Notwithstanding Betty Edwards and her links between comprehension and visual skills, what are the characteristics of a good reader versus that of a less able reader? The list is long and strategies that need to be mastered in order to become an adult reader are complex. As educators, we need to incorporate these strategies into our reading tasks where ever possible.

Whenever a teacher addresses these basic skills they are countering reading avoidance strategies adopted by our students. Student engagement increases dramatically because students, often reluctantly, find they are using their skills. If students are asked to scan a single paragraph and then to find the names mentioned in the text then they are more likely to spend time locating those names. If the teacher uses a prompt that encourages the students to find four different names in a text then the student is more likely to reread the text. With teacher monitoring and encouragement the student will employ that comprehension skill rather than 'give up'. When I'm pacing the room, students who are stuck will often say, "Sir, what's the answer?" To which, I tell them to reread the text, to find it themselves.

My aim with a junior class is to take a leaf out of Julia Westera’s book and to apply a program of reciprocal teaching for each of the Year 9 classes. For each student, I want to embed the idea that they can, in this particular lesson, improve their comprehension skills. We know improving comprehension is a long process. Assessing comprehension is complex and I am unable, on a daily basis, to give scientific feedback in the manner of an asTTle or PAT test but I am able to give feedback on the successful use of comprehension strategies. With this in mind, we start, if possible, with the results of the PAT test and with a based line task. Feedback is given, summaries are graded and progress is monitored over the weeks. This is to show students that if they consistently use reading strategies their comprehension will improve.

The first step is to talk about reading skills. With 9RDy I discuss, what are reading skills. What do we do when we read a text? The students reply, you use your eyes, you look at the words. I prompt them, what strategies must we use in order to understand what we’re reading. With most Year 9 classes there seems to be little awareness of the skills they must use when reading a text. I prompt again, asking what we do when we don’t understand a word. This time a few students will respond and mention an aspect or two of word attack skills. I know students have all the skills on the meta sheet above and I explain that today, we are going to work to strengthen these skills. I do not say this but the comprehension skills are there, they are weak and need to be strengthened. Trust me and we’ll make them work.

Many years ago, I stumble upon a book by Betty Edwards called, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Although the rightside, leftside of the brain is now contested, Betty demonstrated that you can teach what is often considered by many teachers to be unteachable.

Betty identified four or five skills or strategies used by people who can draw and she made these skills explicit to non drawers. These simple skills can transform most people into artists. What do artitsts do that non drawers need to master in order to become masters.

Edwards claims that in four or five hours she can transform a basic sketcher to a competent draughsman as seen in the images above. One area of my enquiry is how to make the teaching of reading skills advance at a similar pase to Edward's drawing skills.

A focus for my enquiry is to look at ways in which I can make reading skills more explicit and achievable for Year 9 students. Even when reading tasks are supported with scaffolding, students often seem very reluctant to take risks, to commit themselves to a written response. The first question for the secondary teacher to ask is, what skills do competent readers use which less able readers need to master?

A starting point for helping helping students improve their comprehension skills needs to be based on these few simple skills. Lesson design around texts needs to incorporate meta-awareness on improving comprehension. Teachers need to help students to take control of reading tasks by helping them fix comprehension when meaning breaks down, by developing variable reading speeds and by developing awareness of 'fix it' strategies.

Yr 9 Reading Pragramme

Struggling Readers

Most of our students obtain a Stanine 3 or 4 grade in the PAT Comprehension tests. This means their reading ability is two, three or more Curriculum Levels below that of their peers. The question here that is often not addressed is, why? This means that in a Secondary situation, the skills that need to be taught are not taught explicitly. Students with low Stanine scores can read but their comprehension skills are weak. If these students are to progress they need reading tasks that help them develop their reading skills. To address the learning needs of these students, curriculum staff need to help students overcome their perceived helplessness when faced with a reading task.

This involves showing students how to take control of a reading task by showing them which strategies to use so they can comprehend what they read. For students to see success in their reading they must be shown how a strategy will improve their understanding. For example, students know what 'word attack' skills are but they do not regularly employ these Primary taught skills when their comprehension of a text breaks down. Often students have a single reading speed and they do not slow down when the text is difficult. They do not employ their word attack skills when they are needed. Reminding students what word attack skills are and how and when to use them is the first step.

Chopping up the text into manageable chunks also helps struggling readers.

Providing students with an information transfer also helps. It forces students to reread the text. Get them to do this in silence first rather than letting them collaborate. Providing students with a structure-based template to fill in helps students use the order of the texts as clues that aid comprehension. The topic sentence is followed by details, the big picture is followed by close-up details, and details are followed by an instruction (Maths Text). Discussions of these features help students develop self-awareness about the skills they already use but also shows them what they must strengthen in order to improve.

Setting a goal for each reading task is also important. I am reading this text to develop an understanding of how plants grow. I am reading this text to fill out an information transfer about the important aspects of photosynthesis. I am reading this text in order to take part in a discussion about where our food comes from. Lastly, students are often unaware of the strategies which they must employ to comprehend a class reading. Comprehension strategies need to be explicitly taught through guided instruction but just as important students need feedback on their comprehension. This can be achieved by marking their information transfers or by using a rubric to mark student summaries of a text.

Technology Departmental Meeting 20/05/21

This is an example of peer teaching. The idea is to go beyond the usual support we give students for a writing task, i.e. paragraph templates, sentence starters and examples.  Back in the 1960s Halliday was responsible for us adopting the non-grammar position because native speakers of English intuitively know the structure of the language. Many of our students do not understand the difference between the spoken and the written form of English. Many of our students must get despondent when their attempts to write a fluent paragraph fail. The point of the posters and the shared writing task is to make fluency and content issues explicit.  The use of the functional grammar approach here is a way to reduce to a minimum the number of features students must focus on in order to improve their writing. No one wants to overload teachers with yet more learning initiatives but it is hoped that teachers can help students with these basic grammar features: noun groups, opinion statements or modals, and verb groups. This, combined with shared writing tasks and the white board presentations, encourages students to take risks. The instant feedback on the white board also works wonders. I'm happy to work with class on a specific writing task. All I need is a student exemplar of the finished product. I'm happy to take the written model and adapt it into a few literacy tasks and then to work with a class on a shared writing task and presentation. Bish bash bosh but never bosh bash bish. Shared Writing Task and Group Presentations

Friday's Slam at the Staff briefing involved a summary of working with Hinerau Anderson on scaffolding reading tasks and on monitoring student comprehension.  Climate Change is a huge topic and the authors of each text exhibit an inherent expectation the reader has a huge amount of background knowledge. Often our students do not have an understanding of these huge topics, so the scaffolded reading tasks are used to make comprehension skills explicit while at the same time bringing the content to the fore. This is achieved by setting tasks that encourage students, in small groups, are to talk about the text.  The teacher was able to monitor student progress in comprehension by prompting students to improve their summary writing. When a student claimed, in their summary of the text, that he or she 'learned a lot,' the teacher was able to quickly prompt the student. This involved asking the student to detail exactly what they had learnt. The student was encouraged to use topic words from the text and they were also asked to explain why this information was relevant or important.  The use of authentic texts was also important along with provocations and enquiry prompts. Texts on what students can do themselves about reducing greenhouse gases and complex texts about carbon isotopes were also found for the students. This was done to avoid the rabbit hole student use of material from conspiracy theorists. That can wait for another day. The next step is a windows and mirrors moment where texts will be selected which look at the effect of global warming on Pacific Island and on New Zealand Glaciers.

Literacy Strategies - Year 10 Project | Climate Change and Game Development

All this technology is making us antisocial?

You could argue technology is making us more social, rather than anti-social. We spend more time communicating in new and often novel ways, more than ever before. Where once the Newspaper was our smoko addiction, we now have the unlimited ability to communicate across the world with friends and associates, even if it means we are ignoring the person sitting beside us.

Information Transfers: Science, Maths and Beyond.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRZbRij_cPcNPQ6UANpgWEGkkGRd7vAXvW6tuCTiQgb3w9p4KQXczamXDBHpiw22JanF7B26kWSwhd2/pub