23/05/2025 Planning Reading For The Wider Programme Of Learning

 23/05/2025 Planning Reading For The Wider Programme Of Learning

We began the day with going into our breakout groups where we discussed how how reading groups went. it was good to hear of others' experiences with this. We then posted examples of our planning for this and it was helpful to see different ways to approach this. Nicole's post was particularly helpful:

Dorothy then spoke about Class Sites and the concept of ubiquitous learning. I work at Ōtaki College and we already have an excellent set up where students can easily access our school portal and from there can access our class sites which take the students to their daily learning.  

Naomi then explored planning a reading programme including sustaining and maintaining. I'll keep returning to this chart to ensure I'm on track and to give me ideas:

This statement is also a great reminder of where reading focus should be:

I was relieved to hear from Kiri's presentation that I'm only expected to implement reading apprenticeship groups based on a long text 3+ times a term with my year 9's, as I was struggling with the concept of doing this weekly as well as trying to teach everything I need to teach:

Kiri then gave us some great ideas about timetabling, and tracking students' work. I started using a student mahi tracker recently and it has proven to keep the students accountable for the work they've done. I need to make sure I work this into my daily/weekly routine. 

Naomi then introduced us to independent activities including Digital Reading Apps. At Ōtaki College for year 9 and up we are using Education Perfect and Writer's Toolbox. I'm very keen to explore 'ReadWorks' more and at this stage could see myself using the question sets (also good to use for relief lessons), human voice audio, assignments, reading mindset, snapshots, boost and challenge articles and  paired texts.

In a breakout group Janet guided us through the idea of  Read-Like-Writers, Write-Like-Readers and various techniques to enable this. One of the most important of these techniques is reading for inference. I have been focussing on this in class as my PAT reading results showed this was a major weakness in my students' reading. Multi-choice questions are also another excellent technique, and especially good practise for the CAA Reading exam. 

Kiri then gave us an example of professional reading and we then looked for examples of techniques used. I found identifying the techniques quite difficult but feel reasonably confident using the metacognitive techniques listed in the bookmark:

Janet then took us through building strategies for inferencing. This chart provides an excellent overview teaching reading comprehension

We then practised planning some think aloud strategies on a text of our choice. I chose Apirana Taylor's poem, 'Sad Joke on a Marae'. This text will actually be too short for a full reading session but would be excellent to use as an introduction to read aloud texts with the students. I'll certainly be able to use this as a part of the 'Tūrangawaewae' unit that I'm currently doing with my year 9 students. 

  

                                                        

02/05/2025 Day 4 Guided reading (and comprehension)

We began the day in our breakout groups, discussing our progress with our reading activities. Most of us are in the same boat with being pushed for time. Our discussion had a few interesting ideas such as Liam using the letter his Great-Grandfather wrote after his first day on the front line of WW1, as a resource.

Our next topic was 'Reading Apprenticeships', (formerly known as 'Guided Reading'), with the focus on small groups of readers. I have already sorted my class into reading groups based on their literacy abilities.

 
This model will be of great help:

We then looked at examples of a Digital Modelling Book and Teaching Slides to be used for reading activities. I'll be using the Teaching slides.

I'll be using these excellent prompts in my reading lessons:

Next, we went into breakout groups but I joined the wrong one and couldn't return to the group I was meant to be in. However, I learnt bout a very effective observation form to use when students are reading aloud and this can certainly be used with my year 9's.

Our next focus was on fluency. We did an activity based on the fluency rubric. This was a helpful activity which helped me to focus on the different aspects of fluency. 

Next we focussed on the 'after reading teacher process'. The aim is to be conversational but focussed on the purpose of reading. Using a range of questions is vital. These should be a mix of the following type of questions:

• Literal 
• Vocabulary
• Reorganisation 
• Inference 
• Evaluation
• Opinion

I need to make sure I use a variety of questions instead of only using two or three different types.

My next task was to start filling in the teaching slides that I'll be using for my small group reading activity. I'll be using Janet Frame's poem 'Tūrangawaewae' as my text. 

We then went into small breakout groups to practice reading and questioning, using bookmarked questions. We all found this a bit awkward as hadn't met each other before but conversation soon freely flowed with many valuable questions and answers happening. I'll certainly keep the bookmarked questions handy for such activities. 

Again, todays session had much valuable information and many valuable techniques that I'll be attempting to incorporate into my teaching and lessons.