Combining Reading and Writing

Combining reading and writing is hard work!! I also feel that there is not enough time to do everything that I think is needed - phonics, handwriting, guided reading, guided writing, feedback about writing, setting next steps, looking at pebbles, punctuation… the list goes on. What I am slowly discovering is the need to have a focus for each lesson rather than trying to do all of the above. And it  might be a focus for a week or two. Working with Amy is great as we both reflect and discuss our next steps and those of the children. We think we are in a position for Amy to be direct teaching too, and the children who aren’t with us will be able to manage themselves and their learning. In a way we have got rid of the Eagle, or rather replaced the Eagle with a Kiwi who is on the ground and directly teaching.

One thing that is working well are the folders the children have. What works for me and the children (I hope!) is the pebbles are right there with their writing and so they are easily referred too, all the terms writing is together, I can give them templates to support their writing and they don’t get lost, and we can see the progress being made.

Marvellous Maths
In fact, I’m going to introduce a similar thing for my marvellous mathematicians too.
The folders give me a little bit of control and are something we can work on together. For Maths it will also help me deal with my aversion to worksheets as there is a place for learning sheets, as long as they are looked at and feedback is given (see this blog post!). Having everything together will enable this to happen.

Wave 3

Some things that we have in place seem to be having a positive impact on PQ. Eating his lunch inside with a buddy is giving him confidence to chat and play with children who aren’t usually his friends. I’ve also been in the habitat with them and PQ is also much happier interacting and talking to me which is a massive improvement.

Having set up his literacy bucket I’m not sure how much of it is being used as Joe is his mentor at this time. Joe does say that PQ is much more focused during literacy which was the aim. Hopefully we’ll get some feedback from Wendy when she next does an observation.

All the things we have put into place for PQ can also be used for others on wave 2 or 3 to help keep them engaged and progressing.

Some of the things that Mark Treadwell said about children who find rote learning difficult apply to lots of these children and so going forwards i’m going to try to implement more sensory learning to support their needs.