Classroom layout to support dyslexia

Last night I came across a really helpful blog post about classrooms that support dyslexic students.

Here is the link to the video clip and blog post:

Classroom Layout to support Dyslexia

PACT Symposium in Wellington July 2016

During these latest school holidays, I was honoured to be invited to present at the PACT symposium in Wellington.  I flew down to Wellington where I then met up with our school Principal before giving a presentation in the fabulous Ministry of Education building.  

I presented alongside our principal at the conference with over 200 attendees.  

Our presentation was on making writing judgements using the PACT tool.  While I felt very nervous initially, I was super proud of myself for undertaking such an important task.  I received a lot of wonderful feedback from numerous lead teachers and school principals from all over the country.  I even had some principals ask if I would be willing to come and help their schools with using the PACT tool.

The view from the Ministry of Education building with the Beehive in the background.

PACT Symposium - July 2016

COLS and PaCT

• All schools using PaCT so that data can be measured equally.  
• Can be used to identify the strengths and areas of development.  Schools doing well in a particular aspect could then become the leadership in PLD for that particular aspect.  
• Comparing the same data allows schools to also filter the results so they identify the genders/ethnicities etc to see what students are doing well or need to be targeted.

• Ability to group students who transit on to other schools - intermediate - high school.  The new school then gets all the PaCT data and can group students according to their PaCT results.

• Set a base framework ie: all schools using COLS and reporting on maths,
• Set a framework for the next year ie: maths continues across all schools and everyone start reading as well…
• The MOE can come and run workshops for the COLS

Pact and the curriculum

Reporting: should be about the arts, science, values etc - things that make the whole learner.  Shouldn’t be so tunnel vision on literacy and numeracy.

Why is literacy and numeracy so heavily weighted???  

The curriculum document is one document for a reason.  The curriculum doesn’t place more emphasis on literacy and numeracy.  All areas are compulsory.  All areas are equally important.  (teachers have to trip over other curriculum areas in order to reach their area- proving that the curriculum is intertwined and should be taught like that).

 

Literacy

• Being able to engage with the text independently and flexibly is getting more, not less, imperative.
• Information-rich societies are putting a greater emphasis on the literacy skill people need in order to:
• Locate and process information
• Create their own texts

Locating information in digital texts: the content in multi-modal informational texts is fragmented so that it can be more easily discovered through different searches.

• Although searching for information is easier, readers now need to navigate vast amounts of unfiltered information at various levels of complexity.

Students need to continue developing their literacy skills throughout their schooling

• More emphasis on students’ ability to:
• Synthesise information across different sources
• Evaluate arguments on a variety of dimensions
• Understand varying perspectives on an issue
• Assess the credibility of sources of information
• Growing needs to be able to:
• Identify key words for searching
• Frame up questions
• Review and edit those questions
• Manage filtered searches far more than strategically than before

• Writing: Purpose first - form next ie: essays, reports, blogs, narratives, short answers…

Research found that Year 9 and 10 students who were researched for PACT were found to be at the standard of what a good Year 8 student should be in literacy- The literacy aspect was no harder than Year 8, however they task was broader and with a richer range of contexts.

Use reading and writing in a meaningful context!!!!!!!

Do we need separate writing books and topic books???

National Standards are about students having the level of reading and writing they need to support their learning in the NZ curriculum.  Are about how students use their reading and writing to engage with the NZ curriculum.

RICH LEARNING TASKS!!!  Future focused classroom.  

The development of creative writing

Recently there has been a lot of discussion online around the importance of creative writing and giving students the time to just write.  As part of the development of our schools responsive learning group for literacy, and my inquiry around helping struggling writers overcome barriers to writing and adapt my teaching practice, I have decided to trail 10-15 minutes of creative writing each day in my class.  The aim of this is to have students develop a love for writing, to remove the barriers around their work being assessed, and for students to develop their creative thinking and ways of expressing themselves through written communication.

Yesterday was our first go at trialling creative writing.   Students were able to write anything they wanted.  There work is not going to be marked or critiqued.  They are able to share their writing orally with the class or a buddy if they choose.  If they have had a bad day and need to vent, they can staple the page shut if they wish.  My only requirement is that students do what they want to do and hopefully enjoy it.  If they want to write a card for someone - write a card.  If they want to write a list of words that pop into their head - write a vocab list.  Students can use coloured paper, art paper, their books...  They can use any coloured pen, felts, crayons.  The choice is 100% the students.  For those students who struggle to come up with ideas, I can show them a picture as a prompt, share a video clip, give them a word etc.  I just want my students to write and have fun doing it.

Yesterday's first session was an immediate success.  Student's moaned at the end of 15 minutes when they were asked to stop so we could move onto our afternoon program.  To top it off, I had three students (two of them who are well below in writing and are part of my priority group, and one who has dyslexia) all ask if they could take their writing home to carry on with it.  One even wanted to publish and decorate their work up because they enjoyed the task so much.  So initially, the student response to creative writing has been embraced and is motivating, but only time will tell if it is effective.

On recapping the session to get student feedback, several students used their critical thinking to reflect on our current setup of our independent writing books.  At present, the school requirements are that students are to write in blue pen and edit in red.  These students asked "If you want us to be creative in our writing and enjoy it, then why do we all have to write in blue pen in our independent writing books?"
A great question.  I had already been wondering this question myself and was going to trial my ALL writing group with their own choice of pen colour, but why limit it to only this group?  I promptly took this question to our management team and team leader who were all very supportive and were more then happy to trial student choice of pen colour in their books as a way to see if it increases engagement, enjoyment and possibly quality and quantity of work.  So today the new systems will take place.  I have had to remind students that they need to be sensible with their use of coloured pens and remind them that writing is a form of communication.  If the pen colour is hard to read, then it is probably not a good choice.  Also, if pens are very inky and likely to go through pages, again it may not be a sensible choice.

The students and I are now very excited to see how creative writing evolves in our class and to see if their is any advantage/disadvantage to students writing in any colour they choose.

Reading to Learn PD 19-5-16

Yesterday I attended a PD day around Reading to Learn and the PaCT assessment tool for Reading.  PaCT supports teachers to make overall judgements on their students.  The aspects you select for each area is placed on a graded continuum and PaCT requires you to make a best fit judgement.  Once you have completed your judgements the PaCT tool then puts this information onto a graph and aligns the final result with National Standards.  This is a great tool to determine where a student is sitting within National Standards, and is the tool we will be using for reports to parents.Below are the notes I recorded about the PD day.  I then fed back to the Year 5 & 6 team about what I had learnt from the PD.

Reading to Learn PD

19-5-16

“Students need to do more than just read (or write).  They need to use their reading and writing to meet the demands of the NZ curriculum.

Pg 3, Literacy Learning Progressions.

Less of the technical steps to reading and more around the thinking and discussing of text.  Enjoying reading!

By end of year 3:

• Have ‘constrained’ skills pretty much under control (sounds, abc ….)
• Can monitor their reading
• Use some basic comprehension strategies
• Have some knowledge of how basic texts work
• Have built up a sight vocabulary
• Can evaluate straightforward information
• Can identify the writer’s purpose
• Are fluent readers

Start by reading the text with support, discussing etc then pull the learning/strategies DATs from the discussion points, needs that arise from the discussions.  (Work backwards from the discussion of the text).

Prior knowledge connections are so important to connecting and gaining meaning with the text.  You can’t assume kids know basic experiences/prior knowledge.

Dive deeper into texts.  It’s not about having a new text everyday.

Reading to Learn: Do the children have the knowledge and skills they need to engage with the curriculum?

By the end of year 4: locate and evaluate information and ideas.

Within texts.

By the end of years 5 & 6: locate, evaluate and integrate information and ideas.

Within and across a small range of texts.

By the end of years 7 & 8: locate, evaluate, and synthesise information and ideas.   Synthesise: a new idea is developed.  Come up with their own ideas and conclusions.

Within and across a range of texts.

Reading to learn strategies:  Tools that you use to achieve a particular purpose.

Reading and writing are tools to:

• Organise their thinking
• Construct and create meaning
• Communicate information and ideas in print and electronic texts
• Reveal their developing knowledge of content across the curriculum.

(Reading and writing standards Years 4-8 pg 5)

Teacher enthusiasm and passion.  Excitement about the text.  Reveal this to the students.  Teacher shares opinions about a text they have read - maybe positive or negative thoughts about the text.  Shares about emotions around reading.

ENJOY a BOOK!

Hi 5! Strategies: Enhancing comprehension

1. Activating background knowledge
2. Questioning (kids asking questions.  The person who asks the most questions - learns the most!)
3. Analyzing text structure
4. Creating mental images
5. Summarising  

Questioning:

Ask ‘wondering’ questions

Ask questions to ‘clarify confusions’

Ask ‘right there’ questions ‘think and search’ questions.

Make sure the students know what you want and are doing.  Tell them “I am going to ask a question about…. I am modelling to you how to….”

Sentence structures, language…. Change and vary depending on the purpose and audience.  (Science has different structures to maths etc)

Analyzing text structure:

Recognise common text purposes (describe, inform, recount, explain…)

Recognise common text structures in fiction and nonfiction text (sequential, descriptive, persuasive, cause and effect…)

Negotiate continuous and non-continuous text

Recognise different text types within a text

Use signal or cues words

Follow and keep track of pronoun references

Recognise and use specific language and visual features

Teach kids how to read complex sentences

Articulate how using knowledge of text structure, helps them read and understand the text.

Summarising:

Delete irrelevant details

Combine similar ideas

Condense main ideas

Connect major themes into concise statements (that capture the purpose for reading).

By the end of the PD day I had felt very overwhelmed and needed to take time to think about my reading program and how I determine the WALTS and success criteria.  Since reflecting about 'Clarity in the Classroom' and the delivery of my reading program, I decided to flip the order of my teaching sessions around.  I have started be beginning with LOOKING at the text.  Asking students 'What do you see? What do you know from looking at the text?...'  This has helped us to by ensuring we use all the visual cues provided to gain information about the text, and connect with the text.  From here we begin reading and discussing the text.  From the discussions about the text and specific questioning, I am able to gain what the WALT should/needs to be.  Sometimes this aligns with what I had planned the WALT to be, but occasionally a prior step is needed, so I can quickly adapt my teaching to suit.  Once the reading is over, the students know are able to identify what their WALT was and quickly identify the success criteria.  

We have been doing this new way of reading for just over a week now, and already the student feedback and response has been very positive.  They have said they prefer it the new way, because they get more time actually reading, they can quickly identify what they have learnt, and are able to independently state the success criteria because they know what they did to achieve their WALT.

Facilitating staff meeting and new leadership role

This week I have been appointed the leader of our school's literacy group.  In addition to this role, I was also invited to facilitate the staff meeting at a local school all round writing and the PACT tool.

Despite my initial nerves, I managed to run an effective meeting all around how to use the PACT tool in writing, how to make OTJ's, tricks around getting quicker at making judgements, how to use the next steps to guide teaching and planning, and how I use my writing books and writing program to make my judgements.

The feedback from the staff was overwhelming.  Many teachers are now wanting to come and observe my writing program.  They were impressed with the student's writing books and the level and volume of writing my student's are producing.

My next step in my leadership role for literacy, is to present alongside our school principal at the Writing Symposium in Wellington in July.

Feedback emailed out to the staff about my staff meeting presentation:

Congratulations to Tineke who ran an amazing staff meeting for the G teachers after school yesterday. It’s a pretty tough thing to do in front of colleagues from another school and she did a fantastic job.

If you suddenly get an influx of G teachers through your class, blame Tineke….

Many thanks

L.

Teaching is a family business.

I have heard on numerous occasions that teaching is a family venture.  Today this was proven whilst setting up my new display for our inquiry unit on space.  Obviously my own children are frequently roped into helping me within the classroom, however today not only did I have my own children helping me, my nieces, my mum, and even my husband lent a huge helping hand.  There was lots of fun and laughter happening as we all got creative, creating a huge space display for my Year 6 students as they return back to school next week.

Here are some photos that I captured, showing the progress going on.

A fantastic maths lesson

Towards the end of last term, I felt like I wasn't getting enough quality teaching time with my students in maths.  I was running four maths groups and seeing each group for 20-25 minutes every second day.  Due to the constant interruptions the Year 6's have with extra curricular activities, responsibilities within the school etc, I found that for many students, the number of times I saw them was actually much less.  I was also finding that many students would just start to grasp the concept I was teaching, then have to move onto their next rotation and wait until the next day to practice that concept independently.  For my top maths students, this was working ok, however there are a number of students who were feeling rushed, and weren't overly confident working independently.  I was noticing that their confidence towards maths was dropping, and the quality of their independent work was not flash either.  So rather than continue teaching my maths program the way I had done for the last few years, I felt a change was needed in order for my students to get the best possible outcomes in maths.

It was time for a change so on went my thinking cap.  I began by talking with the students about what their thoughts were with maths.  Many of them felt they needed more time to work with the teacher so they could really grasp the new concepts, rather than a quick example and practice of it, then off to doing it independently.  

Sometime ago, I had also read about processing difficulties and the fact that many students require a lot of repetition of the same concept, before they can commit it to memory.  After talking with some colleagues as well as students, I decided to re-arrange my teaching rotations.

Changes that I made:

• Merged my two groups who I felt would benefit from a longer teaching session, and instead of having two 20-25 minute sessions, I now had 55 minutes to work with them.  The group was now of semi-mixed abilities.
• I introduced the WALT then gave the students a problem to solve by working together.  Materials were also available for those who wanted to use them.  (In the past - I would introduce the WALT and give the students and example by working it through with them.  This tended to be more about me showing them, rather than the students taking time to think and process the concept.  The students would then copy the example given into their books).
• Once the students felt they had an answer, they all shared their thinking.  Many had the correct answer, however hadn't used the strategy they were going to be learning.  Rather than say they were incorrect, I asked them to take a look at the WALT and see if they had solved their problem using the strategy we were going to learn.  Many said no and could answer they had solved it using addition rather than multiplication. 
• 
• From this point, I then used the materials to talk through each of the steps to solve the maths problem and achieve the WALT.  While I was modelling the steps, the students were following me with their own materials.

• Because I now had longer to spend teaching, I could now spend time with the students co-constructing the success criteria for their learning.  Because time had been spent manipulating materials, talking about the WALT and practising an example, the students were able to clearly identify the steps they needed to take, ignored to solve their maths equations and achieve their WALT.  Below is the success criteria we constructed.  The pink shows our first go at it.  The black was added after we had worked through a question and then realised that some more information was needed to make the success criteria clearer.

•  Now that the students new exactly what they were learning and how to achieve success, they all began working through the next two questions I had given them.  If a student felt they were stuck, their first port of call was to go back to the success criteria and check they had followed the steps.  For many students, this was enough to continue working independently.  I was now freed up to rove the group and monitor their learning.  Once the two questions were completed, the students shared their answers and their working out.  If they were correct, the students then carried on solving the remainder of the questions independently.  If a student felt they required additional support, they chose to come and work with me on the mat and we did another example together.  

Why was the maths session so successful?
This maths session was hugely empowering for all of these students, as they were all feeling success and had me to support if needed.  Because we had a longer maths session, students felt they had time to properly grasp the new concept and achieve success because they had time to go through the whole process, rather then it being rushed through.  Because the group was now semi-mixed ability, the students tended to ask their peers for help a lot more then in previous sessions, as well as opting to come and work with me if they felt they wanted further support.  For the students that chose to receive further support, it wasn't always because they got previous questions incorrect, but rather because they wanted the comfort/reassurance of having the teacher available to double check they were on the right track, rather than struggling away independently.  For the students who chose to continue working independently - because the questions were all their for them, they were able to carry on solving equations and practising the new concept, rather then having to wait for other students to catch up and finish.  This then helped accelerate those who grasped the concept quicker then others as they were able to carry on independently.

How do I know the session was successful?
At the end of the lesson, the group all came back together to mark their work and reflect on the WALT.  By the end of the lesson, every single student had achieved the WALT and had at the very least, managed to correctly answer their last question correctly and independently.  The students were smiling, and many said, "Can we do maths like this all the time?".