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.

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.

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.

Reading support - what is the goal?

Reading Support

I am currently supporting a 10 year boy with Autism and Attention Deficit disorder who is reading at a 6 year old level. He enjoys reading but does not like any written follow up task as he has limited fine motor skills.

I have made a range of activities to give him the opportunity to work on his specific reading goals without causing him too much anxiety.

The stories we have been reading have compound words . He is now very proud he can in his words read "big words" by recognise smaller words.

Word endings to encourage this young man to look at the ends of words and recognise they change eg looked, looking and read then appropriately.














     I created these to support his understanding of the new vocabulary in his new books.









I have created a book with enough pages that he can
recreate the book in sequence.
This allows us to sequence  the pictures
and discuss the story line. We can make up our own words verbally to go with the pictures.
He can match the sentence to the picture.
He can also underline the words that show answers to our questions on our laminted words.

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.

Where to start with our Emergent Literacy Learners.

Where to start with our Emergent Literacy Learners.

I am often asked where to start teaching a child to read or are they ready to learn.

The main goal when working with our young learners or students who have additional learning need is to encourage a positive interest in learning and reading.

I believe we start to learn the skills for reading when we are very young if we are provided with the  right opportunities.

So what should be included in a literacy programme for emergent learners?

Give your learners lots of opportunity to hear you read to them and with them.

Let your learners see you writing, write together, write for real reason and purposes.

Inquiry Focus for 2018

 I have selected the following CoL achievement challenge:

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

Questions

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

This year I hope to get into more Manaiakalani classrooms and support teachers with assessment of students with additional needs. Then planning appropriate goals and programmes to support the students learning.

Please book time with me if you would like help with a student.

This year my personal learning focus will be to continue to develop my skills and knowledge around language acquisition and how we can support students who have communications difficulties. This was a very common challenge for our students identified by many of my COL colleagues in 2017.

I hope to share my Inquiry and my learning journey with my blog posts.

Please feel free to ask questions and let me know what you would like more information on.

Language and learning disorders

Learning disabilities are believed to be closely related to a past history of developmental language disorders. Learning disabilities are concerned with abnormal development of verbal and/or written expression and reception. Therefore, the early detection of these disabilities prevents later educational and social consequences.


Check out this very interesting article



Developmental Milestones in Normal Language Acquisition

My Inquiry - My story so far.

Alternative Assessments for Students with Additional needs.

As part of my on going Inquiry into appropriate assessment tools to use with students who have additional needs I have investigated the following tools.

Literacy	Maths
Narrative assessment Expanded English Framework (Fuel and Launch) -         Listening , reading,  viewing framework -         Speaking, writing, viewing framework Developmental Writing scale Developmental Spelling  Assessment	Narrative assessment Extended Number framework and matrix (Fuel and Launch) Bracken - School Readiness  (cost to purchase or may be available RTLB)

I have tried these assessments with a range of students at Sommerville special school and several students within the Manaiakalani schools.
These assessments have given more detailed assessment information for students who can not be assessed using standardised school assessments.

Narrative assessment, Expanded Framework and Bracken - school readiness are all recognised assessment with the Ministry of Education. These assessments cater for students with very complex learning needs.

The Developmental Writing scale and Developmental Spelling assessment were recommended by 
                                   

  

Dr Sally Clendon PhD Univ North Carolina Chapel Hill

Senior Lecturer in Speech and Language Therapy, Massey University NZ.

I have found that these assessments are very informative for establishing what the  student  can do  and what their next learning steps should be.

Please feel free to contact me if you would like some more information.

Raising Student Achievement Throught Targeted Action

How do I know that the programmes , professional development are making a difference?

When making changes within a school around curriculum development , assessment and student achievement I think we need to look at four important areas:

• What do our students need, what we doing for our students?
• What do our teachers need, what are we doing to help our teachers?
• How are we supporting our Whanau to be on this learning journey with us?
• What is our assessment data telling us?

I am responsible for Literacy and Numeracy across Sommerville Special School, including arranging professional development and gathering school wide data.

I wanted to review  what actions we are taking and who was responsible for what areas. This has proved to be very insightful and allowed my to review and plan for the future. 

Whanua involvement in the learning journey.

Sommerville school held an EXPO on Saturday 28th October , where we offered our families an opportunity to come along to school for an information day.

We had community organisations  run information sessions on relevant topics for our families included : Medical concerns, behaviour management , special needs funding etc.

We provided supervision and entertainment for their child ,while families/adults attended the information sessions. This was the fabulous idea of our Principal Diane Hankins. Our families are already asking about next year's Expo and offering ideas and suggestions for what they would like more information on.

I ran an hours session on how families can support the learning of their children at home.

My focus was to show families how they can get involved in fun, engaging ways that are enjoyable for everyone - adult and child.

Here is an example of some of the slides I presented.
Our parents are very keen to be involved in their child's learning, we just need to show them some ways of making it appropriate for their child in their home environment.

What am I learning ?

We have been focusing on how we can share our Learning Intentions with our students.
Students with special learning needs often need visual representation to help them remember their goals and targets or the strategies they need to learning.
Check out some of the examples from my fabulous colleagues at Sommerville.

Language is a vital part of communication

How can we support oral learning and development:

ERO publishes evaluation reports - there report on language say:

  giving greater attention to oral language learning of new entrants within a rich curriculum
  developing formal expectations for monitoring oral language progress or development across               Years 1 to 3 and beyond, across all key learning areas
 taking a formalised approach to identifying students’ oral language strengths (including       capabilities in languages other than English), needs and concerns, rather than relying on           informal observation and ‘gut feeling’
 systematically planning for interventions, where particular concerns or needs for oral language learning and development are identified
  teachers building on the advantage linguistically diverse learners bring to language learning
 building and strengthening teacher capability to support oral language teaching and learning.



What can we be doing in our classrooms daily to support our students? 

Maths Assessment Progressions

Maths Assessment Progressions at Sommerville.

The Sommerville Maths curriculum team have created this overview of maths assessments.
Students at Sommerville who often can not be assessment using mainstream maths assessment are assessed against P levels. This is a series of leveled progression indicators. P 1 to P 7 are below  the Emergent maths levels.
As our students reach these  P level progression indicators we move them onto Mainstream assessments eg JAM and Gloss.

Sommerville Special school uses a fabulous maths resources called Numicon. 
Numicon has an assessment system that matches this maths resource.

Numicon is a distinctive multi-sensory approach to children's mathematical learning that emphasises three key aspects of doing mathematics:

• communicating mathematically
• exploring relationships
• solving problems in everyday life experiences (generalising)

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 

Developing Language Skills in our students.

All the research tells us our students are arriving at school with low oral language skills. The oral language children have when they start school directly impacts on their ability to think and to learn. Alison Burge presented findings from the "Welcome to school project" in Tamaki schools showing 53% of New Entrants assessed had significant concerns in Communication.

All students who enter the school environment need to learn about a variety of conventions and routines of talking and listening in a context that is unfamiliar to most of them. Students’ oral language improves through practice, that is, when students talk regularly for different purposes and with different partners.  (Ministry of Education. (2009). Learning Through Talk: Oral Language in Years 1 to 3. Wellington)


At Sommerville we extremely fortunate to employ our own Speech language therapists who work directly with students and provide on going Professional development to our staff.
Francesca Bierens SLT has shared her Verbal language development Summary for how language is developed and the progress

 'Assisting Students with Language Delays in the Classroom  - A Practical Language Programme'

                                Published:  In 2015 by Speechmark Publishing Ltd, London, UK,

I have attached Oral language resources from Francesca that are worth a read.

Oral language development and abilities have significant impact on our students ability to access the curriculum in all areas.

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?

Inquiry Model

I attended my first  Maniakalani COL teachers meeting on Thursday and was introduced to the Manaiakalani Inquiry framework for the first time. Well done to the team who collaborated on this.

At Sommerville  Special school we have been looking at the Spiral of Inquiry by Helen Timperley, Linda Kaser and Judy Halbert.

Graphic credit: Judy Halberg and Linda Kaser (2013)

These frameworks seem to blend together quite well.  I am currently in the 'LEARN' stage in the 'Learn Create Share', so moving through the scanning, focusing and developing a hunch in the spiral.

I found the TKI information on Teaching as inquiry very helpful - thanks for sharing Fiona Grant.

My Inquiry

'The New Zealand Curriculum describes the Teaching as Inquiry cycle and the idea of purposeful assessment (page 39). Assessment is one of the tools that inquiring teachers use to improve their students’ learning and their own teaching.'

'Quality Teaching for Diverse Students in Schooling: Best Evidence Synthesis Iteration [BES] emphasises the importance of focusing on student outcomes and using both research evidence and assessment information to improve teaching and learning.'

While undertaking my initial scanning and evidence gathering, it has reinforced my strong belief in the extreme importance of having the correct assessment resources, tools and data. The current mainstream resources give us lots of information about what our students ''can not do or 'have not achieved'
.
Our job as teachers is to gather evidence-based informative and summative information on our students. Then use this information to plan comprehensively and implement programmes to meet individual students needs.

'The learning inquiry takes place both during and after teaching as teachers monitor their students’ progress towards the identified outcomes and reflect on what this tells them. Teachers use this new information to decide what to do next to ensure continued improvement in student achievement and in their own practice.' http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz

I look forward to sharing some of these appropriate assessments for diverse learners with schools in our Manaiakalani community. I have decided to set up a separate page for assessment for learners with complex needs and another one for strategies for students who have specific needs.