Progress after Term 1........

 Progress is not as fast as I would like. You as the teacher can see what Reading Level the child could make it to if the child did not have,

1. Poor school attendance 
2. Poor group attendance because of: sport, other events,
3. Difficult behaviour

Of course there are other factors involved but the above are the main three. When you are faced with these issues (as I have been- with many of my Magenta readers) I then need to look at what else I could possibly do, with these students in a school day -that I may have not thought of.

I then decided to organise a reading pack for the families concerned. The packs consisted of sight words, alphabet cards (for letter and sound knowledge) and I explained to the Mum, Dad or Auntie what the cards were for. (I must admit though that the parent/teacher interviews allowed me to introduce the idea of these at home support cards for their tamariki) especially the children that I observed with "high absenteeism".

I now tend to start my school day at 8.30, with getting these children to read in the mornings to me and go through their alphabet letters and sounds After the morning roll I play an engage game focusing on oral language or play "other" games that have a emphasis on oral language. I tend to do this in the mornings and afternoons. I have altered my class timetable to my children's needs.

There has been movement of 14 of my children. These children have moved up at least one Reading level and at least 5 of the 14 have moved significantly. But the idea is that we want momentum and we can only get this through routine.

So what are the next steps for my Inquiry?

 In my last message I noted that there would be a significant impact on my teaching practice in regards to what I taught, when I taught and how I taught. On the balance of evidence collated and on reflection of what was being taught, I needed to introduce a few activities in my daily timetable. Some old and some new.

I will address this issue through explicit instruction. With the old activities I just need to consistently use them during reading time. The Gwyneth Phillips prompts will draw the children's attention and make them more aware of the language they need to be using. ie "You said.......what would you expect to see for.........."  focusing on oral language at the end of a reading the text ie (conversations with the group/comprehension questions about the text), word families, magnetic letters that can be manipulated and the good old whiteboard and whiteboard marker/for the writing out of words, especially HFW . In the mornings before school starts at 9am this time can be utilised and I can introduce alphabet sounds by way of alphabet cards.