My Inquiry for 2020

This year I am teaching in an ILE which we have named 'The Block' alongside two other teachers. We have 76 children in our space.

My inquiry question this year is:

How can play based maths increase maths knowledge and understanding of mathematical concepts?

Here are some of the strategies that I will try:

-DMIC style lessons with half the class at a time, working in groups with materials like toys and fun maths resources. I will question them and we will have discussions which will give them time to show their thinking by moving materials and talking about them.
-Free play with maths games like snakes and ladders, dice games, cards, mathematical card games.
-Planned play with lego, toys etc in small groups to teach strategy and concepts - eg multiplication ‘show me 5 groups of dinosaurs… how many in each group?’
-I want to get creative and make new maths games so that I have a large range of resources.

I am excited to see what happens when I teach children how to use materials when solving problems and my goal for them by the end of 2020 is that they can get to the point where they will know when to use materials and where to get them from without my prompting.

I am also excited to use games and create a lot of fun, hands on resources for my class to use this year. I believe that a lot of learning happens when playing games and I haven't done enough of this in previous years! As amazing as digital technology is, I believe hands on learning activities/games are also crucial for children to engage in maths.

Maths has already been such a positive experience for the children and I'm having a lot more fun teaching it this way! They have been having a lot of fun and haven't realised that they are actually learning through the games. They're playing games that relate to the area of learning that I am currently teaching them as well as games that give them time to practice basic maths knowledge like bonds to 10 and counting on. I will keep creating new games and resources as the year goes on.

It has been awesome to hear the conversations and see how children are helping each other in their learning. They have been playing games in mixed ability grouping and naturally those that are challenged are being helped by their friends! It's also great to hear them practice counting aloud whist playing together and learn how to use materials to problem solve.


Here are some photos of what we have been doing so far.

Experiencing Success!

A quick recap on what we have been working on..

This year, my goal has been to lift the achievement in comprehension during reading. Last term, I realised that having a focus on vocabulary was the solution. After reading testing earlier this year, I noticed a pattern in my focus group's results. All 8 students failed comprehension because they could not understand the vocabulary in the text.

Therefore, this term we worked extremely hard on vocabulary! The students in my focus group worked on follow up tasks that were vocabulary rich, we did a huge focus on synonyms and had in depth discussions during reading about the new vocab in the stories. We worked on strategies for solving unfamiliar vocabulary as well. I stuck new vocab from our stories on the windows and hung colourful synonyms in places where my focus group could refer back to them at any time. I also did a big push on the use of new and exciting vocabulary during writing time for my focus group.

The Success!

At the end of this term, I did running records on my focus group. It was a success! As you can see in the table, anywhere that is coloured green, shows improvement (whether that be improvement in decoding or comprehension). 6/8 of the focus group made an improvement in comprehension and 4/8 of the group passed the test. One student actually passed comprehension but didn't pass the test as she is working on decoding strategies.

Where to next?

The problem now is retaining the vocabulary. I keep reminding myself that 'if you don't use it, you lose it'. I've noticed that my students are quickly forgetting the new vocabulary that they have been learning. My question now is, how can they retain it? 

My other challenge is, there are 2 students in the focus group that made no improvement in their comprehension between the May and September running records. They both really struggle to understand the stories that they are reading. I will be working very hard with these two this term in the hopes of helping them to make progress in their reading by the end of the year.

New data = A new focus group and a new focus question

As seen in the slide deck above, I have recently completed reading testing with my class. Upon analysing data, I realised that I needed to change my inquiry focus as well as my focus group. The paragraph in the slide deck explains the reason behind these changes.

My new question for this term is 'how do I lift achievement in comprehension for students reading above ten years?'

During our collaborative inquiry meeting, my inquiry group gave me some suggestions. A couple of people said that I should focus on teaching my Hulk and Wonderwoman reading groups new vocabulary. The more vocabulary that students have, the more that they will understand difficult texts. I looked at the reading tests again, and I saw that the comprehension questions that students struggled with were mostly the ones that included difficult vocabulary. So, this term, I will be focussing on gifting and discussing new vocabulary with these two groups.

Inquiry reflection term 1

This year my goal is to make reading follow up tasks more creative for all levels. I have realised that by setting typical question and answer activities for every book, students don't learn as much new vocabulary, do rich word work and aren't very engaged in their learning because the same type of comprehension activities get boring after a while. I'm not saying that working on comprehension is not important, I just need to mix it up and be more creative.

I aim to make learning experiences more hands on for all learners - especially for my groups that are reading between 6.5-7.5 years. As seen in the slideshow above, we have been working on sight words, word families and have been playing games to learn blends.

As for my students that are reading at 10 years or above, I have been setting tasks that have helped them to think more creatively about the stories they read. For example, they've created movies, posters and postcards which have required them to learn how to do their own research, read websites and connect their stories to the world around them. In doing these tasks, they have learnt other valuable lessons - like how to work as a group and new technology skills on iMacs, iPads and their Chromebooks.

Inquiry Into Reading

This year, my inquiry focus is the

Acquisition Of Language In Reading.

My questions heading into this inquiry are: 

1. How can I plan follow up experiences in reading that will increase language acquisition?
2. How can I plan rich activities that will bring students back to me better than I left them?

I hope to lift the achievement in reading for all students in my class and improve the achievement of students with additional needs in the learning area of English.

Upon reflection on 2018's reading lessons, I realised that my follow up tasks lacked creativity and didn't challenge my students enough. My follow up experiences should have reflected the WALT of the lesson more and needed to be more hands on. I got into the habit of reusing a lot of tasks that other teachers had created. These were good tasks, but didn't reflect what my own students needed.

Instead, a lot of my follow ups were more like time fillers.

This year, I aim to create follow up tasks more intentionally. I want them to be creative, hands on and to reflect the groups' current needs.

Whilst students are not reading with me, I want them to be building on the skills that we learnt in small group time. This will bring students back to me better than I left them.

I have a target group of 5 students who are all reading just below their rdg age. I will blog about their progress throughout the year.

Celebrating Creativity In Learning

Today in our staff PD, we celebrated the creative work that we have done with our children. Dorothy was speaking to us about the power of Learn, Create, Share and asked us to have a think about an activity this year that was a creative and successful part of a child's learning journey.

I had a think back to an awesome reading activity that I did my a group called Thor. It was super engaging and helped to push the boys to think more deeply about the text.

Goal Setting In DMIC Maths

This term the focus of my inquiry was goal setting and reflecting in DMIC maths.
If you look back to last term's inquiry update, I began using the goal chart that you can see in the photo above. I wrote names under each goal. However, to make it easier and more engaging, I printed out student's faces and students get to stick their own face on the chart! They have found much more enjoyment in getting to stick their faces up and I am able to refer back to this chart during the lesson to remind children of the goal they chose.

I have found 'group norm goal' setting to be very effective. Students choose their own goal, which gives them more ownership/responsibility over their learning!