A snail joins Room 2's online class

Today a snail joined our online class. I took the children (my computer) out to the vegetable garden to find a snail then brought him back inside. We looked carefully at him and used lots of fabulous words to describe him. While we had the snail right there we wrote stories about him. They had something right in front of them, something tangible that they could describe. 

This was the most effective online writing session so far. The best thing was that their stories contained multiple ideas. Up until now, I was finding it difficult to get more than a sentence from them. There was so much to say about the snail e.g., his shell, how he moved, the slime, the feelers...

We put him back outside but he didn't want to go and climbed back inside the door.

He wants to be in Room 2 too!

Here is the snail and our fabulous stories. 

Collaborative Maths Planning

In response to the reflections and feedback of one of my team members, we are collaboratively picking apart the maths curriculum to create a long-term plan that works for us, and that illustrates the learning outcomes across Level 1 and Level 2 of the NZ Curriculum. 

As a leader I see growing the capital of my team as important. However the 'how' to do this can at times seem difficult when everyone is at different stages of their teaching journeys and everone has diffrent levels of understanding of the curriculum. Noticing areas that need my attention as a leader is the first step. 

Stefan wrote an amazing, honest reflection about the hugeness of the maths curriculum and how difficult it was to know what and how to teach it, covering all aspects. At a PLC course he was shown diffrent schools' long-term plans and compared them to our long-term plan... honestly pointing out that what we were using was not effective, especially for the beginning teachers within our team. 

So.... we are taking our school LTP, taking the parts that we need to and as a team creating a plan that will work for us. 

Today we started with just one aspect, probability.

We looked at the Achievement Objectives from the Curriculm, the Elaborations, NZ maths plans, thought about our own understandings and broke down the specifics of teaching probability to our junior students. Doing this collaboratively over a google meet meant we were challenging each other, questioning each other and coming to a shared understanding. 

By the end of the session our brains hurt but the outcome was amazing. We all know what we will be teaching at each level, the shared language we will use and how to scafold learning to meet our students needs across the junior school. 

Yay for collaboration, and a fabulous team.... so much more powerful than if one person was to write the longterm plan and give it to the team to follow as we have done in the past!

Teaching During Lockdown; Ubiquitous Learning

During the lockdown, our students are learning in multiple ways. Some are learning independently, some with limited resources, some with help from whānau, and everyone at different times of the day.

This highlights the need for learning to be ubiquitous. 

Here are some ways I have adapted my teaching practice during this time to make sure children can access their learning anywhere at any time.

1. Making instructional videos. This is a fun way to create lessons that you would normally do in the classroom at home. Using materials takes the new abstract concepts easier to understand.

2. Using Jam Board and Screen Castify to make recordings of lessons, massive thanks to Matua Stefan for introducing us to this tool. Lessons like the one bellow allow you to make a visual representation as you explain concepts to your students.

Jam board has been such a great tool this lockdown. Having students talk to the Jamboard and explain their thinking as you record it is interactive and allows you make valuable formative assessment of where your students are at. You begin hearing things that would get missed within the busy classroom environment.

We have been using Jam board for online phonics lessons. We use the stickies to put the phonemes together in words or change the phoneses within a word to make new words.

3. Using Screen Castify to record shared reading books. This idea was gifted to me my colleage Whea Lee and I don't know why we hadn't thought of this last lockdown! It is always hard to get students to read texts at their level at home but how easy is it for them to follow along to a story read by the teacher. The teacher can use this opportunity to teach concepts about print and decoding strategies. They may not be reading the text independantly but hopefully they will be looking at the words and taking in some of those key concepts modeled.

4. Language Experience Videos gift students new vocabulary which is learnt in context, sentence structures and a range of new experiences. For these videos I have tried to slow my speech down and repeat language multiple times so that students hear it more than once. I have also explained some of the new vocabulary used.

These videos may not be the most well crafted but they hopefully do the trick and help my students connect to their learning. I hope this has inspired you to get creating and given you some new ideas for online learning during lockdown.

Changes to my Practice During Lockdown

 

Suddenly we find ourselves in lockdown again.

This poses the question 'how can I continue to develop student's foundational skills during distance learning?'

What aspects of my teaching had I changed during class and how could I keep this practice going through lockdown?.

• Building memory; As much of junior early learning has an aspect of rote learning and repetition, I had been focusing on memory games and that would hopefully transfer to remembering letter sounds, sight words, basic facts. I have integrated memory games into their reading program such as playing memory with sight words at school and then tried to create similar experiences at home using an Engage game 'Card Memory and connecting it to the text Hannah's Game.

• Incorporating teaching of direction language into my daily program; the top slide shows another aspect of developing foundation skills, which is developing an understanding of directional/positional words. Experimenting with different ways to connect with students during lockdown I have found that videos of me doing activities is the most effective way of engaging students. They love seeing their teacher and seeing they can't read yet, seeing and hearing the 'how to's' allows them to easily access their learning tasks. This activity not only tells and shows directional language, they then have to use it to create a race themselves.

• Development of gross motor skills, balance, and stability, hand-eye coordination; at school my students love doing exercise circuits after they have finished their writing. We also incorporate fine motor skill activities into our daily program as some students haven't the muscle strength and control needed to write with a pencil or cut with scissors. We talk about what skill the exercise is teaching them. I know this is best not to teach skills in isolation (vs within a context such as a game) but my students love it and it works for this particular group of students. Therefore to take this into their homes I again set them the challenge of creating their own exercise circuit 'boot camp' for them and their whānau. Instead of reinventing the wheel, I used resources that were already available as well as videos I made myself. I also gave students a yoga video to do as they love doing yoga at school.

Some resources I have incorporated onto my site are:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X655B4ISakg

https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/home-learning-tv/episodes/sage-5-8-e148

Sport Auckland Health and PE resource

 

As well as some homemade videos by me... nothing fancy and slightly cringy but the students love them.

• The last aspect is something I have carried over from my inquiry last year which is 'say, and do' language experiences. Using Dr Jannie Van Hees's technique of reusing and recycling vocabulary, say and do language experience activities related to a context outside of their daily worlds. This teaches them new vocabulary in context. 

How will I measure if this change of practice has had a positive effect on student outcomes? 

I will use whānau voice, student voice, and work samples to measure student outcomes. I will hopefully see student work samples and have feedback from my students on their return to school. Through talking to whānau, I have learned that students are using the site and videos and are engaged and motivated by them. They understand the learning tasks and are completing them. It will be interesting to see if the learning they are doing at home, transfers to learning in the classroom when back at school. 

Monitoring evidence, sharing, and interrogation

Share/Describe: I have been recording the changes to my practice on a target student tracking sheet. This is also a space to record the implications and reflections of my changed practice on student outcomes. This allows me to keep a running record of my changes to practice as they happen and then look back and reflect on how effective these changes have been. 

The example below is taken from the tracking sheet. This example is my record of incorporating physical activities, that help develop foundation skills, into my daily program. 

Changes to Practice:	Reflections/Implications
Term 2-3 2021 Incorporation of gross motor skill activities that target aspects of developmental skills such as balance, eye tracking, stability, hand-eye coordination, were incorporated into our in-class program with activities set up in class, in the hallway, and just outside the classroom. This is done through circuits, games, and equipment is set up for students to do as a follow-up to writing.  This also allows me to take smaller groups for writing while the other students were engaged and developing foundation skills that they may not otherwise have had the opportunity to do. Having a learning assistant working with one of the groups allowed more targeted teaching to take place with both groups. Many of the games/activities were taken from PMP and Sport Auckland. Although it is suggested we incorporate skills into games, they enjoy both playing little games using the skill as well as just practicing the skill in an isolated fashion, eg balancing along a beam and skipping with a rope. I guess this comes down to setting personal goals for themselves. The skill they are developing and how it transferred into different areas is talked about. Week 4 Term 2 We have begun yoga once a week to help with body awareness, well-being and self-regulation. They LOVE it and work really hard to do it well. Week 7 Term 2 I have attached the yoga video link to the class site so they can do it at home during lockdown.	Date: 7/9/21 My students enjoyed the activities and seemed to challenge themselves and each other in little competitions.  The management of having circuits going while I took writing meant that both groups learning needs were being met in different ways. They are transferring the skill such as balancing, into different areas of the curriculum. They talk about ‘balance’ and challenge themselves to balance in different ways throughout the day. I’m seeing noticeable changes in student's core strength and ability to sit on the mat and in a chair to write. Fine motor skills of holding a pencil and writing have improved. They love to skip and will skip at any given opportunity. Also having the equipment such as balance boards set up in the room means they just jump on and start balancing at all times of the day in a really natural unplanned way.
Literature Link :  PMP Sport New Zealand PLC sessions with James Mcintyre; Sport Auckland

Explain: I have made many tweaks along the way and have used the tracking sheet to record these changes. With foundation skills being such a huge area to develop at one time I have taken the little and often approach. Putting the foundation skills I'm focusing on into my daily routine running alongside more traditional Year One curriculum areas such as writing and guided reading and maths as well as integrating them through games in these areas that involve movement. I am not taking away from the normal practice I hopefully strengthen it by having foundation skills being taught and developed alongside these programs. I keep having to ensure all students are challenged by the activities because there is such a range of developmental levels within the juniours and students master the skills quite quickly. Also, I have added choice by having inquiry stations set up within the same time so students can explore concepts and oral language introduced through inquiry. These times have been where I have seen the most engagement, oral language take place and independent learning happen. It takes it from being a circuit set up, where students move through like little robots, to an activity you can choose alongside other provocations that help them explore in their own way skills they need to develop. 

As the skills I'm focusing on developing are vast, ranging from teaching oral language, concepts, and phonological awareness to gross and fine motor skills and self-regulation skills it is a juggling act fitting them into your daily program. Recognising your student's needs at that time helps with this as it focuses your attention on those areas that might make the most impact. 

Learnings from Te Whāriki

He puraora i ruia mai Rangiåtea e kore e ngaro.

A Seed sown in Rangiātea will never be lost.

Te Whāriki states that teachers, educators and kaiako work in partnership with whānau to realise the hopes and high expectations whānau and iwi have for each child. The vision underpinning Te Whāriki is that children are learners are nurtured like a precious seed, instilling in them an understanding of their own importance and their belonging within society. They are "Competent and confident learners and communicators, healthy in mind, body and spirit, secure in their sense of belonging and in the knowledge that they make a valued contribution to society." 

On the day lockdown began, I had started to write this blog post looking at te Whariki as a guiding document and how this interlinks with our focus on developing a foundation program for Juniors. As I began to write I reflected on the partnership between school and whānau and had a sinking feeling that it seems to often be an aspect of our teaching that can be surface level. By this I mean students are dropped at school by whānau and go home to them at the end of the day with a wave and quick hello, how are you, but really is there true partnership happening? Is it an equal power relationship where parents feel comfortable talking openly with their child's teacher? Does the teacher understand and value the hopes and aspirations each whānau has for their child? Do we take the time and make the effort to find out? Do whānau feel comfortable within our classrooms and know and have input into the learning that happens. Do we understand and value all the learning that happens at home?

Lockdowns have taught me that true relationships between whānau and teachers are powerful and can be a massive impact on student outcomes. 

I have made a mindset shift to purposefully form true relationships with whānau. This is not on a superficial level, this is valuing the contribution whānau brings to the learning of our tamariki. It's forming relationships that are nonjudgemental no matter what the situation is at home. It's listening to them, looking at things from their point of view, and working with them to help students learn in ways that are important and right for that family. 

For at least one of my students I strongly believe that the partnership his mum and I have, has changed his world in a significant way. The walls between school and home have come down, his whānau are helping him with his learning in their own beautiful way and he comes to school proud of the learning he is doing at home. He is able to make connections between this learning and the learning happening at school and build upon these connections. Learning is ubiquitous. The progress he is making is incredible. He has progressed from working at a developmental level of a 3 1/2 year-old, to being able to write a sentence, know all alphabet sounds, and read a sentence. I could have been judgemental when I learned about the challenges he and his whānau face, I can imagine many would. I could say that I have no control over what happens at home. But I do have control over my own beliefs, judgments, and the impact these have on others. By having understanding and true relationships based on trust and respect, there is no judgment. There is a partnership with a little learner (seed) at the center who is being nurtured by those around him and given optimal opportunities to grow. 

Lockdown for our Junior Team as with other deciles one schools allows us to see inside the homes of our whānau. We make phone calls, we do check-ins, google meets. Our parents become the teachers and we are one of their resources. They let us see into their worlds. we need to do this with uttermost respect and aroha. The relationships that are formed through this time are a true asset and like the story above brings down the walls between home and school. I can't help but feel this is what that sinking feeling that I had reading Te Whāriki referred to. These are the relationships that underpin Te Whāriki and that we need to treasure in our practice as teachers. 

In my early years of teaching I had relationships with families that I felt a connection towards but can I say I had strong relationships with those families that were more difficult to connect with... no I can't say I did...and how much of that came down to my own judgments and comfortableness. Probably more than I was willing to admit. 

I think it is important I don't let these learnings as an educator slip away. I look forward to continuing to weave the Te Whāriki aspect of Partnership through our junior school beliefs and practice and our school curriculum.

A Visit To Apii Te Uki Ou

 He taonga te mokopuna, kia whāngaia, kia tipu, kia rea.

A child is a treasure, to be nurtured, to grow, to flourish.

Apii Te Uki Ou, a small school on the island of Rarotonga. A school where confident students, strong in their identity, language, and culture grow and learn in a beautiful nurturing environment. 

I was extremely lucky to visit Apii Te Uki Ou on a Manaiakalani MIT trip to the Cook Islands. 

Welcomed onto the school grounds with an official welcome, the students then performed to us and their school oozing pride and talent. 

After Kaikai (beautiful food shared with us), we partook in set cultural activities presented by the students. These included making Partau, weaving flax, drumming, and husking a coconut. The student's confidence, knowledge, and understanding of their cultural practices were amazing and made me think of those students in my class that have experienced culture and language loss since moving to New Zealand and ways in which I can help them to grow their cultural identity.

A tour of the classes in the school highlighted students' engagement, wellbeing, and holistic development in their learning. The feel of the school was beautiful.

Educational environments as special as this don't just happen by chance. They are created. 

Thank you so much for your beautiful hospitality Apii Te Uki Ou You have made me reflect on cultural responsiveness, holistic models of education, and the importance of honoring cultural identity.

Using Old Telephones To Develop Oral Language

When our office received new telephones our wonderful Principal put the old ones aside for Room 2 knowing what a fantastic tool they would be for developing oral language.

T set up the experience, I did virtually nothing. All I did was put the 4 telephones on a table in pairs so that students could sit next to each other with a telephone between them and allow time for the children to explore using them when they saw them. 

What happened? 

Wow, what an amazing oral language activity;

Two of my students both with speech difficulties sat side by side. One of these students has amazing vocabulary and concept understanding, she oozes confidence and doesn't let her speech stop her from getting her message across. The other student has a lower level of vocabulary and will often sit quietly and let others share. 

Conversation 1

B- "I at the pool"

G- "What you doing there? (then corrects herself) What are you doing there? Are you swimming or something?"

B- Thinking... I dit (I did)

G- " At the school holidays I went to Granny's"

B- Copies sentence structure "At the school holidays I went to Inflatable World.

G- "I went to Gravity and it was a lot of fun and I can't even breathe when I'm jumping too fast."

B- "What?"

G- "I can't even breathe when I'm jumping"

B- "I can not breathe."

G- "Bye-bye"

Conversation 2

L-"Hi, who is this?

B- says their name

L-Stutters then says "Where do you live?"

B-" Somewhere. In the clean house."

L-Thinks... "What way does (pauses) it go to?" (meaning 'how do you get there?')

What oral language are students developing from this activity? 

Students modeling oral language for each other:

• Asking and answering questions
• Rephrasing  "I can't even breath when I'm jumping"
• Being cognitive of what they are saying, thinking about what they are saying and what they want to say to get their message across. L- Thinks... "What way does (pauses) it go to?" (meaning 'how do you get there?') It may not be correct but they are making conceted attempts
• Copying sentence structures G- " At the school holidays, I went to Granny's" B- Copies sentence structure "At the school holidays I went to Inflatable World.
• Extending their speech through listening to each other.

This is a great example of using props and role-play to facilitate oral language development. The cognitive process involved was evident and it gave an opportunity for multiple aspects of oral language to be developed in a hands-on real-life, social context.

What other props can I use for students to develop their oral language through role-playing such as this?

The Development Of Foundation Skills; Balance

Hypothesis:  If we focus on developing students' foundation skills then this will transfer to progress in reading, writing, and maths longitudinally. 

Foundation skills are the foundations we build our 'traditional' learning upon. If students miss out on acquiring these skills in the early years then how can we be expecting them to build on something that just isn't there. As time is of the essence my hypothesis is that if we can build these skills alongside key early literacy practice then the skills will transfer from one domain across to the other at an accelerated rate. Students are not missing out on those early literacy skills that don't get taught further up the school, yet they are at the same time developing the skills needed to consolidate that learning. 

These skills are 

Exploring this hypothesis  I have taken balance, a foundation skill that influences the ability to adjust movements, muscle strength, core stability, sensory awareness, and movement reactions, and created opportunities throughout each day for the students to develop this skill. 

First I did a quick assessment of students' balance standing on one leg, hopping, walking along a low beam, and their ability to sit still on the mat (core stability and strength). Some students found these activities challenging. These students also are pre-writing stage, making marks on the page yet to form letters.

Then I made a trip to Kmart to buy balance boards.  I placed these in my classroom. As soon as the students saw them they were on them. They seemed to gravitate to them throughout the day as a way to calm and center them as if they were seeking the stimulation. This reminded me of the readings I had done about play schemas. 

I also incorporated movement games and activities throughout the day that developed balance. Each time we did an activity we talked about how balance strengthens our core and helps us to do certain activities. The outcome of this is that students can now identify activities that help them to balance and choose these activities independently "Look miss I'm balancing." They seem to enjoy the challenge of seeing if they can balance in different ways.

The exciting thing is that I'm seeing it transfer into formal learning. These students can sit for longer periods on a chair or on the mat. They seem to hold a pencil easier and are beginning to form letters correctly. The latter part may not be connected to balance but there is a noticeable difference in a short period of time.

Create Staff Meeting

I'm super proud of my students tonight. Today was the Manaiakalani Create Staff Meeting lead by our students. 

Room 2 student's taught our teachers how to make catapults. We took the teachers through the same lesson we did in class unpacking the read-aloud picture book 'The Bomb' by Sacha Cotter and Josh Morgan. Then we solved a technology problem by enabling a toy person to do a 'manu' into a swimming pool of water (container of water) by making catapults. 

One aspect of the rationale for choosing a read-aloud picture book was that I really wanted to work with this fantastic book, as the students could connect to the text and illustrations in so many ways. Secondly to share the power of read-aloud stories, role play, and storytelling to build comprehension strategies and open a gateway to exploration and new learning. 

When the difficulty of decoding is removed the brain can focus on imagining the story, making connections to text, and gaining meaning of the text itself. I’m not saying that decoding isn’t important, it is equally as important but how can we be thinking about the meaning of the story when we are using all our brainpower to decode? Giving students time to enjoy a text and equitability in accessing the text, is something of value to add to learning design. Reading to your students allows this to happen. Also, a read aloud story is such a fabulous way to launch a new topic and take students on a journey of discovery and learning. The opportunities and ideas linked to a text are endless.

The opportunity afforded by the create staff meeting, to teach adults being Tuakana, was so empowering. The students were increadably excited by the opportunity of being taken to another school to share their learning and weren't at all nervous. They explained their thinking beautifully. One of my favourite moments was when Trevor carefully thought about what he was going to say and perfectly articulated a sentence, you could see the concentration on his face as he carefully chose his words. 

The experience made me reflect on how few opportunities I give students to share their learning face to face with others and the powerful effects this has on the learner and their self-esteem. 

The experience was topped off by a trip to Mc Donalds which the children loved. 

"I'm going to write a story about this tomorrow. I'm going to say I went to McDonald's with my teacher" Trevor in the car on the way back. 

A big thank you to Manaiakalani for giving our students this opportunity, our school for letting us go, the other teachers for being great students and encouraging our little ones and Mrs Jalili for coming with us to McD's. 

What Assessment Data Shows In Terms Of Oral Language Acquisition

I have the most amazing group of learners in my class. They love learning and are 100% engaged and excited about whatever exciting learning experience is in front of them. Already we have created a culture of writing to share our learning and ideas and thirst to want to learn. 

The feel in our class is one of happiness, positive relationships, and trust. The students were quick to form relationships with me and each other. 

The class is extremely inclusive of each other and happy to be at school each day. 

What a great position to start an inquiry into changing my practice to better meet the needs of these beautiful little learners that have incredible potential within and ahead of them. 

My target group consists of 9 Year 1 and 2 students. I sampled these 9 students based on my teacher judgment and assessment data of those students with the lowest levels of oral language and foundation skills. 

With a focus on developing foundation skills in our student's first few years at school, a key element is oral language.

To assess the areas of challenge students had in terms of oral language acquisition I used the Dr Jannie van Hees CombiList (2013). 

Only two out of the nine students showed competence in any of the factors of language development described in the combilist. The other 7 students all only demonstrated these factors sometimes or not at all. 

The greatest areas of the challenge were: 

-Giving elaborate responses to open-ended questions from the teacher.

Open ended questions are met with shoulder-shrugging, "I dunno." or silience. Students look uncomfortable and at times will freeze rather than give a response. It is hard to know if they don't understand, don't have the words, are not used to thinking at a more critical level, or are not confident speaking.

-Sustaining expression of their meaning, ideas, and intentions.

One or two words are shared when expressing their thoughts. The vocabulary is low-level and directly linked to their own direct experiences with very few content-driven vocabulary. Sentence structures short and missing structural words. Ideas are not elaborate and very few details are given.

Video snap snots of students show that some students use one or two-word utterances in play situations with the use of very little concept vocabulary.

Two boys playing with dinosaurs showed them hitting the dinosaurs together shouting "arggggggh, arggggggh, die, die, argggggh, argggggh" with no other vocabulary used.

-Thinking before they speak so as to express at a higher cognitive level.

My hunch is that thinking before they speak ties in with low impulse control, saying the first thing that comes into their head or repeating something someone else has called out. These students also have difficulties with impulse control in the physical sense. They quickly 'do' without stopping and thinking. Would improving the physical improve the verbal aspect of impulse control or vice versa? 

-Continuing their meaning and intentions, and picking up and using teacher examples and models.

The difficulty students have listening to the teacher or each other is obvious through their body language and questing them as a response to what has been shared verbally. Also, 4 of the nine students lack confidence speaking if they feel they may get it wrong and have moments of shutting down. 

-Talking to others, not only the teacher.

I have observed the reluctance of students to speak in group situations during mat time e.g. group discussions. It is common for them to sit back and let the more confident students speak. This, however, isn't the case when they have physical activities to do as they seem engaged in the doing and talking comes more naturally.

All students are reading at Level 1 or Pre Level 1 and Writing at Pre Level 1 of the New Zealand curriculum. and writing at pre 1B. 

Analysis of Student's Writing Samples

I have used an analysis of my student's writing samples as baseline data to measure progress over the course of my inquiry. This analysis also includes the picture plan which gives clues to the developmental stages in terms of body awareness (drawing of people), fine motor skill development, and spatial awareness. 

The student understands that marks on a page represent writing and is beginning to form some letter shapes, however, is unable to retell their story. The people in the picture have separate heads and bodies and the drawing of a cat is discernable.

They use strings of letters to tell a story. They could say the sentence that they wanted to write. With support could record 3 letter sounds. This was with prompting and support from the teacher to find the sound on their ABC card. Drawing of people shows arms and legs coming out from the head with no separate body. This type of picture is common in children between 3-4 years of age. 

This student uses the picture box for text and picture. Marks on the page are beginning to look like letters (symbolic mock letters). Although the 3 people in their picture are basic each looks different. They are able to retell their story to the teacher. 

They were unable to hold their pencil correctly and the picture and text resembled scribbles without the fine motor skill control to create a discernable shape (The circle was drawn by the teacher). This includes a scribble for the picture of themselves inside the bubble. This may indicate a lack of body awareness. This stage is called controlled scribbling and is usually seen in children between 2-3 years of age. This student without prompting will use a cylindrical grasp of the pencil (developmental stage 1-2 years)

Spatial awareness is challenging for this student. Even with prompting and modeling from the teacher is unable to draw the picture in the box. Arms and legs come out from the head however, hands do have five fingers. Is able to articulate a simple sentence and with support from the teacher can find some basic words on the word card and copy them. This student has an understanding of the directionality of print.

These students are all within their first year at school. So what does the above data look like in terms of the Literacy Learning Progressions?

According to the literacy progressions at school entry children enjoy writing for a variety of purposes and can hold a story in their heads long enough to retell it. They may write marks on the page that represent letters or words. We also expect some children to be able to write their names, form some letters correctly and hold a pencil correctly. These student's writing shows some of these features, however, it also indicates some features of earlier developmental stages.

The progressions also indicate that from this 'entry point' there is then a high level of scaffolding by teachers to help students to develop the ability to: 

• hold an idea in their heads long enough to write it down (oral language/memory)
• say, hear and record the dominant sounds in words (phonological awareness), 
• write from left to right, leaving spaces between words (directionality, spatial awareness, concepts about print)
• form letters correctly (fine motor skill, directionality). 

My wondering is that is it possible to work on pre-literacy developmental stages whilst still teaching the progressions that are expected within a child's first year at school? Can we strengthen those foundation skills alongside exposure to the skills other students at the same age are developing? 

Tools, Measures and Approaches To Gain A Detailed and Accurate Profile Of My Student's Learning

In this blog post, I will outline the tools, measures, and approaches I will use to gain an accurate and detailed profile of my students' learning in relation to their 'school-readiness as I begin and move through my inquiry.

There are such a vast array of skills needed to acquire to be school-ready and students will have varying strengths and skill development needs. Therefore, adopting a vast range of methods will hopefully allow me to measure progress and give me a more detailed profile of my learners across all the foundation skill domains. The skills children needed to acquire in the early years in order to build formal learning upon are; reflexes, senses, motor development, language skills, auditory skills, and visual skills.

I have chosen the following tools/measures and approaches to gain a detailed and accurate profile of my students' learning in relation to the challenge of the acquisition of developmental skills needed for school readiness.

Data will be analyzed from the assessments that we already do within our school:

Running Records- Providing a score for word reading accuracy, analysis of readers' errors and self-corrections, and reading strategies used. This assessment is a requirement of all junior students and is used to formative inform teacher practice. This assessment measures the progress of students once they start reading.

Concepts About Print- This assessment is used to assess students' acquisition of the knowledge of the conventions of print. This assessment is conducted on entry to school and again at age six.

E-asTTle- Writing assessment used in Term 1 and Term 4, moderated within the school and across Manaiakalani schools.

Engage/Leap Assessment; SDQR Self Regulation Assessment Form- Our school is taking part in the ENGAGE/Leap initiative to help students develop self-regulation skills through 30-minute game playing daily. This assessment is used for those students whose whānau have agreed to take part in the program.

In addition to these assessments, I will be using

Dr Jannie van Hees CombiList (Dr Jannie van Hees © 2013)- This is an oral language acquisition assessment tool. This tool measures the learner's willingness to communicate, communication with adults, participation in discourse, contribution to discussion, and benefits from feedback. From my previous inquiry in oral language acquisition, this tool gave a clear picture of areas of challenge, and the progress of learners is broken down into specific areas.

A Foundation Skills Assessment- Measuring reflexes, senses, motor development, language skills, auditory skills, and visual skills. This will be a tick sheet to record students' progress in acquiring these skills within the daily program.

Phonological Awareness Assessment- Yolanda Soryl phonological awareness assessment. As teaching phonics is a part of my program I will be continuing to do daily I think it is important to track its effectiveness as part of a wider foundation skill program.

Student Voice and Whanau Voice- Gathering student voice through creating student profiles will give me an understanding of student's preferred ways of learning, it will give students an opportunity to express who they are, have a say about what goes on for them at school, and in their learning. Talking with whānau gives whānau the important opportunity to partner with whānau to build on strategies at home, value the knowledge of the whānau and utilize parents expertise.

I will assess my whole class and from here take a focus group of students with the greatest need for developing foundation skills. These students I will track throughout the inquiry process to measure progress. This information will allow me to formative adapt my program to meet my student's needs.

Preliminary Findings About The Nature and Extent of The Student Challenge

How important are gross and fine motor skills in relation to our cognitive processing? 

On a personal level, I realised the importance while doing 'boot camp. As I struggled to do a new 'activity modelled by the instructor that involved swinging a kettlebell around my body, crossing over arms and swinging it back the other way. Such activities take all my cognitive capacity to master. Is it just a coincidence that I have extreme difficulty in doing such activities when my peers can do it the first time, and that I struggle with sequencing letters within a word, words within a sentence or numbers within a string of numerals like phone numbers? How are gross motor skills related to cognitive functioning? 

Anecdotal observations of my students doing physical activity

As part of our schools work with Sport Auckland we had the opportunity to see our facilitator James model a series of physical games whereby I got the opportunity to take a step back and observe the students in my class move and work together in various ways.

There were two simple activities:

1. moving in different ways inside a space then getting into groups of a given number.

2. throwing bean bags to hit a cone in a relay-style activity.

These activities proved challenging for many of my students. Not surprisingly the students that found these activities challenging correlated with those students that were finding learning in the classroom difficult. 

I observed some students found gross motor skills such as marching, skipping, jumping with both feet, and throwing extremely difficult, for others it was working with others and problem-solving, and for two students it was joining in at all and they completely shut down and refused to participate. From the outside, it kind of looked like chaos. 

I hadn't anticipated these 'fun' activities would be such a challenge for my students and 'the wheels falling off' made me realise that I had been avoiding such activities, due to the 'difficulties it caused'. In my teacher management role of controlling the learning environment, I was doing my students an injustice by sheltering them and withholding vital opportunities to learn from doing. The limited PE opportunities I had been giving my students had not made me realise the skills my students needed in their development and how this correlated to their learning. 

In similar ways, my observations within the classroom show many of my students lack fine motor skills. For some using scissors to cut is extremely challenging, students are gripping crayons pencils and pens with their fists and just scribbling, people are drawn with a round body shape with sticks coming out for arms and legs with no head just dots for eyes and a line for a mouth within the body. 

Communication between students is also limited with some students using a few word utterances and not having the vocabulary to explain their understanding or how they are feeling. 

What is the significance of this in relation to the challenge of accelerating the development of the skills students need to be 'school-ready' within their first year of school?

If we are expecting our students to be 'school ready' we then need to be giving students the opportunity to develop the skills that are needed to be school-ready. How much of this am I currently doing in my day to address this need? What data can I gather to assess students developmental stages and measure progress? What can I do differently? 

Oral Language Workshop- Manaiakalani Teacher Only Day

 

Tools/Measures and Approaches

In my previous post, I identified the challenge my inquiry will focus on as accelerative learning of developmental skills students need to be 'ready for school'. Creating a programme for our Year 1 students that will fit their unique needs and that of our community.

There are many programmes out there each. Each programme has assessment tools that measure the skills that those programmes teach. As our students' needs are so diverse and we will be researching effective teaching from across a range of programmes to best meet the needs/cultures of our students. Therefore, we have decided to draw from a range of assessment tools/measures from across different programmes to best fit our student's needs.

From my preliminary findings through observations of students behaviours, I will identify key areas to measure student achievement using existing measures from existing programmes that teach that skill.

My next step is to observe student behaviours to find areas of development students find most challenging. From there I will look at assessment tools that measure this skill/area of development. I will then use these tools to measure progress as I change my teaching practice to meet the students' needs.

The Beginning of my Inquiry 2021

This post marks the official beginning of my inquiry for 2021. The actual beginning was an exciting conversation two weeks ago, between myself and our Principal.

The conversation was a future-focused discussion to gain insights from staff voice about our current reality, as part of our school-wide self-review process. It was also an opportunity to discuss a possible direction for my CoL inquiry fitting with our school's strategic plan and Manaiakalani's patterns of student learning.

Our conversation was prompted by the question;

Moving forward, looking to the future, how might we be better? Or How might we strengthen our School/practice?

As my former 2-year inquiry had focused on creating an intensive oral language programme for junior students I already had seen the importance of oral language for building literacy across the curriculum. However, starting a new year with Year 1 students I had become acutely aware that oral language was just one facet of developmentally being 'ready' to learn to read and write. Students need gross and fine motor skills, emotional and social self-regulation skills, oral language, visual, hearing and good health.

My informal observations of students this year showed these were areas our students found challenging.

Thoughts I have taken from our discussion:

• If we are to accelerate students achievement in Reading, Writing and Maths our students have to first be developmentally ready to read and write.
• Many students are starting school displaying development age levels of two and a half years to three and a half years. I feel that we are expecting these students to jump over key developmental stages and start reading and writing at the 'expected level' and 'progress rate' by throwing them into 'formal' reading and writing programmes instead of creating programmes that meet their developmental needs.
• There is urgency. If students are already starting school two and a half years behind their peers we need to find the most effective way to accelerate the developmental progress within their first year of school so that they are then ready to learn to read and write. If not, how can we be expecting to accelerate learning to meet the level of their peers further along in their schooling when our students are leaving the 'ready for school' starting blocks two and a half years later than the peers.
• There are lots of programmes out there however, our students, community, school is unique and we need to find what works for our students. We need to create a localised curriculum to meet our student's diverse needs.
• We have an exciting opportunity to create a localised curriculum for our Year 1 classes that meet the needs of our students and accelerates their developmental progress.
• The development of a curriculum programme to meet the needs of our students and accelerate developmental progress will take time to create effectively and sustainably. We will learn about our students and their specific needs, research effective practice that is already out there, create a model that suits our students, whānau and community and share our findings throughout this process.

Therefore, my focus for my inquiry will be 'Creating of an effective learning programme to accelerate the developmental progress of Year 1 students to establish skills for school readiness.