Composing an inquiry question.

 How can I accelerate the reading progress of learners with low phonological awareness?

This is the question which will guide my inquiry in 2021.  After observing and collecting data on my new entrants this term I have been able to refine my inquiry focus.  I will address one of the three issues identified in my previous blog which I suspected were a barrier to the reading achievement of my learners.  Phonological awareness.  All the teachers in team 1 will be collaborating to raise the phonological awareness of their learners with slightly different focus.

I have researched the development in phonological awareness in the emergent learner and it is developed though the ability to blend and segment oral language (The Reading Book p 24). In previous years I have planned my phonics teaching on the letter sounds (phoneme's) however the literature indicates that some children may not be developmentally ready for this.  For this group it is suggested that explicit teaching is required to assist the learners to hear words in sentences, syllables and finally individual phonemes.

What I will be doing.

I will be addressing this through explicit instruction in hearing the parts of oral language, words in sentences, rhyme, and letter sounds.

This will be done through using games, songs, poems, repeat after me games.  These will be introduced during mat times for whole class instruction and during reading rotation with target students.

One of the games is called Pound the sound - the learners segment into sounds and then blend into a whole word.  Here is a video of Ms Hockly introducing pound the sound to Room 13 and 17.

More games can be found here. Reading rockets

I have started introducing rhyme through my choice of shared reading texts and by writing our own poems during writing time on Fridays.  We do a pair-share about a topic (usually shared experience) and I record the students thoughts on the board.  We then write a short poem with rhyming words we discovered in our korero, e.g yummy, tummy.

I will also be utilising Engage games to strengthen the learners memory skills and ability to remain focused.  This will help them to stay attentive to text when reading, and aid in the noticing of changes in repetitive emergent texts.

My target learners - Initial data collection Term 1.

This table displays the initial data set for my targeted learners.

Letter knowledge (ID and sound) were tested upon entry and after 5 weeks of schooling.

An oral language measure was also undertaken at 5 weeks which measured the students ability to accurately repeat 14 short simple sentences.

A measure of working memory was estimated by the students ability to copy a colour pattern made with blocks.  Students were given 10 seconds to view the pattern and reproduce it.  Most students could reproduced a three colour pattern, but failed at 4 (<4). A denotes absent for testing.

	Letter knowledge	Letter	ROL	Memory	Attendance Term 1
Weeks at school	T1.  Wk 1/2	T1.  Wk 6	T1.  Wk 6	T1.  Wk8
Student Aa	9	18	100%	<4	96%
Student Jj	5	13	92%	<4	94%
Student Nn	3	16	57%	<4	95%
Student Ll	2	9	78%	A	76%
Student Rr	11	22	78%	A	78%
Student Cc	0	4	28%	<2	56%