Now that the ALL intervention has come to an end for my first group, I have attached my report about my findings and reflections.
Inquiry and knowledge building:
Outline how you are using a ‘teaching as inquiry’ process to guide your intervention design decisions. (Record this process from the start of your intervention.)
Within the first few weeks of term 1, it became alarmingly apparent that more than a third of my class are well below in their writing. These writers were struggling in all areas of their writing and with only two years left of primary school, I felt I needed to do something to meet their needs and raise not only their confidence in writing but also their achievement.
In a team meeting, this problem was noted across all four year 5 classes. I was decided that I would deliver a new writing approach to the neediest students.
The first step was to identify my writing group. I looked at past assessment data, writing books, and what I had already noticed during group writing sessions – paired up with what my teacher aide had noticed.
Based on my data, my urgent focus needed to be around developing writing. In order to begin the inquiry into my teaching practice I needed to develop my inquiry question. My initial question was 'What can I do to improve the achievement levels of my struggling writers?' however on reflection, I found this was extremely broad and more about what I wanted to achieve at the end of my inquiry. During a staff meeting, I worked with a group of teachers who all wanted to work on improving the achievement levels of struggling writers. After discussion, I found I first of all needed to work out what was causing my students to struggle with writing, then work on strategies/interventions/direct acts of teaching, etc which will help these students to overcome these identified barriers. A large proportion of my identified struggling writers are also boys, so a lot of my inquiry would probably involve focusing on finding out how boys learn best, and how I can motivate boys to write more quality pieces.
Finally my new question was formed: 'What approaches can I take to help struggling students overcome writing difficulties and enhance their motivation to write?’
Initial thinking was: If I can help students overcome the challenges/barriers to learning such as handwriting, spelling, lack of ideas, topics, self belief, etc, then hopefully the students would become more motivated during writing, and become more willing to put their ideas on paper. If I could also identify what the barriers are, and the causes of these barriers, then maybe I would need to make some changes in teaching practices across all curriculum areas.
Once the question and group were established, I started researching and getting ideas on how to change my writing program and improve student achievement.
Regular discussions were held with colleagues who were also doing ALL. This was helpful in getting ideas to help me move my students on.
Selected students were tested using E-Asttle and their needs were identified.
My timetable was changed to accommodate the minimum of 40 minutes writing a day with the group. I also had 45 minutes after lunch on a Thursday. This session was used for rich experiences. This was also time for us to work together, away from the rest of the class.
The majority of the group didn’t like writing, and they all thought they were bad writers. The group were made to feel important and to see writing as being fun. They were given new writing books and were able to use purple pen for writing, instead of pencil. The decision to write in purple pen was made because the students had said it was frustrating when they had to rub out their mistakes all the time because they have to have their pencil work all correct. By rubbing out their pencil work, it also didn't show their proof-reading or editing changes which are an important part of the writing process.
Writing only in pen helped celebrate proof-reading and editing changes. Before the intervention, there seemed to be a real negative connotation about proof-reading and editing because students thought it made their work look messy and highlighted all the things that they had done wrong. Instead I spent time developing a change in their thinking so that students saw all the changes as a sign of excellence and that the changes should be celebrated. The improvements to their work also showed that they were following the writing process, and they were reflecting and improving their own work. By writing only in pen, it reinforced that the changes made during guided teaching sessions were a sign of improvement and excellence, rather than the negative connotations that rubbing all of their errors out were creating.
I made the focus for writing on quality versus quantity. Removing time constraints was very successful as it removed the added pressure of having to complete a story within a specific time frame. This reassured the students too because it removed unnecessary stress around writing.
A huge emphasis was placed on changing students attitudes towards writing, and making them see themselves as successful writers. Gail Loane’s book was helpful for ideas. I also found several blogs that gave tips for motivating struggling writers. I ensured the style of writing and contexts for writing came from the student’s interests so that they would want to write. The experiences we shared were also focussed on fun, so that the students had rich ideas, vocab, and experiences that they could write about.
Writing for a purpose. Students had fun creating their texts for a purpose. They love sharing their ideas and writing with the group. As a result, there was a significant improvement in their motivation towards writing as well as their confidence.
Writing for an audience. Writing emails to parents sharing a 'snapshot' of their writing is great for this. Students got a chance to share their writing with parents during the drafting process. Students also received feedback about their snapshot of writing from their parents.
Planning together. Sharing our ideas orally. This has helped everyone to expand their ideas because they have heard others. Sticky notes for planning was also fun. Everyone shared their ideas as they popped into their heads then the sticky notes were placed on a chart. Double up ideas or unrelated ideas are easily removed. The sticky notes are easily arranged into sequential order.
Creating descriptive word charts prior to writing. This was really helpful because students were able to refer and add in lots of these words to writing. They loved creating word charts using the online tool 'Wordle'.
Having writing tool box full of descriptive words charts, punctuation charts, essential word spelling lists was very important as the students were able to use the resources for ideas and apply them to their writing.
Students noticed improvements in their writing and are now able to verbalise these when asked. Comments were noted in their books in dated speech bubbles in a different colour pen. Video recordings of student feedback was also taken.
Children who were once shy or reluctant, are now willing to share their writing with others.
Children are beginning to give feedback to their peers and say what they liked about their writing.
After sharing examples of writing, students are beginning to independently make changes and improvements to their own writing.
Reluctant writers are now coming into class enthusiastic to carry on with their books that they are writing before school and whenever else they can.
Using pictures as prompts to give students ideas of what they could write about. Students refer to the images to check they have described them in their writing; ensuring the picture and text match. A great way to expand the detail and descriptive language used.
Publishing our writing helped the children to discover that they can write. It showed the students that they were successful authors and removed their fears about sharing their work because of messy handwriting.
My planning changed continually to meet the needs of the group. I am very passionate about writing and enjoy it, so it was important for me to ensure the group all enjoyed writing too. We had a lot of fun in writing times, shared lots of creative ideas, and did our best to incorporate this into our writing.
Regular entries about the intervention were made on my personal blog.
Intervention Implementation
What were the strategies/learning conditions that supported acceleration?
Identify the three – five key factors that made the difference.
Ensuring students worked with the teacher every day for a minimum of 40 minutes
Constant discussions about writing and sharing of ideas. Direct acts of teaching through frequent modelling, think alouds, examples, questioning etc from group members and teacher. This enabled students to learn from one another, build on ideas, and share own expertise. (Allowing time for the rich discussions was crucial).
Fun topics to write about followed up with fun learning experiences. Enjoying the topic helps to motivate students’ willingness and desire to write.
Self-esteem building. The focus on quality of writing versus quantity. Removing the time constraints and pressures have seen children take greater ownership, come into class early to continue, lengthier pieces. More passionate and enthused to write.
Publishing work. Students are happy to edit and reshape text. Not worried about the messiness of reshaping, crossing out etc, because they get to publish their work at the end and present it neatly.
Regular reflecting on own learning. This involved students finding what they’ve been able to do well; what they need to improve on; what they need to next.
Accelerated student achievement
What was the impact of the intervention on student achievement?
Very positive. Every student made progress in writing and attitude.
The quality of students writing is much higher. A lot more detail gets written. Rich vocabulary is used. A greater range of punctuation is used. Exciting story ideas.
Every student is now able to organise their ideas into a logical sequence and their ideas flow.
Every student is now willing to share their writing with others.
Every student is able to give feedback, both positive and constructive, to another student about their writing.
Students are willing to edit and reshape their work. They see this as developing/improving their writing as opposed to mistakes or being wrong.
To what degree was this accelerative progress?
What was the impact on student motivation, engagement and student agency? How did you gain this information?
Students’ attitudes towards writing shifted to more positive affirmations.
Students are more confident with writing, willingly sharing their stories and ideas with others.
Some boys who were very reluctant writers, are now coming into class and choosing to continue writing before school.
Students are able to talk about how they have made progress and can give evidence from their writing to support this.
All students willingly contribute to discussions about writing.
All students are able to identify their next steps and their achievements.
Refocus and deepening the inquiry
Describe what is being put in place to sustain the learning and monitor the progress of intervention students who have met New Zealand Curriculum expectations.
Class grouping and formative assessment/ PaCT Tool
Team wide moderation writing process/ school wide monitoring and testing
Guided teaching sessions at least 3 times per week.
Regular feedback/feedforward, as well as teacher conferencing.
Individual spelling lists for homework each week.
Describe what is being put in place to accelerate the learning and monitor the progress of intervention students who have not met New Zealand Curriculum expectations.
Class grouping and formative assessment/ PaCT Tool
Team wide moderation writing process/ school wide monitoring and testing
Guided teaching sessions at least 3 times per week.
Regular feedback/feedforward, as well as teacher conferencing.
Trying mixed ability groups so that struggling students will have more support when writing independently.
Individual spelling lists for homework each week.
Communication with parents on how they can help support writing at home.
Describe what is being put in place to sustain the learning across your school.
Our findings/successes from our writing inquiry and the way in which we have taught writing, needs to be applied throughout the school – using the Year 5 teachers as support /tutors.
Intervention Evaluation
What new learning have you acquired this year as a result of the work you have been doing?
Able to acquire student voice and help them to articulate their progress/next steps better
Better at monitoring progress through a variety of ways: teacher conferencing, student self-reflections, student feedback via writing/oral feedback, formative testing…
More efficient at self-reflecting and blogging about my inquiry and teaching practice.
A passion for teaching writing again because the time constraints that once were driven by assessment were removed. Also, able to have a lot of fun with writing. Lots of rich experiences to motivate and engage students. Had to be creative and come up with lots of new and exciting ways to motivate reluctant writers.
Implementing individual spelling program for struggling writers.
Improved knowledge of sentence structures and use of complex punctuation.
The importance of following the entire writing process – especially publishing. This helped significantly with reluctant writers, as they were able to see their final piece of writing presented nicely without messy handwriting, errors, or editing changes.
What barriers and challenges did you experience during the implementation of PfS?
Messiness of writing books. Lots of changes, editing, messy handwriting etc made the books really hard to read.
Not knowing where to start or how to start initially.
Time constraints trying to find resources and get resources made. Would have been better to have these before the intervention started.
Drop off in motivation for the intervention because we stopped having meetings. The meetings had been motivating because we were able to share ideas and discover what other teachers were doing , what was working well, not what wasn’t working well.
Time of initial meetings before school: very rushed.
No release time for completing all the reports for ALL.
