Manaiakalani Teacher Only Day - Structured literacy for older struggling students - Betsy Sewell

 English is extremely complex: 

- Our alphabet letters to sounds 

- It's not one language it comes from many other languages and moulds into English from Latin, German, French etc. 

- There are 12 ways to make the sh sound 

- While all words are speech written down, they aren't kiwi speech. The spelling is the same although the way we pronounce it in the 21st century is constantly changing 

- Because it has so many strands there are no rules that apply everywhere 

- It is a pattern based language

The complexity is not what makes it difficult. The thing that makes it difficult is that we do not have a reading centre in the brain - we create this centre. Some of us create this centre in different places in our brain (speech and language vs visual area) - which is what creates difficulty for some learners. 

3 layers of skill in learning to decode: 

The first layer - frog f r o g when you say a word we blend the sounds together. Students need to learn that it is four different things our mouths do and then how to blend it all together. 

Second layer - if I know that I can split these words into onset (cluster at the beginning) and rhyme (vowel and what comes after) then I can make connections to mix and match the units of language. I can generate so many words by doing this. And I can add a prefix to this as well. This is 2/4 of the language covered. 

Third layer - the self teaching principle - the student figures out the words by looking at it breaking it into words and understanding the spelling pattern. For example shout - sh and t make sense so the ou must make the ou sound. Teachers can not teach every word, students need to make meaning for themselves. 

Visual thinking - focus on the beginning of words and the visual features. 

What we now know about good readers - youtube video "how the brain reads" (look it up). Students see the sounds (not the letters) and it is attached in the brain in the same pathway as when they hear the sound. 

Consequences of a visual approach:  

- comprehension is compromised 

- poor spelling 

- unable to develop vocab through reading

Free assessment tool - agilitywithsound.co.nz - to support teachers to understand how students are making meaning of words. 

Begin with how words work! 

- An apps for older students who struggle (word chain app on iPads). Learning that the way I hear sounds when they come out of my mouth is in the same order as the way that the sounds are written down. Teach the skills but not how to blend the sounds. 

- Word mat - Where's Wally page - find the words that have the same patterns. Start with the vowel and then add on the front letter. This is looking at word families. We need to teach students to chunk right from the start. 

Manaiakalani Teacher Only Day - Surfing Semantic Waves - Dr Jannie van Hees

Semantic - meaning making 

Semantic waves 

If you are starting with complex then you need to ask yourself how you are going to get the learners to access and unravel the text. If you are starting more simple you need to be thinking about how to push them to access more complex texts. 

The suggestion in the workshop is to start with simple text and then quickly surf them up different levels of complexity to the level that is pushing their vocabulary and understanding. Never leave a student sitting in the trough/vacuum of simplicity always push them to read more complex texts on the subject. 

If we start with a text that is too complex for the learners to access we will have made the learners disengaged and given them a feeling of whakama. 

Teachers need to be thinking about where the starting point is for the content that links to the learning outcome and then where their students literacy skill is in terms of what level they can understand. "Where do I need to focus my energy on so that the learners know what I need them to know." 

In some cases the teacher may need to create a text that provides the scaffolding so that they can access the more complex texts. Often the resources and content online is out of reach of the learners in the class space - even when you type "for kids" or "simple". 

Interesting thoughts/resources: 

- Newaela is an american site that provides complexity levels of text. Thinking about sentence length and the complexity of each sentence. 

- Subtitles are great however they require a high level of cognitive functioning and load on the brain. 

Reflecting on Reading - Manaiakalani Hui End of Term 2

At the end of each Term I am fortunate enough to head back to Auckland to learn and collaborate with Facilitators from across New Zealand. Last Term we had the amazing opportunity to hear from Dr Rebecca Jenson about Reading. 

The session began with us discussing what we do in Writing that had lead to acceleration across all cohorts, all over New Zealand. We came to an agreement that some of the core things our teachers do in Writing are provide milage, authentic audience, genuine purpose for reading, and timely feedback. This is also peered with clear teacher understanding of levels and what each level looks like. 
We were then challenged to think about Reading. What can we do in reading, that we are already doing in writing that may lead to it's acceleration? How do we use libraries? How do reading sessions run? Are we using any of the digital tools to support reading (think turning captions on youtube, using talk to text and then re-reading to increase fluency)? 
All of us agreed that there is more we could and should be doing. 

We then moved on to the difference between engagement and motivation. Here are some slides that helped break it down (sourced from Rebecca's Slide Deck). 

Motivation is internal drivers - the why of reading.

Engagement is the ‘act’ of reading to achieve something. 

Motivation does not predict reading achievement however engagement does. 

Classroom practice and conditions impact motivations to read, which in turn impact behavioral engagement and dedication in reading. These latter processes, behavioral engagement and dedication, ultimately predict reading competence (Nauman, 2016).

A hook for reading gets the engagement and leads to increased motivation and reading achievement. This has huge relevance especially culturally, it is critical for engagement.

Some core messages from Rebecca are:

You are not teaching the text you are teaching the reader.
Teachers need to empower students to know that they are correct on their own without the
teacher confirming. 

Do not over help, prepare the student for when the teacher is not there.

e.g. As a learner when I come up to a problem I need to know multiple ways how to solve it - I also need to be aware when I have not solved it and also when I have. I need to be able to monitor myself. 

As a teacher say what are you going to try? Before saying what to try. 

You know what to try, go try it 

We need to be teaching that it can be uncomfortable when you are learning. 

The model for how to get reading happening - classroom processes

You layer your understanding of something by reading it in multiple places, multiple perspectives and with multiple modes. 

Book Introductions / The Hook

A student should know ...

is there a reason to dedicate my time to reading this text? 

why should I read this text? 

am I being persuaded with the introduction? Or manipulated by the book cover? 

Depth of theme and universality is important to the introduction of why a student should read a text. 

A high quality environment for reading looks like this: 

A metacognitive reader will know when they have lost the plot and re-read. They will know when they don’t know. Most readers need to be taught this! (When they lose the plot - when they don’t know). 

A strategic reader in a text will know when they have come across something that changes their prior knowledge. A change in understanding that blows their mind, that they become engaged with and want to discuss and share with others. 

Not all reading is sitting in front of the teacher in a reading group. 

In a reading group you are diving deep, when the students are not with you they are wide reading. 

What a reading programme that reflects this looks like:

We then tried to find evidence of Reading programmes that reflected this on Sites across the Clusters. We found that there was something missing about the love of reading… no pull or excitement - this perhaps was because there was no evidence of the hook.

I came back to Christchurch and reflected on this some more... I met with a couple of teams to discuss what their reading programme looked like, how we could show what they do to hook the students and if we could improve it to include some of the core things we do in Writing.

I am really excited to see how the changes in the programme impact the learners this term. Wigram & Yaldhurst - who have now included a why to their site (check out their links).

We can borrow from teachers who are doing the right thing all over the place and use this as examples for teachers who are new or learning. Do you have any evidence of a great Class Site for Reading?

First PLD Session of 2019! - PLG Groups: Why These Are Effective for Professional Learning.

Welcome back! 2019 has started with a hiss and a roar and I am super excited about all of the cool initiatives we have started this term! On Tuesday I was invited to attend a session with the PLG Leaders at Hornby High run by Deirde McCracken. This was a great experience and I look forward to working with Deirde in a larger sense over the year.

The first part of the session was looking at professional learning groups and the research behind why we chose to learn in this way. The information we looked at was from: The Ten Tenets of Collaborative Professionalism, AITSL: Professional Learning communities and The Adaptive School: Developing & Facilitating Collaborative Groups (2018).

My biggest take aways from this session were:
- Collaboration is the key and we need to learn how to do it well as professionals
- We need more open, honest and reflective dialogue with our colleagues
-"difference, debate and disagreement are necessary for improvement"
- our main goal is collaborative professionalism

Our 'homework' was to look through the agenda and come up with an outline for future PLG meetings. This involves looking at aims, principals and dialogue protocol. I am really excited about working in a more guided and driven PLG group. I will keep you up to date with all of the other learnings... along the way.

Fantastic Numeracy PD

Yesterday I had the absolute pleasure of sitting in on some of a Numeracy PD session run by Jo Knox. This was really exciting for two main reasons: 
#1. I love Numeracy 
#2 It fits my Spark-MIT inquiry! 
I arrived when the small groups were discussing measurement in non-standard units. They had a photocopy of a hand and were discussing how to measure it. 

The question was then asked - if this is the giant's hand, how tall is the giant? (What an awesome idea - I thought to myself!) This was such a rich and engaging task - we discussed a wide range of math: measurement, averaging, statistics, ratios, number, units. 
Then Jo read a section from the BFG - what a way to tie in literacy and math! It was about determining what they would need for the Queen's Dinner for the giant. "If the average human is 6ft and the giant is 24ft then the difference would be x4. Therefore if the average chair was 2ft it would have to be 8ft for the giant!" (#awesome #maththisfun #loveit) 
I later found that this was a unit from nzmath called Giant Mystery. 

We were then asked to look at page 13-14 of Effective Pedagogy in Mathematics and discuss whether we felt that this was a worthwhile task or what a worthwhile task would look like. Of course, the general consensus was that the task was open, engaging, involved thinking skills, included challenge and encouraged us to think mathematically. Therefore, the task was worthwhile! 

The thing I liked the most about the session was how enthusiastic and engaged all the staff were. The tasks Jo used engaged everyone, across all levels and made proportions and rations fun! 
Thank you so much for letting me be a part of your PD Point England and thank you Jo for inspiring teachers to make math enjoyable for all! 

Reflecting on where to next for me and my inquiry - I think I need to add a tab for rich and open math tasks on my sharebase - give one, get one.... Yes! 

Chapter One - Creative Schools - Ken Robinson

At the end of last year I was very fortunate to be gifted the book "Creative Schools" by Ken Robinson. It has been sitting on my desk waiting to be read for a while now, and finally I have the opportunity to open it. I thought it would be a good idea to reflect upon each chapter as I uncover new thoughts and ideas. 

So here is Chapter One - Back to Basics. 

The beginning of the chapter went back over the importance of students relationships and how really knowing your learners makes such a huge difference to their (and your) attitude to learning. In my new role, I am working with a large range of learners and am finding it really difficult to connect with all of them. I know that this is something that I should work on more, and am hoping that I can connect with them through their blogs - as this gives me a larger timeframe to work in. I also need to work on connecting with the staff I am working with, making time to talk to them informally about what really matters to them... I feel an afternoon tea coming on! haha! 

The chapter then goes on to talk about the political nature of Education and the theory behind standardisation lifting society. By understanding where these people come from and seeing their idealistic point of view, we can assume that this is a theory that may work. But hold on, we are not all the same, so how can any test show what we are truely capable of? 


"Healthy economies depend on people having good ideas for new business and the ability to grow them and create employment." 
if schools were a business we would not say the customer was failing. It is the system that is failing not the students.