Day 22 of #28daysofwriting. It is the home stretch and I am amazed how writing each day has just become part of ‘what I do’. I hope you enjoy my post on ideas for changes to my literacy programme.
I did some reflecting last week on my literacy programme. I had to think about the teacher aide time I had and how I would use that effectively. I had to think about how the iPads that I am setting up will change the programme and today I was trying to plan. It was a challenge.
With the basics, a bit of handwriting - focusing on letter formation families and then Phonics - a non negotiable at our school and then modelled writing or shared writing I feel like it doesn't leave a lot of time. I am going to join my reading and writing blocks together and create Literacy - because reading and writing don’t happen in isolation.
The first half will have the must do’s in it. Setting the class up to go and work independently. Then in this second block I will see my reading groups. I don’t know if I am going to be able to include a reading activity or response to text because it will chew into their writing time.
With my iPads I also want to have students using Poptropica as a reading game. I will set the student with challenges based an adventure each week or two from the game. These challenges will help me to double check their comprehension skills. I also want them to use this game as a motivation for writing, and see each student keep an adventure journal. The great thing about Poptropica is that it is based on spoken text so the students will naturally have a reason to learn and use speech punctuation.
I have other reading and writing apps I want to try in writing though. And I really want to look into Daily 5 for the class.
So as you can see I have the bones of my new programme but I can't quite see how everything will fit. Between using new ideas and practices in my literacy teaching and the change in year level which has caught me out a few times over the last few weeks.
I know I want a Literacy programme that allows student to use their literacy learning in fun and relevant ways. I want them to be excited about learning. I want technology to help engage and excite them (and hide the learning behind a whole lot of fun). I want to cover those basics that are needed in a junior programme. But I feel like I haven’t found the best way to use the time yet.
Maybe this is an ongoing battle. Maybe this is part of the problem of being a perfectionist. I just want to do the best I can for these learners and it gets frustrating when I don't feel like I have it right.
Teaching can be a lonely job at times and often when we do talk we talk about snippets of our practice. We talk about big ideas. But often we fail to talk about the connecting ideas like timetabling, transitioning and how we manage the whole literacy programme so that it builds and supports the planned learning.
So I am going to risk sounding stupid tonight and say I don’t know the right answer and I would love some help. I’m also pretty sure that there are others out there too who would benefit from this kind of discussion as well.
So my challenge to all #28daysofwriting authors is to make one of your next few posts about the best practice you have seen in literacy and how it is tied together in a overall daily programme. Lets also tag it in Twitter as #BestLitPrac and see how much we can learn from each other.
I hope you have enjoyed the post and I hope you join in the discussion for #bestlitprac so we can improve outcomes for all our students.
No comments:
Post a Comment