Literacy Support

 In 2024 I am working with 18 students from Years 7 & 8 who were assessed at the end of 2023 as having reading ages from 5 .5 to 8.5. All of these students are aged 11 or above.

They are in 3 groups and have either 3 or 4 half hour lessons per week. The groups are based on R.A. so the students with R.As under 7 are together; those with R.As 7 - 7.5 are together and those with R.As 8 - 8.5 are together.

In term one I have focused mainly on skills and strategies using various methods, programmes & activities; taking into account the scope and sequence of BSLA. As always, I have had to establish norms that support the self-esteem and engagement of these students who see themselves as failures as readers.

End of Year Reflection

I have not met with my groups since the end of term 3 as I have been busy with school-wide running record testing.
The good news is that most of the students I was working with, made progress!

Along with the fact that I haven't worked with these students for a term, there are some other factors that I believe had a negative impact on their learning.

1. Poor school attendance 
2. Poor group attendance because of: sport, other events, 'forgetting' to come
3. Group dynamics, including students with difficult behaviour and well developed work-avoidance strategies

The student who made 2 years progress was an English language learner who had a great attitude to learning, and came, on time, every day.

Tweaking

This term I have tweaked what we do in our group time a little bit. One session has been dedicated to learning about a particular spelling/reading pattern and then in the next one or two sessions I have introduced a text so we are also working on comprehension of non-fiction text and learning new vocabulary. The texts have been selected, as much as possible, to link with the school-wide inquiry topic for this term which is “There's Something in the Water”. The students usually play one of my reading games during the fourth session. 

I have moved some students into different groups based on the results of the testing the teachers did last term. It took a few weeks for the new groups to ‘gel’. Most of the students now seem more confident to answer and ask questions than they were earlier in the year.

Testing is underway as teachers prepare to write reports later in the term. 8 of 'my' students have had running records so far administered by their literacy teachers. Of these, 2 passed the comprehension at the next level but failed the decoding; 5 made six months gain and 1 made 12 months gain. 

We have looked at beginning and end blends and are moving on to consonant digraphs - sh, ch, th, shr, thr and wh. We have also started to learn about long vowel sounds where the silent 'e' at the end of words changes the vowel from a 'short' sound to where it says its name.

The students are enjoying playing games that help them to practise these skills. 

Some things to smile about

I have been providing a variety of activities to support overlearning the basics of reading - knowing the 'regular' alphabet sounds and 'short' vowel sounds; 'chunking' bigger words; common suffixes and this week, initial blends.

At our group time on Monday J saw the word 'cartilage' in the text we were beginning to read and initially said, "I don't know that word" - her usual strategy! A moment later she said, "It's 'cartilage". When I asked her how she worked it out, she said that she knew the word 'age' and there was the word 'car' at the beginning and 'til' in the middle!!

In another group, K walked in the door and said he now knows that the 'uh' sound is made by a 'u' not an 'a'.

What can you see? How do you read?

My Focus: 

I want to find out if concentrating on teaching decoding strategies will raise the achievement of readers who have reading ages well below their chronological age.

The Students: 

I am working with 18 students who are in Years 7 & 8, aged 11-12, who are reading between 2 and 4 years below their chronological age. They are in 3 groups. One group works with me for 35 minutes 4 days per week. The other 2 groups have 30 minutes 3 times per week.

The Beginning: 

We have hardly got underway, as this intervention only started last week and then there has been whole school testing going on, often in our time slots, on several days. I have been doing my own testing to find out if they can record initial sounds in unknown words and identify short vowel sounds in 3 - letter words. None of the students have been able to do this with 100% accuracy although 3 students have come very close.  

Next Steps: 

We have begun by practising reading and writing simple words that 'follow the rules', and by playing reading games I have made.

2018 Rev Up

REV UP!

I had just begun reading with 17 Intermediate aged students (11 & 12 year olds) using the ‘Quick 60’ resource REV UP in Term One when a family member experienced an injury that meant I was only able to fulfil some of my already part-time teaching role for the rest of that term! Because of this, this intervention has only been implemented since the beginning of this term. (term 2)

These students come to me for 30 - 40 minute sessions, 3 times a week and mostly at a time that is outside their usual Literacy class time.

December - Summary & Conclusion

All these students had reading ages between 7.5 and 9 years at the end of 2017.

The reading cards in this programme are in 3 parts, of approximately 100 words each. We mainly used the non-fiction texts.

How the programme works:

• The students listen to the first passage being read. 
• They identify unknown vocabulary & concepts which are then unpacked and discussed.
• The students practise reading the passage with the goal of being able to read it fluently and accurately in 60 seconds or less. 
• Each students reads the passage and is timed while doing so, and records the time and errors (if any) on the provided sheet. The group gives feedback about fluency.
• When a passage has been mastered, they move onto the next one using the same structure.
• At the end of each reading card there are questions to check comprehension of the text.

Almost all the students were very engaged by the programme and the texts which were carefully levelled to be of high interest and age appropriate despite being at a lower reading level. Some of the students’ attendance in the groups was sporadic and this was probably the main reason for their lack of progress.

After working with struggling readers in this age group for some years now, a few patterns have become more obvious:

• It’s difficult to break through the 8.5 - 9 year reading age threshold
• While it can appear that progress is being made while working in a supportive group, many of these students don’t test well
• Vocabulary knowledge is very weak, affecting comprehension 

Term One - Finding and Plugging the Gaps!

Finding the gaps has involved, among other things, doing lots of little 'tests' in exercise books using pens and pencils. I have been surprised at how much the students have enjoyed doing these. It has been important to build the culture of being okay with making mistakes as that shows us what we need to learn. 

Some of the learning has involved quick fixes - for example, the short vowel sound of the letter 'u'. But we have spent a surprisingly long time practising our list of 300 basic sight words so we can read them quickly and accurately. The students have embraced the challenge of being timed reading 100 words at a time and then trying to beat their own time the next time!!

One student from this focus group has left our school and another student has been identified as being a suitable replacement and will commence with the group in term two. Poor attendance at school plus sporting and other commitments have encroached on our group time but have allowed for more individualised learning.

I expect that as we dig a bit deeper that the gaps will open up between the students' knowledge and I will need to come up with strategies for managing this. I can already see some increased confidence and risk-taking as the foundations are becoming stronger.   

Starting Out in 2017

The priority learners I will be working with this year are drawn from several Year 7 & 8 classes. They are all Year 8 students who have reading ages of 8 - 8.5 years and are 12 or almost 12 years old as at the beginning of the year. There are 5 students in the group and we meet 4 days a week for 30 minutes during their literacy rotation.

From the end of 2016 running record testing results I discovered that all these students had some struggles with decoding strategies (or lack of them!); vocabulary knowledge; and comprehension at higher levels.

My interventions will involve specific, systematic teaching of decoding strategies from sounds and words that follow regular patterns to those that are irregular and more complex. The students will be introduced to high-interest, non-fiction texts to build vocabulary knowledge and comprehension. 

I expect to spend more time on skill building at the beginning and more time on vocabulary and comprehension as the year progresses.

My goal is for each student to make at least 12 months progress in reading and for there to be some carry-over to other curriculum areas. 

Refreshing

Many of the tutors attended 'refresher' sessions held over 2 days recently. When organising training for tutors I am always conscious that:

          *the tutors are volunteers and have busy lives elsewhere

          *the students benefit most when our programme runs 4x per week

However, from time to time the students are unable to come to reading because of special assemblies or sporting events and these provide an opportunity for tutor-only sessions. Fortunately I was able to take advantage of two such events earlier this month.

It has been encouraging to see (and hear) tutors implementing some of the strategies around decoding that we discussed in our sessions.

We also discussed having a goal of the students ending up with a zero in the box named 'errors', and ways we can make this happen. This idea came from a discussion we had about some notes I had taken from Laughton King's book, Reaching the Reluctant Reader, where he writes about motivation using the analogy of investment and pay-off.

All the tutors who came to the 'refresher' sessions expressed their appreciation for the content and the chance to discuss with one another the issues they have in common in regards to helping our students become successful readers.

Spring!

1st September 

This term is the term when some of the tutors fly away for the winter, to warmer climes! Others have experienced ill-health or had family members needing major surgery. As a result, the students have not always had their usual tutors and this has impacted negatively on the consistency in the programme.

But spring has arrived, and with it, the return of most of the tutors. Yay!!

The focus continues to be on reading mileage with tutors supporting students with decoding problems and comprehension of text. The underlying strength of this programme is always the positive, trusting relationship between tutor and student. By this time of the year, the tutors have a pretty good idea of what each individual student's strengths and weaknesses are in regards to reading and we - the tutors and I - have come up with ways to attempt to 'plug the gaps'.

I have begun to run 'refresher' sessions following on, and adding to, the PD we did in the first term. The emphasis this time is decoding strategies including:

 *short vowel sounds (there is a visual card in the boxes to use to support this)

 *making syllables

 *making words into 'pictures' by drawing around them (for visual learners)

 *using flash cards to promote fast recognition of letters/sounds(for some students only)

Many of our students are making significant progress towards reading @ an age-appropriate level.

What's Happening?

I organised PD for the volunteer tutors in the week that our students were camping on the school grounds in the latter part of term one.
We discussed what we noticed about our readers; some characteristics of dyslexic readers (taken from Laughton King's book "Dyslexia Dismantled" - used by permission); and what we were already doing that seemed to be making a difference.
Most of the tutors came to these sessions, and some shared about dyslexic family members, giving further insight into the struggles that students who find it hard to learn to read face.  
Since then, I have noticed that the conversations I have with tutors about individual students have been more focused on what appears to be happening and what we can try to do about it.
Some things we are working on.
1. Noticing and adjusting our approach with individual students. It's not 'one-size-fits-all'.
2. Revisiting vocabulary for both word recognition and understanding of meaning.
3. Choosing stories with the students that will be engaging.
4. Not assuming they will remember words they have seen before (some students need      hundreds of exposures to a word before it becomes instantly recognisable)
5. Keeping on being patient and celebrating the small improvements in accuracy, fluency  and most importantly, comprehension. 

It's a work in progress!

     

A New Year - A New Inquiry!

Four days a week, for most of the year, volunteers from the community come into our school to support children in Years 5 & 6 whose reading age doesn't match their chronological age. I am the co-ordinator for this programme which is known as Reading Support. Most of the tutors come once a week, some twice, and they spend 15 minutes with each of 4 students. The time is mainly spent reading - that is, the student reading to the adult from texts that have been graded at the appropriate level. However, the conversation between the adult and child is also very important.
This programme has proved effective in raising student achievement in reading over the 20+ years it has been in operation. I feel it could be even more effective if the tutors were given specific training in helping students with learning difficulties. 
While most of the students on Reading Support have not been formally diagnosed with specific learning difficulties, there are clear indicators that this is the case for many of them. I would like to become a more skilled 'reading teacher' myself and to be able to teach the volunteers skills and strategies to become more effective. 

So this is what I am inquiring into this year.
How to recognise whether a child has a specific learning diifficulty, what it is, and what to do about it!

The End of the Journey?

My group finished at the end of term 3 as I have a role with whole school testing in term 4. But I have good news to share - all the students made progress during the year!

Some points to note:
Our group time was in addition to instructional reading with the class teacher.
AE had made no progress in reading for more than 2 years prior to this year.

Reasons for Success
* Less distractions - our group met in a smallish room which we had all to ourselves
* 100% teacher focus - there were no other students for the teacher to 'manage' at the same time
* Time spent building a culture where the students felt safe to show their weaknesses meant that they could ask questions without fear of 'put downs'
* Texts were carefully selected and introduced
* Choral reading gave the students confidence and modelling
* Collaborative follow-up tasks provided support and success
* ???

I will almost certainly be working again next year with some of the same students and I am confident that continuing with, and further refining these strategies, is the way to go!

Term 3 Update

Update

In term 3 I looked for texts that were related to our school-wide inquiry ‘Trade and Enterprise’. We also read some texts about leisure activities such as caving. Mostly we started with School Journals then moved on to online texts, newspaper articles and videos.

I found that the students had little prior knowledge to draw on so I did lots of gifting of language and filling in the gaps. However, one student had some ‘lightbulb’ moments when he realised that he had seen something on Discovery Channel about the topic and was able to relate it to the group. 

The students have started to use their imagination after having this modelled for them from the beginning!

There were some excellent clips online relating to some of our texts and the students were very engaged when watching them. They generated comments and discussion. Sometimes they wanted to watch these repeatedly - it’s easier to watch and listen than to read!

I realised that while earlier in the year the students were inclined to waste time when they used their devices, but by term 3 they were much more likely to stay on task. 

We have mostly continued to read texts aloud together. At times students have spontaneously read captions or snippets of information out loud for others, especially when looking online, or from newspaper articles that I have found relating to our topic.

I have presented students with purpose-made follow-up activities more often in term 3. The students have engaged with these and chosen to work collaboratively most of the time. I have included activities involving reorganising information and finding evidence to support statements.

On reflection, there has been a shift in engagement and skill level. I am encouraged!

What I have learnt in term 2

We have been reading about natural (and some man-made) disasters.

Texts have included Learning Media resources, newspaper items, and some internet articles & clips.

1. Orientation is very important for providing a foundation/framework for content learning. 

2. Understanding of vocabulary is crucial

These students don’t just struggle with text specific vocabulary but other vocabulary as well

Glossaries have been very useful but often not extensive enough

We have needed to revisit vocabulary regularly to embed

Making our own glossary has contributed to greater understanding of text content

3. Follow-up activities are best done collaboratively

These students need to practise locating information in specific texts rather than a wide range

Not always necessary for every text (+ time issue)

One student has graduated from the group having made 2 years progress in reading in 6 months!! The rest of the group have made at least six months progress in six months, except 1 student who has made no progress in the past 2 years.

Term 2 Week 6

There is some progress to report!

1. Student attendance has improved both at school and at our group time. Individual points with a prize after every 100 points might be a factor!

2. We have been reading about natural disasters this term (the topic ‘triggered’ by the earthquakes in Nepal) with all the students interested and engaged.

3. All but the shyest student are contributing questions and answers freely.

Vocabulary comprehension presents the biggest challenge to all the students. They are very dependent on me for help with this. We are building up lists of words as we come across them in our reading and talking about what they mean. I know when a word such as ‘debris’ is understood when a student uses it appropriately!

So my next challenge is to help the students to find ways to help themselves.

Term One Inquiry Presentation

When I reflected on how far we had come in term one, the picture was not as rosy as I had hoped for. But I was encouraged to see that for some students our group was providing a safe place to learn ways of accessing the help they need in order to get information from non-fiction texts.

Here’s an update on how it’s going.

It has been difficult to get the flow going due to timetabling issues with whole school testing, then swimming lessons, a tag competition... and more.

But, yesterday one student apologised for calling out the question that had popped into his head while he was reading. When I told him that in our group he was welcome to call it out, he smiled broadly! 

The engagement is still more behavioural than cognitive. I have moved from class to individual points with a goal of being able to choose a ‘lucky dip’ prize when they achieve 100 points. I give points for any contribution to discussion of text and even to tangential comments if they are developed. The students are beginning to help each other by filling in the gaps and asking their own questions. Most of them are happier to come to their group time than they were at the beginning. 

Getting Started

Last week I started with a group of seven students  from 3 different Year 7 & 8 classes. They are all reading well below chronological age - the students are aged from 10 years 9 months to 11 years 11 months as @ 1st February but reading @ 8 - 8.5 years. These students do literacy with their class and my programme is an added extra. 

So far I have experienced a wide range of engagement, from one student who complains each time about coming, takes a long time to come (even though he only has to walk 10 metres!) and then settle in to what we are doing; to students who are keen to come (maybe to get out of doing other class work) but are quiet and passive.

I am trying to get to know the students individually and as a group. I have worked with some of them in the past, but not all of them.

The plan is for the group to meet for four half hour sessions per week.

Lots of talking is happening!  I want our kawa to be that our learning is collaborative so we need to help and support one another positively. I am ensuring that everyone is being heard and their contribution is respected. I am providing positive feedback for every attempt to answer or ask questions. I have found out about some of their interests so I can look for resources that are interesting and motivating.

When we read, we all read the text aloud (including me) with frequent stops to discuss language and vocabulary. I am doing lots of gifting. At this stage it is all about it being positive and do-able.