While the last 3 weeks of school haven’t felt like an ideal time to put lots of things into practice for a variety of reasons, I’ve still managed to tick lots off my ‘to do’ list.
In all honesty, my text coverage/ workbook isn’t completely up to scratch, as this is the one thing I’ve found quite overwhelming. It is large and contains so much information, even though it makes sense as to what it is for – I also don’t like having to scroll across/ down a computer screen. I have collated texts of different genres that link to our theme Whenua, and although there’s not a great many of them, it has been enough to kick start our topic, our class wide introduction to the use of taskboards, as well as rolling out the Ground Rules for Talk to all my reading groups. My anchor text was complex for some therefore required a different approach for each group, and next time I would make better use of AI platforms that could simplify texts. Something I must also balance better is Talk Rules alongside the topic as well as the reading learning intention. It’s easy to be sidetracked by one! Although I know I haven’t quite completed all the tasks fully, I feel that I’m on the right track and things are clear in my head with where I need to go next.
However, despite the things I could have done better (and will endeavour to do moving forward), I feel there have been many successes. During the holidays, I spent some time setting up a reading corner. While it still looks a little unfinished, the plan is to have the students contribute to this space, making it their own. Currently there are novels and picture books, but I would like them to be able to decide what other types of books are there. I would like there to be a space where they can recommend books to others, through a book review or something similar. The tree is currently low on leaves, however each time a student completes reading a book, they are to write the book title and author on a leaf and add it to out tree. Their broad goal is to cover our tree in so many leaves that I need to add more branches! We have spoken about working towards a goal of so many leaves (the number to be set) and if we hit that number within a certain frame, there will be a reward (yet to be decided as a class). The students seem very keen.
I introduced taskboards across all reading groups only this week but they seem to be a success. I have tidied up the format I originally used, finding my new format to be clear and easy to follow. The students quickly figured out how they work, and knew what they were meant to be doing at all times, which meant their self-managing was better than usual. My teacher notes were directly underneath which made organisation for each session easy.
Last, but not least, my biggest success has been one of my boys who often disengages from his mahi because its ‘boring’. On Monday, he was sent with his group to the library to choose his own novel. He came back, asked if I could please get him a bookmark so he could keep track of where he got to. He handed his book in, then asked if he could have it back so he could take it home to read. I flicked his mum a message, and she replied saying it was the first thing he talked about when he got in the car. On Wednesday, when everyone went to morning tea, he came and got his novel and sat in the reading corner for 20 minutes.
Winning them over, slowly but surely!!
