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.