Once I had identified my line of inquiry for my target group in reading, I went about collecting more data. Data was collected via observations and surveys.
Observations: I continued to make observations of student behaviour and engagement in class towards their learning and towards others. In order to get a better picture of what was happening in terms of student engagement in class, I recorded 3 videos during literacy. They were each about an hour in length. I quickly skimmed through the video footage and made notes about how often students were on task during literacy class when they were not with the teacher for guided reading. I was not surprised to find that many students were busy talking to their friends or looking away from their chromebook, which meant that their literacy tasks were not getting done. This gave me an idea about which students needed to sit away from other students. It was interesting to notice that some of the quieter girls in class, who often went under the radar, were wasting quite a bit of learning time.
Surveys: I created a survey for my students in order to capture some of their feelings and attitudes towards reading and attending literacy class. I discovered that 66% of students did not read at home, and for the other 44%, it was their mother that usually listened to them read and not their father. Many of them did not spend any time reading at home for a variety of reasons. Some of the reasons included not having any books at home, spending time gaming, being busy with their family or being too tired. 75% of students did not read any books during the school holidays.
When students were asked what they thought the 3 main things were that they needed to do to help them get better at reading, none of them chose the option to ‘read more often during my free time.’ The three top responses were to:
Try their best to understand what the story was about
Read more often in class
Stay away from distractions (e.g. people who talk too much)
