Ending Sounds

Many of the students in my classroom have communication or speech difficulties. This makes reading and writing difficult for them as they are unable to pronounce or hear all of the sounds in the word. It takes a lot longer for my students to learn their initial word sounds as they are unable to verbalise many sounds. It is important to take this into consideration when teaching students who have speech difficulties.
Two of my students can now identify the initial sound at the start of an unfamiliar word. This is evident in their reading and writing as they will use beginning sound cues to guess what the word might be or write the first letter down when writing a story. These two students are now working on identifying the middle and ending sounds and they are also learning to make CVC words. While the student in this video isn't one of my target students, i have been using similar activities with James. Both students have speech difficulties.
 In this video this student has to identify if he can hear the "n" sound at the beginning or the end of the word. I decided to use these activities to introduce him to sounds at the end of the word. I felt that teaching them the sound at the end would be the best next step rather than middle sounds. Medial sounds are often vowels which my students struggle to identify as they sound similar. 

Where to from here?

This week I attended our CoL Hui where all of the teachers in our CoL displayed our inquires. It was a great opportunity to share my journey with other professionals and see how other teachers were progressing with their inquiries. What a wonderful experience to reflect on my practice and my inquiry as many of the visitors to my display asked me some interesting and valid questions; the main question?

My students are improving and moving up reading levels (2/3 students). If they haven't shifted reading levels then they have increased their sight word knowledge and gaining confidence in reading. The strategies that i have implemented to improve the Key Competency - Managing Self are working. My students can work for longer periods of time and are more willing to take risks with their reading. Below is an outline of what i am wanting to achieve by the end of the term with my students reading and behavior management. As each student is so different there is not a "one size fits all" approach.
I will update my blog on the success of the following:

• James : attempt to sound out a word he doesn't know. I am going to try Elkonin boxes with him as seen on another colleagues blog. James will say "i don't know" and ask "whats this" when coming across a unfamiliar word. 
• Evan : Attend 2x mainstream classes a week for reading. At the moment Evan goes once a week. He is allowed to return to class whenever he is ready as sometimes he doesn't cope. I will implement some form of communication symbol that he can show to the support person to indicate that he wants to leave the class. 
• Toby : implement a programme suggested by my schools SLT to teach Toby comprehension. At the moment Toby can point to symbols to answer questions but often repeats your question rather than answering the question. He has to be taught how to answer a question. Currently he can answer "who" questions with support. 

Morning Message

Each day I write a message to my students. They help to choose a greeting at the start of the message , they use words from the word wall to help to spell words and assist with sounding unfamiliar words out. Once the message has been written the students read the message back. Sometimes we read the message in a funny voice.
My students are always engaged during morning message as they enjoy helping me to write the message and finding out what my message will say.
Some students with learning difficulties associate writing with specific writing tasks, the morning message shows them a functional writing task that has purpose as it conveys an important message. They can also see the link between writing and reading.

High Frequency Words - Results

I have always had a word wall in my classroom however last year i felt that my students never used it or even recognized the words on the wall. This year I have worked on using the word wall effectively in order to recognise their high frequency words. At Sommerville we have our own list of high frequency words that we use to test the students on their word recognition.
As part of my inquiry i set out to implement different games that we played every day that would include all of the students with their different skills. Some students work on recalling the word and putting it under the correct letter and other students are using their chosen word in a sentence, finding words that rhyme or finding out how many syllables in the word. This way i can include all of my students in the same game.
Here are the results of using the word wall daily for two of my students who I have selected as part of my inquiry.
* Please note that Evan's results are not shown as he can already recall all words in word list 1-4.

Positivity Breeds Positivity...

This week i went out to see a colleague of mine Susan, who teaches in one of our Junior Satellite classes. I was amazed at how well her students responded to her teaching team as well as how nicely they interacted with each other. Her classroom oozed positivity and she celebrated every success no matter how small the achievement was. Her students were glowing with praise they received and the classroom environment was set up well for her students. I have taken many of her strategies on board which i will implement this term.

My students are very social where they enjoy interacting with each other however it doesn't always end well. I find myself having to intervene before the behavior escalates. After visiting Susan i have decided to implement a reward system that she uses which gives more frequent praise throughout the day. Each student will have to earn stickers on their chart, when they have filled the 5 boxes they can put a tick on their strip. Once they have all 5 ticks they can choose a prize from our prize box. This system worked well in Susan's class and i know my students will also respond well.
This week i will have a meeting with my teacher aides to get them on board with the overall aim of increasing our positive behavior strategies in the classroom.

Taking Risks with Reading

My inquiry this year is the link between the key competency of "Managing Self" and my students reading levels. One of my students that I am focusing on doesn't like to take risks with his reading. Instead of sounding words out he will ask me what the word is, even if he has the skills to decode the word on his own. I have built a good relationship with this student as he has been in my class for almost two years. A year ago he would never have tried this activity for the fear of getting it wrong. The importance of building strong relationships with our students is imperative to their success, especially with students who display more challenging behavior.

http://educationtothecore.com/2015/12/ways-to-build-stronger-relationships-with-your-students/

Positive Behaviour Strategies

At Sommerville we use a positive behavior approach to manage challenging behavior in the classroom.
Sometimes the function of the behavior is unclear and we need to collect observational data to find out what is causing the behavior. I have been using the same system for over a year and i have found it very useful for students with challenging behavior because it is student driven and allows them the opportunity to think about their own behavior to earn rewards.
Each of my students focuses on a specific and individualized learning goal to manage their own  behavior in the classroom such as..
- using a quiet voice in the classroom
- using "gentle hands"
- being kind to my friends
The students earn stars on their charts to earn free play at the end of the day. They need 4/5 or a full 5 stars to earn free play. Most of the students manage their own charts by themselves, however if they do not earn a star we do not focus on the negative behavior, instead we focus on how many more they need to earn free play.
There are some excellent resources available on the TKI website.
http://pb4l.tki.org.nz/Encourage-Positive-Behaviours/Support-material