This year is another year of new learning with our school taking on the Numicon Maths Programme. As a Team we had been intending to focus our Inquiry into the Numicon programme. However there was a delay with the Numicon equipment and then once it arrived and we got underway we realised it was going to take a bit to get our heads arounds teaching in a different way. With this in mind as a team we decided to keep our Inquiry focus on reading.
In team 2 we have now all completed the BSLA training and have been consolidating all the new learning from last year into our literacy programme. As many of the components of BSLA are quite sequential and prescriptive we thought it would be better to focus our Inquiry on an aspect of the programme as equally important but less prescribed, comprehension.
With such a focus on the decoding of texts there was a concern that the children would not develop the necessary comprehension skills needed, once switching off the Phonics Plus texts, to the more sophisticated Ready to Read texts (in terms of story and themes).Altough it is important to acknowledge that the BSLA programme does have some strong comprehension components particularly in the whole class 'Reading To' section. It is here children are introduced to story structure and themes, and are exposed to, and unpack, sophisticated language.
However we felt it was important to be more intentional in including a comprehension focus in our small group teaching.
The challenge is time, as the small group teaching already has a strong focus on a particular language pattern that is being covered, and does not allow for much time to be spent on comprehension. However this is our goal.
We have chosen children as our priority learners. For me I have chosed 2 groups of children, 1 group who are just at about where they should be in the BSLA programme, and another group who is working just below where they should be.
The first group is fairly competent at decoding texts. The second are less fluent at decoding and so a lot of their thinking is taken up with getting the words off the page.
With these priority learners we are recording a teaching lesson on Vosaic with a focus on comprehension to reflect firstly on our own teaching; whether we are allowing children the time to discuss and compare their ideas, and back up their thoughts. But secondly to have a record of the children's ability and skills at unpacking a text and discussing their understanding.
