TAI Group 2

I am starting a new group of ALL students. This time it will be an all-girls group from 1 class in year 3/4.
What is different from the beginning of the year?
* I have a clearer idea in my head of what my goal is for these students.
* I have a better understanding of what needs to change to accelerate their writing.
* I will focus less on surface features and more on deeper features.

Do I know everything now? NO! But I am getting better at understanding what to do. Where my focus should be to make the biggest difference.

During the holiday I attended an International Reading Recovery Institute.
One of the sessions I attended was about Effective Literacy with the focus on accelerating writers. I felt so empowered after attending the session. My focus was wrong in group 1. I was focussed on planning structures, vocab and layout of writing. (This is also important but should not be the focus).

Where am I going to start?
I want to start by introducing the independent writing wall. I will choose a picture prompt, we will talk about it for 5 minutes jotting down the vocab and bumping it up where possible. Then give them 10min writing time.
We will only be using our books not chromes. (Eliminating typing stress).
Then we will share our writing in the group for 5 minutes. The goal will be to develop confidence, excitement, creativity and increasing vocabulary. (Take the focus off spelling). The next day, I will give them one thing to focus on, that I noted in the previous days work e.g. Today I want you to try and use adjectives/punctuation/rereading, etc. If they cannot do it independently, I will model and workshop where needed.

TAI Reflection - Finalising Group 1 ALL

After discussions with my principal, we decided to end my current ALL group and start a new one in term 3 as ALL was intended to be short term intervention.

The progress made was measured with an e-asttle test done on the last day of term 2. The results were as followed:

Student A	N4	Shifted from 1B to 1A (lots of absenteeism and writing on last day of term)
Student B	O4	Absent but huge shifts in writing and confidence.
Student C	K3	Shifted from 1B to 2B
Student D	L4	Left school
Student E	A4	Stayed the same. (Chrome broken, wrote on paper)
Student F	C4	Shifted from 2A to 3B

ALL intervention works.  More for some students than others. But it will take a long term intervention to undo 3 or 4 years of backlog in their learning. So I am happy with the shifts that have taken place and I am hoping that these students will take what they have learned, and apply it in their writing in class. 

Term 1 and 2 has been a huge learning curve for me with regards to my understanding of ALL and what my focus should be. I'm hoping to have a quicker start with my second group, and be more organized in what I want to teach as I have now got a clearer understanding of what teaching accelerated writing entails.