Celebrating success - What do the results say and WHY?

I have been very fortunate this year to work with an incredible teacher and amazing Year 7 & 8 students at Panmure Bridge School.

The opportunity to observe and work alongside these amazing individuals has renewed my passion for teaching and learning. 

Robyn Anderson and I have had many conversations about the needs of her students and the comprehensive ways she has of supporting her students who have very many diverse needs. I really appreciate the opportunity to share ideas, problem-solve, bounce ideas around, work with her students, carry out additional assessments and most importantly to have the opportunity to be Robyn's critical friend.
I totally agree with Robyn Critical friends are awesome!

Today I celebrate the progress her students have made under her guidance.

Robyn has adapted her programme throughout the year to meet the needs of her students.

She has listened to her student's opinions and consider their interests when recrafting her class programme.

I believe the progress made by these students is a direct result of the explicit acts of teaching  Robyn carries out every day.

Regular strategies I have seen in place daily in her classroom

• Recapping learning from previous days or lessons and makes clear links to other curriculum areas
• Checks in with her students regularly to check their understanding of vocabulary and content.
• Regularly involves the students in the decision making about their own learning 
• Constantly reminding students of their learning goals and how they can demonstrate their understanding.
• Reinforced the focus/goal including asking students to share their goals in multiple ways.
• Actively Models the learning.
• Guides and scaffolds the students towards their next step goal with appropriate strategies and support.
• Gets the students to share with a partner their ideas and new learning to reinforce concepts and vocabulary.

But: while these strategies are impressive and I believe they have had a significant impact on learning it is the other important things she does daily that I believe have had an even greater impact -

• Builds a positive relationship with her students - these students know she cares and wants the best opportunity for them.
• Has very clear boundaries around expectation and class rules and culture.
• Checks in with her students daily and is aware of significant events in their life that could have a detrimental impact on the students day eg social and environmental facts that we know can be very extreme in our community.

Explicit acts of teaching and positive relationships make the biggest difference.

This has been a wonderful learning journey for the Teachers and the students!

Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC)

What is AAC?


Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) is an umbrella term that encompasses the communication methods used to supplement or replace speech or writing for those with impairments in the production or comprehension of spoken or written language.

•  Augmentative – add;  Alternative – another option

•  AAC includes all forms of communication (other than oral speech) that are used to express thoughts, needs, wants, and ideas. We all use AAC when we make facial expressions or gestures, use symbols or pictures, or write. 

Our role is to be a communication partner. This is a very important role, one that will help our students. What we do counts; what we think is important; how we respond matters; every interaction is an opportunity to grow language and communication.
Some of our learners need additional support with their communication skills and AAC can support their production of speech and their comprehension of another person's language.
Examples of AAC :

- used at Sommerville Special school -  Gail Arriola-Bagayas  SLT.

We use the term AAC to describe various methods of communication to get around problems with ordinary speech. Some kinds of AAC are actually part of how everyone communicates: for example, waving goodbye; giving a “thumbs up’ instead of speaking; pointing to a picture, or gesturing in a foreign country.

However, people with speech difficulties have to rely on AAC most of the time. Some AAC tools “add on” to verbal communication – simple methods such as pictures, gestures and pointing. Some people need more complex help to communicate, such as powerful computer technology.

We can best support our learners using Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) by creating a learning environment where they are immersed in the use of their own communication system. Modelling with AAC involves highlighting (pointing to or activating) symbols in an AAC system as we speak so that students can experience how their AAC system can be used to communicate for real reasons. Modelling AAC may also be referred to as Aided Language Stimulation or Aided Language Input. 

Explicit acts of teaching - making the biggest difference

During our COL PLG we were discussing how can we replicate the accelerated progress we achieve in writing and our other focused areas, maths and reading.

There seems to be an overwhelming need to ensure we are using explicit acts of teaching.

Deliberate acts of teaching instructional strategies are the tools of effective practice. They are the deliberate acts of teaching that focus learning in order to meet a particular purpose. Instructional strategies are effective only when they impact positively on students' learning.

Teachers need to be able to use a range of deliberate acts of teaching inflexible and integrated ways within learning activities to meet the diverse literacy learning needs of our students.

These deliberate acts may include modelling, prompting, questioning, giving feedback, telling, explaining, and directing in your class programme.

Giving students explicit instruction about learning strategies will help them take control of their own learning. Deliberate acts of teaching showing our students how to make clear explicit links to prior knowledge and connection to their environment must impact student achievement as well as building new learning.

Sometimes i think we confuse implicit and explicit in our teaching. Our students with language or learning difficulties need very explicit acts of teaching.

Something is implicit when it is implied but not directly stated. Something is explicit when it is directly stated and leaves no room for uncertainty. Our students need EXPLICIT teaching.

Wanting reminders of what explicit acts of teaching look like in Literacy check out: 

Deliberate acts of teaching 

I found this an interesting read around mathematical strategies:

Keeping children engaged and achieving in mathematics

Knowing your learner , digging a little deeper.

Supporting our students to acquire literacy skills can look very different, according to the context, the desired outcomes and most of all, our learners. Knowing your learners is vital to teaching and learning. Once we know each learner, we can scaffold their learning and put in place for most appropriate programmes and teaching strategies that will help our learners stretch to reach new levels and gain appropriate necessary skills.

When I work with teachers, I have noticed how challenging it is for these teachers to identify exactly what the learner needs to learn when they are well below their chronological peers. To be a competent reader we need a range of skills, it’s like a big jigsaw puzzle. For some of our learners, there are pieces of this puzzle missing which means they are not able to use this knowledge to be competent literacy learners.

Recently, I have noticed the need to go back to basics. Our learners need explicit teaching of strategies and knowledge. One common area seems to be a need more focus on Phonological awareness such as rhyming, word families and onset rime.

eg :     The "onset" is the initial phonological unit of any word (e.g. c in cat) and the term "rime" refers to the string of letters that follow, usually a vowel and final consonants (e.g. at in cat).

• ·       They help our learners learn about word families, which can lay the foundation for future spelling strategies
• ·       Teaching our learners to attend to onset and rime will have a positive effect on their literacy skills
• ·       Learning these components of phonological awareness is strongly predictive of reading and spelling acquisition

Our working memory

Encouraging reading

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

Early literacy.

Early literacy research states that:

• Early literacy development is a continuous developmental process that begins in the early years;


• Early literacy skills develop in real-life settings through positive interactions with literacy materials and other people.


Therefore a broad, deep and rich curriculum as advocated should ensure an environmentally rich literacy context, which gives children many opportunities for:


• Movement and developmentally appropriate experiences of both large and fine motor skills;


• Exploration of three dimensional props and books; 

• Real experiences of books, rhymes .

The development of early language and literacy begins in the first three years of life and is closely linked to a child's earliest experiences with books and stories. Young children come into contact with a range of materials including books, paper, and crayons. Together with the adults in their lives they are the important building blocks for language, reading and writing development. Current research demonstrates the critical role of these early experiences in shaping brain development.


For our students who have complications in the early years, whether that be medical issues, complex family dynamics or other situation that have limited the normal development of language we need to find ways to build on their language development. Opportunity is needed to build their developmental stages and experiences before we expect these learners to gain an understanding of formal literacy.


Views on learning literacy:


Learning to communicate and to read has changed dramatically and most recently due to digital technology. Vygotsky (1987) states that learning is a social phenomenon and emphasises that the learner must be involved in the whole activity as a meaningful context rather than discrete parts. This view supports the holistic approach to learning literacy based upon the fundamental assumption that reading and writing are learnt from whole to part (Goodman, 1986); (Goodman and Goodman, 1979). Learners should understand and experience the purposes and functions of language before learning to manipulate its constituent parts. Oral and written language have to be learned in meaningful and enjoyable circumstances, and thus children construct language as they use it. So in holistic approaches the child has the lead and the approaches vary between individuals in multiple contexts and via multiple interpretations. Harste et al., (1984), Cambourne and Turbill (1987) suggest that certain conditions support this approach with children, such as immersion in print, demonstration of how print and books are used, and encouraging children to explore through approximate and practical ways of using reading and writing meaningfully whilst giving supportive and instructive feedback.

Teaching or testing ?

Teachers ask their students questions constantly BUT do we teach the answer first?
We are aware that our student are struggling with language acquisition , so do we spend enough time teaching the concepts and vocabulary.

Think about your class programme and the questions you are asking - have you given input first?
Are you aware there is a questioning hierarchy 

Here are some ideas from a recent training session with our speech language therapist at Sommerville Gail.

Levels of Questioning. Blank's Levels of Questioning.

The Six Levels of Questioning

Pre Writing skills

When developing early skills for writing students need to be able  form the following lines in order to be able form letter correctly.  Our student develop the skills to form these lines and shapes at different ages (chart above is an indicator) as they develop fine motor control, in hand strength and motor planning skills.

Motor planning can affect a child's handwriting in many different ways: 

• figuring out how to hold the pencil and how to put it to paper
• planning the layout of work on the page and carrying it out
• establishing the motor memory of remembering how letters are formed
• carrying over the memory from one task to the next

It is important our students get the opportunity to develop in-hand manipulations skills and hand strength so they can write and carry out regular classroom activities eg cutting, gluing etc.

Sometime student have difficulty carry out writing and fine motor tasks because the have poor core strength. 

The Numbers Talk

Oral Language and a rich vocabulary 

- the key to successful learning.

The Numbers really do matter!

Reading mileage and Reading at home really does stack up!

As a teacher we need to find ways to create links and build language - this will help achievement in all curriculum areas.

Language development and Reading Comprehension

Are your students struggling with reading comprehension ?  
Do they have the language skills and vocabulary to answer the comprehension questions during reading?

We need to be offering our students opportunity and stimulation to help their Oral language development.

We need to teach the language and the skills of comprehension.

Gail Arriola-Bagayas  our speech therapist at Sommerville has shared this fabulous resources that makes it very  clear about the developmental steps in understanding questions.

Blank-handout.pdf

Check the great ideas in this handout.

Sometimes we need to unpack the learning goals.

Please get in touch with me if i can help with your reading programmes or helping develop your students comprehension skills. 

Book time with Donna 






Verbal reasoning -  the big picture.

Differentiating our Assessments in Literacy

Literacy Assessments at Sommerville.

Sommerville Literacy assessment

As part of my on going Inquiry into using appropriate assessments

Questions

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

I have put together a overview of assessments we are currently using at Sommerville to help us establish exactly what our students know and inform how we set appropriate learning targets and goals for the students next steps.

The teachers at Sommerville now have a range assessment to chose from . It is important that the assessments used give the teacher as much information as possible not just a pass or fail!

Oral Language a crucial element.

Starting primary school is an enormous transition in a young child’s life. Children need to find their place in a new social and learning environment. Entering this new environment with Speech Language Communication Needs can have long-term impact on a child. Children may struggle to make friends, to learn, and to be themselves as part of their new  school community.

It is expected that when a child starts primary school, they will be able to understand much of what is said, express themselves clearly, share their feelings and make their needs known.

In many ways our ability to communicate  can define us, sometimes it is away we are judged and measured by others and the means by which we form our relationships. Children starting school with speech, language and communication needs may struggle with many aspect of communication and they can become withdrawn or present with challenging behaviour within the school environment.

Some children may not be able to understand the words being spoken to them. When their teacher tells the class what they need to do, or explains a new idea or concept, these children may struggle to understand what is being said. Having an appropriate vocabulary is essential for  learning, however learning vocabulary has been identified as one of the most significant difficulties for some children.

As teachers we need to scaffold the learning for our students. Offer multiple opportunities to learn new vocabulary, and practice it regularly. We need to help make connections and use visuals to help cement the new learning.

How much of our day is spent developing our children's language?  Low language levels impact all other curriculum areas.

Inclusive School Curriculum - A Curriculum for ALL !

NZC- A Curriculum for all.

Framework for an Inclusive School Curriculum.

This framework embodies the key elements of an inclusive school curriculum that together ensure progress and achievement for all students.

"The New Zealand Curriculum is a clear statement of what we deem important in education. It takes as its starting point a vision of our young people as lifelong learners who are confident and creative, connected, and actively involved."

The New Zealand Curriculum, 2007, page 4

A flexible framework

"The New Zealand Curriculum, together with the Qualifications Framework, gives schools the flexibility to design and deliver programmes that will engage all students and offer them appropriate learning pathways."

The New Zealand Curriculum, 2007, page 41

The New Zealand Curriculum supports schools to ensure that teaching and learning are effective and engaging for all. When teaching, learning, and assessment recognise and respond to the unique differences of individuals, all students can learn.

The New Zealand Curriculum is not prescriptive. Its learning areas provide a flexible foundation for exploring, evaluating, integrating, and enhancing knowledge. Its key competencies, which capture learning capabilities and dispositions, strengthen the learning areas by supporting students to value curiosity, thinking, self-management, perseverance, collaboration, and caring for others.

Example of English differentiated planning 

Additional support at Writing time.

Do your students need additional support at writing time?

Sometimes using writing plans and frames at the planning and draft stage help our learners remember their ideas add more information to their stories.

 Sentence starters and models scaffold the students writing until they understand the structure needed and have developed a memory for their ideas.

Writing involves alot of thinking and processing  as well as good language skills.

"Planning takes the writing assignment and long-term memory as input, which then produces a conceptual plan for the document as output. Planning includes sub-activities of generating (coming up with ideas), organizing (arranging those ideas logically in one’s head), and goal setting (determining what effects one wants to achieve and modifying one’s generating and organizing activities to achieve local or global goals). "  Hayes and Flower (1980)

Let's make it easier for our students to experience success!

Scaffolding the learning.

This week I had the opportunity to visit Khismira Lal at Pt England School.
I was particularly interested in how Khismira offers additional support to her students, especially when they are working independently or in small groups without the teacher.

It was incredible to see the extensive planning and preparation that goes into Khismira's reading programme. I was very impressed with the thought gone into scaffolding the learning for her students when using the Ipad app Explain Everything.

I particular like the idea of adding sound bites to help the students with instructions.
Fabulous Idea !

What a great way of teaching Concepts about print.  I am keen to try this with some students next term.

Thanks Khismira - highly recommend spending some time in her classroom.

Reading is a real challenge!

Learning to be a confident READER. Have you stopped to think about all the cognitive and linguistic skills it takes for everyone to do this ?
Have you stopped to break down all the parts that have to align to make us into capable confident readers?

Let me list some components of a skilled reader. 

• phonological awareness
• word recognition processes 
• vocabulary
• syntax
• decoding accuracy
• learning to read, children start out acquiring elementary decoding skills and learn to apply these with greater accuracy and speed.
• comprehension processes
• concepts about print
• spatial awareness
• cognitive performance
• fluency
• visual modality 

In addition to these:
 attention, perception and working memory are extremely important aspects of information processing and significant in children’s reading development.

https://www.gemmlearning.com/can-help/reading/skills

If we could assess these different components and see where our students have specific difficulties could we then provide more support for their specific learning needs? 

Do we currently digging deep enough to help our learners?

Alternative assessment for students with additional needs

Assessment in the classroom

It is necessary for New Zealand schools to design and shape assessment in our classrooms so that teaching and learning is meaningful and meets the needs of their particular communities of students?

Are you aware of this assessment for students who need  additional  support?

The frameworks, or matrices, expand and enhance Level One of the New Zealand Curriculum in literacy and numeracy, following national matrices and leading directly into Level One. Holistic learning progressions are set on a continuum, identifying the fine-grained progressions that some students make.

The matrices were developed to help teachers identify the key features of learning, achievement, and quality in relation to each achievement objective. Teachers are able to use the matrices to place each student on an individual starting point, identify next step planning and teaching and hold suitably high and realistic expectations for achievement.

Do you have students who need support to remember a task sequence?

Some of our students need additional support to remember a sequence they are suppose to follow during a class learning task.

This checklist is kept inside the students writing book. She self monitors as she has completed each step. The checklist are individualised to each student's needs and to match their specific learning goals. These check list stop a lot of repetition, wasted time and frustration by teachers and students.