As part of my RPI training through Manaiakalani I have been blessed with HOMEWORK!
With my Big Picture Learning (BPL) crew I was asked to collect some data through the use of a Reader Profile Survey (link).
With my beautiful crew I had 12 responses and I also completed the survey myself. I try as much as possible to work from the adage ‘Don’t ask something of someone you wouldn’t do yourself’. I was hoping that through them seeing me also complete the survey , they would also give more genuine answers to all the questions.
There were a couple of students who had also completed the survey in another class but I don’t think this ended up being an issue with their answers.
My key findings showed that:
– only 46% enjoy reading at school and the same percentage for reading for enjoyment at home.
– this then drops to 30% enjoying ‘digital texts’ in own time
What follows is a bit of a paradox to me. 30% are currently reading a book for enjoyment yet over double that amount believe that reading is beneficial.
Sadly the majority don’t borrow books from the library. I would be interested to see if they just thought of this as meaning the public library and didn’t consider our school library. (Note* since the survey was done the whole class have issued a pukapuka that they will be reading til the end of term)
What was they sad to read was the students own comments about reading and what students wanted their teacher to know about how they feel about reading. A couple of comments saying they love/enjoy reading but the majority were very negative. ‘I don’t like it’, ‘I can’t read’, ‘I can’t focus when I read’. These show that I have a big job to do in order to chance student perception of themselves as readers, find suitable texts and help them change the narrative that either they can’t read or that reading is something negative.
The rest of the survey outlines student perception of themselves as readers and their thoughts about why reading is important. Students overwhelmingly rated themselves negatively in terms of their reading skills/ability but also all acknowledged that reading is an important skill to develop moving in to adult life.
Before starting the form I tried to remind the crew that although it may say reading books they could also think of the reading they do in terms of articles, social media content etc to see if this would change their perception of reading. Personally, I do copious amounts of reading through things like Reddit or on different sites where I access things like football or the news along with reading heaps of books with my two kids each day but I find I hardly every pick up a book for myself. If I was to answer the survey purely from a physical pukapuka standpoint, my answers would have been far lower.
Looking at this set of data then I am left wondering whether my tamariki considered the amount of reading they do as widely as I have.
It also leaves me thinking that I need to do a lot more prep in regards to arranging different text sources with my kiddos, checking things like PAT data and ensuring I am giving students mahi at the appropriate level.
I also know that other side of this that I need to keep doing is building stronger relationships with them. Because if I am going to try and push them to change their own behaviours and opinions towards reading then they need to know I’m doing so from a place of genuine care and concern.
I’m looking forward to session two of the RPI programme on Friday and hopefully it will give me all the answers I need!!