Engaging boys reluctant to write

My Learning .....Engaging boys who are reluctant to write.

This year my inquiry has been trialling the use of tactile strategies that engage, involve and motivate a group of boys reluctant to write and reflect on the impact on the progress of these students longer term.

This came about when I looked at my writing data in February and realised that 8 out of the 16 Year 1 & 2 students were writing below expectation. I already knew that this would have to be a focus for me as a teacher.

I asked my class how they felt about writing. From this I found out that the girls enjoyed writing a lot more than the boys. My boys were not engaged.....and I had to think of ways to engage them. I decided to ask the boys what would interest them to want to write. Some of the suggestions were doing science, making things, looking at mini beasts and learning about them. Up until this point I had observed that my students were engaged through story telling, play, building and creating with their hands, drawing, use of ipads, sharing news and science experiences.

 So as part of my daily planning I included science experiences, technology, cooking, kite making, watching you tube clips to do with minibeasts in writing. The hands on experiences were amazing ....there was a buzz and I found that students were all engaged. As a class we brainstormed vocabulary to do with the experiences. This allowed the students to include specific vocabulary in their writing.



Alongside this I introduced my students to SOLO taxonomy and used the HOT SOLO maps for planning. I found that this helped my boys to plan their ideas and be able to follow a structure when it came to writing. Slowly I started to notice that the boys were no longer writing a sentence or two but beginning to write a page length. Their writing started to include more ideas.

We talked as a class about the expectations in writing. What would a good piece of writing have? What were we aiming for? Students were shown good models of writing. Every time we wrote our learning intention and our success criteria were clear. I ensured that the students knew exactly what to include in their piece of writing. Something else I started to do particularly with the boys was telling them how much  I expected in terms of writing in a given writing session. The writing was completed over the week instead of one day. This way I was able to encourage the students to expand on their ideas.

After the writing session we would highlight what our focus words for the lesson were eg. linking words and share these with the class.

In term 2 some of these boys had the privilege of writing everyday with support from a teacher aide. These boys had a choice of writing about what was of interest to them. Again knowing the expectations, structure and purpose around their writing motivated them to write.

Alongside this, as part of our Mutukaroa programme, I started to set writing goals with the parents and students. I noticed that one of the barriers in writing with my boys was that they were spending a long time trying to write basic words. My students had good letter sound knowledge and were able to attempt new vocabulary. This then became a goal for students to do in class as well as at home. At the meeting I also mentioned to the parents that their child is a student that I am targeting to see shifts in writing.  This made a big shift in our writing. Setting smart goals and being very specific contributed to progress made and seen in writing. With the goals set, discussed and displayed, I found that when it came to writing I was able to remind students of their goals during our writing.

I had the privilege of visiting a school and talking with a teacher who had an all boys class. It was fascinating hearing his journey and how he structures his day to engage and meet the needs of his students. Also being involved with the community of schools, allowed me to talk with teachers of other schools about how they engage their reluctant writers.

Now in September as I look at my data I have 9 out of the 10 year 1 students (90 %)  achieving at and above expectation compared with February data where there were only 30 percent at and above.

I believe that building a positive relationship with my students and being interested in what interests them is a key to making shifts in learning. Knowing my students and tracking their progress closely in writing over the year has enabled me as a teacher to know definitely their strengths, gaps and look specifically at what strategies would make a shift in their learning over time.  Having a meeting with the parents have also contributed to the huge progress as well. Making students' goals visible in the classroom has supported them to know what they are working on. My next step is making the writing expectations visible in the classroom so students are able to understand where they are at and what their next steps are. Displaying these expectations pictorially will support our students to understand the expectations in writing better. Also looking at ways of transitioning what these students have done with their next year's teachers and communicating this achievement with parents.

Mutukaroa

Reflection ....Mutukaroa .....TeachMeet NZ

I was invited by Sonya to present on TeachMeet NZ my learning this year with a new initiative we implemented called Mutukaroa. My initial response was "how much time do I have" then I realised that it has made a difference....why not share it with others so here I go. Preparing for this presentation has clarified my learning and more so my thinking. Being asked to share something that has made an impact in three minutes seemed impossible but you can do it. 

Newmarket School was very fortunate to be one of the initial 10 schools in the cluster working alongside the host school (Sylvia Park School). I have the awesome privilege of being the Mutukaroa Coordinator. Working alongside Mutukaroa Coordinators, parents, teachers and students have been an amazing experience. 

Here is my presentation on TeachMeetNZ.

Mutukaroa is a learning Partnership between the home and school. It is working alongside our whanau, supporting, empowering and engaging them in their child's learning. It is taking the learning that's happening at school into the homes of our whanau.                                 

The classroom teacher administers a detailed observation survey both in literacy and numeracy at age 5, 5 and a half, 6 and 7. These assessments are then shared with me the coordinator. Part of my role is then to invite the parents to be part of a learning conversation based around their child's learning. At this meeting we celebrate successes and set new goals. Ten weeks later we meet for a review meeting where we review the goals. If the goals have been achieved we set new ones, otherwise we look at other resources to support that specific learning goal. The two targets that are usually set together with parents are very specific. One target is for literacy and the other is for numeracy. The best part of it is that resources are provided to support these targets at home.

As a coordinator the biggest challenge that I face is sharing the data collected with parents within two weeks of the testing and ensuring that there are enough resources ready to support the goals.

The biggest impact of this initiative on my teaching includes building strong relationships with our parents. In addition being responsive to the culture and background of our whanau. Some of what I learnt was that parents are reliant on the teachers to teach their children. Some parents are unsure of how to best support their child and to what extent in literacy and numeracy. I have built a closer relationship with our teachers by working collaboratively.

Mutukaroa surely has made a huge impact on our learning outcomes. We have had some students making a year's progress in 6 months in terms of learning. All children to date have made some progress in their learning. Where the most progress is seen is where the parents have set specific targets and have been involved in their child's learning. 

My practise is refined and becoming more focused specific in meeting the needs of my learners.

"Whaia te iti Kahurangi"

"Reach for the Stars"

To make a difference we need to journey together.

Visit to Hobsonville Point School

I was excited to make a visit to Hobsonville Point School. Lots of good things I had heard about the school and after visiting it previously, I needed to make a second trip with my team. This time I was more interested in not only the modern learning environment but what a day looked like for a child at the school. How did they plan their day? What were the challenges teachers face?

I was blown away with the way students could clearly articulate their plan for the day even the five year olds. There weren't any bells ....how did it work? The question that keeps popping into my head is why do I do what I do? The more I think about it the more I challenge myself.

Team Inquiry

"The Power of Collaboration" 

Junior Team Inquiry - 2014

This year my Junior team decided to have a collaborative approach to inquiry. Our goal for the inquiry was to work collaboratively to accelerate achievement using a variety of strategies in writing.When the idea was floated by, it sounded like a great approach so we all got on board and decided to have a go.The more I thought about it the more nervous I became because like all inquiries it is not knowing where the inquiry would lead and what would it look like for us as a team.
  


As a team we felt that writing was an area of the curriculum we needed extra support with. Alongside that our baseline data confirmed that all our children was writing at Level 1B and we wanted to re-look at how we taught writing across the syndicate. I wondered personally whether teaching writing differently as to how I had always taught it would make a difference. So the inquiry began in February of this year.

We collected some baseline data such as alphabet knowledge and word list, hearing letters and sounds in words, beginning of the year writing sample. We looked closely at the literacy progressions and ensured that we understood clearly what the expectations were for our Year 0/1 students.

Looking at my class, I decided to target my Maori/ Pasifika child as well as students who were past the emergent stage in writing and thinking of ways to accelerate them to the early/ fluent level in writing. Stacey decided to target her emergent writers while Andrea were looking at her ESOL learners and looking at strategies to best support them in writing.

As a team we identified the learning needs of our target students. We recognised that because of the lack in alphabet knowledge of letters and sounds, we needed to make it a priority to teach this. Through their five year observation survey we targeted the goals we set with parents to learn their alphabet by name and sound. To my amazement, when it came to 5.6 assessment - nearly all the children were scoring very high. This made a huge shift in writing because now the students knew that in writing we write using sounds. 


Their knowledge of basic words increased as well which gave them a sense of achievement in terms of becoming independent with their work. Other learning needs we highlighted from the data was that the plan for writing was very simple and we needed to look at ways to extend this. Story starters were boring and reviewing the purpose in writing was crucial - thinking of ways to engage our audience through interesting hooks.  We also identified that ideas and vocabulary in writing was very simple and so there were lots of discussion around this as to how we were going to build on this.

It was important as a team that we set specific goals with the students in child speak language so the students could not only read them but understand well what they were trying to achieve in writing.

At syndicate meetings there were lots of discussion around strategies we were already using in class that was making a difference in our practice and sharing of how we modelled writing to the students. Some of the strategies we started to implement in our classes were planning for language experiences where we would build and extend on ideas and vocabulary. We had vocabulary charts displayed with topic related words. This would be done in a writing session.

We found that our writing programme started to look different because there was more engagement from the students, time was given to build language and vocabulary and think, pair, share ideas became powerful. Instead of rushing through our writing sessions and getting everything done, writing became more purposeful and meaningful for both the learner and the teacher. Our writing lessons started to spread over a week instead of in a day.  We used apps such as Book creator, camera and doodle buddy to create e-books. The level of motivation and engagement was high. 

What was even more exciting for me was seeing my team being enthusiastic about writing and sharing what was going well for them after trying new strategies. Not only hearing the stories of marked improvement in achievement of students writing but shifts made in terms of teacher's practise.

  

As a team we came to the conclusion from our inquiry that to expect great writing from children we as teachers need to be very clear about our expectations and ensure that we are providing children with rich language experiences and giving them time to talk about their ideas. Allowing students to view and celebrate themselves as authors reinforces the purpose for writing. Giving them lots of opportunities for free choice writing provides them with sharing their thoughts in a meaningful way.

Our next steps as a team is to continue to look at ways to use iPads/ google docs so that children can collaborate and share their work. We also want to provide students with different tools and ways to express themselves, their interests and abilities. As we continue to look at our learners, we will continue to look at ways we can be responsive towards their culture and needs.

As a team we reflected and talked about what went well for us. In terms of having a collaborative goal was good because we were able to bounce ideas off each other and support each other in terms of trying new things.

We felt that the inquiry flowed well and we were able to revisit the inquiry at syndicate meetings from time to time. We have identified that in order for us to accelerate students in writing we need to know them well and to continue to make explicit the expectations. We will look at displaying the expectations for writing visually on the wall using child speak language so students can identify where they are at and what do they need to do to get to the next level. 

To conclude, I believe there is effectiveness and power in collaboration. It does work and can make a difference.