Day 8: Create

 Today we are very lucky to have our Day 8 of RPI, second to last one for this RPI course. Can’t wait to see what we have in store. Create, I wonder what we are Creating today. 

Enabling creativity that we as teachers really try to do for our learners. Our learners are empowered by our teachers. 

“Our young people will be CREATORS of content, not merely Consumers”

Has been a slogan of the Manaiakalani programme from Day1.

It is essential to document these creative artefacts and responses by leveraging the capabilities of digital technologies, allowing us to achieve this in ways that were previously impossible.

The WHY!! We as teachers do what we do. 

I really enjoyed getting my creative side working, We were asked to pick a verse of a poem that was provided. Record ourselves saying the verse and link it to a slide with our illustrations for the poem. 

Creating in Reading = Let’s get those Create Juices flowing

Awesome Awesome Awesome. See ya on the next one.

Day 7: Thinking

 Today we had the honour of Georgie Hamilton presenting to us today and we cannot forget Amie too.

I found this day really interesting as Critical Thinking is one of the most important aspects for kids to comprehend and analyse a text and make their own opinions based of what they're reading.  

Both our facilitators spoke in depth about making sure we think more deeply about the text.  For this to happen, we need to plan and think about ways we can get our learners thinking deeper about a text. There was one thing that came to my mind about how we can nail this for our students, ” lots and lots of different provocations for our extended discussions, and making sure my learners have deep conversations about the text.

This is an example of how we can encourage our children to think critically during their follow-up activities. This activity was designed specifically for our learners to engage with in their follow-up tasks, promoting deeper critical thinking about the text

This is another activity that involves critical thinking and I would like to try with my learners,  seeing what their interpretations would be using this tool, so watch this space. 

I enjoyed this session, we were able to have discussions about how to get our learners to critically think with the teacher and during their follow up.

Thank you to all the people involved in making these courses for us to continue building us as teachers so that we can implement more content and so that all our activities are engaging for our learners.

Day 6: Vocabulary and Decoding

 

Day 6: Vocabulary and Decoding.

Today we started our day off as usual which was so fitting being Maori Language week. I also asked to be excused and will be returning a little late as we at our school had a Haka off where the whole school participated in a full school haka that was being filmed to air in coming days. This was absolutely amazing and I feel everyone felt the wairua coming off that haka. What an amazing way to finish our Maori Language Week. 

Having a word in one’s oral vocabulary makes it much easier to solve a word in print 

I enjoyed learning about the different Tiers of words. Tier 1 being the high frequency words, tier 2 being a little more difficult words that learners dont use often and will now need to unpack throughout the text to be able to understand them and lastly the tier 3 words being specific topic focussed vocabulary that you wouldn't be able to use outside of this topic.  When planning for reading, we need to find Tier 2 words that our learners are going to be able to use in their everyday lives. Check out my very own example we had to create/design during our day. 

We were given exemplars of vocabulary tasks that we can use in our classroom.  After having a go at doing these, we then made our own activities.  This was a rich task and gave me a really good idea of how I wanted to go about doing follow up tasks rich of vocabulary. By doing this learners are able to continue learning the vocabulary we were doing during our guided reading lessons.

We need to keep our connections alive so that our learners can make those links.

Ensure you are explicitly teaching vocabulary for all our learners to succeed in school and life. 

We can’t leave it to Chance.

My goal from this week is to start implementing the tier 2 words activity into my class. I think my learners will really like the challenge of trying to understand and find meaning to these words. Sooooo watch this space…….

RPI Day 5: Planning a Reading Programme

 Today has been a really awesome session in the Day 5 RPI, the most interesting part of my day was the Read like Writers and Write like Readers. I absolutely enjoyed this part and will be using this in my class. Great day overall. Looking forward to Day 6.

Here are a few of my takeaways from this session.

Pillars of Practice: Today we are focussing on the second Pillar, but with a more detailed view of Guided Reading. Regular and systematic Guided Reading offers particular benefits for teaching, observing and scaffolding to develop skills and strategies to better understand text. 

Reading through Class Sites  

Making sure you have minimal clicks to get to the students learning they need to do. Having an attractive site so kids get hooked in, and having meaningful group names for your learners. 

The Learning Pit:

Self explanation on the picture but I really love this and I will be sharing this with my kids and ensuring them that they need to be in the Pit at some point however its ok again if they are not yet there, Keep tracking along and we will eventually get there. 

Where am I going?, How am I going?, and Where to next?  

Read like Writers and Write like Readers.

The main thing today I have taken away from today’s session is the Read like Writers and Write like Readers. I totally enjoyed this activity and I honestly can't wait to try this activity with my class, I think they would really like it and be totally engaged Reading a short paragraph about something and then actually writing their own paragraph about it too using the same questions we were asked. Watch this space.  

Writing like Readers and Reading like Writers, is to ensure we can meet the coverage for our learners to be able to think and become great readers and great writers. Deepening their understanding by listening to what the reader is trying to tell us, we will be able to then put it into our own words to become better writers.

See you on the next one. 

RPI Day 4: Guided Reading and Comprehension.

Here we are Day 4: Guided Reading and Comprehension. I enjoy how we always start our day with hello’s and then break into our breakout groups and quickly catch up on how we are going thus far and how we have done with our homework. For me, this just sets us up to be ready to contribute to conversations we have within our group. It also allows us to get much needed feedback about what we are doing and maybe what we can use or change in our plans for the following weeks. Thank you to Naomi and Amie for allowing us to do this. 

Ok, so first off we started with the background to guided reading which was helpful and I know we all know this however it is a great refresher for us. We then went into Introducing the Text and Purpose. As we were following through 

Based on Dame Marie Clay.

Highly valued learning outcomes that need regular and dedicated time each and every day for students to read and learn about.

For me this means, when it is learning time, leave the kids to learn and when it is play time let the kids play.

Introducing Text and Purpose. Today we looked at Introducing the Text and Purpose. Before we start our guided reading conference with our groups, I ask the students to have a look at the picture / cover of the book and look at the title and tell me what they know about what we are going to read about this week. Activating prior knowledge has always been a biggie for me as I like to hear and understand that the text for the week has a connection to the learner. So introducing the text first off is a very important part of reading, knowing and allowing the learners to make connections with the text. 

I will be implementing one of these Observational Note taking techniques to use in my class. This will help me to understand where my learners are at with their reading and how or what I can do to help them and push them to their next level. This is a great tool to use and to refer back to if needed. 

RPI Day 3: Text Selection.

 

Kia Ora and welcome to Day 3 of RPI. I was unable to join my group on the assigned day as I was unwell however I did do a very intense one on one speed catch up day with Naomi. This day had so much information which was amazing. 

Today's focus was on Text Selections. The amount of resources and knowledge coming out of this course is overwhelming and I am forever grateful for this opportunity to complete this RPI course.  I have met with my mentor and have had a look at the data collected from my students pertaining to the reading survey we had to complete.  

We went through the course for the day. The part I really enjoyed the most was talking and listening to my coach about including more reading genres and maybe adding a create activity to go with it. 

So my plan is to have an Anchor Text, a poem, an article and, or maybe a video as my text set for my learners, which should carry over for at least 2 weeks. I hope to start this new and improved style in week 5. 

We then listened to an amazing lady who spoke about Mirrors, Windows and Sliding Glass Doors. My interpretation of this is, Mirrors, What I relate to, Windows, My world wide knowledge and the Sliding Glass Doors is Do it.

I really enjoyed hearing about this and from this short but knowledgeable video, 

My takeaway is just like the world wide brand Nike. JUST DO IT! 

Bring on Day 4 and let's see what this day has to offer. Till then see you next time.

RPI Day 2 - Know your learners as readers

 RPI Day 2 - Know your learners as readers

 Day 2! Friday 7th June 2024

What an awesome start to day 2, Dorothy came on to our chat and spoke about KPE (Korero Pt England). I will really enjoy letting my learners be creative with this as their follow up activity, they will get the chance to hear themselves reading and even more better they all get to choose their text set each week and what better way to do it than this! Watch this space

Assessments and Testing of your learners, Knowing your learner is an important part of your teaching. You need to know their needs and understand what they need to do to achieve and get to where they need to be. Improving their reading and understanding is a hard pill to bite, however with the tools that we are receiving from all these different kits are so helpful and the main thing I love about these is that they are all rewindable. 

Teacher Workbook was up next and only one word that I can say WOW!!. Alot to take in and learn with this workbook. Getting my head around this workbook and trying to navigate my way through this has really been an eye opening experience. Knowing that all my data, planning and any note taking for individual learners will all be housed here where we are able to look back and track how a learner is tracking along. 

Task Boards

We have been using task boards all this year, my team leader has completed the RPI and has now got our teaching team using these task boards across all core learning subjects. These are a one stop, shop where you have a selection of things to do via you weekly choice board and during the week you have must do’s that have to be completed before moving on. Getting use to change and using task board are way easy and the learners know that they have set task to complete for the week. 

Let’s go Task Boards.    

So after a full on day of intense learning about reading. I have some take aways and will hopefully incorporate them into my teachings in the coming weeks and for the rest of the year. 

Bring on Day 3. RPI Done and Dusted. Over and Out.