Reluctant Writers Room 2 (ALL)

Some ideas of how to engage my reluctant writers in room 2.

10 weeks to set some strategies place
- Visual prompts with labels on topic
- Recording ideas
- Sticky notes with words that might be hard to write - not writing in the child's book
- Smaller groups
- Practising tricky words and adding t to a personal dictionary
- Word Cards
- Sentence Frames - model and adapt
- Picture prompts to organise writing e.g. frog  - picture of where they live, eat
- Simple mindmaps
- Explicit feedback - positive feedback
- The teacher is the scribe for the planning part - and then they will write their draft using the plan - pre-load them so that next time they try it alone
- After reading a book - practice planning - how would the author have planned his writing

Books: The panicosaurus, The Disappointment dragon & the Red Beast  (series) Written by K.I. Al-Ghani
Zones of regulation NZ FB page -
Aroha's Way Book
Helping Kiwi Kids with anxiety

Social Skills games - a bit like charades - dramatise what to do in specific situations - How do you fee and what can you do?

Breathing space - add posters of how to do breathing and add something special box e.g. with a game or books

Fidget pillow - Little Red's Learning Tools.

ALL Collaborative Inquiry Acceleration

An interesting workshop on what collaborative inquiry is and what it should look like in a school. Just a few notes I made of what stood out for me.

Simin Sinek - The golden circle WHY? How? What?

Clear expectations lead to productiveness.

3 types of inquiring:

Spiral of Inquiry Focusing on what they can't do.
Teaching as Inquiry Focusing on what they can't do.
Appreciative Inquiry working from the point of what they can do.

Scanning Phase: (Framing the problem) This could take 1 term.
Stock Take
- Student Voice
- Whanau Voice
- Literacy: Writing
                  Reading
                  Oral Lang
- Evaluate ~ LLP
- Student Daya ~easttle
                        ~ RRecords
                        ~ PACT
What will come out of this collaboratively as to what we need to focus on?

What's your data once you have all the data? What's your theory of action? What are the activities that are going to help you get to your desired outcome?
e.g. If you want Spelling to be on the right level across the school - you will work towards actioning all teachers hearing and saying the sounds the same.

Sphere of Control

Determining a meaningful focus:
Choose your questions really carefully.
Is the focus based on identified student needs?
Is it connected to a shared vision?
Is it addressing problems individuals can act on? 

The collaborative inquiry needs people that are willing to deprivatize their teaching, willing to share their successes and their mistakes, being videoed, etc. If they are not willing to do that, they cannot be in the collaborative inquiry team, because the team has an end goal, and cannot waste time on debating whether you should or should not be videoed. All in or out. In the end, what happens with the knowledge at the end of the inquiry? How is it influencing school-wide vision? What are we doing with the knowledge?

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. 

TAI: Am I making a difference, student 2

March 2019

June 2019

The biggest difference I can see in Student 2 is:
* Growth in confidence 

* A storyline forming (The second text was not finished) More ideas...

* Use of adjectives

* A mixture of simple and compound sentences

* Using different sentence starters - time connectors (One day, the next day, then)

Where to next: 

* Organizing my beginning, middle and end into separate paragraphs. 

* Using capital letter and full stops in the right places.

* Using more punctuation such as exclamation marks and using a question in a narrative. 

TAI: Am I making a difference?

E-asttle at the start of 2019.

Writing in June 2019. 

Student 1: 

 If I compare his writing at the start of the year to now, I can see some changes, but to me, they are not yet significant. 

The differences that I notice are: 

* The organization of the text has a better layout. Grouping into a beginning middle and end (not yet ideas into paragraphs). 

* There is a more prominent use of a variety of adjectives.

* A better use of punctuation, capital letters and full stops. 

* The problem and solution are bit clearer. 

So where to next: 

* Work on how each idea has a paragraph, and how to expand on ideas. Not just listing things. 

* Using complex sentences and punctuation. 

The second text was not 100% independent, as we worked together on the plan. Also, we are always pushed for time. Perhaps I should do a proper independent writing sample, to see if what we have been working on in class, has really sunk in, and would transition into a writing sample. 

ALL Reflection - Where we are now...

This is a first draft (un-edited) of one of my students. What have I noticed:
His confidence has grown with regards to ideas, however, looking at this I can see that spelling and grammar is a problem. He is relying on his knowledge of vocab, he knows what they mean, but he is not sure how to access spelling rules. He is also not aware of the difference between past, present and future tense.

What next:
* Do a Pseudo test to identify which sounds are missing. (In this case, possibly long and short vowels sounds and the difference between sk and sc).
* Look at doing a lesson on the present, past and future tense word endings.
* Look at each students draft for further gaps.

ALL Spelling Worksop

Do we have a coherent, consistent delivery of spelling across the school?
We have the program, are we using it? Do Survey.

We should not be doing pockets of fix-ups. What happens with our ALL target students when they move back into class?

WARM UP: How many different spelling patterns for the 'f' sound:
of phone elephant off laugh fantastic whanau

Letter a: and all ate take cat ask antennae   (3 different sounds)

We say sound it out to write it down, but then there are different ways of spelling it.

If students don't know their sounds, they will struggle to learn to spell. Watch video of Joy Allcock - no matter what spelling program you are using. From language to Literacy - The bucket document (Staff PLD possibly)

Also look at The impact of spelling on writing  also: Joy Allcock classroom Practice

Compare to:
Word Lab Classroom Practice
Introducing a new chart and independent activities

Could we still do Pseudo Test to determine gaps?

Any spelling program can work as long as the students:
Sat it
Hear it
Identify it
Write it
Use it

Use visual prompts for these in all classes:

Get the students involved examples

ALL Inquiry

These are some questions my facilitator is posing to me. After chatting to the leadership team at our school, I realized that perhaps we are doing more than I realize, and my lack of confidence is creating a feeling of...oh gosh, I need to make some changes. But do I really?

I want to find out, how much we are already doing, and pinpointing exactly where I, as ALL teacher, can make a difference without reinventing the wheel.

The questions are:

A few points to note and to think about in preparation for our next school visits and skype sessions.

a)  How are you engaging with whanau?  Connections to Ka Hikitia, Taataiako and Tapasa.

b)  What does formative assessment look like?  Student agency how is this going with you and your learners?

c)  What is the impact of your practice transferring across the curriculum?

d)  What is your sustained plan to accelerate learners in your school?

If any of my school teachers are reading my blog, I would love your thoughts and input, please. 

ALL Reading - Learning in the fast lane by Suzy Pepper Rollins

Where to next with ALL?

In order to know, I read this reading about the 6 steps to take in order to accelerate students writing: 

Before other students have even begun the unit, the accelerated group has gained an understanding of:
The real-world relevance and purpose of the concept.
Critical vocabulary, including what the words look and sound like.
The basic skills needed to master the concept.
The new skills needed to master the concept.

The big picture of where instruction is going.

What is acceleration: Not pre-teaching rather it is an enriching experience designed to stimulate thinking, develop concrete models, introduce vocabulary, scaffold critical missing pieces, and introduce new concepts just prior to the acquisition of new learning.

Step 1: Generate Thinking, Purpose, Relevance, and Curiosity
Begins with a thought-provoking, hands-on activity that encompasses the big idea of the standard.

Step 2: Clearly Articulate the Learning Goal and Expectations
Their brains should be primed for the teacher's introduction of the learning goal—for
example, "What we just explored is actually the first part of the standard we'll be learning" or "In 40 minutes, you will be able to compare and contrast the core, the mantle, and the crust.". Standards should be deconstructed into classroom targets that unfold into opportunities for daily formative assessment.

Step 3: Scaffold and Practice Essential Prerequisite Skills
Acceleration pause as students briefly moves backward to remediate the deficits that would present a barrier to learning the new standard. To edit a potentially long list of gaps, complete the following statement:


Students could master the new standard if they just knew ___________________________.

Step 4: Introduce New Vocabulary and Review Prior Vocabulary
Create a TIP: a continually growing anchor wall chart that includes vocabulary terms, information on those terms, and pictures of the terms. As words are introduced, they are added to the TIP.

Step 5: Dip into the New Concept
Now students are poised for going a bit deeper into the new content. Students may score sample papers using a writing rubric.

Step 6: Conduct Formative Assessment Frequently
It is essential to collect ongoing data on student progress.

Checklist for acceleration:
□ Students can clearly articulate the meaning of today's learning goal.
□ Students receive scaffolding for prerequisite skills in the context of new learning.
□ Vocabulary development is hands-on and ongoing and focuses on clearly identified academic vocabulary terms.
□ Remediation provided is just in time and set in the context of new learning.
□ Assessment is visible and yields immediate feedback.
□ Students largely work cooperatively in a safe learning environment.
□ Students are learning the big idea of new concepts in advance of their core-class peers.
□ The acceleration teacher and the core-class teacher engage in ongoing collaboration regarding pacing and student progress.

What next: 
* The problem I have is that students are from two different classes, it will be hard to work with them on a topic from their class in only 20min. Speak to my mentor on how I can work around this problem.
* Create a TIP wall
* Start planning ALL more purposefully following the 6 steps

TAI - ALL Boys as Reluctant Writers Follow-up

What is our goal with ALLat PES? What have I identified as good practice? What now?

At the start of my inquiry, I thought that teaching students how to use a dictionary, or teaching them to check their SC at the end of their writing would help students to create better writing samples. (This is still important, but not the shift in practice that will develop good writers). However, as I have been working with the boys, I have made many shifts in my thoughts.

First: What is our goal with ALL at PES? Yes, we want to help these boys to accelerate in their literacy learning, but if they leave school, they take it with them. If I leave, I take my knowledge with me.  Am I working in a single pocket? NO! I have to look at the bigger picture. This inquiry is not just about my learning and what I can do to assist children. It's about how I can change the way writing is presented at PES. How can I support teachers so that they know what to do when they have reluctant writers, across the board. How can I influence decisions around teaching writing in our school so that senior management supports me?
Therefore it's time to have meetings with staff. Not a once off, tick of a box, kind of meeting. It doesn't have to be long, but it needs to be consistent every two weeks. Checking in, and supporting teachers by focussing on what they are doing well, encouraging, enthusiastically, through examples and modeling on what they can do. Teachers then need to try it, and feedback on it. This is very important because often we have meetings, we present ideas, and then there is no accountability to give it a go.

What is the main thing that stood out for me in my inquiry that will signal good practice? Teaching PES students at the right level. Not too low, not too high.
Are teachers' expectations of what the students can do on the right level? E.g. if a child is writing at level 1, are they trying to fill the gaps in level 1, which keeps them working only in level 1.  Are they beating a dead horse for ten weeks by teaching the same thing over and over? Or are they teaching a little higher than where the child is in order to make a weekly shift?
Are they engaging students in interesting ways using variations in resources, or is everything kind of going on the same pattern every week?

I would like to investigate these two questions, getting teachers, management's, and students voice.

TAI - Reluctant writers - reflection

This week I tried one of the first activities my tutor suggested in our workshop.

Teach your students how to come up with keywords by playing a Topic game. Give a topic, pass a ball to each student, if you catch it, you have to say a word that is linked to the topic. e.g. Holiday is the topic - vocab might be: beach, sand, sun, car

After four lessons of passing the ball and coming up with keywords, the students had a clear understanding of what a title, keywords, sub-title, and bullet points. The last lesson was a bit harder, as I wanted to extend on the keywords, but our time was not enough. 
What I noticed:  establishing sub-titles is something the boys struggle with. My question is, do you give them subtitles so that they can learn a few variations or is there another activity I can do to develop their thinking around subtitles?

The first video shows how the students mainly focus on the looks. (their topic was "Dogs"). 

After reminding them to think further than just the looks, they managed to come up with keywords such as a kennel, meat, etc

The outcome of their planning, without support from me, is as follow. 

I kept them moving: play the topic game, run to their books, wrote keywords down. We did this with each sub-title.  This planning was done in 15minutes. After planning, the boys could retell in their own words what they wanted to say about each keyword.  

SO WHAT? 

* The planning was the students own, they knew what they wanted to say/write, and the topic was familiar. (Their choice)

* Although it was still very low-level ideas, I am hoping to teach them how to expand on their ideas next week in order to create a higher level writing sample.

* After showing them 2 different ways of planning, they were able to choose the one they preferred. It was interesting that they did not all choose the same one. So perhaps, giving students the option to choose the way they want to plan, might help to support their understanding. 

I think it's important to keep these boys interested and focussed. Keep them moving. Short, quick instructions. 

ALL Inquiry - Boys as Reluctant Writers

Yesterday I attended an ALL workshop and gained insight into why boys often don't enjoy writing, as well as some practical ideas on how to make writing interesting.

I know this is a long blog, but I wanted to formulate the ideas on paper before I forget it. It is such valuable information, that I'm hoping that everybody that reads my blog, will take something from it, and try it in their class.

We focussed on unpacking the writing process.

Workshop Powerpoint

Questions that arise:
* Do we have enough data to understand why the specific boys that I chose are reluctant writers? 
* What does our current writing systems and processes look like? 
* Does eAsstle impact on our planning? Majority of our planning is based on the outcome of the eAsstle assessments. 
* Why are students reluctant? What is really going on for each boy? Could it be the way the teacher is leading the writing programme? Could it be the relationships in the class? 

My goal: To enable change for the whole school.

Prewriting Stage: 
During the writing process prewriting and planning is the most important part of the writing process. It should not be rushed, there is no time limit. (This hooks in what Anna told us in our writing PLD's). Make this phase in the writing plan interesting. 
* Teach your students how to come up with keywords by playing a Topic game. Have a rugby ball - give a topic, pass the ball, if you catch it, you have to say a word that is linked to the topic. e.g. Holiday is the topic - vocab might be: beach, sand, sun, car
* Bus stop activities around the class. Enlarged photos, sticky notes, write down what comes up in your mind when you see the photos. Share with class.
* ESOL speaking strategies such as Running Dictation, Think, Pair, Share, Videos, Pictures, etc.
* Hands-on experiences - builds prior knowledge - then further develop that prior knowledge by building on it. e.g. Language experiences, cooking, weaving, technology etc.

Planning Stage: 
* Use digital tools - make it interesting!
* You could alternate the planning phase: in groups, with a buddy, with the teacher, on Popplet, etc
* Model and explain the value of planning - students to understand the WHY...
* Have lots of visuals.
* Practice the planning phase. Have three templates available e.g. brainstorms, KWL chart, 4 blocks on a page etc. Every day give a topic, and use one of the planning templates to practice planning. Alternate the templates. (They are writing without knowing that they are writing).

Drafting Stage: 
* Create a glossary
* Write a paragraph on I wonder, do a word search which the students created themselves, create a questions page, draw a picture and label, write amazing facts.
*These activities are short and sharp.
* Lots of visuals, maps, art, etc

Editing stage: 
* Adding detail especially extending vocab
* Highlight nouns in writing pieces - add an adjective (do these for a few days in a row during mini-workshops)
* Practice adding adjectives by having a picture e.g. of Bumble from Transformers - students to identify the noun (robot) and add adjectives (yellow, big, fast). Do these quick sharp activities often.
* Use exemplars of text - highlight adjectives

Proofreading stage:
* Students that struggle with reading, won't be able to use the dictionary. Rather teach them how to hear sounds in a word and record it. There are spelling 4 strategies
* The spelling framework requires students to: Say it, Hear it, Find it, Write it, and Use it (Use your spelling charts as a traffic light activity)
* Traffic light activities e.g have a picture with scrambled letters. Students identify what they hear first, second or last, etc
* Write down all the words you know with a specific sound - quick warm-up activity.
* What is the purpose of each punctuation? Not just naming them.
* Do Readers Theatre.  This will encourage fluency and identifying the use of punctuation.
* Look into Nessy
 * lots of mini-workshops (10min) on spelling and punctuation
* have visual checklists for students around punctuation

Publishing stage: 
What do you want to achieve with regards to your writing programme?
E.g. of what a term 1's writing might look like: (Not linked to weeks)

Recount

Describe

Choice

Quick Writing

Students might write 2 or 3 of each type through the term. They choose one of each type (their personal best) of writing to publish. These published pieces form your bases for your OTJ's. Don't publish all pieces - Just one of each type. 

What types of writing am I collating from term 1 to inform my planning for term 2? Samples of planning, drafting, pre-writing etc. Each is a sample. Don't just measure the outcome. Measure the process. 

* link writing to art. Students can write a caption about their art piece. 

* link writing to music - lyrics, how it makes you feel, etc

NB! Get feedback from students about your teaching. 

ALL - Progress with my teaching as inquiry

Where am I now with my inquiry? 

I have completed my scanning phase of my inquiry. I've collected data from last year, collected student, parent and teacher voice. I've looked at absenteeism, and observed behaviour in the classroom.
I have identified 6 boys that are reluctant writers. They depend a lot on their teachers as well as peers in the class. Although they were doing what was expected, it was on a very low level (kind of the bare minimum). They could not verbalise why they were doing it e.g. why did they highlight ideas that go together.  They struggled to say what good writing looks like. They all knew that if they get stuck they should ask 3 before me (the teacher), however, they did not really know who the "experts" in their class were.

My developing hunches are:
* Chromebooks for writing has an affect on their writing i.e. writing e-asttle with pen and paper rather than chrome, might cause  a lower result.
* Exemplars to show what good writing at year level should look like, is not
readily available, and perhaps students need to see the difference between
a year 1 and 6 level of word (unpacking the difference)
* How much student voice is seeked in the classroom and across the school on topics of the students interest?
* De constructing the planning stage with students. Do they understand why they plan, and how to plan by themselves?
* LI/SC - co constructed with the students to gain agency over their learning. And do they know how to check their own work against these SC?
* What are we, as teachers, doing in the pre-writing stage before we start planning for writing? How do we unpack the topics with our student?
* Are we focussing too much on non-fiction writing, which involves a lot of new facts for information writing?

Taking Action

• Know your learners - what are their interests?  What do they like to write about?
• Negotiables - chrome book, paper & pen, postiks & pen.  What can children do with chrome to create pieces of writing? Balance around how this might work with other paper activities.
• Unpack the writing process.
• Identified with students if writing done on chrome is really better than writing done on paper. Obtain writing samples - one on paper - one on chrome- on topics of their choice, compare and unpack.
• Unpack planning - why do we plan, different ways of planning - add as much detail than I can (without the support of a teacher or buddy) - look at finding information with tools that are available, e.g. books, posters, Google etc
• Unpack, what can I change in my writing to make it better - personalized checklist

I will look into Boys as Reluctant writers, I'm aware that one of the classes already use Game of Awesome as encouragement for writing. Therefore my research will be more into why are they reluctant, and what can we change in the classroom and school to get them excited.

Accelerated Literacy Learning

I have the privilege this year of doing the ALL course at PES. My learning will take place through the Spiral of enquiry framework. I will be looking at each principle and identifying what we are doing well and what not and what do we need to think about next.

First is the scanning phase. This will include:

• Student data - assessment
• Observations - health and well being
• Capture student voice
• What is occuring for this child in a writing session?
• Talk with classroom teacher
• Capture parent voice
• Authentic parent engagement sessions.

During my first observation I will be collecting some student voice on what is making writing hard for them and what do they do when they get stuck. 

Second observation will include checking if students are doing any of the following:

A) Struggling  to use a range of strategies to assist them in their reading or writing.

B)  if distracted -  what is the cause?

C)  if not able to do the task what is the cause?

D)  observe teacher practice - meeting the needs of the students?   Diverse needs, relational pedagogy, culturally responsive, effective literacy practices.

Thirdly, I will be looking at the e-asttle assessments, and some class writing samples, and determine where the gaps are of each student. 

Based on the outcome I will analyse the data and come up with strategies on how to accelerate these students writing in order for them to catch up with the rest of the class. The idea of ALL is to be in support of, not in the place off...ideally the support they get from ALL will transition back into the class. The programme is aimed at Tier 2 students - a short term intervention for students where classroom teaching is not working. No kids before 40 weeks at school.