How am I getting on?
A hugely rewarding aspect of my inquiry would have to be students choosing to complete a piece of writing during 'Free Choice.' These students were incapable of writing a simple sentence at the beginning of the year and dreaded 'writing time'. Once I praised a boy on an excellent choice of activity, I asked him why he decided to pick writing, with his response 'Because I'm getting good at it.' He has grown in confidence and become intrinsically motivated to strive to succeed. Below he is represented as #3 of the progression images.
#1 in the images is a student who struggles to speak a sentence correctly. At the beginning of the year, she would sit at the back of the class and rarely share her ideas with a peer. As my inquiry has a heavy focus on culturally responsive practices, before the students head away to write we have a discussion on the mat in small groups, followed by expanding this where the floor is open for anyone to share their ideas. This always creates a huge excitement and the students become heavily involved. This particular student has now gained confidence to speak her ideas aloud with pride. She has become confident in her own abilities and is relishing this new culturally responsive approach.
Student #2 is reading at an age of 5.3 years old, aged 6.4 years - who is also an ESOL student. With these groups of students, my focus has been making sure we know all the words on the 'Helper Cards' (pictured below), meaning they are capable of accessing these words and adding them into their story. I have just begun implementing a strategy of recording a word they're unsure how to spell and listening back to the recording to identify any dominant sounds. I have found these students to become challenged when attempting to retain information, therefore I often record their sentences for them. This has been an excellent tool as they play this back multiple times until they've completed their sentence.
Reflecting on my inquiry, coming up to half way in the year I feel I have improved my teaching practice within writing by centering this around culturally responsive practice and am seeing encouraging progress.
#1 Beginning of the year... #1 Term 2 Week 3 note: given the words 'Bully' & 'free'
#2 Beginning of the year... #2 Term 2 Week 3
#3 Beginning of the year #3 Term 2 Week 3
#1 in the images is a student who struggles to speak a sentence correctly. At the beginning of the year, she would sit at the back of the class and rarely share her ideas with a peer. As my inquiry has a heavy focus on culturally responsive practices, before the students head away to write we have a discussion on the mat in small groups, followed by expanding this where the floor is open for anyone to share their ideas. This always creates a huge excitement and the students become heavily involved. This particular student has now gained confidence to speak her ideas aloud with pride. She has become confident in her own abilities and is relishing this new culturally responsive approach.
Student #2 is reading at an age of 5.3 years old, aged 6.4 years - who is also an ESOL student. With these groups of students, my focus has been making sure we know all the words on the 'Helper Cards' (pictured below), meaning they are capable of accessing these words and adding them into their story. I have just begun implementing a strategy of recording a word they're unsure how to spell and listening back to the recording to identify any dominant sounds. I have found these students to become challenged when attempting to retain information, therefore I often record their sentences for them. This has been an excellent tool as they play this back multiple times until they've completed their sentence.
Reflecting on my inquiry, coming up to half way in the year I feel I have improved my teaching practice within writing by centering this around culturally responsive practice and am seeing encouraging progress.
All these students are in my Target Group and are part of my inquiry:
#1 Beginning of the year... #1 Term 2 Week 3 note: given the words 'Bully' & 'free'
#2 Beginning of the year... #2 Term 2 Week 3
#3 Beginning of the year #3 Term 2 Week 3
That's fantastic Hannah. The progress is clearly visible. It's wonderful that your learners have become intrinsically motivated ...well done you!
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