Often, as teachers, we endeavour to cover too many aspects when teaching reading. Students studying a novel might cover the plot, major characters and minor characters, themes, language, structure and setting, and conflict. These elements would have more or less the same weight afforded to them. It is not helpful to try to cover everything about every text as time is spread thinly across a wide range of learning focuses. T Shaped Literacy narrows the focus but widens the range of texts.
Reading widely around a topic will help students to build vocabulary and background knowledge. This is scaffolded by the teacher. Reading selected passages allows students to learn close reading skills and build specific knowledge. Diving deeper into the texts with the teacher gives students opportunities to clarify meaning, have their own thoughts and opinions strengthened or challenged, and synthesise and apply ideas.
The reason behind using multiple texts is that by engaging with the same underlying concept in different texts and contexts, students facilitate deeper understanding and better transfer. Simpler texts can act as scaffolds that students can add deeper meaning to. Complementary texts support students to understand a key underlying idea. Competing texts require students to resolve disagreements and make judgements which can be cognitively challenging.
Another aspect of the T-shaped approach is identifying what the narrow focus should be. This could be in the shape of a moral dilemma or something topical such as 'Black Lives Matter.'
Using graphic organisers helps students see similarities and differences between the texts they are reading which enables them to justify thoughts and opinions by cross referencing texts.
I was shown the T-Shaped Literacy Model a few years ago by Kath Jones when our school was involved with A.L.L. (although she referred to it as 'multi-modal' with added 'provocation') so it is something I have been working on for a few years. I was shown it again last year as part of DFI. Delving deeper into texts with the teacher and creating lively discussions and conversations between students is key to unlocking deeper understanding. Kath also made the point that it is necessary to specifically teach the other reading comprehension startegies outlined in the Effective Literacy Practices Handbook so students have the skills necessary to analyse and synthesise. Providing a thought provoking question or topic ensures the students make new meaning.
My problem always lies in finding the supporting texts online. I always end up down a rabbit hole.
Manaiakalani very kindly offered workshops for the week Monday 6 April - Thursday 9 April. These are being run to support teachers so they can connect with their learners and have class sites ready to go for the start of term.
I wasn't able to attend the live workshops I wanted to but read the google slides and watched recordings of the Google Meets. I then asked Cheryl Torrie to join me in a Google Meet to clarify anything I didn't understand or things they didn't cover which I was wanting to know about.
GOOGLE MEET - Maria Krausse
Using Google Meet to connect face to face with learners for instruction or troubleshooting.
I was intersted in this one because I wanted to make sure I had a handle on everything before Term 2 starts next week. I was pleased to know that I have the main ideas sorted and just needed to add a few extensions to Chrome:
1. Grid view (I had actually installed this last week) - you can see everyone that is in the Meet in a grid. Good to get kids to do thumbs up or down as a quick response.
2. Meet Attendance - this collects the names of attendees and puts them into a Google Sheet. You can also keep adding to the Sheet for each Meet. This is what I need help with.
3. Nod - allows emojis as a quick response. There is a hands up one which would be good if kids want to ask a question.
Meet attendance - I asked Cheryl about this. I am still a little confused. The google sheet seemed to create a new sheet every time we wanted a time stamp. I want one sheet per Meet. I need to do time stamps in case students drop in and out of our meetings. Hopefully I will have this sorted before next Wednesday (first day of Term 2).
SCREENCASTIFY - Amy Williams
Using Screencastify to provide welcome videos and instructions for learning.
I was interested in this as I wanted to know how to put my Screencastify onto slides. Next week I am using daily slides so my students have very clear instructions of what is required. I want to add a Screencastify so that my lower level learners can visually see what I mean. (I have the upgraded Screencastify version which is free until the end of April. This version means you can record longer than the 5mns which the basic version offers.) This workshop didn't get to that stage so I was able to ask Cheryl during our Google Meet. I recorded our session so I will refer back to it later.
It was actually quite surreal attending this PD as we all knew in a couple of hours our school would be shutting down for lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic. For that reason, it was hard to stay focused. Cheryl sidetracked and gave us tips for our class sites and ideas to use during remote learning.
Basically:
- keep it simple for the students.
- use Screencastifies of yourself as the students will want to see you.
- Screencastifies will help explain the learning and gives it a personal touch.
- Screencastifies will also provide that rewindable learning which is so important for students.
Here's some sites she told us to look at:
Year 3/4 The Block
Year 5/6 Team 4
I am also going to use daily slides. One tip is to change the background each day so students can differentiate the days.
Lots to do over the holidays!
Three of us from DFI intake #1, 2019, decided to get together and share ideas about our class site. Cheryl Torrie (Manaiakalani facilitator), kindly came along too, to help us with the wrinkles we needed ironing out. It was such a worthwhile couple of hours spent tweaking, learning, creating and sharing. I was able to reorganise a few pages, redesign my Reading slides for next week and change my theme. Cheryl also showed me how to use Hapara Dashboard to check student blogs.
Although my class site is still in its baby stages, I feel a lot happier about the direction I'm heading. I also loved the opportunity to listen to what other schools are doing. Thanks to Sherryl Gomm, Robyn Shaw and Cheryl Torrie for your ideas, creativity, knowledge and professionalism.
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