be doing to help my students achieve their goals.

Using technology in the classroom to assist learning and documenting evidence.

This year I am focusing on trying to use technology more in the classroom to assist students learning and also as a way of collecting and recording evidence.

Because of the large number of students who are out of class regularly for extra curricular activities, or school jobs and responsibilities, keeping them up to date with work has been tricky.  I am also trying to find ways of recording students work when they are using materials etc because they may not always have evidence of their work in their books.

So far this term I have set up a class google drive with a range of folders in it.  Each student has their own folder as well as a folder for each writing, math, reading group etc.  I am using the google drive to upload my planning, tutorial clips, resources, activities...

I have found using the google drive extremely helpful when teaching maths.  When I teach a new concept and model it with materials, I have had the students take photos of the demonstration and upload it into their groups folder.  This way they have evidence of how to work out the problem that they can later refer back to, or if a student was absent for the lesson, they can look at the examples and catch up.  This way of recording also allows me to keep evidence of students work when they may not have any written evidence in their book.  If I need to, I could always print the photos and glue them in too.

Below are some examples of some photos taken during maths lessons.

(Solve multiplication using the place value strategy)

 (Solve multiplication using our 5x tables)

I have also been using the goolge drive to upload group WALTs and Success criteria.  See an example below:

For writing, I am also finding google docs very helpful.  Instead of using a modelling book, I am using a google document to type examples up and the students can see this via our interactive tv.  Students can then access the writing example via their writing group folder on the google drive.