Update and thanks

Achievement Challenge 5

Improve the achievement of students with additional needs in the learning areas of English/key competency using language symbols and texts


My Inquiry


Will using fine-grained assessments improve teacher capacity for setting appropriate goals for students who fail to register on standardised tests?


This year :
I have had the opportunity to assess student with additional needs in several COL schools using a variety of assessment tools not normally used in mainstream classes.


A lot of our students with additional needs often dont measure on normal assessment tools eg Asttle, Running records


We need detailed information to identify our students needs and strengths.


This year I have found some interesting common themes across several student I have assessed


These common themes include:


Auditory sequential and visual sequential improved sequential memory can help improve your child’s reading skills.
Auditory sequential and visual sequential memory skills are the ability to remember things seen and heard in sequence.

Visual Sequential Memory is the ability to remember visual details in the correct sequence.


Auditory memory involves being able to take in information that is presented orally, to process that information, store it in one's mind and then recall what one has heard. Involves the skills of attending, listening, processing, storing, and recalling.


Visual Tracking – The ability to look at something and follow it as it moves or the ability to track a line, such as in reading. Visual tracking issues may also cause difficulty in math. Students may have difficulty lining up numbers vertically or horizontally.


My observations

• Teachers are working extremely hard out there ! 
• More of the same “stuff” won’t work 
• What's the goal - learning the student needs 
• We need to be working smarter not harder – and the way to do that is to know what the strengthen and gaps are of our students and so we can support these. 

My inquiry continues ; to look at best practise to support these learners with their specific goals.


One of the aspects I believe will have a significant impact on these learners is to:


Learn - create  -share : The Create aspect needs to be more of a focus especially for our students with additional needs eg hands on manipulative materials, fine motor skills
And the ARTS curriculum is often where these students flourish. 

If I could encourage one additional skill for all our students

· Asking for help or admitting you don't know or don’t understand
- this is for our students and our teachers.


If we want to encourage our students to recognise when they don’t know something or they need to ask for help or know how to find the answer


– then as teachers we need to model the same thing – we as teachers can’t know everything!!Also remember we are all life long learners so remember ask for help and support from our Colleagues 


I would like to take this opportunity to thank the teachers and Senior Management of the Manaiakalani school I have worked with and those who allowed me to assess their awesome students.

Thanks.

Our working memory

Asking for help!

A vital skill for our students  to learn is how and when to ask for help.

The best way to model this is to show them that even as teachers we need to find out answers to things we don’t know and ask for help too.

In order to improve our own knowledge we need to ask for help from others or learn where to find the answers.

Isn’t that one of the reasons our COL exist, to share and learn from each other.

When was the last time you asked for help or talked to your students about this very important skill?

Be a life long learner and ask for help!

Let's put the CREATE - in Learn Create Share

DID YOU KNOW?

Drawing activities allow students to explore color, line curvature, length and direction, how lines can be used to draw shapes and shapes can be combined in different ways to make patterns and represent people, animals and objects.

Drawing helps children to develop the  visual-spatial skills needed for mathematics. Pattern making is also an important aspect of developing mathematical ideas in young children.  

Fine motor activities and handwriting tasks

As a student performs handwriting exercises, you will begin to notice a difference in their  visual perception and fine motor development.

Additional benefits may include the following:

• You will be able to identify fine-motor problems                     
• You will improve tracking, retention and pencil grip                  
• You will help your child establish dominance
• You will improve their visual-motor skills, crossing the midline and hand-eye coordination
• You will provide more opportunities for sensory-motor development.

Music

Music engagement is an excellent way to encourage brain development in our students. Music has the ability to activate many different areas of the brain at once, such as areas associated with language, memory, hearing, and areas used to process sensory information. 

Music  is an excellent way to do educational activities in a fun and motivating way.

I have personally witnessed several times student who really talk or have communication challenges begin to sing.

Music can help stimulate your student’s brain in different ways, dance can help develop fine motor skills, and drama teaches emotions and problem-solving. 

Dance is important in education. The acts of imitation, repetition, coordination, and exploration of movement to the rhythm of the music will promote memory training and coordination.

Learning routines and memorising moves is a good mental exercise for your child. It’ll encourage them to use their mental strength without necessarily realising it. Dancing is a great way to help develop your child’s brain and ignite the spark of creativity 

Dancing, and other forms of art, can be used as tools of expressions and exploration for our students. They can use their creativity to think through misunderstanding, and communicate understanding effectively, even though they may not know how to use their words. 

Let's extend our students learning and CREATE.

Encouraging reading

Nz Government promises new Learning support coordinators in schools

One in five children had a disability or other learning and behavioural needs .

The Government says it will create 600 new positions in schools for learning support coordinators to take the pressure off teachers.

Learning support coordinators will work in schools to ensure children with diverse learning needs get the support they need to learn, according to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

The first coordinators won't be in place till 2020 under the scheme, which will cost $217 million over four years. The Government says it will roll out more positions over future years.

Let’s hope so - our learners need help and we as teachers need support.

Because I am a teacher.

Read and Read it again

Read and Read it again - developing the confidence and love of learning to read.


Dont feel pressured to constantly read new books to your students or give your students a new reading book everyday.


Remember your favourite books as a kids.

Research tells us:

Vocabulary

Hearing a story once is a great experience both educationally and otherwise.  However, when it is revisited over and over again more learning is encouraged.  Vocabulary words that are difficult for young readers are often easily dismissed in books that are read just once or infrequently.  In contrast, when a book is read over and over again understanding of the vocabulary words is increased and the repetition helps children learn them to where they can begin using the vocabulary on their own in their own context.  

Increases Reading Comprehension

Just as vocabulary is picked-up in repeat reads, repeat reads help with increased reading comprehension.  With each time the book is read the child is able not only to remember it better, but gains a more clear perspective of such things as cause and effect, sequencing, plot structure and more.  

Confidence With Books

There is a confidence that comes with getting to know books on a more personal level.   pre-readers will revel in the ability to “read” the story on their own.  We know they might not be able to actually decode the words on their own, but being able to tell the story on their own will give them a sense of independence, confidence and even ownership of the story.

Fosters a Love of Books

It is the same with all readers young and old alike, when you fall in love with a story it becomes a part of you.  The characters become familiar friends who your make connections with an remember.

Time to tell the Government what we think about Special Education in New Zealand - Disability and Learning Support Action Plan

Please have your say about what is working and what is not working in Special Education in New Zealand

Disability and Learning Support Action Plan

Have you had your say about the Disability and learning support plan - feed back closes 31 October 2018.

Survey

Overview

Please tell us what you think about the draft Disability and Learning Support Action Plan. 

Your answers will help us to better understand how we can improve disability and learning support over the next few years.

This survey covers the main proposals in the draft Action Plan. It will take about 10 - 15 minutes.

The draft Action Plan is available in multiple languages and Easy Read format here.

You do not need to give your name to complete the survey, and your answers are confidential and anonymous.

If you would like to comment on all of the proposals, or make a submission on behalf of a group or organisation, please read the draft Action Plan and email your submission here.

This consultation is available in:

• English
• New Zealand Sign Language
• Te Reo Māori
• Mandarin |简体中文
• Korean | 한국어
• Hindi | हिन्दी
• Samoan | Gagana Samoa
• Tongan | Lea Faka-Tonga

This consultation will also be available in the following languages soon:

• Cook Islands | Maori Kuki Airani
• Niuean | Vagahau Niue
• Tokelauan | Gagana Tokelau

Engaging our Learners in an active way

If you present new content to your students in multiple
creative ways, using different types of media, and medium
three amazing things happen:

• more students will be able to access and learn the content
• you’ll reinforce new information more effectively than ever
• your students will become expert learners—meaning they’ll know how to explore a wide range of ways to learn, and they’ll understand which strategies work best for them.

Writing opportunities - Mark making

Supporting writing development.

Our young learners need lots of experience in writing and developing fine motor skills.
It is important that these activities have purpose and are fun.

Auditory discrimination

Auditory discrimination is the ability to recognise differences between sounds. Particularly, auditory discrimination allows people to distinguish between phonemes in words. Phonemes are the smallest parts of sound in any given language.

Phonological awareness is often referred to as phonemic awareness, but there is a crucial difference between these terms. 

The term ‘phonemic awareness’ comes from the word ‘phoneme’, which is a single sound in language.   This includes the following individual skills:

·        Identification of initial, final and medial sounds in word

·        Segmentation (breaking words into individual sounds)

·        Blending (blending individual sounds to make words)

·        Phoneme transposition (ability to ‘swap’ sounds)

The term ‘phonological awareness’ comes from the word ‘phonology’, which is the sounds and sound patterns of language.  Phonological awareness is therefore a broader term than phonemic awareness and encompasses the following:

All of the above aspects of phonemic awareness   PLUS

·        Onset + rime

·        Rhyme

·        Syllabification

·        Word Retrieval

·        Auditory discrimination

Visual Sequential Memory

Visual Sequential Memory is the ability to remember visual details in the correct sequence.

• This is essential for spelling and reading, where your child needs to remember the sequence of letters in order to spell the word correctly.
• When doing multiple digit addition and subtraction, visual sequential memory is essential to help your child copy the numbers in the correct order.

Visual sequential memory is the ability to remember forms (including shape, orientation, size, and colour) or characters in the correct order. This skill is particularly important in spelling. Missing, added or jumbled letters within words are common for people who struggle with this skill, and they will often whisper or talk aloud as they write. Recognising and remembering patterns may also be a problem.

Improved sequential memory can help improve your child’s reading skills. To do this effectively, both auditory sequential and visual sequential memory skills need to be developed. Auditory sequential and visual sequential memory skills are the ability to remember things seen and heard in sequence. This plays an important role in learning to remember the difference between words such as on and no and being able to complete tasks in the order they were given.

This is not only vital for reading, but for spelling and mathematics as well. As you can imagine, saying 91 + 1 or 19 + 1 , spelling t-a-r instead of r-a-t, or reading dog instead of god could completely change the meaning of a situation.

My Inquiry half way checkpoint

As part of the Manaiakalani Hui I got to present where is am up to in my Inquiry.
I have been trialing a range of different assessments with student at Sommerville and in our COL schools.

Latest update from MOE around assessment requirements

 Lastest update from MOE and TKI

Literacy and mathematics remain the key areas for teaching, learning and assessment as they are fundamental tools to enable students to access skills and knowledge across the curriculum. 

It's important that data about student progress and achievement can be collated and analysed at a class and cohort level, to allow for the identification of students who are not making sufficient progress or who have special needs. This data may also identify aspects of the curriculum that require attention: for example, extra professional learning and development in a particular curriculum area. You can find lots of information on gathering and analysing data in the Using evidence for learning section of this website.

To support teachers to better understand and use the broad statements in the curriculum, our profession has developed sound, research-based fine-grained progressions of learning in the foundation areas of literacy and mathematics.

However, think carefully about your purposes for assessment. Assess only when the information will be used to improve teaching and learning. Do not over assess.

Literacy

Progressions of learning: Progressions of learning act as planning, teaching and assessment resources.

There are several iterations of our understanding of the progressions of learning in literacy up to level 5 of the curriculum. 

• Ready to Read series, Junior Journals, School Journals (Go here for a better understanding of the Ready to Read series and Journals)
• Other levelled reading series
• Literacy Learning Progressions, Language Learning Progressions
• National Standards descriptors and exemplars
• Learning Progression Frameworks and Progress and Consistency Tool (PaCT)
• National Exemplars (written in the early 2000s but still widely used by schools)

Assessment tools: Several of the available assessment tools provide what next strategies so that they can be used as teaching resources as well as assessment resources. The following tools are the commonly used in NZ schools.

• e-asTTle reading and writing
• PAT reading comprehension, reading vocabulary, listening comprehension, punctuation and grammar
• STAR – supplementary test of reading
• Observation survey of early literacy achievement (aka Six Year Net)
• Assessment Resource Bank (ARBs)
• Record of Oral Language
• Junior Oral Language Screening Tool

Consult the Assessment tool selector for all available assessment tools in reading, writing and oral language.

Mathematics:

Progressions of learning: Progressions of learning act as planning, teaching and assessment resources.

As in literacy, there are several iterations of the progressions of learning in mathematics up to level 5 of the curriculum. Maths progressions illustrate discrete skills that build on each other to show progression.

• Numeracy Project resources
• National Standards descriptors and exemplars
• Learning Progression Frameworks and Progress and Consistency Tool (PaCT)
• Resources on NZ Maths on TKI

Assessment tools: Several of the available assessment tools provide what next strategies so that they can be used as teaching resources as well as assessment resources. The following tools are the most commonly used in NZ schools:

• e-asTTle maths
• PAT maths
• Numeracy Project assessment tools
• Assessment Resource Banks (ARBs)

What about our ORs students and those who have complex needs ?

- I dont believe that these tools are as finegrained as they need to be.

Is lack of visual tracking skills getting in the way of your learners progress?

I have recently been testing some students who are struggling in reading and writing.
My detailed testing has shown that they struggle with visual tracking and scanning.

Vision and visual tracking are activities that happen automatically without us really focusing on it.  The brain recognises our eyes are moving, tracking, scanning, focusing, pursuing, and accommodating without us even realising.  

What is Visual Tracking?

Visual tracking is often defined as the ability to efficiently move the eyes from left to right (or right to left, up and down, and circular motions) OR focusing on an object as it moves across a person’s visual field. This  is important for lots  of our daily activities, including reading, writing, using scissors, drawing, and playing.  

Researchers says that the  typical development of visual processing, the ability to visually track objects emerges in children around the age of five.  

Difficulties in Visual Tracking

Your learning might have difficulties in some of the following areas if they have challenges with visual tracking:

• Losing place when reading.  Re-reads or skips words or lines.  
• Omits, substitutes, repeats, or confuses similar words when reading.
• Must use finger to keep place when reading.
• Poor reading comprehension.
• Short attention span.
• Difficulty comprehending or remembering what is read.
• Confusion with interpreting or following written directions.
• Writing on a slat, up or down hill, spacing letters and words irregularly.
• Confusion with left/right directions.
• Persistent reversals of letters (b, d, p, q) when naming letters.
• Errors when copying from the board or book to paper.

Formal testing is required to determine if they is a visual tracking or scanning issue.



Visual perceptual skills require the ability to see, organize and interpret visual information.  Visual tracking is one type of visual perceptual skills.  Visual tracking is the ability to control the eye movements using the oculomotor system (vision and eye muscles working together). There are two types of visual tracking: maintaining your focus on a moving object and switching your focus between two objects.

Possible activities to support our learners:

Activities to promote eye tracking:

• Complete puzzles.
• Word finds
• Find as many things as you can see of a certain shape (circle, square, rectangle, triangle) in the room.
• Copy a series of motor movements made by someone else.
• Perform dot-to-dot pictures.
• Find the mistakes in “What’s Wrong with this Picture?” pictures.
• Sort playing cards in different ways (color, suit, number), or use playing cards to find two with matching numbers.
• Solve mazes.
• Play “I Spy.”
• Play balloon toss.
• Use tracing paper to trace and color simple pictures.
• Perceptual motor programmes 

Teacher's receiving feedback.

Receiving Feedback on our teaching practice can be difficult. We need to change how we react to feedback from others and use this feedback as a great opportunity to learn and grow as teachers.

We give feedback to our learners in our classroom everyday. We expect them to use this feedback to develop new skills - new learning.

Why as an adult is it hard to receive feedback?

Watch this TED talk  by  Sheila, I found it interesting.

How to use others' feedback to learn and grow | Sheila Heen