Day 6: Vocabulary (and decoding)

Below is a list of a number of great apps that schools can use to help with vocabulary.

With reference to the picture below we need to think about 

what weight we give to vocabulary in our reading programs. 

The strong rationale is explained below:

There a multiple aspects to knowing word as described in the picture below:

4 key elements to developing vocabulary from research:

Word Consciousness:

Deliberate, robust teaching of words:

Cracking unfamiliar words; see the strategies below:

Important to remember when reviewing syllables that vowels carry the 

sound of the syllable. Love the tip below too….

Morphology is the study of how words change. 

Morphemes have meaning and phonemes just have sound.

Above is an example of how a root/base word is made up.

Some great resources for chunking challenges that could work into your spelling programme:

-https://thesyntaxproject2022.squarespace.com/lessons

-https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OGj9PHSVSf6efo2qBGdSMrZvtAJOco7a/view

-https://atlasabe.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Morpheme_Matrices-rev072120.pdf

I think overall my biggest takeaway from today is that when students 

reach year 5, around two thirds of the reading problems that they 

encounter are related to vocabulary. Therefore, I would love to incorporate a 

greater variety of vocab activities in my timetable. I love the morphene pdf that 

was shared above and I would like to incorporate it into my spelling programme. 

To start off I would like to include this once a week. I also think using the likes of 

a jamboard for reading groups to make sticky notes around unknown words 

which they can refer back too would be really helpful during my guided

 reading sessions. I also loved the resources that were provided for the robust, 

interactive vocabulary approaches. 

Reflection on the Read Like Writers, Write Like Readers lesson

Reflection on the Read Like Writers, Write Like Readers lesson 

These are the prompts we were given and the example piece of writing that I completed from them. 

Imagine a quiet place (Remote setting - is it in the woods/church/wharf/graveyard

The time of day - quiet - (Is it midnight, is it dawn breaking, sun setting)

What sounds can you hear (Is it owls hooting / bird song / traffic)

There is something in the air (Is it smoke/ something rustling in the trees)

We can just make out someone in the middle of the setting (Name the person)

There is this thing there as well (Is it a bench / playground / water fountain / dim street light)

What is the person doing (How are they interacting with the thing?)

What is a question that the person is wondering or thinking?

Model

The graveyard was silent that crisp autumn morning. The sun was peeking its way through the trees and the only sound that could be heard was the crunching of the Graveyard Janitor piling dirt up from another hastily dug grave. There were 22 all up now!! The shovel had become heavy like an anchor weighing down the janitor with every shovel stroke. Now and again there was the odd rustle of bushes or trees as if someone else was moving through them …..watching. A few minutes later the dim lighting provided by the street lamps went out and day was upon us. The ambulances would be coming soon! How many would there be? Who would be in them? Would they be one of his relatives?

Reflection: 

I really liked the level of the detail in the scaffolding for this piece of writing. It followed a good logical flow and allowed for lots of creativity. 

Day 5: Planning a Reading Programme

Dorothy discussed what ubiquitous access to learning looks like…… 

at a base level this picture describes it:

A good example of an independent task board:

Dorothy explained how ‘Blogs’ are such a good resource to amplify reading and writing.

Keep in mind that when designing a reading programme that children will go through the

Doing different activities with writing eg. Persuasive writing heaps of good 

resources can now be found on Epic books:

The ‘daily five’ is a group of literacy activities that we need to be aware of. 

It is used in lots of junior areas of the school.

Keeping track of the Mahi - I really liked this set up. 

Read theory is a great application to present children texts and then 

questions and feedback related to those texts. It adapts questions based 

on whether you get the answers right or wrong. Read Theory are apparently 

using AI at the back end of this to assist with this. Read Theory is often a 

program that is used to help students prepare for tests such as PAT’s. Once you have 

assigned a task to the kids they could take a screenshot of what they have completed 

for the week to help with accountability.

Here is an example of what Read Theory looks like: 

It was good to note that the Sunshine Classics app is free to all Manaikalani Schools:

Below is a really good set of instructions that I am looking forward to implementing

During my ‘Buddy Reading’ time this year with Room 8. 

Interesting point - Kids imitate and then appropriate texts from their reading into their writing. Rebecca Jesson calls it ‘borrowing’. This can help children immensely with their writing. 

Here is an awesome website to get some great picture inferencing resources from:

RPI: Day 4: Guided Reading

 Important to keep lots of time in our programmes for this (see below)

Principle aims for guided reading: 

Post reading conversations are important at the end of guided reading 

sessions to consolidate knowledge and check students engagement 

eg. Describe one thing that you have learnt from the text. 

Leading with the authors purpose first rather than the LO when 

starting the guided reading lesson. This approach helps the children

really connect with the text. 

Remember to note that fluency is going to play a big impact on 

comprehension. 

Included here is a ‘Learning to read’ protocol that you can use 

in your guided reading programme to formatively assess where your

students are at.

You could also have children assess each other using a similar rubric.

 Peer to peer assessments are really powerful. 

Above are some types of questions that you could refer to during the 

discussion time in your guided reading lesson based on the LO that you are

teaching. 

Great website from Panmure Bridge School showing graphic organizers 

for follow up reading tasks for our reading sessions.

Here is a really good example of planning that was shared with us relating to the question: Should animals be kept in zoos?

Today was a really good comprehensive look at what a guided reading

lesson looks like. I was interested to learn that leading with the authors

purpose was the first step in the process. Recently, I have been leading

with the LO. I also found it interesting that you should only spend around 

5 or so minutes discussing the key points around your learning intention. 

This time is a lot shorter than I had envisioned. 

Text Selection thoughts

Over the last 3 weeks I have been thinking hard about the text selection that I have incorporated into my reading programme. During the last two terms, I have used a lot of fiction based texts, with a little bit of non-fiction. As a class we have worked our way through 2 novels; The Witches by Roald Dahl and Wonder by R.J. Palacio. So far this year I have not incorporated any poetry and I would also like to create a couple of novel studies for my more advanced reading groups.

RPI: Day 3: Text Selection

 Text Selection                                    

Power of the digital - Dorothy talked about the more ubiquitous 

aspect to it and the need to scaffold opportunities for higher level thinking. 

Doesn’t just have to be words in text it can be Multi modal.

Reading apps such as Read Theory, Steps ect are really good to track 

and provide accomplishments that have occurred with the students. 

These apps can be really effective as they provide accountability for the

students. 

It was good to review ways to get text from the paper back into 

the digital form - Voice Typing / Google Keep / Preview Software 

using a Mac.

Dorothy spoke about the power of Google Docs - 

Where you have the ability to play with so much more of

the text by using functions within it such as smart chips and

building blocks. It is also really handy because you can use 

the highlighting tools to extend out critical thinking with your students.

You can also give really good feedback with this tool as well.

Google Forms - We discussed how they are great to get feedback on

learner selected texts and then you can show your whole class the 

responses. In turn making a more inclusive classroom reading programme.

We were exposed to the Text selection Pioneer -Rudine Sims Bishop

Important point with the mirrors and windows concept that she pioneered

 -Can students see themselves and the cultures

 represented in the texts that we choose for them?

Naomi made a good point that integration across the curriculum

is important to decrease planning loads. 

Good resources online: 

• TKI Instructional Series

• Assessment Resource Banks (ARBs)

• International Children’s Library

• Kiwi Kids News

• Read Theory

• Discovery

• National Geographic kids

• Vooks Poetry

• Manaiakalani Multi-Text Database

Themes with Rebecca Jensen - What does a main character learn……

 ie: Learning from others around us ect. 

In the afternoon we covered: Summarizing - With an expert

I especially liked the point made about deleting the parts that are not 

necessary. Really good way of filtering what is important from what is 

not. 

What my reading group data is telling me

After analyzing my PAT data along with my Probe/Running Record data for one 

of the groups in my class, I have established that they really struggle with the 

comprehension of text in particular inferring meaning. As such I have used an inferring LO to focus on and my mentor teacher and I have co-constructed success criteria to support this which is shown below.