Session 5 Reflections ( Planning a Reading Programme)

This week has been very timely and reflective for me with regards to adding more interesting and engaging ideas into my weekly planning.  I love the reading apps that we were shown today which I had not heard of and it was awesome to get a chance to explore these.  Also finding out that Epic does so much more than I thought!  Definitely some 'play time' requried for me to see how I can best utilise these within my class.  The idea of making text sets really appeals to me at present, as there is a huge range of texts in there around what we will be moving on to next week around cultures and traditions leading into our schools cultural festival in week 9. 

 Literacy Planet is definitely one I would like to explore, in particular the Parts of Speech components.  To add a new dimension into my Word Work. 

The biggest learning takeaway for me this week is the importance of keeping things fresh.  We often can become comfortable in the familiar as teachers but we need to keep changing things up for the learners to keep their engagement.  Not only in the tasks that we are wanting them to complete but also looking at the groups with which we are teaching.  There is definitely a place for much more fluidity with my groups.  Next term will be potentially a great time to be trialling this with some possible changes happening within our teaching hub.

My big take away and try from this session is the scaffolded writing task that we worked on with Naomi.  We are concentrating on narrative texts at present and I can see this working really nicely to support some of my more reluctant writiers but also be taken a step further for my more creative students.  I will be sure to blog some of their creations! 

Tomorrow I am attending a PLG around reading and I will be sure to be sharing some of the new Apps from today to inspire my colleagues on how they could possibly implement these to change up their reading programmes. I am excited to see how these changes engage my learners.

• What did I learn that increased my understanding of the kaupapa and pedagogy of the Manaiakalani Reading Programme ?

• What did I learn that could improve my capability and confidence in teaching reading?

• What did I learn that could be used with my learners? 

• What did I learn that could be shared within my wider community, with either colleagues, or whānau/aiga?

Session 4 Reflections: Guided Reading (& Comprehension)

• Over the course of the day I have had many opportunities to increase my understanding. I have reflected on what I am currently doing within my planning and what it is I actually want from my learners. I believe I need to dedicate a good chunk of time to getting myself better planned and prepared to get myself into a routine and implementing good systems. At present it is not working for me so I need to look at how I can imbed the pedagogy better.

• Preparation is the key. It is not a subject that we can teach effectively and meet the needs of our learners without putting in the ground work. It is important that we can spend the time to prepare in order to get the desired outcomes. This is definitely a key point I need to take back to my team whom I feel could also do with a refresher around this and the planning for the students and their learning needs element. How can we set ourselves up for success both for ourselves and pur learners?

• So many learning opportunities to develop reading responses. The idea of setting up a 'one stop shop' of graphic organisers and set out under each reading strategy is a fantastic idea for developing independence and self directed learning. This would have to be built up over time as each strategy is taught and revised. I am also going to develop an on line modelling book that the learners have access to which reflects our learning. I need to put the time into developing my planning and linking these all together to have the desired outcomes I want. I have so many ideas floating around in my brain - now to implement them!

• Within my hub I would like to share the ways in which we can enhance our planning. The text from *Fountas and Pinnell offer ‘strategic actions’ to teach, prompt and reinforce skills. This is a great resource for drawing out key questions within our planning. This will become a key feature with our hub planning as I know that this is an area that has not been happening so well.

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• So much food for thought today. To make myself a to do list and tick things off around my planning. I think that this will make me feel that I have more organisation and control over my reading programme. At present I feel that I am doing things but no necessarily doing this well! Watch this space