From data to blogging, from Cybersmart to Online Toolkits, it has been a year of developing a greater in-depth understanding of all the multitude of facets that make up the Manaiakalani Programme Outreach.
One of the key learnings that I have explored this year has been the excitement around acceleration in writing through blogging. Blogging has been a passion of mine for a number of years now and I enjoy both the challenge and the reward of putting pen to paper and engaging with a wider audience. As an individual, I knew how much growth came from exploring an idea, crafting the content around it and deciding if my thinking was at a point that I was willing to share it with the world. I'm sure there will always be posts that we look back on and realise we could have done better or ideas that we put out there that then change or develop into something new. Indeed, that is an exciting part of the process.
This year, we have explored the incredible results that blogging three times a week or more can achieve in accelerating learner's achievement in writing. So much reflection, unpacking of learning and then growth can come from articulating your learning journey online and having others provide feedback on it. Our next question was; can we do the same for reading?
Some may argue that if we are integrating blogging well into our classroom programmes, that there should be an acceleration occurring in reading as well. Reading a blog with the intention of commenting on it requires students to read for meaning, to play the role of assessor or editor along the way and then to formulate a comment that demonstrates we have read that blog post carefully enough to notice what it contains, what has been done well and what could be improved. However, I guess the simple fact is that many blog posts (at least at junior level) simply don't contain the sheer volume of text, complexity or perhaps variation in text type, to be solely capable of accelerated achievement in reading.
So what next?
Our data suggest that we need to look at strategies to support learners in reading as well. That if we can create such an incredible shift in writing, that collectively, our efforts could then create something quite special to aid the teaching of reading in our schools too.
In discussion at our annual Wananga in Tāmaki Makaurau this past week, it became clear to many of us that while reading seems to be a simple task, that designing a complete reading programme is in fact, a complex task, requiring attention to a number of factors. The WOOLF Fisher Research Team, tasked by us to delve into the wealth of data our schools provide, as well as to provide feedback on the classroom observations they undertake on our behalf shared their findings and provocations with us and asked us to explore them further.
As we looked into the different facets the observation team had focused on, it became clearer and clearer to me just how complex the task of facilitating a well-rounded reading programme is.
They had looked into the importance of learners having many quality opportunities to:
- Read authentic texts
- Learn about reading
- Learn through reading
- Talk and think about what they read
One thing I found of interest, was that the team found a number of occasions where teachers had taken an original (authentic) text and had modified it to make it more accessible for their leaners. They suggested that this perhaps gave students the impression that there was a right idea that the teacher was hoping to lead them towards.... and therefore, a correct answer the teacher was hoping to elicit from them. I wonder why this has become a common practice? Is it because these texts aren't being utilised for 'shared reading' anymore? That perhaps some teachers are seeing the change in classroom tools (with the move towards the implementation of our New Zealand Digital Curriculum in 2020) incorrectly as a move away from those traditional (tried and true) practices of shared and guided reading, reading to, reading with and reading about.
Within The Manaiakalani Programme, there is an absolute emphasis on Recognising Effective Practice. It is vital that we preserve the deliberate acts of teaching and incredible wealth of techniques used in our classrooms over many years. That the integration of digital technology to provide affordances for learning and to turbocharge learning, creating and sharing within the life learning and classrooms of our tamariki work to complement and enhance effective pedagogy.
When we explore Effective Literacy Practice by Lois Thompson, or Reading Comprehension Strategies by Sheena Cameron, two texts that have been well-utilised by NZ teachers, it becomes clear that there are many different things to consider when designing your literacy programme.
Earlier this year, Rebecca Jesson from The University of Auckland's WOOLF Fisher Research Centre shared a presentation with us about reading wide and deep through the use of a T-Shaped Literacy Model. There were a wealth of things to consider in here too. The more I think about this, the more I'm challenged by the idea that there are many teachers out there that are trying lots of great things in their reading programme, but many more who are either just doing what they have always done, without consideration of whether or not this is best for their learners, or struggle with what effective practice in facilitating reading with their learners should actually look like. The more I explore the research and findings presented to us, the more I feel that we could do more to support.
I'm excited about where this could head. What happens in your classroom?
Do learners read School Journals? How about novels?
How do you encourage your most reluctant readers?
Is critical literacy used? Do your learners have a choice about what they read?
Do they have agency in their reading goals and how they track towards these?
Are they reading authentic texts? Are they getting taught reading strategies in purposeful and engaging ways? Do they have time with you, the teacher? Do they have time reading alone? How do you keep them accountable during this time?
Who works the hardest in your classroom? You? Or your learners?
So many questions to cover. So many possibilities.
How could it get any better than this?
There's definitely room.
