High Expectation Teaching - A Reflection on Flexible Groupings, Literacy

"within-class ability grouping has several disadvantages related to the differentiation of learning opportunities, potential for negative effects on student self-esteem for both high and low achievers, and the creation of a hierarchy in which students perceive those in higher-ability groups as being more valued by the teacher. ( Rubie-Davies, 2015, p133)"

One of the learning highlights for me this year has been having the privilege of attending The University of Auckland's Leaders Influencing Teachers' High Expectations (LITHE) course lead by Christine Rubie-Davies.

The above quote from Rubie-Davies book Becoming a High Expectation Teacher-Raising the Bar, struck such a chord with me. Maybe, this is because I am someone that went through an ability streamed high school in a low ability grouping, a have felt first hand the effects of this.

This course challenged my beliefs and practices in a profound way. It made me look at my own expectations of students, especially those that you are not always aware of, and question why I teach the way I do.

A question that was raised was why we use the ability 'reading group teaching' that is entrenched in New Zealand Junior classrooms. Teachers take groups of students based on the level they reading at on the colour wheel, their groups are displayed for classroom management purposes, students read books at that level and are taught the skills related to working at that level. Although some students shift groups as they progress (or drop behind), the groupings are fairly fixed year to year. This is something us Junior teachers have taken pride in for decades. However, is this working for all our students, especially the context of our Manaiakalani Schools? Is there a better way?

So, I took a risk.

I had stopped displaying lists of reading groups years ago, however still grouped according to colour wheel levels.

Last Term this ended. I knew at what level my students were working at but didn't group them accordingly. I used this knowledge to deliver direct acts of teaching for the individual within a mixed ability grouping session.

• We dove deeper into the comprehension of the text, exposing lower level readers to comprehension strategies that could have possibly only have been taught to higher ability groups.
• Used elements of the text to explicitly teach skills and knowledge, through teachable moments, to those students with lower reading levels e.g. phonics, chunking. 
• I reinforced decoding strategies that all students need reminding of like rereading the sentence.
• Made sure the use of mixed media provided on the class site, and classroom activities supported all students to access and make meaning of the text e.g. audio available, shared reading with the big book, language experience activities related to the text, vocabulary work, explain everything supporting activities that were suitable for targeting individual learning needs.
• Students had a choice about texts they wanted to read, which group they wanted to work in.
• Whole class teaching was used as well as workshops and guided reading sessions.

The observations I made in class were:

• The increase in motivation.
• Students choosing to read more difficult texts.
• Lots of talk, students helping each other, and discussions about their learning.
• A transfer of communication skills and explanation of thinking from DIMC to Literacy.
• A love of working independently, and excitement about accessing the class site for resources.

But did this reflect the end of Term data?

So what this data shows is, yes for students that were below or just below the expected level. For these students,  'what I had been doing up until this point wasn't working for them.' Therefore I am really pleased with this result in having changed practice my practice.

However, it was interesting that my students at Purple and Gold Level had plateaued. To some degree, this often happens at gold level after rapidly picking up decoding strategies, and then focusing on the deeper comprehension strategies. I am not settling for this though and plan to focus on accelerating their learning this Term by integrating Inquiry throughout Literacy.

Also, the data of those students that finished reading recovery, students with additional needs, and those that have truancy issues, indicated that more specific instruction needs to be done for these learners. These students have become my focus group for Term 4.

Overall, I am more than pleased with the shifts in data for the majority of my students as well as the observations and classroom culture I am seeing. I will keep on using the LITHE model, however, I will also focus on an ALL programme for those students that are well below the expected level. Also, it is important that those students that are above the expected level are extended.

References:

Rubie-Davies, C. (2015) Becoming A High Expectation Teacher, Raising The Bar. Routledge, Oxon.