Decoding Skills

James is currently reading at Red 3. For the last year James has been working on his initial sound knowledge to work out words he doesn't know. Now that he has got this skill i need to move him onto making words as well as identifying middle and ending sounds.
I started him on this activity which he was able to do with support. He was able to find the beginning letter independently and i helped him to sound out the end sound by slowing the word down as i repeated it back however he needed much more support for the vowel sounds. James struggles to hear the difference between similar sounds like "i" , "a" and "e" due to his speech impediment. For his reading this term i will focus more on vowels to bridge this gap in his reading and writing.

Teaching Comprehension

Teaching comprehension is a challenging task, especially if the student has special needs or communication difficulties. Comprehension is one of the main reasons why my students are unable to move up to higher reading levels. As the books get harder, they find it more challenging to recall information or follow the main story line. Sometimes my students do not have the vocabulary to be able to answer questions about the book however it doesn't mean that they don't understand the text they have read. 

I have started using multi choice question activities and true/false activities when working with James who has recently moved from Magenta to Red books which have much more content. 

Below are some examples of activities i have made to go with each reader to increase his comprehension skills. 

 

Student Self Assessment

As part of my focusing inquiry i am looking at the Key Competency "Managing Self". Part of managing themselves is getting our students to think about their own learning and to reflect on the work they have done. Self Assessment in special education can be very challenging to achieve when many of the students have communication difficulties. 

" In self-assessment a learner evaluates their own work, and thinks about their own learning. This helps them to make sense of what the teacher says, relate it to previous learning and use this for new learning" 
https://cambridge-community.org.uk/professional-development/gswafl/index.html

A colleague of mine, Lidia shared a self assessment resource with me that she has started to use with her group of students to teach meta-cognition. I have adapted her version which i am going to be using for differentiated instruction during 1:1 teaching time during literacy and maths. To start with my students may not make the connection between their learning and what the smiley faces indicate, however, over time I am hoping that they will be able to provide feedback on how they think their learning went. 

To download a copy of this resource click HERE

Reading Results

What a busy and rewarding term for my students. I am overwhelmed at the success my students have had this term. At the beginning of my journey I shared my students initial reading levels. After implementing multiple strategies to mange their on task behavior i have seen a huge shift in my students reading this term.

Students	Reading Level T1	Reading Level T2
Toby	1/2 Magenta	2 Magenta
Evan	14 Green	15 Orange
James	2 Magenta	3 Red

Toby continues to work on answering comprehension questions using a core board. This term he was able to use the board to label characters and objects from the book. He is coping well at reading less repetitive books at level 2.
James has made a huge jump up to red level this term and he has found a new appreciation for reading. He is enjoying the added content that a higher level book provides. His reading is slow but he is trying hard to work out new words he doesn't know.
Evan has joined the mainstream classes at Tamaki Primary for reading, he reads at a lower level in the mainstream classes so he is successful.

My students have also made significant gains with their sight word recognition scores which i put down to my word wall activities which are repeated each day. The biggest learning challenge for me this term has been teaching comprehension. Our class speech language therapist is going to work with me next term to help Toby with his comprehension and language.