No 4: Teaching as Inquiry 2023

 LEARNING

Initially I wanted to go on the course from the writing teacher. However, the dates did not work and so I did the next best thing and bought her newly published book: How to Teach Writing, Spelling and Grammar.

The book is broken down into three areas of writing focus: transcription skills, translation and composition.

Walls suggests a specific emphasis be placed on handwriting in the Year 1 classroom. Also, spelling needs to be specifically taught. In the first year at school a lot of the effort in writing is taken up in working memory by spelling and how to form letters. So plenty of practise in these two areas allows students to become more automatic and therefore more able to write efficiently when it comes to composition. These two skills are the transcription skills.

Translation is how the writer turns their thoughts into sentences. This involves the teaching of vocabulary and how to structure a sentence. Oral language is her key to initially teach these two aspects and can be done at another time to the composition time.

Composition is the third area and this requires a dedicated time to writing for students to generate ideas, construct these into sentences and then revise and edit to ensure the audience can understand what has been composed. In this time Walls suggests using clear modelling, time for students to plan, supported writing and a fast feedback system. 

Source:

Walls, H and Braid, C. 2023. How to teach writing, spelling and grammar: From research to practice. 

TAKING ACTION

Some parts of my writing programme will be tweaked and other parts more radically changed. Firstly, making handwriting a priority and ensuring I am giving them feedback to make adjustments straight away. I will implement chalkboards to provide kinesthetic resistance and enable good pencil grip. Also, ensuring I teach in letter shapes to ensure lots of practise in a particular handwriting movement. To ensure regular short practises of handwriting I will continue to use handwriting books in the afternoon. 

For spelling I will continue to do this during our phonological awareness activities and small group reading time when we practise sound changes. One difference will be in trying some gestures to ensure students are hearing and saying phonemes so they can transfer this into composition time.

I will try to give specific time to oral language of modelling a sentence. Vocabulary teaching I will continue to do in the BSLA format of using a quality children's picture book with explicit definitions of new vocabulary. 

The biggest change to my writing programme will probably be in the composition area. I will ensure to model writing and encourage students to state their writing goal. I will follow the scope and sequence of goals developed by Helen Walls. This means during composition time students who can not yet form letters to correspond to sounds will not be expected to compose a story. We will wait until they have an interest, and can write their name and recognise sounds on the letter sound chart. The focus for these students is to promote an interest in writing and give them skills first to have successful writing. To finish the composition process students will have their writing goal written in the back of their book that will become the focus point of our fast feedback session at the end of the process. 

No 3: Teaching as Inquiry 2023

 DEVELOPING A HUNCH

I believe from my BSLA professional development that I would like to devote my professional learning this year to implementing structured literacy practice to writing in my Year 1 classroom. The evidence in all students making reading gains suggests that applying this theory to writing should help all students, particularly students who have entered school with the lowest phonological awareness.

My interest in structured literacy has led me to learning about Helen Walls the Writing Teacher which initially started from viewing the Education Hub website displaying practices in New Zealand schools.

No 2: Teaching as Inquiry 2023

 FOCUSING

To focus my inquiry I have chosen four students who have low test scores in their initial BSLA testing. They also show other factors that impact on writing such as poor pencil grip and disinterest in writing letters or drawing.

Beginning of school observations and testing

Student 1: Initial phoneme 1/10, Letter sound recognition 3/10, phoneme blending 4/10

Happily writes own name and can spell this but with one backwards letter.

Student 2: Initial phoneme 5/10, Letter sound recognition 3/10, phoneme blending 4/10

Unable to write own name and does not enjoy writing or drawing. Pencil grip needs correcting.

Student 3: Initial phoneme 3/10, Letter sound recognition 2/10, phoneme blending 2/10

Unable to write own name when first started school but did enjoy sitting drawing & colouring.

Student 4: Initial phoneme 0/10, Letter sound recognition 4/10, phoneme blending 3/10

Unable to write own name, but did make great effort to learn to write within a few weeks.

No 1: Teaching as Inquiry 2023

 This year my Teaching as Inquiry overarching question is:

How will incorporating structured literacy principles to my whole writing programme effect my Year 1 learners?

INTRODUCTION

In October 2022 I completed professional development for the Better Start Literacy Approach (BSLA). This year two other teachers at Oruaiti School are undertaking this Professional Development with a Year 2 focus. This is really exciting for me because this will benefit students to continue in a systematic approach as they continue learning at our kura.

I saw vast benefits of this approach for my learners in 2022 and 2021. However, despite feeling competent in my new reading pedagogy, which has a lot of cross overs into writing, I still felt that elements of my writing practice need upskilling. 

For my teaching as inquiry I will use Timperley's Spiral of Inquiry.

SCANNING

As a new entrant class in a rural school my class began with nine students, expecting to reach 20 students by the end of the year. Three students have carried over into this class from last year, two of whom had made reasonable progress in reading and writing using a structured literacy approach. One student began with almost a complete knowledge of alphabet names and could write many without a letter chart prompt as well as spelling several personal names correctly. The rest of the class could attempt to write their name, with few gripping a pencil correctly.