RPI 3 - All Things Text

 

Text Selection - Day 3 - RPI

Today I decided to start with an image (Thanks Kiri) as the RPI or Reading Practice Intensive is about picking up the pace for our learners.

Reminders and Revelations

Dorothy reminded us that Reading apps are useful but will never do a teacher's job, especially around creating opportunities for discussion and vocabulary development.

There are a few ways to digitalise text, my favourite is Google Keep. In fact, recently our staff were brainstorming ideas for literacy programmes and different levels and after taking photos the notes were all typed up.

Other digital tools help students build fluency and reflect on what they are and how they read. Although I prefer to use Chrome Screencast, the ideas mentioned here about analysing their own reading,  e.g. facial expression and showing punctuation.

Matt's prompt from his toolkit is a great reminder of how AI can be used as a TA. And help create text at different levels so all students can access the information.

Choosing Appropriate Texts

The Reader has both Cognitive and Emotive sides and we need to consider both of these points of view at an Instructional Level and at their Independent Level. Therefore matching up what they like to do in reading and what they can do to push them further.

Are we tracking the types of texts taught at different year levels, as a school?

We are now moving from Knowing our Learners and applying that information to what we do in the classroom. Helping to better inform our grouping practice and text selection. Reflecting on what we did today I am curious about the areas I said I wanted to improve on - My green boxes included Shared and Guided reading, as I love reading to the students and working with them in groups to develop their understanding. 

My improvements included the multimodel, and after today I can see that we don't need to cover all modes such as images, videos, audio and text every week but to use a couple, as they can feed into or offer a different perspectives that add dimension to the group discussion.

As for the Knowing our Learner, I will be looking at the test with students over the next few weeks (before the end of term) so we can coconstruct our LIs together and then as we take on each Learning Intention we will break it down into success criteria.

Mirrors, Windows and Sliding Doors

  

Mirrors are text/books that reflect the student's world back to them, through links to age, culture or likes.

Windows opens the world to students through emotion, place or character. All students need to see the world from different points of view, not just the marginalised, to prevent people from having an overblown view of the world.

 We also have to be aware of Teacher bias as we honour students' backgrounds and make provision for them to see themselves in the world.  If you have multiple texts you can see different perspectives. Mirror for one and window for another. By tracking the types of text we use we are raising our consciousness of what we using to teach. 

Readability of the text - if we are going to help students accelerate their learning they need to work at their instructional level not the frustration level.

Grouping  Learners

Groups shouldn't be static, the needs of students change and so should the groups. 

Planning and Finding Texts for Your Groups

TKI is my go-to for finding text as I can download and use the links, especially for older Journals. I am trying to identify the tier 2 vocabulary we find in the text. The technical terms are easy to identify it is the other ones as I read so much myself, I have to remember to put myself in student's shoes or ask them.

Text Sets

Multimodel = posters, gifs, text, video, audio, newspaper, so it is more than just print, it is multiple ways of accessing information in different modes. Text set is not just about a topic, consider ideas such as gender barriers, cultural ideals, character development, challenges characters face/overcome, and relationships between characters. Mood, atmosphere, description of character (protagonist/antagonist).

The Anchor or main text is the book/article used for the instructional lesson that will be unpacked with the group. It can be the scaffolding text.

Student Selected Text - to gather ideas for these ask students for ideas they have read or would like to read around the concept/idea.

Skill Builder - Summarising

Thanks Kiri, for making this easier.

Where to from Here -

• Over the break and even before I would like to map out the different text and multimedia I will use for Term 2.
• Checking the teaching is just above target (level they are at, not the frustration level
• Use data from PATs to inform students of what is next
• Coconstructing Learning Intentions