BSLA Conference Day 1

 Over the next three terms, I will be working through the University of Cantebury to become a trained BSLA (a structured literacy approach for reading) teacher. I am excited to continue this process as I spent some time during term 1 trialing the year 4 program before it was released to be used more widely. 

Here is a brief overview of the notes that I took during day 1 of our conference at the Waipuna Conference Centre. 

Day 1:

Morning Introduction: 

10 weeks of teaching (term ¾?)

UN: Target Goal 4.6 All youth achieving literacy by 2030

Children’s literacy achievement is strongly related to educational success and well-being

-need to accelerate learner needs

-extend exceptional learning capacities

Systematic and explicit teaching approaches (IDA 2019) evidence based approaches for dyslexic students

Year 4-8 Breakout

Oral Language         Reading         Writing

Communication Skills Word Recognition Transcription

Language and Reading Comp. Comp. Composition

                Critical Analysis         Writing Processes

Assessment; Dibels ORF,  Dibels Maze (ASAP and again at 20 weeks) and PhoM

Excellence in Assessment Practices 

Valid and reliable assessments to monitor students’ growth and celebrate success

In 10 weeks….who is tracking who needs support who needs extending?

Focus on what children can achieve and then identify next steps for learning.

Why are we using the assessments we are using? Above: Guides for Assessment Selection 

BSLA Assessment Website: still be developed for yr 4-8

Year 4-8 Assessment:

Oral Reading Fluency (ORF):

• Assess students’ ability to read connected text with speed and accuracy

• 60 seconds measured individually

• Scoring=words correct per minute and accuracy percentage

Maze: 

• Assess students’ ability to reason through a passage and select the most appropriate word to fil in blanks

• 3 minutes measure administered individually or in groups

• Scoring= number of words correct minus ½ the number of words correct. 

Grade Administered Should be:  Year - Minus 1 year

Middle passage for baseline and end for the 20 week assessment

After analysing all testing data (colour coding)

Then total number of green & Blue scores 

At least 50% of the whole class teaching at year level

What assessments should we do in the next week or two? ORF and MAZE then compare with PAT scores keeping in mind current reading levels 

PhoM Assessment

Purpose: 

-Track progress over time before/after taumata (and after 30 weeks of teaching)

-3 taumata a year

-Recognise strengths in knowledge and next steps for learning

-Ensure teaching remains responsive and targeted

Assessment Schedule:

For kids who score in the “red band” give them the year 3 spelling screener and input their data into the assessment website and follow the action plan there (score analysis)

Making Music with Suno AI

 As part of the Maniakalani Cluster Create PD, I attended a workshop led by Fiona Grant (Manaiakalani Facilitator) about using the AI program Suno. We had fun exploring what key words to add into the program to have a song created by the AI. I then, took my song and embedded it into Adobe Express Animator to have an avatar sing my created song. Here is my final project. 

The video below is from Suno and shows the lyrics to the song. 

Manaiakalani PD: TOD Create

To finish off a very informative day we had create workshops. In this time, Clarelle and I shared ways in which we create with our student in Literacy and in responding to or engaging with texts. 

What I really enjoy about this time is have a chance to share practical examples of what we are actually doing in our classrooms. I love poetry and it was great to share that with others. 

Manaiakalani PD: Quality Learning Circles

 It is always great to hear from the Manaiakalani Research team about how our students are progressing in their learning. It was also very nice to be able to meet up with a small group of teachers from across our cluster to discuss our reading programs. 

Here is a slide summary of our time together. 

RPI Session 1: Reading is Core to Learning

 RPI Session 1: Reading is Core to Learning

Connecting with Manaiakalani

Focus of Reading is a founding part of the Manaiakalani Learn, Create, Share pedagogy. Manaiakalani has made making a difference in literacy a priority over all the years. We recognise that the gap of non-readers to access the curriculum (especially at higher levels of learning) needs to be condensed. It is so essential that our students experience acceleration (more than one year progress) in order to allow for that learning gap to continually shrink (and not grow) from year to year.  It is important to recognise that teaching reading is an art that is necessary in order to understand and access the curriculum across all subject areas. Using the Learn, Create, Share pedagogy along with effective teaching practice, students will make accelerated progress on average of 1.5 years in Reading (and Maths) and 2 years in Writing. It is very important to remember that this is NOT about using a digital device.

What characterises a good reader?

We were provided with 2 minutes to come up with our list. The red and yellow highlights are what I added after our two minute brainstorming session. 

• Checks for understanding while reading 

• Actively makes meaning when coming across unknown words/phrases and across many different texts

• Makes connections between the text and things they already know in order learn about a topic

• Good readers are confident readers who continually grow in their own self efficacy. 

• Participate in a community of readers for enjoyment (newly added in the curriculum) and are impacted by the emotions we are experiencing while reading. 

• Reading for a variety of purposes: Organise ideas and information for learning, Acquiring and using information from reading to inform and acquire knowledge from informative texts. 

• Good readers use strategies: predict, visualise, connect, monitor, questions, clarifies, evaluates

• Students who read more widely, are more likely to be making progress in their reading and overall learning. 

Being a Role Model: Teachers as Readers

What do you do as a reader? Do you share this with your students? What am I doing as a teacher to share/recommend books with my students?

Reading Across the Curriculum

Reading is a core part of all areas of the curriculum and we need to ensure that we are directly teaching how to read for understanding in each subject area. Our learners need opportunities to learn about things and make connections. For example, linking the topic culturally, scientifically, extending the ideas they already have and making sure that it makes sense when integrating the curriculum into reading specifically. It was great to take some time to look into the teaching practice of Robyn Anderson from Panmure Bridge School and how she was able to increase student engagement and self-efficacy when presenting them with a cross-curricular experience that led to student ownership. Robyn stated on her blog, “If we are to develop reading for pleasure habits in students we need a collective and collaborative approach that allows our tamariki to see role models at school and at home who value reading.”

The Importance of Discussion About a Text

First of all, establish ground rules that are explicitly taught protocols for talk. Perhaps have a “toss and talk” session, after establishing ground rules, where students are asked a question that also includes a response “My name is…” or “My favourite book is….because….” and step it up as time goes on by giving a provocation “Dogs are better than cats. Do you agree or disagree and why?” Students know that they only talk when they have the ball. It is important to emphasise that students should be able to use the language from the text when sharing. 

How to Grow Good Readers: The Manaiakalani Reading Model

What goes into designing learning with the end in mind to be sure that we are doing the best for our students? The teacher needs to plan for ambitious outcomes and to use diverse texts to provide our learners with a diverse view of the world. Working with our students to delve into and question what they are reading, that will allow the students to design rich create tasks that showcase their learning that they are excited to share with others. It is important to note that planning for ambitious outcomes is incorporated into each area of the Reading Model. 

Investigate Research

After reading the The National Reading Panel Report -  by Shanahan - “Practical Advice for Teachers“, we were asked to designate a direct quote that resonated for us. The quote from the text that I chose was, “"Finally, it should be noted that in most studies,  these reading comprehension strategies were  taught with a substantial amount of intensive  instruction. If students were being taught  to summarize, summarization was the focus  of daily lessons for several weeks with  plenty of explanation and varied practice." My personal take home for this quote is simply that higher level reading strategies are not something that is learnt after one lesson...consistency is key.

Pulling it all together

It is important that we think about the pillars and how we are actively implementing each of them into our planning. 

Overall Reflections: 

Today was very enjoyable with a lot of information shared. It was a great reminder of things that I know I need to include in my reading programme. It was also a great morning for building personal self-efficacy in my own teaching practice of reading. One thing I would like to do better this year is incorporating more opportunities for my students to read across the curriculum, especially those who are reading at or just below grade level.  I think it is important to share with the wider school community the notion that it is ok (and evidence proves to be best practice) to cover a reading strategy for a number of reading sessions until you ensure that you students have a good independent grasp of that topic as I learnt when reading the article during our “Investigate Research” session.  I would love to start back up our reading tuakana teina programme with the year 1 students as we did last year, and maybe see about having some of our students read with the Year 2 students as well.  However, on the flip side, it would be fun to have some of our Year 6 or ⅞ students do some buddy time with our year 4 students in the library as well (or even getting them to read with our Year 4 students who are still well below grade level in reading).