2024 Teaching as Inquiry - Motivating Student Achievement with visible Feedback and Rewards.

My 2024 Teaching as Inquiry project will have a Literacy focus.  As I am undertaking BSLA tier 2 teaching for the first time I will embed my Inquiry within this teaching framework.

My focus group are students who at the beginning of year 2 or 3 have been identified as being well below the expected reading level.  They are 3 male and 1 female year 2’s and 2 female and 1 male year 3’s.  

The problem for these children is that they are not making the accelerated progress required to allow them to reach expected reading levels.  Each of the Year 2 students are over 6yrs of age and are reading at 5yr level - either red or magenta on the PM colour wheel or Kakano BSLA.  All the Year 3 students are well below expectations for their age.

Investigating these akonga have shown that they share a number of common characteristics:

• Low oral language proficiency - these students are either ESOL students or have a reluctant/reserved communication style.
• Limited letter sound knowledge despite previous exposure to this learning. The Year 3 students although having a higher level of letter/sound knowledge display difficulty applying this knowledge to novel words or texts.
• Low rates of attendance.

I have undertaken BSLA progress check testing for all these students to give a record of their starting knowledge and aptitude in application of reading skills. I would also like to record student voice to gauge their levels of engagement to the small group lessons, reading and school in general.  I will also record attendance at each lesson as a further measure of student engagement.

How can I accelerate the reading progress of my group of Tier 2

learners by providing motivating feedback?

I am interested in seeing how I can build the students' engagement and confidence in approaching reading lessons. 

One of the main focuses of Tier 2 BSLA is to build the students fluency and speed at reading and spelling tasks. I would like to trial targeted feedback to allow students to measure their own progress by using wall charts which will record their achievements at specific tasks. Thus allowing the students to see themselves gaining competency as the lessons progress.