BSLA review

After 40 weeks of teaching the Better Start Literacy Approach (BSLA) to the children in my class, all of the children have been tested. Out of the whole class of 20 children, the reading group who are considered as the most capable readers 4 of them have reached the top reading level called Rakau. As part of the assessment schedule they were tested at the end of the year and came out with top results ranging from 100%, 99%, 98% and 92%. Considering the fact that all of these children are ESOL and they have accumulated so many more words to their vocabulary, it is a great credit to them. They have read a range of books that they can relate to, learnt the characters names and Te Reo Maori phrases. The teaching strategies have introduced a new focus sound each week that is found in the words of the book they are reading. They learn a new morpheme such as -ing, -ed, -ll (double consonant) and have learnt how to sound out a word phonetically. I am so proud of their achievements. One of these students has received a top academic award for this year out of 60 Year 2 students. It is interesting to note that all of these children have had homework reading support from their own families at home, which has proved to be successful. In comparison to a small number of children who have had minimal input from their parents and/or significant absences from school throughout this year. In conclusion I feel that a consistent approach of teaching and learning at school and home is required in order for the BSLA reading program to be successful.

Year 2 Unicorns!

On behalf of Mrs Moon, Mrs Shirley and myself, I would like to congratulate the Year 2 netball team for winning all of their 12 games this season. We are so proud of you, as many of you were first time players that consisted of 6 girls and 2 boys. We love the fact that you became an awesome team, working together and coming to weekly training, learning new skills. You scored 119 goals and only had 9 goals scored against! Well, we are looking forward to seeing you all return in 2024...

T3 BSLA writing progress

BSLA making progress in Literacy

This group of children have been learning how to spell cvc words found in the book they are reading. They are also practising segmentation of words and phonic awareness by sounding out each letter. Each book has some Maori kupu in it as well. They are introduced to the focus sounds for each week. Students are looking closely at blends and double vowel sounds from this book. This is a good opportunity to identify correct letter formation from each child writing on their whiteboard.

BSLA - Literacy skills

As per the recommendation, I have been reading one quality storybook a week with my class. Throughout the book, I read the explanantions of new words in each sentence which need highlighting. I have noticed that by the end of the week, the children have learnt new words to add to their vocabulary as well as Te Reo Maori words and their meanings. I encourage the children to think about the characters in the story, name them if possible and write down their ideas using a whiteboard marker and pens. Each contribution is acknowledged with verbal praise and encouragement. This helps students with their story writing ideas and writing full sentences, rather than stand alone words. I brainstorm ideas on the mat, using the whiteboard and draw a mind map with the title in the middle. This is a whole class learning opportunity with role modelling of sounding out unknown words. I may gift them some of the new vocabulary words if they are tricky? This technique promotes cognitive skills and uses a peer scaffolded approach to learning together and helping each other. I have noticed an improvement in the top writing group, adding more detail. They are writing more, and starting to use a sequence of events to recall what happened.

Research Reflection PD

On our teacher only day we were asked to look at the data from the Reading, Writing and Maths results from students at our school compared to those in the Manaiakalani cluster. The findings were interesting, particularly because the period of time that the assessment took place was through the Covid epidemic which has affected all school students learning in a plethora of ways. In our small groups we looked at gender, ethnicity and year groups that were tested at different times of the year over a period of one year (Term 1 of 2022 - Term 1 of 2023). We took a deep dive into what student groups had made progress, acceleration, showed a shift or those that had gaps and why we thought was the case? We recorded a PMI for each subject ares or Reading, Writing and Maths. Then we broke into Quality Learning Circles to discuss what effective strategies we are currently using and share ideas with teaching colleagues. Here is a snapshot of our time spent together with a range of reading techniques used.

In the afternoon I went to a fun, interactive Create workshop led by the wonderful junior teachers from Glen Taylor school and their session was called "Mad Little Scientists" and this was divided into three areas of the Living World, The Material World and The Physical World. We broke into three groups and did a hands on Create activity which promotes young children's fine motor skills, creativity, cognitive development and language accumulation. They use provocations to promote student interest and then provide a range of activities for them to participate in. Overall, this was a positive and valuable experience of teaching and learning within our education cluster. I found it helpful and will endeavour to use some of these ideas in my own teaching practice. Special thanks to Georgie Hamilton for presenting the research, and Fiona Grant for collating this professional development Inquiry to us and the Manaiakalani team for their statistical analysis and research of our testing data. "Give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of a nature as to demand thinking; learning naturally results", (John Dewey).

Literacy debate

I recently watched an episode of "Paddy Gower has Issues" (a new series on TV3) and Laura Tupou was looking at the current debate amongst the New Zealand teaching professsion about Balanced Literacy versus Structured Literacy. She interviewed primary schools who are using the new Structured literacy programs to teach young children how to read such as introducing the Better Start Literacy Approach developed in New Zealand through the University of Canterbury or Little Learners Love Literacy from Australia and spoke to the students about what they like best about the program? She also spoke with teachers and principals about this new initiative (BSLA) which is supported by the Ministry of Education. Then she interviewed Rebecca Jesson from the University of Auckland who teaches Reading recovery to students who need it and also trains teachers in this pedagogy. She advocates that teachers should continue to use both methods of teaching, so a combination of teaching phonics and reading recovery to enhance a child's ability to learn to read. She highlights the need for both teaching methods to be taught implicitly so that "children learn to read by reading AND by being taught explicitly" (R.Jesson, 2023). As found in her blogpost - https://www.learningcircle.co.nz/blog/reading-recovery-refresh-unpacking-and-and-approach? We all know the importance of Oral language and how much children need to engage in their interest in books and love of literacy. It is our job as teachers to provide the framework, scaffolding, resources and support for the children in our classrooms to foster positive literacy experiences, especially in the early years of their schooling. Support from whanau is also part of the process in order for Maori and Pasifika (ESOL) students to progress in reading. The research shows that these two groups are not achieving where they should be in literacy. Is there a Nature vs Nurture arguement at play as to why some children learn to read with ease and others struggle? I am passionate about teaching the children in my care to have the confidence to overcome potential obstacles they may face in reading. Be it a language deficit, poor attendance, not having enough conversations in their home environment? These children need as much support as we can give them when they come to school to learn to read...

BSLA - T2 reflection

I have now got 5 reading groups in my class using the BSLA program. This includes all 20 children. There are 4 groups on Kakano and one group on Tupu. They read the same book for 4 days of the week and take it home for homework. There has been lots of focus work on phonics, cvc words, and noticing word endings using blends and diagraphs. These children have been practising daily word work using writing cvc words on whiteboards and wooden letter blocks to make and break cvc words and sound out the letter sounds using the correct pronounciation of the vowel and consonant sounds.

Fia Fia 2023!

I was so proud of the all the training and practices that this group of students did in a short space of time in preparation for our whole school Fia Fia night at the end of Term 1! Even though there were only 3 children from Indian heritage it was great to see other children from different cultures participating and having fun. Team Bollywood all learned the dance moves of this song called "Kudi Nu Nachne De" and looked amazing in their traditional costumes and accessories!

My Professional Learning journey!

Welcome back to my professional development Inquiry practice for 2023 which is based on Literacy. I am enrolled online to study with the University of Canterbury to implement the Better Start for Literacy Approach (BSLA) to my Year 2 learners. This is a structured literacy program that focuses on providing support to children for reading and writing and oral language in their formative years of school. There is a strong pedagogy of phonic awareness, decoding, reading for meaning, word recognition and language accumulation for our tamariki. Parents and whanau are encouraged to support the follow up reading activities at home. Assessment is carried out by classroom teachers every 10 weeks to monitor the students progress and there is an expectation that we will see Maori and Pacific learners achieve positive gains in literacy skills at a faster rate than previously experienced. You are able to view a sample of the learning outcomes and resources on the BSLA site: https://www.betterstartapproach.com/