Planning my Teaching Inquiry 2021

 

 

In setting my 2021 Inquiry topic I was aware of a problem that had concerned me in 2020.  A small number of learners had made very slow or minimal progress in reading over their time at school.  The reading data at the end of 2020 showed that the achievement of learners was either good progress, as would be expected in a 'normal year'  or well below expected levels.  There was a sizeable disparity between these groups.  Given the disruptions to learning which occurred in 2020 it appeared that some of my students had missed some important foundation knowledge, and I assumed this was contributing to them failing to make the desired progress. 

By looking at the the group of students who were assessed as below I found some commonalities.

1. Frequent absenteeism - in addition to lockdowns which in total was a loss of 1 term of face to face learning.  A number of children did not immediately return to school and had sporadic attendance over the year.

2. Low levels of phonetic knowledge which has not been solidified early in their reading progression.

3. Issues with memory, auditory and visual issues.

So as I embark on teaching in 2021 I will be looking out for students who are also showing these characteristics.  My initial hunch is that I will need to address all of these factors in order to improve the reading progression of all my students.

In the first instance I will attempt to ...

1.  Build relationships with parents and learners, so tamariki want to come to school and whanau feel comfortable sending them.  They must be able to trust that their child is safe and happy.

2. Explicit teaching of graphemes and phonemes, blending and segmenting words. 

3. Strengthen visual (noticing) skills,  auditory (listening) skills and memory.