Day Three

Choosing Appropriate Text

• Want rich varied texts
• Look at different perspectives
• Think about the book is at the Independent/ Instructional/Frustrating  level
• Look at the different genres
• Think about the vocabulary- Tier 1,2 and 3
• Consider the different cultures you have in the group but also what you don't have - Watch  
  
  

Rudine Sims Bishop, Professor Emerita, Ohio State University

Groupings

There are different ways to do this and there are pro and cons for the different ways. Sometimes you don't have much of a choice on how this is done but when you can I think you should try the different ways. Always consider the children though. 

Summarising

This was useful as I find this can be hard for many children to do. I am grateful for some new resources in this area. I do plan to look more into Timothy Shanahan for more information on how to teach this. It was a good reminder to break it up slowly in your approach to this reading strategy. The summarising matrix will also be very handy to look at as this has been set up with the new curriculum phases. I also think the reminder to articulate as I am teaching this strategy, is helpful. I don't do this enough. This section is a good one to pass on to my colleagues who might want to improve their skills in teaching summarising. 

Text set selection

This is the start of me collecting for the text selection for possible work around monsters and mythical creatures. It would be good to read a novel around the same topic so will have to see if can do this. I generally find some topics easier than some to find reading material on. I will continue to work on ensuring the children get a range of types of books. 

Day Two-RPI

 

This diagram states clearly how it can be helpful to gain a better understanding as to what your children's needs are. Finding time to dive deep into the data once you have done the testing is beneficial. 

Getting this information from the survey and from just observing and allowing time to talk about reading and their thoughts on it etc can also be very helpful.  

I have delved into the PAT results a little but have not really dived deeply into specific children. I think because we change children around every term this has been challenging at times to stay onto what the group you are taking needs are.  I did like how it took you to some ARB resources to help with specific things in the testing. I will definitely go back and use this and check my colleagues are aware of this. Inferencing has long been an area of weakness in these tests and I have tried practising this. I did like the strategy of just using only a short paragraph or sentence and inferencing from that would be a good activity to do.  Also getting them to practise multi choice questions approach as they will come across this for the rest of their schooling as an approach in testing.