TAI - Gradually increasing student participation in academics

IN the last few weeks we have paid a lot attention to behaviour in room 1. Rhys, Gretchen and I have started to communicate about our focus points, and am all working hard to remind the children of that focus point. I have seen a shift in behaviour in the majority of the class. (we still have some tier 1 learners that we are focussing on).

Our first focus was listening. We applied the STOP, LOOK and LISTEN approach. Explicitly explaining what this sounds and look like.

Our next focus will be on how to look after our "stuff" in the class. How to care for it. (Demonstrating AROHA). We will still be focussing on listening, but now be highlighting caring for our environment all the time.

With all this in mind, we would also like to gradually increase learning.

My last reflection on my TAI, I mentioned that I wanted to eliminate risk. I took as step back, and tried to observe what my children liked and liked to do. I have noticed that most of my boys particularly like cars, zombies and superheroes. And my girls loves cats. I also noticed how some boys particularly loves colouring in, and how others like to build lego and play with slime, rather than colouring in. (When I had all these options available at the same time, none of the children asked for Ipads - interesting)  I would really like to use this knowledge in a way to encourage participation in learning.

I have also started using the phrase, "Don't worry, I will help you" a lot. Also, "bring your picture with you and you can continue when you are done". This has seemed to calm the children down, so it might have been a fear of 'loosing' their activity that made them not wanting to come to me for learning.

So what? 
I am going to ensure that there are activities available that caters for all my children.
I am going to try and get all groups to come to me for learning, but not keep them long, so that they can continue with their choice of activities.
I am going to eliminate the fear of loosing out on things by preparing things for each child by name eg: when making clay, break it up into small bags (one for each child) so that they don't have to argue about sharing. (A next possible focus point).

I also read up on TKI Online independent literacy activities  and got some more ideas for literacy activities which I want to try out:

1. Providing magazines for children to cut from.
2. topic word cards to match each word with its meaning. Arrange word cards in \
3. alphabetical order as a step towards using a dictionary or index or locating fiction by the author's surname in the library.