Inquiry Update

 It's been two weeks since the start of the term where we decided to cross group for reading. The first week was really about finding out where all the students were at in terms of reading in their new groups. 

I have 6 reading groups (31 students) whose reading levels range from Red/Yellow level reading books to Purple/Gold readers. I see at least 3 reading groups once a day, so each reading group sees me for guided reading at least twice a week. So far my bottom three reading groups have started to take their reading books and spelling notebooks home. 

What has worked well so far?

* Consistently being able to have all students reading with me at least twice a week. 

* Students being engaged and focused on their reading during guided reading with me. 

* Testing spelling words on a Friday. 

What is not working too well so far?

* Monitoring what students are doing when they are not reading with me. 

* Getting the reading/writing tumble up and running properly with the new groups. 

* Lack of consistency with the Vocab Building activities across the groups.

Next steps: Look at resolving the issues above. 

Inquiry Focus 2021 - Cross Grouping for Literacy

In Term One the reading data for Team 4 was quite interesting. Across our team of around 150 students, we had quite a large group of students who were reading 'well below' and 'below' their expected reading age. This was a definitely a problem so I decided to base my inquiry around this issue. 

Rooms 6, 7, and 8 is mostly made up of Year 6 students with a large group of Year 5 students as well. During Term 1 the students all stayed in their home class for literacy throughout the day. In Term 2, I asked my colleagues if we could cross group our reading groups so that I could work with the students in my target group. 

Today was the first day meeting with my 'new' literacy group. We tried writing about todays immersion assembly and that's when I realised how much help most of the students needed in this group. Tomorrow we will start with the guided reading lessons. It's going to be an interesting term.