Reading recovery observation with Siope

I observed Vanessa doing a reading recovery session with one of my students, Siope.  She got Siope to focus on how the letter sounds felt in his mouth.

She got Siope to hear the beginning and ending sounds in some words and Vanessa finished writing the words.  She then made a sentence strip of a sentence Siope had said "He is putting makeup on."  Siope put the sentence back in order.

She then got Siope to practise some high-frequency words: 'is' and 'am.'  She emphasised stretching the words to hear the sounds.

Then she got him to practice the word 'my' with magnetic letters and gave him some sentences with the word 'my' - 'My brother is called Saia.'  'My class is Room 6.'

Vanessa then got Siope to read "We Dress Up."  She reminded him to turn the pages the right way.  She made connections between the text and the pictures as Siope read.

She got Siope to find some words in the book that started with an S - "scarf" and "snake."

Takeaway:  I noticed the way Vanessa really got Siope to pay attention to the sounds in the high-frequency words he was learning, as well as just recognising the words.  I will use this strategy with Siope's reading group.  

4. Demonstrate commitment to ongoing professional learning and development of personal professional practice. 

i. identify professional learning goals in consultation with colleagues.

ii. participate responsively in professional learning opportunities within the learning community.

iii. initiate learning opportunities to advance personal professional knowledge and skills.  

Observation of reading recovery

I watched Hitha doing reading recovery with one of my children, Tui, reading at Level 7.  Tui started off by reading a familiar story called "The Leaf Boats."  Hitha got him to point to words with a chopstick as he read.  Hitha reminded him to pay attention to commas as he read.  She drew Tui's attention to words and punctuation he had missed.

Then Tui read another seen text - "Mother's Day" while Hitha did a running record.  She got Tui to choose a picture from the story to talk about.  Tui then wrote a story about the picture.  Hitha drew a sound box to help him with the word 'gave.'  She reminded him that the e on the end of gave was a 'magic letter.'

Hitha paid attention to Tui's letter formation too, when he tried to write 'breakfast' she noticed that he wrote his 'f' backwards.  She put a sticker over the f and got him to rewrite it.  She wrote his story on a strip of paper then cut it up and got Tui to put the words back in order.  She then focused on fluency, getting Tui to read it back "like a story."
Takeaway:  Watching this reading recovery session reminded me about using story strips for writing - this is an activity I haven't done in a while and would be good to use for my lower writing group. 

4. Demonstrate commitment to ongoing professional learning and development of personal professional practice. 

i. identify professional learning goals in consultation with colleagues.

ii. participate responsively in professional learning opportunities within the learning community.

iii. initiate learning opportunities to advance personal professional knowledge and skills.  

Pasifika Dual Language Texts seminar

I went to a talk held by Dr Rae Si'ilata at the Universtity of Auckland on Wednesday night - it was about 'translanguaging and storying with Pasifika dual language texts.'
Translanguaging, I learnt, is having input in one language and output in another.

Dr Si'ilata's main message was to value the languages children bring to school.  She said people used to believe that if children were strong in their first language then there was less space in their minds for learning English.  The understanding now though is that if children are strong in their first language this will support them to have a strong understanding of English, too.

She showed some practical examples of children using the Pasifika dual language texts.  At Holy Cross School the children were reading 'Let's Go' and making their own version of the book online with photos and audio files of them reading it in different languages.

She showed the blog of a colleague who was using Pasifika stories to engage her learners: http://kylahansell.blogspot.co.nz/

She mentioned that the audio files of some of the stories online had the words read too fast, so the school had used children's older siblings to record slower versions.

Takeaway: This seminar gave me some ideas about how to use the dual language texts in my class.  I will look into good apps for making an online book and use this with a simple bilingual text like 'Let's Go.'

Observation - writing in Year 1

Yesterday I observed Jas teaching writing in her Year 1 class.

First she went over the 'letters with long sticks' - d, f, h, k, l, t.  She had these on a handwritten chart.

She talked about what good writers do - saying that it's important to use finger spaces so our words are not mashed together like mashed potato.  I think this explanation would appeal to my class.

Then she set up the two groups who were going to be writing independently.  One had a box of sentences like "I like to shop." printed out big and with a photo.  That group had to write a story from the card and illustrate it.  The other group had a box with sentence starters like "My brother is nice to me because..." on one side and options like "he reads with me" or "he looks after me" on the back.  I thought these would be really effective for independent writing activities for my low group and that the everyday topics would appeal to them.

When the two independent groups were settled Jas sat down with the group she was writing with.  She had a picture of a pig glued into the modelling book.  They briefly discussed the pig, how it had four legs like a dog etc.  Then she said she'd like them to write "Look at my pig."  They counted the words in the sentence.  Jas had some big word magnets on the board and she got children to go and find the words on the board. She then got them to compare the words from the board with the words on the alphabet card. She got one child to be the 'spacer' - making the finger spaces in the modelling book.  When they got to the word 'pig' in the sentence, a word that wasn't on the alphabet card, Jas gave them different options for hearing the letter sounds.  "Is it 'i-apple' or 'i-insect?'  Is it 'g-goat' or 'g-orange?'"

Then she got them to read the completed sentence from the beginning and to record it in their books.

Takeaway: I would like to make some sentence starter cards for my low writing group as an independent writing activity when they are not writing with me.  I really liked the way that using the magnets got the children to physically go and find the words.  I would like to get a set of these to use with my class too.  

PTC 4. demonstrate commitment to ongoing professional learning and development of personal professional practice i. identify professional learning goals in consultation with colleagues ii. participate responsively in professional learning opportunities within the learning community iii. initiate learning opportunities to advance personal professional knowledge and skills