Scanning: What’s going on for my learners?
My priority learners: All children need language enrichment, vocabulary development and conversational skills. In a reduced class size after returning to school post Covid-19 lockdown it was noticeable that those priority students who had returned were more engaged and happy to give new learning a go than they had been in a full class situation prior to lockdown. Now that all students have returned they are finding it more difficult to engage and manage independent learning. They appeared to thrive in the smaller group with more 1 on 1 teacher support.
My observations [these are the same as for 2019]
Students who are making slow progress in reading, writing and oral language :
have difficulty tuning in and noticing detail in what they hear and see
have difficulty distinguishing between letter-sounds
communicate with gestures only or incomplete sentences
use incorrect grammar
have difficulty forming letter sounds which makes it hard for the listener to understand what is being said
have limited vocabulary which affects their understanding of what they are hearing and also makes reading for meaning difficult
make little or no connection between spoken ideas, reading and writing
do not understand terms like first, last, next
are slow to develop a memory for text
All of the above points impact on a healthy self-esteem and growth mindset required for learning. Based on these observations my inquiry question is:
‘What strategies and resources can I use to increase/improve/develop the oral language skills, and raise achievement in reading and writing for my priority learners? I want to continue my 2019 inquiry in order to discover strategies to accelerate literacy learning for my students who have limited print awareness.‘
Focusing: Marie Clay calls concepts about print “the rules of the road,” and writes, “teachers must teach so that all children become knowledgeable about these essential concepts so they open doors to literacy.” I
‘Children who have print awareness can begin to understand the link between written and oral language. Children who lack print awareness are unlikely to become successful readers. Children's performance on print awareness tasks is a predictor of their future reading achievement.
’https://www.readingrockets.org/article/print-awareness-introduction
Developing a hunch:
My priority students need to establish the concepts about print, develop an understanding about everyday words used in literacy teaching/learning [letter sound, first, last, next, start, finish, word, letter, sentence]. They need to have a larger bank of basic sight words and have instant recall when identifying letter sounds.
Children need a language rich environment where they are constantly hunting for word knowledge and enriching their own vocabulary.
Children need to speak in whole, correctly structured sentences and therefore a good basic sight word knowledge must be learned and used in everyday speech, reading and writing.
Baseline data:
Oral language testing end 2019/Term 1 2020
Marie Clay Early Observation Survey results completed in students’ first six weeks of school.
Taking action:
For each child to increase their Oral Language test score by at least six months.
For each student to improve their ‘Concepts about Print’ stanine . Concepts of print are important because they teach children how reading "works" (Holdgreve-Resendez, 2010a) . It can be viewed as the foundation to reading and writing. Concepts of print teach children at an early age how to orient themselves in terms of reading. Many times fluent readers can take concepts of print for granted, because they are second nature to the reader. These concepts are foreign to beginning readers (Stahl & McKenna, 2009).
To practise concepts about print daily with weekly shared book, poem and instructional readers. Students will demonstrate and talk about their knowledge of concepts.
For each child to move on to the next colour set of Basic Sight Words (BSWs). Daily practice of reading and writing BSWs .
To create an oral language page on our Te Whare Kiwi Junior Site, jointly with the Te Pihi teachers who share our class site. The Oral Language page will include activities to help parents and children initiate interesting discussions. The page/slide on the site will be introduced in class on Mondays.
Word Hunters: Add our class interest words to the site. 5 new words per week. Students are to tell parents the meaning of the words and use each word in a sentence. Words will be displayed in class and reviewed/referred to often in class during the week to check for understanding.
Home - school connections: Communicate with parents of my students and explain that they are at risk in literacy, ask them to support learning at school by reading books sent home daily by the teacher, basic sight word learning and letter sound learning. The challenge will be to get the message across to the parents of my priority students, that everyday activities supported by interesting talk with lots of new vocabulary words, can play an important part in their children's language and literacy development. https://www.readingrockets.org/article/early-literacy-policy-and-practice-preschool-years
The group of students will work in a group each morning with me, following a structured programme of :
letter sound learning starting with the vowels [reciting Letter Land alphabet, match sounds to characters and written letters, collecting items beginning with the focus letter, cvc writing. Students to share their learning with the class on Fridays.
basic sight word learning [reading, identifying, matching, memory game, writing]. Basic sight words will be checked 2-3 times a week.
Concepts of print [using the week’s shared book]. Priority students to share their learning [re shared book] with the class during shared book reading
