End Of Year Thoughts

My inquiry this year was around increasing the results of the Six Year Net in Writing Vocab and Hearing and Recording Sounds.  Data from all the students that turned six this year is not available at this time, and I’m not that confident that the results will show a marked improvement over the 2018 results, though I am confident there will be some gains made.  What I am excited about is, that as we move into 2020 our team of teachers have gained some great knowledge and skills that can only benefit next year’s students.

As everything we do now revolves around letter sound then letter ID, I have begun to create new EEs for my students.  What we have used previously have, in my opinion, often been too long and too hard, and therefore too boring!  My students barley managed to complete one a week, let alone two.  At the end of Term Three, I began to change a few EEs, and then decided to make the follow-up tasks follow a similar pattern.  A short, doable EE, that had purpose and students could successfully finish in 10 minutes if they focused, or 20 minutes if they were easily distracted.  It took a couple of weeks into Term 4 for the students to realize what each task required.  Consistent EEs make it easier for kids to know what they’re doing.  They don’t get frustrated.  They don’t need to keep coming up to ask what to do.  That was a huge plus for me.  Every child, no matter what Reading Level, could independently complete their EE.

Each EE (up to Blue 3) had four pages.

1 – Noticing:  This involved dragging words into the correct order.  A simple enough task, but it also required students to notice (capital letters, commas, fullstops, etc).

2 – Handwriting:  Students would record themselves writing over words from their book (mostly high frequency words), and then when I played their recording back, I could see which letters they could not form correctly, and could call them up for some one on one support.

3 – Letter/Blend sounds:  Students would drag the correct letter or blend to a picture.  Or…as they moved up the levels, it could be a chunk that they needed to work out.

4 – Oral Language: Students would take a photo of a particular picture from their book, and would record themselves explaining what was happening in the picture.  This activity was really difficult, and when I begin again in 2020, I plan to model this with the whole class.

The noticing task changes as the students’ reading level increases.  I added comprehension questions, identifying facts,  spelling and grammar.

I look forward to taking what I have learned in 2019 and implementing it right at the beginning of 2020. 

End of Term Review

Two further students have had their six year net.  While student G wrote 22 words, there were six more that she had written but were unaccepted as there was confusion between ‘b’ and ‘d’.  We know that these two letters confuse children, and I am reminded to spend more intentional time focusing on writing each letter and discussing it’s sound, right at the beginning of the year. 

Weeks at School  At test		Gender	Writing Vocab		Words Written		Hearing & Recording Sounds
			5 wk	6 yr net
	N	M	5
	M	M	6
	L	F	1
	K	F	5
	J	M	3
	I	M	0
	H	M	0
40	G	F	3	22	HFW, plus baby, pools, going,		31
42	F	F	1	23	HFW, plus are, know,		30
31	E	M	0	0	-		0
42	D	F	3	7	to, the, like, I’m, me, a, is,		16
40	C	M	0	6	Name, the, I, a, is, to		0
39	B	M	1	9	Name, mum, to, I, the, a, like, too, is		19
40	A	F	0	2	Name, the		10

Of the seven students to still have their test before the end of the year, one (H) has left our school.   Last Friday (19.9.19), the others were given 10 minutes to write as many words as they could.  (A bit of practice should be worthwhile, I’m thinking).

Student I – drew a picture!

Student J – wrote 12 words (but in our class spelling tests, he is doing really well.  I think he struggles to focus for the 10 minutes.

Student K – wrote 26 words.

Student L – wrote 13 words, but also scores really well in the weekly spelling tests.  I’d expected her to write as many as students K and N.

Student M – was absent

Student N – wrote 24 words.

It will be interesting to see how many words these students write, as all of them (except Student I) turn six fairly late in the year.