Term 3 - Inquiry - Acceleration

 Term 3 Week 7-9 - Learning in the Fast Lane - 8 ways to put all students on the way to academic success by Suzy Rollins - IMPLEMENTING ACCELERATION

The focus for the target literacy group has been around having more choice in their literacy learning and having the opportunity to collaborate more with their peers during  this time.

There have been positives and challenges to this focus.

The positives have seen the students self-efficacy increase which has led to an increase in self-confidence and engagement in learning. The shift in academic achievement for 2 students in particular is clearly evident during reading sessions and a significant shift has occurred in one of the students reading behaviors.

One of the most effective strategy changes has been handing over the reins of learning to the students. In the past they have been the receivers of information and been directed to their learning. By offering the students choices, they have shown that they are more enthusiastic learners during their learning sessions by being in the right place at the right time without being monitored. When using their group books, they have enjoyed taking turns doing the writing in their shared book and have worked more collaboratively to work out the meanings of unknown words.

The students have been on a systematic reading schedule since Week 5. They read with our teacher aide 4 x per week individually with an independent levelled book and then they join their reading group for guided reading at an accelerated level! This has seen an evident increase in their ability to decode in group reading sessions and in terms of more understanding.

Next steps: The students will continue to focus on self monitoring their reading meaning when they come to a word in the text that they do not understand, a voice in their head will say “Uh on, I don’t get this - problem! Warning Bells! Time to stop and do something about it. These reading strategies will be explicitly taught during guided reading sessions. 

The students are continually focused on what good readers do i.e good readers don’t guess, good readers use their ‘Handful of Clues’ strategies to work out what they are reading.