Beyond a Blackboard

My students can be poor test takers. It was really evident when I collected my baseline data that some of my students were making careless mistakes in their reading test. I later discovered that a lot of this was due to the fact that they were not monitoring their own understanding of the text while they read. As such, we have been discussing this in class, using the framework below: To gather data throughout my inquiry, I have been giving my students short mini tests, with an unseen levelled text (at instructional level) and a few questions. From this I also gave some students a Probe test to collect summative data as well. I have selected a target group to focus on (I originally was looking at the whole class), who have consistently been in attendance for our literacy lessons since returning from the lockdown. Most of these students are achieving around their chronological age, but I believe have the potential to be achieving above it. Year 7's Boy 1 This boy has identified that ...

 How well do your students self-reflect and monitor their understanding of a text? After inquiring into my practice and my learners reading habits, I noted that many of them were not noticing when they stopped understanding something. We had a lot of discussion and discovered that we might lose focus of a text for a number of reasons, sometimes our eyes are walking over the words, but our minds are dreaming of something else.  After consulting research literature, my class data, analysing my own practice and conversing with other teachers on this matter, I designed an intervention. In its current iteration, we are reading a short chunk of text (about a paragraph) and rating our understanding on a 5 point scale. We co-constructed this 5 point scale together and use it often to ensure the students clearly understand each level clearly. We then discuss any causes for confusion and the strategies that might support this. We apply these and re-read to get a better handle of what we...