Inferences : My teaching Inquiry update.

I re-taught the lesson with a greater emphasis on recording prior knowledge. I did several examples to reinforce the requirements.

An example of the student's task is found below:

Target Group: Inference Equation Why do Ryans eyes get red and itchy when he walks inside the house.

What I See     Evidence	What I Know   Prior Knowledge	What I infer
Write down what you can read in the passage	Use background knowledge and prior experience from your own life.	Put what you see and what you know and make your own conclusion

Three students had a greater understanding how to make inferences while 2 could not.

Reflecting on my Teacher Inquiry

I trialled the strategy: teaching inferences with the group.  The boys watched the following video and then we discussed the inference in the video.

During the introduction of the video, the group made connections and discussed the author’s
purpose for making the video briefly.

The boys were able to write down all they could see. Writing the prior knowledge proved difficult
for one student.  Two students wrote inferences in the prior knowledge. One wrote, “take pet to
the vet when your pet is sick.”  Another was able to talk about his work but is unable to
complete written work independently.

I will have to reteach this...clearly confusion on recording prior knowledge and inference.  
They could answer “ Who ate the bird?” but "How do you know this?" was not easy. The students
also need more practice with recording their inferences.

Research for my Teacher Inquiry

I will be following the strategies and recommendations of prominent New Zealand educationists. My

research included Professional Readings by:

1. Sheena Cameron - Teaching Reading Comprehension Strategies

Having attended a workshop by Ms Cameron, I revisited the way she introduced the different reading comprehension strategies.

2. Dr Alison Davis - Building Comprehension Strategies for Primary Years.

I also attended Dr Davis’s workshop on comprehension strategies and follow her on her education website

Where's the evidence for my TI?

My focus group for 2018 was 5 boys :

2 x Cook Island Maori students, 1 x Fijian, 1 x Tongan and 1 x Maori.

EVIDENCE:  

 I looked at the 2017 term 4 reading results and found that the students were at the following reading levels:

2 reading at 9 - 9.5 yrs, 2 reading at 8.5 - 9 yrs and 1 reading at 9.5 to 10 years.

In addition the WFRC report back for our school showed that the levels of boys in general were lower than the cohort of the country.

My Teaching Inquiry for 2018

It didn't take much deliberation to determine that I need to focus on reading with my class. Keeping the school goals in mind and the achievement challenges of Manaikalani  Col, my inquiry hypothesis is:

If I use specific strategies in reading with my focus students, to what extent does it help

the boys in my class to lift their achievement in Reading?

2018 - A New Year, A New Challenge!

Reading makes the world go round, or so I presume.  This year my teaching inquiry will be focused on the boys in my class who are reading below their chronological age.

WHY?

I wanted to see how I could help the boys in my class lift their achievement in reading.  This resulted as a report back by the WFRC which showed that the reading levels of the boys in general, at our school, were lower than the cohort of the country.

NEXT STEP?

The research I guess.  What does make students improve their reading?

Vocabulary- Prefixes

Did additional work on prefixes so students use these prefixes rather than not e.g. unhappy instead of not happy.

Prefix	Meaning	3 words	Images
non	from, down, away reverse, opposite	Decode, decrease, deduce	decrease
mis	wrongly, badly, unsuitably	misplaced, misunderstood, misfortune	misplace
in	middle, surround, within	incorrect, inheritance, inflatable	incorrect
pre	before, previously	previous, precise, predator	predator
pro	professional, experienced, advanced	professional, protein, property	protein
il	Adjective, describing	illegal, illustrator, illusion	illusion
de	down, away, remove	degrees, dentist, define	degrees
ex	Not including	Example, expert, exchange	exchange