Journey into Structured Literacy

 I'm not sure when exactly it was that I started exploring structured literacy.  

I wish it was when I first started teaching as my students would have experienced a much stronger literacy development in classes I taught.  It wasn't. I wish it was when my son (and oldest daughter) struggled to learn to read and I couldn't understand why, when they had just said the correct word on the page before, they couldn't say it again on the next page.  Reading Recovery helped my daughter (perhaps it was our personalities that got in the way of her reading with me at home) but my son had Reading Recovery for twice as long as students were meant to get.  I knew that reading and writing didn't 'click' with him.  He was a good talker! I wish I knew of Structured Literacy when he had a dyslexia diagnosis as a 9 or 10 year old.  Maybe I could have supported him or known the kind of learning support to access for him to guide him into a different way of learning what he needed to be confident in basic literacy. I didn't. Teacher guilt. Mum guilt.

Prior to 2019 the extent of my 'phonics' teaching was linked to handwriting where we would say "a is for apple, 'a', 'a', apple" as the letter a was neatly formed on the lines or a little bit of 'Jolly Phonics' with touches of a multisensory approach - the sound stories and actions linked to the letter sounds and names and then cvc words in isolation. In 2019 our school had some phonics training for the junior (Year 1 - 4) teachers with Yolanda Soryl.  This was a good starting point for my journey into Structured Literacy as that year I worked with some Year 4 students who, like my son, didn't 'get' the code of reading or writing - especially evident in their writing.  I upskilled myself and looked for opportunities to get some professional development and attended 'Spelling is Telling' with Carla McNeil of Learning Matters.  Looking for low cost ways to support 'target' students I found free decodable texts to 'back' up the sounds I was teaching. I was trying but still 'fumbling' around with what I know students needed for success but not really sure 'how' to get them there or to teach them.  2020 was a bit more of the same - another amble, rather than following a set route, through the park of Structured Literacy although a nationwide 'lockdown' gave me time to explore SL more and I participated in various webinars and watched videos of experts in SL and even Speech Language Therapists talking about phonemic, orthographic and graphemic awareness.

2021 is a key year in my Structured Literacy Journey.  I resented the time needed to put into learning a new way of teaching literacy as this was on top of all of the expectations of day to day teaching, Team Leadership as well as a PB4L role I had as a Kahui Ako Leader in my school.  It was 'on top' of everything else.  While I resented the time, I didn't resent the learning. With other teachers and most importantly, my students, we began teaching literacy in a more structured way using The Literacy Collective supported by Carolyn and Ande of Clarity Education.  The resources were brilliant (despite having to print them off and laminate them for use with my students - more time involvement) and my students really got into using them in class.  Another lockdown allowed me to develop teaching skills with the support of TLC slides and 'Screencastify' where I taught the focus sounds using the resources and, using Seesaw, uploaded these recordings along with the TLC follow up tasks.  Another teacher in our team digitised the TLC worksheets for students to interact with on Seesaw and they loved these way better than the paper version.  Feedback from a few parents was key for me here, their children had been in a play based first few years of school (I love play and still feel that our children need to be able to play to explore their world and learn about it) but like me, their teachers didn't yet know the power of Structured Literacy and the need for direct, explicit and responsive teaching of the sounds of speech, letters and how they work together for ALL learners.

                                    TLC practise tasks                      Enlisting my daughter to create resources

This year our principal has supported the Year 5 and 6 team with a subscription to the iDeal Leanring Platform which is a New Zealand based Structured Literacy option with a clear scope and sequence.  I am still getting my head around this, and teaching a new year level (I was in Year 4 last year) but as with TLC, I appreciate the clarity of where to start and where to next as well as the support of the slide presentation and follow up resources for students.  I especially like that there are downloadable decodable texts that I can use with my students who did not respond well to a balanced literacy approach - like my oldest daughter and son (my middle daughter took to reading and writing like a duck to water).

The beginnings of a 'sound wall' using TLC resources

The Class Chapter Book

'Reading aloud is the foundation for literacy development. It is the single most important activity for reading success.'

Neuman et al. (2000) cited in 'The Reading Book' by Sheena Cameron and Louise Dempsey (2019)

Since I have been teaching Year 3 and Year 4 students I have enjoyed daily time in our class chapter book.  This has been supplemented by Chapter Chat NZ (find them on facebook) who has introduced some great books that students have loved. We have loved books by Suzanne Selfors - Imaginary Vetinary Series and Peter Brown's Wild Robot Books. Last year my Year 4 Class enjoyed 'The Mouse and the Motorcycle' by Beverly Cleary. At the end of 2019 we read 'Fish in a Tree' by Linda Mulally Hunt, I was aware that this was set at a higher age group for my class but as I had a few students with dyslexia in my class I thought it important for others in the class to 'see' what it might be like for others and for the students with dyslexia to see that it is different but it doesn't need to be a 'bad different'. Reading these books with my class has opened for some students a love of story, of wanting to read the books themselves and grown their listening skills as they are engaged in the story being read and want to hear what's happening. Students are visualising the story that is being shared with them orally. Reading along with chapter chat has allowed students to make connections with other students exploring these stories through twitter and it has encouraged them to take the text further, being creative with it, exploring vocabulary, responding to comprehension questions and inspiring their own writing.

Over the last couple of years I have observed the choices of books my students make for their 'cave' or independent reading times. These have included the 'How To Train Your Dragon' books, anything by David Walliams, books by Dav Pilkey, Harry Potter Books, Books by Jeff Kinney, Andy Griffiths, Tom Gates, Geronimo Stilton, Ella Diaries, and Stacy Gregg's horse books. When considering a class chapter book, I like to read books the students probably haven't read before and have found these the most successful for read alouds.

I am reflecting on this now as I chanced upon a series that I was unaware of (not uncommon) but picked up and read the first one last night (currently my summer break but always thinking school...). I'm now keen to get hold of the next 3 in the series! This is The Dragon Defenders series and has been authored by a New Zealand Author: James Russell, making it even more awesome. I enjoyed the first book in this series because it introduced a family living on an island in an 'off the grid' and 'plastic free' environment. It demonstrated that one doesn't need devices to be entertained. While demonstrating these 'values' the author and illustrator have also utilised Augmented Reality to give 3D imagery to the story. I wish I had known about #nzreadaloud a few years ago when this book first came out...or even last year when they worked through the 4th book of this series!

Getting involved with Chapter Chat and also NZ Readaloud gives teachers resources to increase the learning opportunities for students with chapter books as well as to make connections with other classes in New Zealand reading the same text. You know your students are enjoying the story from the silence in the room and when students get the book we are reading from the school or local library so they can read along too!

What chapter books have you found successful as books to read to your students?

The 'Art' of Teaching Literacy

Today I had the opportunity to participate in the Otago Literacy Symposium held at Elmgrove School in Mosgiel.  It was my second time going to this particular symposium.  These are great opportunities to get some PL from real teachers in real class environments as well as educational psychologists and current lecturers of training teachers. As it is in school term break there was no need to feel guilty for being away from my students plus I get time to process what I have heard and seen. An added bonus was that they had filtered coffee too!

We need to connect to the joy and passion of learning.

The keynote presenter was Sarah Aiono of Longworth Education. She spoke of the need for the 'Science' of Teaching Literacy and that the 'science is strong'. Science is the foundational skills of learning and we need to have balance so that we don't swing too far in one direction so that students don't make progress and that in play, the environment should show the science behind the literacy. Sarah's focus today was the ART, the JOY.

Reading should not be presented to children as a chore, a duty. It should be offered as a gift.

Kate DiCamillo

A 2017 UK study by The National Foundation For Education Research identified that as reading progress went up, the enjoyment of reading when down.  This was most prominent in 11 year old boys and further to this, since 2003, girls pleasure in reading has dropped.

“Children’s success in life depends not on whether they can read, but on whether they do” 

― Guy Claxton, What's the Point of School?: Rediscovering the Heart of Education

Literacy was described as a tool to connect but not necessarily the learning itself as it is needed to access all other curriculum learning areas.

• Bring back the magic and the joy
• Encourage curiosity
• Connect the literacy to what matters to our students - they will do it if it matters

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.

Albert Einstein

Inspiring Writing

 It seems to be my male students who don't jump at the chance to put pen to paper.  This appears to be a wider issue than just my current class and last years class...and many years previously. But sometimes the girls aren't keen either.  My previous post about Writing Resources had a few options that could garner the interest of some of these students.

I was checking out some resources on Teach Starter and '7 Ways to Guide and Inspire Reluctant Children to Write' piqued my interest. On reading this blog post, I was drawn to the idea about a 'story box'.  We are still working through the School Kit 'Get New Zealand Writing' project and over the last two days we have been exploring 13 items in a tin and writing words associated with these.  When they didn't need to write sentences but rather lists, students who often choose not to write, got writing pretty much straight away.











Is it the 'hands on' opportunities?
Is it the language building?
Is it that sentences don't have to be correctly constructed?
Is it the 'mystery' of the story tin?

The idea presented in the Teach Starter blog of a story box is one I am looking into setting up each week to prompt or generate writing ideas.  Not just a tub of possible story starters but 'story seeds' by way of objects, pictures, textures along with relevant story starters.  To begin this process (when we have completed our Get NZ Writing project next week) I will use a 'passion profile' students completed last week to help me select a direction.  Relevant vocabulary in the 'story box' will help to scaffold writers who find spelling a challenge too.

                        

The Game of Learning

This year a few things seem to be connecting.  I have always valued play, Early Childhood teacher as well as Primary! At the end of 2017 I discovered 'Number Agents' on facebook when looking into ways to increase student agency.  This concept would be very appealing in a New Entrant or Year 1 class and I can see how the puppets would draw the students into the stories and concepts.  Maybe if I learned maths in this way when I was younger I might have wanted to understand it more!  I have continued to follow the 'Number Agents Group' and the more I have seen, the more I can see I need to look to ways to implement aspects into my teaching practice.

In our first term break I attended a Literacy Symposium in Mosgiel where Gail Loane was speaking.  I downloaded 'Mechanically Inclined: Building Grammar, Usage, and Style into Writer's Workshop by Jeff Anderson after she mentioned the book...but while in the 'Kindle Shop' I saw 'Teach Like a Pirate by Dave Burgess and read the blurb before also downloading this book too.  I have been 'dipping' in and out of it since this time. It was at around this time that I read 'Disobedient Teaching' by Welby Ings.  Both of these books encouraged me to rethink the how and what of teaching so that the content could be more accessible to students.

A couple of weeks ago I was given the opportunity to attend a 'Games For Learning' workshop in Auckland.  The idea of using games in learning, having students create games and the idea of gamification of learning was presented, shared and experienced over this day.  In one of the workshops, Key Competencies for the Future' was recommended...I promptly visited Kindle and downloaded it but also downloaded 'Launch: Using Design Thinking to Boost Creativity... by John Spencer and others as well as 'Explore Like a Pirate' by Michael Matera.  It is Explore Like a Pirate that has inspired me most of late as it has got my mind thinking about ways to 'gamify' Year 4 in 2019.  This year I have had a boy heavy class and they have loved our class money and being able to use it in the class shop - they haven't loved filling in my simplified spreadsheet however.  They have also loved our Chapter Chat work, playing 'The Game of Awesome' and making their own board games.  We did Chapter Chat in the first couple of terms but not so much in the latter part of the year.  They really enjoyed the choice and creativity in the grid options for the Chapter Chat books we were reading: The Wild Robot, The Wild Robot Escapes and the Sasquatch Escape.

With 4 weeks left of the school year, I am thinking about what to be working on over the summer break and among other things (Seesaw Ambassador Refresher, Google Educator), setting up some kind of 'gamification' has my mind ticking over.  My poor husband had to listen to 'Mr Matera' via podcast (Well PlayED) all the way to Ophir and Back this evening (an hours drive from home) but I love that these give me different insights into what 'could be'.  I had to keep popping notes in my phone as I thought of things while listening to the podcasts.

Writing Resources for Teaching and Learning

This post is mostly about resources teachers can explore and consider whether they are useful in their classes, with their group of students and with the tools available to them. Many of the links that follow have been discovered through the NZ Teachers (Primary) Facebook group and some from Literacy Symposiums in Otago or Southland as well as others I have 'stumbled' across when looking for solutions to challenges in my teaching and learning.

First up, we have the Google Suite at our school and creating Google docs using Voice to Text extension is a great tool for students who find the task of writing laborious to the point where they are reluctant to put pen to paper. Students who have challenges with dyslexia and dysgraphia can find this a useful way to let their stories see the light of day! Text to Speech is also useful for these students to check that their writing makes sense and to think about where punctuation may need to be added.

School Kit - Get New Zealand Writing
This is a great resource to be completed in the first term of the year.  School Kit develops great kits, free to NZ teachers but often there are limited numbers.  My class is currently working on creating poems to share with a buddy class guided by materials in a kit and lesson plans using the headings 'find', 'apply' and 'produce'. We created a shared colour poem and are finding 'sticky words' that will be used in the creation of poems on 'postcards'.  Even without the actual kit, there are some fabulous ideas you can use in the free downloadable resource linked above. There are facebook groups where teachers are sharing what is being created to further inspire you and your students with this project.

 

The Game of Awesome
This is part of a 'success for boys' initiative and card packs can be accessed through 'Down the Back of the Chair' or downloaded and printed/ laminated. Some of the cards involve things like nose picking and toilet talk so are very appealing to students in general as well as the target users: boys. I recommend going into the Teacher Support Material for this game as it provides alternative ways to play as well as 'planning templates' you can use to scaffold the cards into plans for writing. You can take this further and create your own sets of cards (there are blank ones available) relating to a topic you are exploring with your students e.g. Seaweek or Fairytales.

The Literacy Shed
This is amazing for inspiring ideas in writing. Depending on the age group you teach and current events, you may need to be selective of the material that you choose to use to inspire your class.  Along with videos and photos there are suggestions of ways you can use the resources for writing in your classes. Some even have teaching plans such as 'The Little Shoemaker' however to access the actual plans you will need to be a member of 'The Literacy Shed +'  with paid access.

The Writing Book
This book is part of a collection including others on Oral Language, Reading Comprehension and Publishing and Display.  It is one of my 'go to' resources for looking at the process of learning in writing as well as mini lessons and planning templates to guide students such as burger plans for learning how to construct paragraphs. There are some free resources you can access via the link above to give you a 'taster' on what is on offer.

Mentor Sentences
I somehow stumbled across this idea early in 2017 when I came across this post while trying to find ways to support a small group of students in their understanding what a sentence actually was and how to correctly use simple punctuation.  A weeks free lessons was the clincher to give this a go and using the text: I wanna Iguana, I trialed it.  Students didn't know much about verbs and nouns, but they got adjectives reasonably quickly. This strategy also provided a way to work on handwriting (when they copied the sentence), to see themselves as editors - changing words to make the meaning clearer or the create a better picture in the readers mind and then even using the sentence structure in a different context.  Students were creative and fun in the way they used the sentence structure and most were enthusiastic to share their created sentences with the class.  

While attending the Otago Literacy Symposium in 2017, Gail Loane was the key note speaker.  I have been inspired by her book 'I've Got Something To Say' many times over as it shares a love of writing and the written word.  In a workshop with Gail, she used a section from Piano Rock by Gavin Bishop, the language was delightful and her work with us using this text as a springboard was fabulous. Mechanically Inclined by Jeff Anderson was recommended as a further way to build grammar its use and style into teaching writing in our classes/ workshops. This serves to help me understand the structure of our written language so I can better teach students. I downloaded this to my iPad via Amazon/ Kindle. I love this sentence from his book: "Grammar and mechanics are not rules to be mastered as much as tools to serve a writer in creating a text readers will understand."

Book Creator
While I have admired 'Book Creator' and played around with it, I haven't really used it effectively and this is something I want to change this year. This is available as an app for iPads and also as a free app on Chrome . As teachers, we can set up a class and students use a code to join the class.  There are some options as to what students can do with the texts e.g. publish to what audience, for teachers to consider.  Creating and sharing a digital book gives real purpose to writing and this is moving writing into the kind of realm that much of our reading happens in currently. Another great feature of 'Book Creator' is that it can be used in conjunction with 'Seesaw' to share with our parents and whanau.

Seesaw
While Seesaw has some tools to support writing development in students (through the activities you can use or create), its power, I believe, lies in the way it can document the process and growth of learning in all areas including writing.  Seesaw is a cross platform Learning Journal.  We are using this with our Year 1 - 4 students currently but there is no reason why older students couldn't also utilise this. Students can photograph their writing books, connect google docs or slides they have been constructing, add in 'book creator' creations and even add movies that are used to 'tell stories' or document what they have discovered. Students can share these (depending on the settings selected by the teacher in conjunction with the learning community) with parents and maybe also their classmates, inviting them to add feedback and feedforward through comments - text or voice and even video comments. Seesaw has both free and paid options.

What tools have you used and found useful in your class?

ICT lead teachers met today...I have just been checking out some of the links I was sent as a colleague found them today. I love my iPad and recently have been exploring it's use with my students in class, not for note taking, book reading etc but students using it - we have had success with puppet pals and also using it to put up a puppet performance on the activboard.

  This site has heaps of information, suggestions and motivation

here's an article from Interface

Reading this and watching the video...I can see 3 of my students benefitting from being able to use the iPad for inputting their writing and it's so true that the simplicity of typing on the viewing screen could make it easier for students (they don't have to look from the keyboard to the screen to check that what is on there is what they intended).

There's heaps more to wade through but loving the possibilities.  Fingers Crossed the Year 1's can have some iPads to use soon :-)

Debbie Clement

filled with curiosity & dreams....
Ritual
Repetition
Rhythm
Rhyme

QR Codes

Fun.  Why hadn't I hooked into these before?  Was chatting on FB with a librarian friend in a Uni library about what they use their iPads for, QR codes was one of the uses linked with training students on how to use the library and forresearch purposes.  This got me playing with QR codes.  They seem like heaps of fun and I'm thinking that my Year 1 students would find scanning a QR code heaps easier to get to a YouTube video or learning task following a guided reading session for example than typing in all the details or going through the process of logging into our class page and following the links there.

I wonder how many of their parents have smart phones that could scan these codes for home learning support?

I've found some helpful ideas.
10 Ways to use QR codes in your classroom
nuts and bolts
QR codes in the classroom
QR Codes in Education Prezi

And if the links weren't interesting enough...love the simplicity of navigation for the student in the YouTube video above!

Puppets

Today we had the excitement of the 'enchanted wood' in our school hall.  I watched my students faces, the ones who wriggle or are often chatting to their neighbour were transfixed on the stories unfolding in front of them.  This evening I am exploring ways I can learn more about puppets with the view to using them to provoke my students into deeper thinking or problem solving or to introduce new material or learning.

The above YouTube video has some good advice for starting out.

For starters I am going to get the students to make their own shoebox theaters for finger or small stick puppets that they can use to retell stories or make up their own stories.  But I think I want to make some puppets...need to investigate that a bit further...

Thanks for some inspiration Magic Play House team!

Easi-speak

Recently a teacher asked me how to charge these, I hadn't used them for a bit so can't remember...google comes to the rescue and a users manual is downloaded. Of course, just plug them into your usb on the lap top or use a usb charger...easi :-).

With things like flip videos, photobooth, ipod touches with camera...are things like easi-speaks old technology now? Maybe, but there's lots of learning that can be grown using the Easi-speaks!

Check out Lorraines ideas

and Dorothy's blog

More ideas

This link is to a wiki aimed at gathering exemplars of best practice with the Easi-speaks.

Might be time to introduce the easi-speaks to the tamariki in Wai 4!  Something else to plan into Term 3.

Considering the 'Smarts'

We are inquiring into what our 'x-factor' in learning is.  We explored Kinesthetic, Visual and Auditory learning and now moving into the smarts as a link to Howard Gardiners multiple intelligences within our discovery time and also in the classroom.

Teaching the alphabet through the smarts

Alphabet Activities

Linguistic (Word Smart): Printing or outlining the letters. Traditional alphabet activities are employed for the linguistic multiple intelligence.
Logical (Number Smart): Students organize the alphabet in order. The teacher shuffles alphabet cards and students in groups or pairs organize the cards.
Visual/Spatial (Picture Smart): Drawing pictures that relate to the alphabet. Have students choose their own pictures that they can relate to. If a child only uses the same words to identify the alphabet, the students who do not connect with the word will have a difficult time remembering the letter.
Kinesthetic (Body Smart): Have students use their bodies to represent a letter or the sound of the letter. Active alphabet created in Australia has a physical movement for each of the letters. This gets the student moving and learning the alphabet.
Musical (Music Smart): Sing the alphabet. Often this is the first way children learn the alphabet. Be careful with m n and o because sometimes students believe it is one letter. As the children sing the alphabet, point to each letter.
Intrapersonal (Myself Smart): Students choose an activity to master the alphabet. A student can print the letters, sing the letters or any other activity.
Interpersonal (People Smart): Students will present a letter to the class and chose how they will represent the letter. As students teach other students they are mastering the skill.
Naturalistic (Nature Smart): Get outside and identify items in nature to represent the different letters. Have students touch an acorn for the letter a.

the iPod touch

What is the value for children in using an iPod touch?

ENGAGEMENT
Teachers at R.P.S. had the opportunity to participate in a Games Based Learning Session through the e-central cluster.  One key point I got out of this was the level of engagement that games based learning has over many other forms of learning in our schools.  See below, they are oblivious to the presence of mum/aunt with a camera!

RESEARCH/FINDING OUT
In December my daughter (Miss 10) was doing some research on Christmas celebrations in two other countries.  My TELA laptop is out of bounds for the kids, I need to free up some space on the bulky PC in the office to speed it up and Miss 8 was playing Samarost on the wee net book.  I suggested the iPod or my husbands iPhone and she was off googling Christmas in other countries, flicking through pages and gathering the information she needed to put together her report.


DIGITAL IMAGES
Miss 10, Miss 8 & Master 7 got a gen 4 Ipod touch each for Christmas.  The camera doesn't have good resolution (0.5 mp) for still images but the video's work well for computer screen viewing, haven't tried on a larger screen yet...  The still images are O.K. for viewing online, yet to try printing one.
There are some iMovie apps that can allow kids to create movies with simple editing on their iPod's.  Today's plan is to download some of these and trial them on the kids iPods.  I also plan to download the 'Hipstamatic' Camera or something similar (not sure I want to pay the price as it's only 0.5 mps so might trial a cheaper one for a bit).  Having played with their video functions, I'm thinking that my 'flip' might be old technology, however I love that I can just plug it straight into the lap top with the flip out USB.  Right now, Mr 7 is creating a movie story with some of his toys and introducing the characters before launching the story line....he's even doing the singing and sound effects for it as he goes.


LITERATURE

We have enjoyed Cressida Cowells 'How to Be a Pirate' and 'How to Train Your Dragon' books as well as some CS Lewis books like 'The Horse and His Boy' as audio books on long car journeys and on our trip to Dunedin for Christmas we enjoyed some Famous Five books by Enid Blyton.  I'm not sure this should ever replace the enjoyment for parent and child of reading a 'real book' at bed time but it can open up literature for children like Master 7 who doesn't enjoy reading but loves the worlds of books.   There are 'book apps' where you can listen to the story and see the words or just choose to read the words and flick the pages, great sounds and graphics on these -ones like 'Mike's Bike'.  There are also a series of 'readers' but not sure on the corresponding New Zealand Reading Levels as these are Level A, Level B etc.  Apps like iWrite words where a child's finger traces the letters to make the words can help with letter formation and simple spelling.  Apps like Miss Spells Class can work for  older students and adults.


BASIC FACTS
There are lots of apps that support Basic Facts Recall, some better than others.


PROBLEM SOLVING
Lots of thinking - divergent, lateral, outside the square - is needed for some of the games that my kids have on their iPods.  Even seemingly mindless apps like 'paper toss' require thinking as the wind direction and speed changes how hard or the direction you 'toss' the scrunched up balls of paper.  Early Physics.


TIME MANAGEMENT
Miss 8 is currently keying in family birthdays to her iPod calender.

Some App Review Sites...

Apps4Kids

iphoneandkids

TUAW

appshouter

GiggleApps

More on dyslexia...

Neil MacKay's nine steps for turning a dyslexic pupil into a criminal.

1. Teachers should focus on reading accuracy at the expense of thinking and the other core skills of the national curriculum.

2. Fail to share concerns with parents, dismiss parental concerns, tell them their child is young/naughty/not ready yet.

3. Dismiss, or ignore, achievements or aptitudes in other subject areas because of basic skill weaknesses.

4. Put pupils in remedial groups despite average performance in subjects other than English.

5. Treat escalating bad behaviour as a problem with the pupil, their home, background or environment, rather than looking for causes within their schooling.

6. Ensure the pupil, on transfer to secondary school, is labelled "naughty" rather than in need of support. Ensure none of their teachers is aware of dyslexia or of how needs may have been identified or met in primary school.

7. If the pupil gets support, ensure it is focused on improving reading accuracy at the expense of functional reading with little or no emphasis on learning to learn, planning or organisation.

"Death by phonics" is essential, especially if the pupil prefers to acquire literacy skills in other ways.

8. As attendance and punctuality decline, see it as a self-fulfilling prophecy rather than an institutional failure.

9. Ensure the pupil leaves school with minimal or no qualifications, despite being of average ability.

Reference:

Dyslexics at risk earlyBy John Lewis on Tue, 16 Jun 2009 - ODT

The following article - especially the dissector child is a great picture of my son!

Detailed Processor Versus Slow Processor

And a couple of interesting sites:
Optimum Learning
The Davis Autism Approach
Dyslexia Teacher

Montessori Materials

Following yesterdays 4d workshop I have been investigating different letters I could use for ensuring students have a tactile, visual and auditory opportunity to learn to spell words and explore sounds that go with letters of the alphabet. The Montessori moveable alphabet and the sandpaper letters provide such opportunities! But going a step further, there are some recommendations that sharp contrasts such as black letters on a white background aren't easily viewed by some students who have dyslexia therefore dark blue on a cream background or other pastel background would be preferrable. Anyway, back to the Montessori thing - here are 50 'must read' Montessori blogs FYI.

4d

For dyslexia

For all

I had the privilege of attending a 4d workshop today at Millbrook where Neil MacKay was presenting strategies and ideas for supporting the learning of students who have dyslexia. There is a possablity that these strategies will support my son with his learning difficulties, we will see, but my husband was excited at the prospect of having some different ideas for getting him into his spelling words and reading when I spoke with him at lunch time. The lunch out afterwards at Waitiri Creek was lovely too with the other teachers I attended the workshop with.

The workshop was essentially for parents & teachers - 3 parents and 1 teacher per school - and Neil focussed on things parents can do at home with students who have dyslexia and in a sense for any child!

A couple of things that in Neil's opinion should be banned:

• HOMEWORK
• the words: "You're doing it wrong"
• telling a 'body smart' child to sit still L& learn
• telling a child repeatedly that they got their spelling words wrong - speak with the parent and stop breaking the child's heart repeatedly!

During the workshop we explored ourselves as learners and completed an activity by Eva Hoffman that highlights the areas of interest or enjoyment that we have with the most coloured in bits being the kind of intelligence we have. A free survey was identified at Accelerated Learning to help us identify the intelligence we most use/focus on.

What I enjoyed most is that I could see how many of the strategies could be used in both my junior classroom and with my son at home - and even my daughters!

Strategies

To develop comprehension - work smart rather than hard

use different colours to highlight the who, what, where, when, why in pieces of text/information

Use these to draw a picture of the story

Then ask questions about the text that children can answer.

TCP-QR - this is copyright to Neil MacKay

Paired Reading

Allow students choice in what they want to read then read with them - this means both of you reading at the same time - out loud. The stronger or adult reader reads over gaps the student has and slow down to allow them to catch up. Don't teach or practise the words that trip students up but just read for a purpose even if it is fun! If the student can't keep up when you read slowly the text is too hard. Find something else.

Spelling Challenge

5 words a week max

look at the word

feel the syllables - hand under chin, say word slowly to work out/feel the syllables

Clap the syllables

make the word (in the workshop we used scrabble tiles), jumble it, how many beats? make it, split it in two where the syllables area - split where there are doubles or two syllables - over annunciate the words - need to be able to hear the rhythm & the splits.

say the word

jumble the word

make the word

say the letters - touch each one as you say it

write it.

Writing

Thought dump - great shared writing experience - give opening sentence/idea and group give ideas to one person who writes them on post its and stick on paper - one word or picture per post it.

Choose your best 5 ideas

centre of a page - draw a small picture of your space ship and write...as we came through the clouds we could see... - stick post its on new page draw lines to connect ideas - then go in and add similes and adjectives - only two per idea.

Micromanage this process.

Move on to a second paragraph and work through same process micromanaging it - when we landed...in a group context.

For paragraph 3 allow students independence to go on and write own story.

Crafting

Not in the sewing, crochet or making stuff concept but rather in the area of writing. Last year Murray Gadd worked with the staff at Queenstown Primary school on our literacy practices in writing. One of the terms he used was 'crafting' in reference to students developing writing. This is instead of story writing as it conveys more about putting together written work as an art form - alluding to the deeper features of this area of learning rather than the surface stuff.

Our Learning Community is focussing on our writing after our reflection time last week and ways to improve and develop the writing in our classes. As a lead into this and for my own understandings I am exploring some texts on this subject, Left to write too by Harry Hood (was lucky enough to have him as a lecturer when I was at the Dunedin College of Education - now the Otago University) and Joy Allcock's Switched on to spelling. Only just starting on Joy's resource but have made some reflections on Hood's book.

Left to write too (2nd ed)

Hood comments on teachers having 'unfortunate habits' of pointing to errors and focussing on these with this leading to students only writing the words they can spell. I worry that in my group of learners where we have a 'practise' page for letter formation, words written incorrectly this could have a similar effect to the 'flick on the ear' that Harry recalls accompanying errors being pointed out. I think this is where I like to comment on the meaning or the message of the writing rather the conventions of print, after all writing is about conveying a message or idea isn't it? But if I am neglecting the surface features how will they learn that writing has it's own parameters so that the crafted writing can be understood and enjoyed by an audience or reader? On page 23 Hood writes about motor skill and how a reasonable standard of handwriting aids a writer and also the reader. "Writing words seems quite demanding, both physically and mentally, for these children. If children can print quickly and neatly, spelling and message seem to flow from the writer's pen." This promotes regular handwriting instruction as well as a sound pencil grip.

In citing Donald Graves a list of words are given by Hood, some of which comprise 25% of all written language. It is stated that beginning writers must learn to write these words automatically:

I is am come see the we at on look this a in to like me my and here up go it you of that

This list of words is almost identical to the beginning reading sight list of Marie Clay.

Some Helps & Hinderances (pages 28 - 29)

Helpers:

• constant re-running of their writing attempts
• talking about their drawings
• asking others for help
• comparing their writing
• discussing words and how they are spelled
• using one picture, one word, one page word resources
• making comparisons between pieces of writing, i.e. reading like pieces
• discussing what page to write on and where to write
• drawing others' attention to missing letters in words
• having alphabet cards, pictures and word
• having cards with a few high-frequency words (Leaves on a tree, petals on a flower - in our class I have hot air balloons on a cloud)
• reading their writing to others
• talking aloud as they write

Hinderances

• alphabetical dictionaries
• trying to be accurate at all times - they use a range of resources but lack the ability to approximate spelling.

Thinking about genre in Junior classes...

"But who cares? Let's worry about getting children to the stage where they can put their thoughts fluently on paper before getting hung up on the technicalities of genre." p31

The teacher and the writer - teachers responding to students writing. The following routine was first developed by Graves.

1. child speaks first giving the teacher info: this is what the piece is about; this is what I am currently doing; this is what I need assistance with.
2. the teacher tries to respond to the problem
3. the teacher asks, "What will you do next?"

"If the first comment a teacher makes is about a spelling error, children will soon decide that is what a teacher values in a writer." p62 Harry's strategy to avoid this is depicted in the following paragraph:

"Usually when I work with children I try to kneel down and look at the writer and forget the writing. I let the writer read to me, rather than read the writing myself. In this way I don't get side-tracked. You can't see spelling errors unless you look at the print." p62. I like this. Definitely something I want to put into my practise!

Today in our Professional Learning Time we looked at teaching as inquiry which is on pages 34 - 35 on the NZ curriculum and related this to our practise as a teacher in highlighting learning intentions and developing learning conversations with students. This discussion let to the idea of 'I can lists' similar to what we us in relation to mathematics. Hood mentions these also. They were initially developed by Graves then adapted and used in Dancing with the Pen (must hunt out my copy of this). I like this concept as the biggest part of the list is fore-fronting what the student 'can' do with one learning goal - this is recorded in an 'I am learning list'. "Children should be able to talk about what they know and what they are trying to learn" p67 - this is very much the basis of a learning conversation (If I have my thinking right!) But in line with the idea of 'I can' lists "a system that confronts a child with a great list of things that must be checked off is probably of little use to the learner." (p94). Hood goes on to suggest that checklists can be useful for the teacher....yes & no, depending on how the information the checklist provides is used!

On page 91, Hood lists the characteristics of the Emergent Writer and with a class of Year 0-1 students this is relevant to my teaching:

• I display writing like behaviours
• I am establishing principles of directionality
• I am learning about the spaces between words
• I am learning how to orient a page
• I am learning how to hold a pencil
• I am developing consistency of letter form
• I am learning how to spell some words
• I can locate some words in the class
• I am developing some knowledge of letters/sounds
• I am learning to use the teachers models as a basis for writing
• I can explain orally the meaning of my pictures
• My title is linked to my writing (oops, I haven't even been considering titles)
• I am starting to ask questions about other peoples writing
• I can talk to others about my writing
• I expect my teacher to help me with my writing
• Although my attempts at spelling are semi-phonetic in form, my writing can be read by others.

So what? well, now I feel a little better informed on writing but need to delve deeper into 'Switched on to spelling' and re-read Effective Literacy Practice too!

Bee bots come to flora 1 in writing next week!

We have the bee bots booked for each writing session in week 2 of this term, after that I will include them in our rotation for one of the writing sessions each week. I hope to create an alphabet mat so that children can use the bee bots to spell out our sight words and work on letter sound realationships like on this page. Later in the term the idea of story sequencing found here can be explored.

Very useful guide for using the bee bots in learning.

The bee bots were used in discovery time in our pod yesterday and the students came up with a couple of issues. One was that the bee bots were on a table and could fall off, their solutions were to either just use them on the floor or build a fence around the table. I wonder if these tables or trays could be useful?

From our initial exploration last term these were a really useful 'hook' for students who usually hang back a little from learning experiences. I enjoyed seeing them fully engage.

Bee Bots, numeracy and literacy sequencing

Yesterday Bridget came into Flora 1 during both numeracy and literacy to share with a group of students how to use the bee bots. For numeracy she had the students taking turns to move the bee bot to the next number in the sequence one to 10 across the mat and for our shared book from last week: "I'm the king of the mountain" the students sequenced the animals/insects involved as part of the reading rotation. Using the Bee-bots gave the students another way of working with curriculum content - a little variation from the norm and perhaps became a 'hook' for a couple of students as it kept their interest high in learning experiences in which they often switch off quickly as their aim is to normally just get it finished!

I am now looking into other ways of using the Bee-Bots in learning in our class

bee bots blog

Activity topic ideas

Get the buzz

TTS - has some videos of the bee bots in use

Support materials

Bee bot jackets - make the bot into elmer, an aeroplane...

Bee Bot mat images

Creating your own bee bot mat instructions

I'm sure there are heaps more but I'm looking forward to planning for the use of these in my teaching and learning in term 2! Love that we have a teacher who can support students (and teachers) with the how to of the Bee bots and other e-learning tools!

Telling stories

We are looking at 'telling our stories' next term and linking this with a performance and finding out about the stories associated with our selves, our families, our school and our country. I'm loving the scope of this concept.

We will be exploring Rakaihautu and his spade and performing this for the New Zealand Principals Conference.

I'm thinking there are connections with drama and theatre sports as well as story telling in songs like 'McKenzie' a story about a supposed sheep rustler and his dog, I think it was the POG band that did a song about him? need to look into that.

I guess I want students to experience stories that take on many forms - orally, dramatic, visually, video, song, dance, books - with words and without...

some energisers

Games & Activities

Tumbolia