Observation and where to
2023 Observation (please make a copy and edit)
Pre Conversation
Name: Denise Date of in class visit: Observer: Linda Time Frame:20 to 30 mins
Students being targeted | Iese Vaitusi Levi McNaught Blake Metua | |
Inquiry Goal | Now we have letter formation and sounds underway, I have moved to establish my writing programme for Term 3. I have never waited this long to do formal writing. I am normally into the process as soon as swimming has finished. But what I have noticed is that the process is complicated and overloads wee minds if there aren’t foundations skills underway. It is kind of meaningless. But we have to write everyday - right? How we got around that was by having writing rotations - but this was specifically around writing the kids' names, practising finger grip building with exercises like threading, rolls of paper, chalk, painting, whiteboards, letter practise and really affirming that the kids' efforts represented a message. So I am looking at how to bring the structured literacy process to writing. According to Leslee Allen: Children need specific phonics teaching, for many, their foundation in phonics is the barrier. Spending a lot of time going over the very basic short/dominant letter sounds is a real benefit to children. They need to be explicitly shown that the letter is just a symbol for the sounds that we can hear. There is a strong connection here to the acquisition of mathematics here. Encouraging children to see patterns, shape, make their own patterns etc will directly help their understanding of letters and numbers. I believe we need to be wary about how early we introduce more complicated blends etc, and once again this needs to be approached on an individual level. Confusing some children by moving on too quickly is one of the biggest mistakes we can make. Once children understand that the letter is just a symbol for a sound, they can start to see how words are just these sounds joined together. Understanding of rhyme is vitally important as well and this needs to be woven through and checked individually. Vocab, this is one of the biggest barriers. If you do not have the words to describe what you are trying to say, how on earth can you write it down? Once again a play-based class is the perfect place to learn about my world out loud and to have loads of opportunities to talk. | |
What I have tried (based on what research) | Daily letter formation Writing rotations Exercises to build fine motor skills Daily phonics | |
If my practice is successful you will see me doing… | Reading the story Song of the River Building the kupu we will need Using modelling cards and alphabet cards Brainstorming Supporting and modelling the process of the story Might not be in books - their choice of where to write | |
If my practice is successful, you will see the students doing…. | Thinking of ideas for a story Talking amongst each other (they may even copy each other’s mahi) Writing down key letter sounds Writing in the right direction | |
Observation Sheet : The WHAT
What was noticed | |
The teacher: The students: | |
Observation Reflection Meeting Notes
SO WHAT? The teacher's practice is jointly analysed using the teacher’s goal and indicators of success as the basis. | |
How did the teacher being observed feel the lesson went? Did the observer agree/disagree with anything? | I think this is the first time I felt a writing lesson has gone well - and it was a fairly basic one. I was concerned about being more of the person who modelled and threw out thoughts and ideas, and I just wanted to see where they would head to. Once the book was read, the boys had the choice of how they would capture their writing - there was a big roll of paper, whiteboards, clipboards with paper or their own lined writing books which they chose. And that was a surprise, but a good one. I used the roll of paper and felts, and modelled the process - my picture, my thoughts about the awa, what my sentence was going to be etc. They engaged really well and just got on with the writing process. I had writing supports like sentence starters, our Jolly Phonics alphabet card which they are familiar with using with Whaea Lee, our alphabet butterfly card that has letters, high frequency words and blends on it, and my old high frequency word tiles from Marfell. The boys are getting quite good with hearing key sounds, and this session gave me a teachable moment when they wanted to know how to write river, but got stuck on the “er”. That was a good chunk of letters to use (we also worked on -ing) and Levi linked it back to words like sister. We are in the process of writing a second sentence with support. I felt we could have used some describing words, but that can be another session. |
WHERE TO ? The identification of possible new practices and how the teacher would monitor them in terms of their effectiveness for students | |
What next? What actions will you take to engage students in new learning in your inquiry? | I am just wondering how to weave reading and writing together more so that it can also be a way of practicing our phonics. Leslee Allen has some good ideas, but again, I need to have the time to sit and read through the blog and how I can use it for my class.
“Through structured literacy I had really altered my lens to writing. For one, the penny had really dropped in regards to how hard the process of writing is. Until I started my structured literacy journey I really had only scratched the surface on knowing just how many jigsaw parts had to go into being a writer. While I had really started to master the focus on the mechanics of it all and the explicit teaching of the code, I still had not really thought about how children come up with an idea, or considered just what a huge cognitive load this process is, when everything else is being focused on at the same time.”
“This is where colourful semantics came in. An oral language approach, it suited my needs down to the ground. Allowing me to teach the specifics of a complete sentence and in turn give children the ability to develop a sentence out loud, then record it down. There was a lot of work that went on here, lots of explicit and very scaffolded teaching. But what has eventuated are children that can independently write a sentence, without having to struggle. In fact, they started to find writing so enjoyable, that they requested it if we happened to miss it that day.”
“Knowledge building has been huge here, I mean, if you have not got anything to write about, how on earth can you write. We have spent a lot of time working on writing factual sentences. Then I came to my next conundrum, so my children can write a sentence, they can write a factual sentence based on what they have developed in our knowledge building and they can write a complete sentence based on a picture or another motivation, but how could I move them past just one sentence, without them resorting to lots of run on repetition. How could I get a series of quality sentences without the and then, and then, and then...the end? Cognitive load wise, it is hard enough to keep an idea in your head, while still having to focus on formation, punctuation and spelling, but when asked to extend on this idea, it becomes really difficult for the beginner writer to do this. So I had the idea of a short video. Sound off, playing short bursts for discussion. Then having children write a sentence basically capturing that short burst, coming back to share, then having a break, before we returned to write the next burst. Almost as if they were writing the voice over for that section of video. The video itself, started with a calm sea, in the next burst a dolphin emerges, then jumps into the air, only to return with a splash into the ocean. The little clip I played was about 10 seconds. This approach worked so well! The children loved it, they felt really successful and produced great writing for their first go. (I have year one and two).” I really like Leslee Allen obviously, but as she is a teaching principal of juniors, I identify with her struggles and so her blog is immensely helpful. |
What are the learning needs of the teacher observed? | I am going to check this site out: https://ufli.education.ufl.edu/foundations/toolbox/a-j/ It has lots of supports around literacy, but I need to have a good look and see if it fits our school because there is so much out there. |
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