Session 3

It was great today to look again at the article and make a deeper connection between practice and pedagogy. The close reading article helped me identify the 'why' behind the things I've seen Tracy model for me when joining me with the four boys for a session. I am starting to use the demonstrated questioning more consistently and seeing engagement and results. I related to the article observing student teachers seeing plenty of ho-hum questions and trying to move them on to asking better questions. I've been focussing, as 'close reading' suggests, to uncover the layers of meaning to deeper comprehension. In conversation I think my students have benefitted from using the one magazine and staying on a theme for a fortnight. I've also used BTN clips regularly that connect to each text to promote discussion and engagement. Listening to others I would like to now connect other types of texts such as poetry and short fiction texts. Outside of the lessons the boys are still reluctant readers. This is my challenge before the next session.

Reflection on R3 session

As always it is great to catch up with the other R3 teachers and be comforted in the idea that we all have similar concerns about our students.
Reading the article 'Closing in on Close Reading' brought forward some key questions that I had had. After administering the BAS I realised that my students score poorly due to their inability to delve deeper into the text. Through the article I have come to realise that I need to include more questions about the authors choice of language and  what are they trying to tell me. Modelling these type of questions is extremely important as we need out students to ask themselves these questions when they are reading any text. This is a major challenge we all have and one that we can work on together.

Retelling, Relating, Reflecting

Thanks everyone for your honest reflections this afternoon.

It was such a powerful opportunity to learn from and with each other. The continual revisiting of the Retell, Relate and Reflect process enabled us to delve deeper into our own thinking about particular students of concern and our own teaching.

Looking closer at the data sets was an important time to slow down and look across each student's data, and gain insights from other R3 teachers. It's surprising to see how far some students have come in such a short time in some test aspects, but when there is discrepancy across test results it means we have more questions to ask.

As expected when we looked at the videos teachers had already done so much reflecting on their own practice, but it was also helpful to look at these videos through different eyes and focusing in on a particular student who has been causing concern.

I'm so looking forward to our next session and hopefully some more R3 visits in between!

Session 3

 Great session today. The re-reading of the closed reading text reminded me about the questions to model for my students that help them with their comprehension and deep thinking. Making the video was valuable to me in terms of what the students are doing and how they are responding to my teaching. My reflection today reminded me to allow more time for my students to reflect on their learning (what have they learned about their reading?).

Session 3

During our group discussion of the Close Reading article we mentioned that often when we think we are teaching reading correctly we may not go as deeply as we could with the text. Through our teaching we need to create independent readers who approach a text with the intent of uncovering the multiple layers of meaning.
I commented that the article stated that in the teaching of reading, students often became lost when making connections and then completely lost the meaning of the text or the author's purpose. This was something that I have been drawing to my student's attention.
I do plan to be direct with my students and encourage them to read and reread with deliberate focus.

R 3 Session 3

I found the discussion around the data very helpful.  It was good to see how our children compared now with the beginning of the lesson series and the talk around what we could be doing to move them further was most helpful.   In my group the clarification of how to mark the read and retell was something that I needed.

The closing in on close reading article has some great close reading questions that could be used in a shared reading or guided reading session.  I have copied the four questions from the section titled, Teach Students To Ask Questions and put them onto a bookmark for the students to have at all times.

Session 3

Today the reading about 'Close Reading' been reminded me of the importance of explicitly teaching strategies to help develop the students ability to ask questions and to use Think Alouds more. After watching my video and the discussion that followed I see the need for my students to discuss the text orally more and possibly write their summaries and predictions. An idea I will take on board is using an anchor chart for sentence starters when they are writing their blog and answering questions. I need to spend alot of time discussing the vocab they encounter in each text we use in each session and to encourage them to use the vocab in their everyday writing. Thank you for another great session.

The article and discussion on close reading was informative and made me reflect on my teaching of reading comprehension. I need to work on " what does the author want me to understand in this passage". It was helpful to have a discussion about our students and observe what the students were doing in the video clips. I have written down few pieces of advice about changes that will assist me and the students. I intend to record more to assist with my teaching. It has been an afternoon of worthwhile professional development. Looking forward- my main task is to engage the students to uncover the layers of meaning in text that lead to deep comprehension.

Session 3

Today reminded me of the need to explicitly teach my students how to ask questions and some of the questions I can ask. I also need to start looking more into the author's purpose when looking at a text. It's pleasing to see from the Term 3 assessment that all of my R3 group has made some progress and that it is similar to the progress of students from other schools. It's good to be reminded of ways I can use strategies from other PL in my lessons (Retell, Reflect, Relate). I aim to try to get my students to apply what they learn in R3 to all the reading. In other words I want them to make the connection between R3 learning and all their other learning. Fingers crossed.