Today, I took time out of school for one of those things that David Seymour thinks is a waste of time: professional development. I am completing the Manaiakalani Reading Practice Intensive (RPI) Course, which runs over 9 days between now and the end of August. Why, you may ask, does an English teacher need to go on a course to learn how to teach reading? Well, the answer is that we can always do things better, and also, that I need to be up with the play so that I can help other staff across the school with teaching literacy.
I am lucky that I trained as a primary school teacher, so my teacher training did actually include both the theory and practice of teaching reading. I have also had some previous Manaiakalani PD around literacy. However, knowing the theory and best practice and actually being able to implement that in a high school setting, even in English, while meeting other curriculum and assessment objectives, is always a challenge, and this applies doubly to specialists from other curriculum areas.
The goals for the RPI are:
- Teachers are supported to acquire content and practice knowledge to influence high quality reading outcomes.
- Teachers are supported to impact learner dispositions, skills and independence as lifelong readers.
- Teachers are supported to use tools and methods for effective reading assessment, programme planning, design and differentiation.
- Teachers are supported to implement, sustain and improve on the Manaiakalani reading practice model within their school context.
Day 1 of the RPI focussed on reinforcing that reading is core to students being able to learn in any subject. We heard from a high school principal who pointed out that even the new Numeracy CAA exam is strongly reliant on students’ ability to decode significant amounts of text and comprehend the nature of the question, before applying any mathematics.
Some of our key learnings from Day 1 were:
- Good Reader Profile – good readers not only use strategies to make meaning and read to learn, but also enjoy reading and read widely.
- Reading Across The Curriculum – our students not only need to be able to read text typical of different subjects, but also to make connections across subjects.
- Ground Rules for Talk – a set of rules to encourage student-led and sustained discussion of text, leading to better engagement with and understanding of texts.
- Growing Good Readers – the strategies recommended for this are similar to those I have encountered in previous PD on T-Shaped Literacy Strategies: Plan for ambitious outcomes; plan to use diverse texts; teach learners to think and question; design rich creative experiences; and enable opportunities to share.
One thing we did was to complete the reading survey ourselves and discuss in breakout groups what kinds of readers we are. It was interesting that some of the teachers did not read much for enjoyment. One book that came up in discussion was I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy, which apparently lots of students are talking about at the moment. I was intrigued by this, so I downloaded and read it yesterday. It was quite depressing and full-on, and I wasn’t really prepared for it to be an actual memoir and not fiction. I’m not sure I would want to use it with a class, I think it is more of a ‘girl’ book than one that would work in a co-ed classroom.
Another task was to do some professional reading. I looked at an article focussed on student motivation to read. One thing I found interesting was that ‘rewards’ offered to students for reading were more effective if they actually related to reading, e.g. giving students a book of their choice.
As part of Day 1, we were asked to reflect on where our current teaching practice lies against the reading pillars of practice. This was hard, as there were many aspects I feel like I do try to incorporate in my programme, but couldn’t honestly say I do it brilliantly. For example, in teaching vocabulary, I have used an online programme vocabulary.com to teach specific vocabulary for texts I am teaching, but I am not 100% certain the programme qualifies as ‘robust’, or whether it matches their definition of ‘interactive’.
I ended Day 1 feeling like I probably don’t teach reading well enough! And I’m an English teacher, who loves reading. I hate to think how my colleagues from other curriculum areas were feeling.
Homework from our first day is to get one class to complete the reading profile survey, reflect on this, and teach the ‘ground rules for talk’ with at least one small group. I will be doing this with my Year 10 Humanities class in the coming weeks. I also will be having regular meetings with my in-school mentor, Megan Nelson-Latu, to discuss my reflections and experiments in class.