Reading Inquiry.

 Now that I have been taking my reading groups on a regular basis and I have done a few running records (not an expert, by any stretch of the imagination)  I have got a better gauge of where my children are at, and where they need to be. But in essence I guess this whole journey has given me an indication of what strategies I need to implement to get them to where they need to be.

I was initially interested in letter-sound relationships to help my kids accurately decode words, but now  I have included more "word work" topics which have not only benefited my priority group but all of my readers, therefore I plan on lifting  the reading level not only of my priority learners but also for my other low readers in my class.

I have been able to identify through running records  the importance of vocabulary building for every child in my reading class. I have tailored what goes into my word work sessions depending on the particular needs of that reading group. This is a work in progress and is changing all the time. The challenge for me is that I have 6  reading groups and need to get through at least 3-4 per day.

There are many ways of building up ones vocabulary. But I simply want to be consistent with the rest of the school and use strategies and ideas that have been used on our kids before and have been successful in the past and that are going to be of benefit to our kids.

With my lower groups I focus on 1:1 finger pointing, DOS, and the making of a high frequency words from the text (made from magnetic letters) for the week. With my Higher reading groups I focus on Sight words, 1-2 comprehension questions, and Word families taken from the text. made from magnetic letters. Whenever the group reads the text I reinforce the Gwenneth Phillips prompts, I do believe that the progress I have made to date just confirms that my teaching practice is commendable as my reading results reflect this so far.

But it is important to realise that as stated before this is indeed a work in progress and as different people observe -my practice is constantly tweaked and improved.