Structured Literacy "Science of Reading"

This year in response to convincing research and professional development with Liz Kane, and the leadership from my DP Maire Bowler I have started teaching Structured Literacy also known as the MSL approach based on the "Science of Reading".Which means we use what we know about how the brain works to teach students how to read and write.

What is MSL?

MSL is directly teaching students the link between sounds in our spoken language and how these sounds link to written language - i.e. the sound/letter relationship - the technical terms for this is phonological awareness and phonics.

Multisensory

When teaching the above, teachers use all the learning pathways in the brain - visual, hearing and movement -  this is the multisensory part of MSL and it helps with the learning and remembering of new concepts.

Systematic 

These letter/sound links are taught in a structured way (structured language) - from simple to more complex and are reviewed regularly to ensure students have understood what has been taught.

I started teaching Structured Literacy in term one with my new entrant students. It made so much sense to change to this approach even though all my training was the complete opposite! The lessons are repetitive and allow the children to really learn a sound before they move on. It is a really fun engaging programme to teach, in my experience the students were so focused and loved coming to reading. Stage 1 took a term give or take to teach with the interruption of Covid and distance learning. What I loved about it during distance learning was that the parents were able to pick up where their child was and continue helping them learn the sounds, formations and 'heart words' of stage 1. Through using this phonological approach this year and I have already seen some impressive progress with our new learners. This group of children are now on stage 4 and are reading. The most exciting part is that they are actually reading! They are not memorising words and using pictures to help them they are reading words all by themselves.

I have also taught year 2 students who were below and started at stage 1 of the programme to ensure they knew all their sounds and had correct formation. These children have really blossomed and excelled in reading. The science is true and I truly believe that Structured Reading is the way forward and I encourage all teachers if they have the opportunity to jump on board!

Do some research for yourself you will not regret it.

Online Toolkits - Making magic with Book Creator

Through Manaiakalani we are offered online toolkits once a term. These are Google Meets which are run by teachers. This term I participated in 'Making Magic with Book Creator facilitated by Sharron Spragg. 

Book Creator is an online platform for creating books and comics. It uses files and images from google and your google drive. Once your book is published you can share a link to it anywhere you choose. 

I have used Book Creator before in the classroom, it is a really simple easy platform for students to use where they can be successful. Sharron opened my eyes with all the extra features that Book Creator has to offer when you explore more. 

With the new features I am now feeling really confident to be able to teach my students new ways that they can use Book Creator. I am excited to implement this into my Literacy programme first. 

Here is an example of one of books I am making for my students to use in Structured Literacy. Click on the book to have a look. 

DFI - Session Nine

DFI has come to an end, I can’t believe how much I have learnt over the last

nine weeks. 

Unfortunately I wasn't able to attend the last session today but the great thing

about DFI is

that it is rewindable learning.

This is a great example of what I read about ubiquitous learning. What I took from

it was that

ubiquitous learning is available anytime,

anywhere at any pace and also from anyone. High-quality learning is available at

any time

not just between nice and three.

All learners should have the ability to experience rewindable learning! 

Due to not being able to complete the last DFI session I took my exam in the weekend.

While I was sitting the exam I was very proud of

all the new learning and skills I was able to do with confidence. I got my results back and

I passed. I was really proud of myself and thankful for

the support the DFI team had given me. 

I am still yet to explore the DFI slam and explore all the valuable resources. Watch this

space and I will do a blog post. I have really enjoyed

the last nine weeks of DFI and look forward to continuing using my new skills with

confidence in the classroom. 

Have you done DFI? If you get the chance, make sure you do it! 

DFI - Session Eight

Today we started with Pedagogy and Kaupapa around the word 'Empowered' and what this means within the Manaiakalani programme. Technology is not just a tool, it transforms the way we learn and offers learners new experiences and opportunities. Dorothy talked a little about her community cluster and how they ensured that the students were empowered and had equity to be able to learn with technology.

Computation thinking - what is it? Computation thinking means thinking or solving problems using technology. 'A digitally fluent person can decide when and why to use specific digital  technologies to achieve a specific task or solve problems' (MOE, 2018). The Manaiakalani programme helps teachers to become digitally fluent, to create digitally fluent students. This is a way forward for students to be successful 21st Century learners. I am still going to do more learning around computation thinking to ensure I have a sound understanding.

Coding - We were given the opportunity to give coding a go or to extend current knowledge this afternoon. Students in my hub that I have worked with seem to be interested in coding so I really enjoyed having the time to be able to explore and up skill myself with coding. Scratch Junior is a wonderful app and today I was also exposed to game.kodable.com. I am going to introduce this to my students through our challenge room. 

I was also exposed to gamefroot.com where I was creating with the Mihi maker. I found this really hard to use and navigate. I would like my students to be able to use this to present there MihiMihi so I am going to spend some more time figuring it out and create a video to help my students use it. 

I am off to study for the Google Exam! Do you have any advice for me? 

DFI - Session Six & Seven

Week 6 - DFI this week looked at changing and improving our sites. I was so involved and excited about this that I forgot to write my blog post! I am happy with the changes that have been made as I feel that now the site is more appealing for children and hopefully more accessible for them to use. I took the changes back to my team and they were happy with how it was looking. The biggest feedback I received from my team was how easy it was to now put our planning onto the site. There are still more changes and tweaking I would like to do. Here is a before and after photo of our blog.

Before 

After 

Week 7 - This week was all about devices. We started the day with unpacking Cybersmart. The main points I took away from this session were that Cybersmart is about empowering our learners as connected and confident decision makers. It's more than teaching our students how to be safe online. It is creating lifelong Cybersmart learners. Another point was the use of positive language inspires students. This means being very careful and selective with the language I use around my students teacher Cybersmart. 

Next we became the learners and explored using the Chromebooks. I really enjoyed being the learner and seeing how the students work on the Chrome books by completing the Digital Dig. I now have more knowledge about the shortcuts on Chromebooks and what digital tools can be used on them. 

Finally it was time to be an iPad learner. We looked at Explain Everything and what tools it has. I felt confident working with Explain Everything. One thing I had never used was the voice recorder. I played around with this and am going to put it on all my create tasks to ensure all learners are able to understand the create tasks. Here is a photo of one I created.  

Have you got any hot tips about being a Chromebook or iPad learner? 

DFI - Session Five

Today’s session started with unpacking Multi Modal. What does this mean? Multi Modal is an inclusive, differentiated approach to teaching in a digital learning environment. In a more simple term, it is how we receive and communicate in a digital world which has and is still changing. This made me think about all the different ways I communicate with people online, in fact it can be rather scary! With my teacher hat on this made me reflect on the platforms that our students use to communicate. This is something to be very mindful of at all times.
Manaiaklani have created four priority goals to support multi modal:

• Engagement 
• Personalised Learning 
• Acceleration 
• Empowerment 

Our hangout today with Dorothy was exploring the four words that help to define Manaiakalani which are, Visible,Connected,Ubiquitous and Empowered. Today we unpacked what it means to be visible. 

Here are a couple of things that stood out for me: 

• Making learning visible means removing barriers. Making all learning visible to students, teachers, colleagues and whanau. 
• Visible learning needs to be in advance, accessible and available. This creates a no surprise culture for students and whanau. 

We then explored Google Sites. I have experience with loading content onto sites but that is it. This afternoon I learnt how to create a site from scratch! This was very exciting learning all the ins and outs behind the site. An important thing to remember is making sure your homepage hooks students in. This means changing it up every term. This is something I am going to take back to my team to discuss. Dorothy also talked about the importance of never deleting content or your site as this is your planning and it needs to be kept for seven years. This means creating a new learning site each year. Here is my site I started creating. 

I am looking forward to learning about sites next week and going into more depth! Do you have any top tips about using sites?

DFI - Session Four

Today was all about working with data. I was a little apprehensive when I heard the word data, but I learnt so much that I am looking forward to trying in my hub. 

First we explored SHARE with Dorothy. Sharing has been around since time began and it is a human instinct to share! In 2005 the world was introduced to social media, this is when the way we share changed and has continually changed over time. The biggest take away for me was that sharing has the potential for changing outcomes for my students. Manaiakalani strongly believes that sharing is about making connections with one another. The main sharing platform for our students in Blogger. This is not the latest sharing app but is a wonderful safe place for students to share their learning. Blogger is multi purposed and can be used by leaners and teachers. 

Hāpara is a programme that allows teachers to keep students safe and keep track of students' work. This is used in year 3-8 currently at my school. I have never used Hāpara but I like the idea of being able to monitor my students. I am going to explore more and see if this can be used with iPads. 

Google Forms is something I have used to fill out information but I had never made one myself. I created a form to get to know my students more and find out what they like/dislike about school. I am wondering if my students will be able to access and fill out Google Forms on the iPads? If so I will be creating Google Forms to support my teaching. 

My Maps are new to me. I can see how this can be used in the classroom for measurement, places around school, and creating connections with students Mihi. I am going to explore more with My Maps and see what else it has to offer. 

Google Sheets - My favourite takeaway was learning how to freeze columns so they don't move when you are scrolling around the sheet. I also learnt how to import data, sort data with filters, how to use formulas and functions. Auto fill is also life changing! One of our tasks was to analyse data from a blog. Here is the data from the Kākano blog.