There is no easy answer - we are co-constructing a design where effective teacher practice is amplified and turbo-charged by the engagement and affordances of technology.
Dorothy mentioned that the Woolf Fisher data shows although students are making vast improvements in Writing, this is not the same in Reading. The question is, why not?
I think it is important to remember (and Dorothy also mentioned this) whatever you do, your classroom reading programme MUST reflect effective practice and for this we can't go past the Effective Literacy Practice handbook and The Literacy Learning Progressions. Our DATs (deliberate acts of teaching) need to be at the forefront:
- Modelling
- Prompting
- Questioning
- Giving feedback
- Telling
- Explaining
- Directing
We are looking at ideas to SUPPORT effective practice, as well as the amplify and turbocharge elements of our reading programme in any learning environment or context, and in a digital learning environment.
Engaging with the text should not be limited to just the written words. Teachers should be harnessing different elements of the text and the digital to scaffold opportunities for higher-order thinking and improved critical thinking and analysis skills.
How can we do this? We need to shift the locus of control from the teacher to the students. Here are some ways:
- Voice Typing - get the learners themselves to transfer the text from print to digital; read texts aloud- daily using voice typing; gamify using Word Count within set time; use one doc per… week?... term? ...text; edit and correct by comparing to the print text;
- Google Keep - use the photo option to ‘rip’ the text;
- Oral fluency - Read texts aloud- daily using Screencastify; listen to and reflect upon fluency; think about how you can show punctuation orally; do your facial expressions change how the text sounds?
- Create a Photo Journal in google docs;
- provide multimodal opportunities where every learner is able to access the text, students are being hooked in through the text style that engages their learning style/capability/orientation/x factor (this is also mentioned in an earlier blog DFI Day 6).
- Google Form- may be least engaging BUT the most functional (sorting, sifting organising);
- Padlet- variety of options for recording information;
- Flipgrid- engaging BUT more time consuming for teachers to look through and retrieve information from.
And if you're having trouble with students wondering off on a different tangent, use Hapara for set (limited) periods of time to ensure they stay on task. Watch tutorial here (26m 30 start point. New updates to layout are not reflected).
Now the teacher can use technology to ‘insist’ that the learners focus on reading a specific text for a defined length of time. This could be a group or the whole class, depending on age/level/context. This supports an important element of a successful multi-modal teaching design.
Other ideas to use:
- The Final Word Strategy
- Give one, get one
- The Negotiation Game
- Summarising in your own word (20 words max)
- Say it grids
- Deep dive into text
The ‘big six’ - catalytic digital teaching capabilities:
- Ambitious outcomes for all;
- Eyes on text;
- Language and vocabulary development;
- High level discussions;
- Transforming and transference of knowledge through creation;
- Making thinking visible.
- Able to read and comprehend unfamiliar, age appropriate, texts independently
- Develops reading ability at an at least expected rate of progress
- Reads regularly in and out of school
- Loves reading
- Has strategies for selecting texts for particular purposes
- Knows that some texts will require resilience and persistence to make meaning from
- Has a toolbox of strategies that s/he can use deliberately
- Can synthesise across multiple texts
- Considers connections between oral, written and visual language
- Can read critically and is hyperaware of authors’ positioning of readers
- Appreciates aesthetic properties of language and literature
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