Evaluation Time

Evaluation

1. Summarise evidence about key changes in teaching and other factors that influence student learning. This year has been a great journey. Some wins and some losses but it's been great learning for my students but also for me, as a teacher. The use of ALL strategies has been pivotal in the progress that my learners have made. With the targeted group of 6 boys, I listened to what they had to say about reading - how they felt about reading, what makes reading enjoyable, what makes reading hard and spent time really thinking about how I will implement their reading programme. Seeing them consistently throughout the week was always a challenge - and not all weeks I was able to see them 3-4 times, but from the get go - we were open, set goals and worked hard to try and achieve them. Biggest changes in my practise -

*Acceleration rather than remediation. I had to know what Reading looked life for Year 5s and 6s in the Curriculum.

* Using ALL strategies; brain storming/mind mapping, front loading, double dosing, gradual release of responsibility (GRR).

*Being specific and clear on which strategy I was using, the purpose of using it and the desired outcome of it. *Using texts that will engage my learners when teaching new strategies. *Finding ways for them to apply new learning to real life contexts n e.g. locating different pieces of information in a piece of text such as an itinerary and then asking 'so what?' --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. Summarise evidence about key shifts in the problem of student learning. There was a major block, I found when it came to engaging my students and breaking down what those barriers were. A major mismatch as I thought things were going really good, only to find that my teaching wasn't as effective as I had thought it was. So, I had a do-over. To start, I spent time during my teaching time to get to know my learners,
their habits and attitudes towards reading. This allowed me to find a few things: - Student M didn't like 1:1 teaching sessions and was very uncomfortable and unconfident in answering questions or sharing ideas. - Justifying and explaining their ideas and findings were tricky and my hunch was this was because of the lack of vocabulary, and not having the right tools to be able to articulate their thinking. Using strategies such as front loading and giving them the vocabulary they needed before hand was an effective way to combat this. -I completed a gap analysis which identified what my students were able to do and their gaps - which helped me identify what I needed to be teaching them. -Vocab, vocab, vocab. Word building and word families, front loading and exploring what words meant in context. In context.

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3. Write an overall evaluation of your intervention in terms of the causal chain you had theorised. i.e. To what extent was the intervention successful in changing factors such as teaching? To what extent were those changes in teaching effective in changing patterns of student learning?

Intervention - A.L.L (Accelerated Learning in Literacy) is an intervention that uses 4 main strategies to accelerate rather than remediate. So ACCELERATION OVER REMEDIATION  It’s designed to support schools to inquire into their teaching practices to do something new or different to accelerate the progress of students not meeting expectations in Reading and Writing.

How was it successful - Purposeful use of strategies + clear WALT/LI/Expectations lead to very focussed lessons. Some lessons were a miss but open and honest enough to take ownership over it and move on. My biggest challenge with this - seeing them consistently 4 days a week. That, by far has been the hardest thing about this intervention. How will I combat this next time? I have no clue. Some children made accelerated progress, others just made progress. When comparing vocab & comprehesion PATS, greater shifts made in comprehension than vocab. Vocab a strength for a particular student. Celebrated this progress with students. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

4. Write a reflection on your own professional learning through this inquiry cycle.

Through this journey, I've been able to reflect on what and how I am implementing my reading programme for my learners. From this, I know that the ALL strategies, when planned and used purposefully, are very effective and great gains in learning happen. The strategies I used most are 'front-loading' and 'double dosing'. The front loading process allowed the students to, when teaching comprehension, actively participate in conversation because they were able to bring something to the table. The time given, when front loading, gave them to time to think, process and make a connection with the topic and/or skill. I've found that front loading followed by double dosing is very effective. It provides multiple opportunities of exposure to the same topic as well as multiple opportunities to question and clarify their thinking on a topic. The hardest thing throughout this intervention, for me, has been time; timetabling, being flexible with time, not seeing them as many times as I should, running out of time are just to name a few. Moving forward, I am going to continue to use these ALL strategies with my students in my class. I aim to find ways to make the timings work so that students are given opportunities to accelerate and where necessary, for some, find ways to plug those gaps.