Reading is Core to Learning: Day 1

Reading is Core to Learning: Day 1.

We started the day by exploring the question of what makes a good reader. This led to a deep dive into the journey of developing a comprehensive reading practice that will work for all our learners.

A good reader “has the ability to understand and use those written language forms required by society and/or valued by the individual. Readers can construct meaning from texts in a variety of forms. They read to learn, to participate in communities of readers in school and everyday life, and for enjoyment.”

This image from today is a great summary of what skills a student needs to become a good reader and a place to start when thinking about how to support all learners to develop their love of reading - to become lifelong readers!

Teachers as readers

Something that surprised me today was that over 40% of 2000 learners say teachers ‘never’ or ‘hardly ever’ recommend books to them (NMSSA, 2019). This led to a robust conversation about how we as teachers need to be 'good reader' role models, This requires you to know what your students like to read, be up-to-date with the latest children’s literature and share your enthusiasm for reading with the class.

Two new ideas to try are to complete a reading survey with the class and ask Andy, our librarian, alongside me to have book recommendations ready for our weekly visits to the library.

Reading across the curriculum

Next, we looked at how important reading across the curriculum is and that we need to explicitly teach students how to make connections to these texts.

An interesting case study by Robyn Anderson DP Panmure Bridge School (CoL Inquiry 2022:

Will a focus on Reading for Enjoyment increase student self-efficacy and capability in reading?) was a great example of how using the data from a student survey about reading can lead to a maths focus. Once this data was analysed, a clear picture showed that reading was a challenge in this class. Beginning to address this resulted in student agency around different ways to support all learners to develop a 'love' of reading.

This has given me a lot of ideas once my class results are in and I am looking forward to seeing what my student's surveys uncover.

New learning - READING IS CORE TO LEARNING: How to Grow ‘Good Readers’ - The Manaiakalani Share Reading Model.

Reflecting on these key outcomes against my own practice was a great way to see where I can add to my current practice or in many cases strengthen it. This is something that I will continue to refer back to each RPI session this year.

Talk Ground Rules

Taking time to establish ground rules for 'talk' with guided reading groups where my usual reciprocal guided reading approach isn't appropriate is a new idea for me to try.  Something that was highlighted making sure there is time for extended discussions during reading time and planning for these. 

Putting it all together

The last part of the day was looking at how we put all these ideas together into our weekly reading programme. We have been shown some different task board layouts to try in class. 

Now that day 1 is done? Wow, what a lot to think about and process but it is also great to know that with a few tweaks, I think my current reading programme fits this model. I am energised to start on this mahi!