Plan of Action

After analysing my students’ Reading results I have noticed that the majority of my students have not made significant progress in Reading. Figure 1 shows the Year 7 PAT results. Looking at this figure it can be seen that the majority of my learners are not working within the national norm. 

Fig 1: Year 7 Reading Comprehension Results (Beginning of the Year)

Similarly, figure 2 shows that many Year 8 students are also working below the national norm. 

Fig 2: Year 8 Reading Comprehension Results (Beginning of the Year)

Overall it is apparent that only 13% of our students are working at the national norm (Figure 3). 

Fig. 3 Combined Year 7 & Year 8 Reading Results

Our results were confirmed by the Woolf Fisher Research Centre (University of Auckland) where it is clear when looking at figure 4, that poor Reading results are not confined to our school but is a problem experienced by most schools within our community of learning. 

Fig 4: Woolf Fisher Research Centre (WFRC)

There are many contributing factors that can affect students’ reading comprehension abilities. These factors according to Linde, S (n.d.) includes but is not restricted to, “poor word recognition, limited phonics skills, phonological awareness skills, and the ability to read for extended periods of time.” Factors such as the ability to concentrate, background knowledge about topics, and text features, characteristics of the reading material can also impact a student's comprehension. Some text may be organised in a way that students can easily make sense of, using features such as headings, bullet points, or bold words, while others are not. The less organised the text, the more students struggle to understand. Reading can be challenging particularly when the material is unfamiliar, technical, or complex.  Moreover, for some readers, comprehension is always challenging (Linde, n.d.) Therefore, I am aiming at improving my students’ vocabulary knowledge through explicit teaching of vocabulary with the intention that this will enhance my students’ reading comprehension ability.

I believe that students’ vocabulary knowledge is one of the major factors that limit their comprehension of texts. Hendrick & Cunningham (2002) suggest that “the majority of children need more than considerably increased reading practice to increase their vocabulary.” Now that I have identified my inquiry topic, I will also be looking into the different aspects of reading and trying to identify which aspect/s my students need assistance with.

There are five aspects to the process of reading: phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, reading comprehension and fluency (K12 Reader, 2008-2018).  Looking at the vocabulary aspect, the K12 Reader (2008-2018) website proclaims that “as children become stronger, more advanced readers they not only learn to connect their oral vocabularies (the words we know when they are spoken) to their reading vocabularies (the words we know when they are used in print) they also strengthen each of these areas by adding new words to their repertoires. Vocabulary development is an ongoing process that continues throughout one’s ‘reading life’."

According to Van Hees  “providing multiple encounters is by far the most important condition” in order to learn vocabulary (Van Hees & Nation, 2017). This can be achieved by providing opportunities to re-encounter words, supplementing texts with large amounts of engaging texts that are rich in vocabulary and concepts and learners need to do large quantities of reading in order to get multiple encounters of words to increase their vocabulary size.      

One of the ideas that I have discussed with my senior teacher to improve reading comprehension was Literature Circles. Literature Circles are very similar to reciprocal reading. I was thinking of using literature circles, together with the students' knowledge of chunking and deep-diving to help with reading comprehension. During Literature Circles students will work in small groups, reading the same text and each student is given a specific role (connector, summariser, word wizard, discussion director and passage picker) to do when reading. 

This approach allows students to use and practice 21 st century skills. The 21 st century skills that are exhibited during Literature Circles include:
Critical Thinking - Finding solutions to problems
Creativity  - Thinking outside the box
Collaboration - Working with others
Communication - Conveying ideas

Using these skills also reinforces the New Zealand Curriculum key competencies of thinking, relating to others, understanding language, symbols and texts, participating and contributing and managing self.




REFERENCES

Hendrick, W. B., & Cunningham, J. W. (2002). Investigating the Effects of Wide Reading on Listening Comprehension of Written Language. Reading Psychology, 23(2), 107. https://doi.org/10.1080/027027102760351025

K12 Reader. (2008-2018). The Five Essential Components of Reading. Retrieved from https://www.k12reader.com/the-five-essential-components-of-reading/


Linde, S (n.d.) Factors affecting reading comprehension in elementary students. [Video] Retrieved from https://study.com/academy/lesson/factors-affecting-reading-comprehension-in-elementary-students.html

Van Hees, J., & Nation, P. (2017). What Every Primary School Teacher Should Know about Vocabulary. New Zealand Council for Educational Research. PO Box 3237, Wellington 6140 New Zealand.

Blog Post #2 - Collaborating with School Leadership Team

Our school goals for 2020 are:

READING:

 2020 Reading Goal:

•  To increase the number of ALL students reading at chronological age.
• An emphasis on acceleration in Yrs 1 & 2 students as well as Maori students in Yr 3 - 8 to be reading at chronological age. 

WRITING:

  2020 Writing Goal

•  To increase the number of ALL students working within curriculum level.
• To increase the number of boys in Yr 4 - 8 working within curriculum level to above 75%. 

MATHS:

    2020 Mathematics Goal:

•  To increase the number of ALL students working within curriculum level.
•  To increase the number of all students working within curriculum level to above 75% with an emphasis on all Maori and Pasifika students. 

Blogpost #1: Inquiry Stocktake

Reflection: What worked for me?

• Having support and guidance from Dr van Hees.

• Having supportive colleagues who were also available to act as 'sounding boards'.

• Using various sources of data to inform my practice.

Challenges

• Impressing upon students to the importance of attending school regularly and not to stay away for frivolous reasons.

• Consistently reflecting on my practice.

• Understanding why there was such a huge gap between vocabulary PAT scores and comprehension PAT scores- One would assume that if you have good vocabulary knowledge it will lead to better comprehension.

Additional Support I'd Like

• Working with Dr van Hees to have a thorough understanding of the theoretical ideas underpinning her practice.

What I aim to learn about Inquiry this year

• Ensuring my blog entries are clear and unambiguous - making sure my actions can be replicated.

Evaluation - Bursts and Bubbles Presentation

Bursts and Bubbles Presentation

The catalytic aspect of student learning my inquiry focused on this year was raising reading comprehension through expanding the vocabulary of students
I identified this as my focus when I noticed that only 20% of my class was reading at stanine 5, with not a single student achieving beyond that.
To build a rich picture of my students’ learning I used PAT reading and vocabulary data, lesson observations, running records and anecdotal notes.
The main patterns of student learning I identified in the profiling phase were that students had limited life experiences and therefore limited vocabulary.
The profiling of my own teaching showed that I had strengths in using ESOL strategies but that my students would likely make more progress if I developed my pedagogy in vocabulary acquisition and use.
The changes I made in my teaching included doing more whole-class texts. This made it more inclusive, easier to discuss as a class and to elicit prior knowledge and vocabulary. We used the chunking strategy together with deep-diving and transcripts accompanied by videos. Students were encouraged to read the text into screencastify with the chunks in place. This enhanced both meaning and fluency.
The literature/expertise that helped me decide what changes to make was Dr van Hees as she modeled deep-diving and chunking and did observations of my teaching, followed by feedback sessions. I also used the book by Dr van Hees and Dr Paul Nation, ‘What every primary should know about vocabulary’
The easiest and hardest things for me to change was to stop using vocabulary maps. It was easy because after speaking to Dr Jannie and getting feedback from students I realised they were of very little value. It was also the hardest thing to change as it was one of those activities that kept students occupied for long enough for me to work with another group without interruptions. This meant that I had to further inquire into my own practice to find truely engaging activities that had real educational value.
Overall I would rate the changes in student learning as extremely encouraging with 80% of my focus group making progress and 60% making accelerated progress.
The evidence for my rating is the end of year PAT scores. I now have to look closer at the learners in my target group and compare their  progress to the norm,  data from last year, and other comparative learners in school.

Intervention Review

                         

Monitoring Success

The most difficult part of my inquiry is learning new things - it's human nature to want to continue using what we know because we are comfortable with it and we've refined it! It is extremely hard to take on board new learning because new learning inevitably comes with mistakes and sometimes failure. 

One of the biggest challenges I  encountered was not having as much to show at the end of a lesson as much of the work was done during the lesson- my lessons had become more interactive. I had become so accustomed to having several pieces of work to show that the work had been covered, but in hindsight I can see that I was more concerned with quantity rather than real quality. 

I can see that deep diving and chunking has made a difference to most students in my class, but I will only have the data to back up my observations and anecdotal notes once we do our end of year PAT tests.

 

Observation by Dr van Hees- Changes in Practice

Dr van Hees had modelled a reading lesson in my class in Term 2 and I have been using the strategies that she showed me. I had an observation today, as I wanted to be sure that I was doing it correctly.

The students enjoyed the reading using chunking, and are almost able to  do chunk independently. I used a whole-class text with lots of scaffolding of vocabulary. Vocabulary needs to be taught explicitly, even though most vocabulary learning occurs incidentally, through engagement with spoken language and reading. The number one requirement for vocabulary learning is large amounts of of language input at the right level for the learners.  Research by Farkas and Beron (2004) shows that the vocabulary gap between high and low socioeconomic learners is established by about the age of 5 and is persistent unless there is a determined effort to support a very rapid gain of vocabulary knowledge for learners who have lower levels of vocabulary knowledge at an early schooling age. - excerpt from 'What every primary school teacher should know about vocabulary' by Jannie van Hees and Paul Nation.

Some feedback from students about doing whole-class reading, using chunking and deep-diving:

Sam: "This is so much better than doing vocabulary maps. Vocabulary maps are boring and it takes long to complete."
Sau: " No-one feels dumb 'cause we're all doing the same story."
Lathaniel:  "Spending lots of time on vocabulary makes it stick."