RFE Holiday Challenge...

At the end of last term I challenged our student leadership team to create and manage a holiday reading challenge. The students who accepted the challenge are all working towards a CARE badge, an initiative where our Year 7 and 8 students use our school CARE values of confidence, attitude, respect and excellence to strengthen their leadership skills. 

Our RFE challenge is running on a similar format to the Summer Learning Journey and is 100% student led. Creating this challenge has created another opportunity for the LS2 students to read for enjoyment. What has been exciting to watch is who has participated and what they have posted on their blogs, even more amazing was the interaction that took place in the blog comments! 38% of our class took part in this challenge which may look like a low number, but in my mind that's 38% of our class that I know of who made time to read for enjoyment over the holiday break. I love the fact this student created, student led and student managed challenge was a success! 

This time I did not comment on any blogs as it wasn't about my input. I wanted to see if we had genuine buy in for RFE instead of 'I'd better do this as Mrs Anderson is checking our work'. If we run this again I would encourage the leaders to send out daily whole class motivational emails to inspire more people to join in and to maintain the momentum. Capturing student voice when we get back to school will give us some real and honest feedback that we can use to strengthen this idea going forward.

I would like to say a huge thank you to our awesome student leaders who created and ran this challenge without any teacher intervention, and to our awesome students who kept their learning going by reading for enjoyment and completing the follow up tasks.

Have a look at Chisa, Farzana and Fotu's blog posts to see this challenge from the student's perspective. 

Causal Chain... A tool for planning and reflecting...

This year I want to find out if a focus on Reading for Enjoyment increase student self efficacy and capability in Reading? Creating a causal chain helps you to stay focused on the purpose of your teacher inquiry. It is so easy to fall down many rabbit holes along the way so having a causal chain to look back on helps to keep you on track. My biggest takeaway from looking at a variety of readings is 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. 

Looking back at my causal chain I realise my students are seen as readers through our Leaders in the Library initiative, through sharing reading tips at our school assemblies and by actively reading for enjoyment in the classroom. It is important that my learners see themselves as readers too so I have made a point of capturing all of this in photos which are clearly displayed in our classroom. However when I look back at my causal chain I can see that because I'm always taking photos I have not been allowing my learners to consistently see me as a reader. As we approach Term 3 I know exactly what my goal is... make sure my learners see me as a reader too.

Link to causal chain

Toolkit: “I only read if I have to": How to change mindsets inside and outside school."

Last term Dr Naomi Rosedale invited me to join her in presenting a toolkit about the benefits of Reading for Pleasure and why it is so important to change mindsets inside and outside school. 

The link to our screen recording is here

Professional Readings...

Reading for Pleasure — A Door to Success...

Link to original text

'Aside from the sheer joy of exercising the imagination, research shows reading for pleasure improves literacy, social skills, health, and learning outcomes.' The National Library Trust (UK), defines reading for pleasure as 'Reading we do of our own free will, anticipating the satisfaction we will get from the act of reading.' There are a number of benefits of RFE that are identified by the National Library article, Reading for pleasure — a door to success, but I would like to highlight the fact that RFE helps to develop positive attitudes towards reading and increases self efficacy, which as we know breeds success in reading and across a wider range of learning areas. If you feel you're good at something you’re more prepared to engage.

• Opportunity for choice = motivation
• Frequency, duration and increases reading mileage
• Stimulates imagination
• Academic success 
• Engagement
• Stronger social and oral skills
• Positive reading attitudes
• Self-confidence as a reader

The students we teach now 'will need literacy to feed their imaginations, so they can create the world of the future.'

Why is reading for pleasure important?

Link to original article

Books and reading transform lives and enrich our communities. Research cited in this article also shows that reading for pleasure at school is strongly influenced by relationships between teachers and children, and children and families. Parents are influential in developing early reading for enjoyment, and if books are valued from a young age, this is likely to continue. We need to take a collective and collaborative approach across school and community. Exposure to a wide vocabulary helps children absorb and connect to information across the curriculum. 

The Benefits of Reading for Pleasure

Link to original text

'When a reader is lost in a book... it develops the capacity to engage... visualise meanings, relate to characters, and participate in making meaning.... it develops the capacity to experience the world from other perspectives' 

One idea I took from this article that will help me promote RFE is to be seen as a fellow reader by my students. The idea shared here was to put up a sign eg: “Mrs A is reading _____.” The article suggested I share not only texts I choose to read for pleasure but also suggests I share that I am reading the texts my students like to read to help to foster informal opportunities for us to talk about a wider variety texts. My biggest takeaway from these readings is 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. 

Implement and Try #1: Leaders in the Library...

Last week during my weekly catch up with our student leaders, we discussed ways we can inspire others to read for enjoyment. After talking through a couple of a suggestions we all decided one way we could do this was to offer a weekly lunchtime reading opportunity. The plan is to invite one class a week on a Monday to join the leaders in the library for story time. There is no formal plan as we want this to be organic and evolve naturally.

To set ourselves up for success we introduced the Leaders in the Library idea to the school at our weekly assembly. Room 7, our Year 2 students were the first class to be invited. Even though I'm pretty sure they didn't fully understand, Room 7 were very excited to hear they had been chosen as the first class to take part. To keep the momentum going we will be announcing the name of the class who will be invited to join us each week at assembly. 

Fast forward to today... The students of Room 7 were invited to join our Leaders in the Library group for story time. Some students wanted to have a story read to them 1:1, some preferred having a story read to them with their friends in the same small group, and others want to read the book to one of our leaders themselves. My total input to this initiative was to unlock the library and take photos. Our amazing student leaders took control and created the most welcoming and relaxing reading environment. When I walked back into the library after chatting to a colleague I saw one of our Year 8 students helping one of our younger learners to choose a book. She was asking him all sorts of questions to understand what type of story he enjoyed so she could help him choose the 'perfect' book. Dotted all over the library were pairs or small groups of Year 2 students enjoying exploring stories with our Year 8 students. What truly amazed me even more was that apart from the murmur of the reading together session, there was absolutely no need for any behaviour reminders. All the students who were there wanted to be there. 

A shared love of books was the connection these students had today despite being a number of years apart in age. I did have to smile at my class who decided after reading the books they would have low key 'learning conversations' with their new reading buddies to check their understanding of the story and talk about the characters. I am excited to see where this goes as the experience was empowering for everyone involved.  

Qu 4: Collecting evidence and data...

Begin to collect evidence and data and come to the next session ready to share your preliminary findings about the nature and extent of the student challenge i.e. using your baseline student data and evidence.

Developing an intrinsic motivation to want to read for enjoyment is not something my learners will achieve on their own. To do this successfully we need to develop a class culture where reading for enjoyment is seen as the norm. Because of this, I have chosen to show a snapshot of whole class of the student data. To select only a small group wouldn't give me a true picture of the change I hope to facilitate. The presentation below is an analysis of our time point 1 data and paints a clear picture where we are at now.

Click here to access the presentation

From this analysis I am now aware that 29% of my Year 7 students are reading at 1.5 years + below their chronological ages, and 49% students 2.5 years + reading below chronological age. Historical data shows me there are no surprises with the Year 8 data. I do believe that the last two years of disruptions to learning due to Covid is one of the main reasons these students are continuing to struggle with reading. Many of these students did not engage with online learning and for some, continued absences this year are proving to be having an impact on their learning.

When looking at the vocabulary section of the e-asTTle writing the data between the reading ages and vocab scores in Year 8 aligns. These students are not being exposed to a wider range of vocabulary as they are not engaging in reading outside of the instructional lessons in class. I am surprised at the Year 7 results as the data shows 85% of our Year 7 students are below the expected level in vocabulary.

Sometimes the starting point is harsh to look at, however looking forward, a focus on reading for enjoyment will hopefully become a catalyst in effecting the changes in these levels I hope to see.

Mood and Emotions in Poetry and Art...

Last week Dianne and I introduced our learners to the way authors use words to evoke mood and emotions in poetry. We used ANZAC poems as this was both timely and sets us up for success in our upcoming unit. We began by asking our students to choose three emotions then match them to a colour before sharing their reasons for these colour choices with with their groups.

The challenge was to read each poem then respond to the questions below that were guided by feedback from Dr Aaron Wilson at our last PD session. We did the first poem together as a class. This was very much a guided teaching time. Our students then worked their way through the DLO below, choosing the order they read and responded to the poems in. 

• Use the highlighter tool to match a colour to the emotion or mood the words make your feel. 

• How did the poem make you feel?
• What words did the author use to make you feel a certain way?
• Did you want to feel this way?

Ours students were given the choice of who they worked with and were asked to share their thinking throughout the lesson with their peers. The time for talk allowed for ideas to be shared and gave our learners the opportunity to learn with and from each other.

The presentation below is the teaching DLO we used. 

Link to Presentation

To reinforce and strengthen connections to mood and emotion, Dianne took an art lesson that focused on Kadinsky's concentric circles. This encouraged our students to respond to the mood and emotions that listening to the instrumental music evoked. What amazes me is the difference in the colours chosen by each student. This makes me excited to see how our learners will respond to the tasks in the upcoming reading unit.