INQUIRY: Reading Levels and Achievement

This is my first time creating, and engaging in an inquiry focus. As a beginning teacher there is still so much to learn and grasp within the teaching profession and everyday I have the opportunity to view pedagogy in a contemporary lens. 

Inquiry question

How can we support the acceleration of reading levels for children who have made minimal or no progress over the years? 

I have chosen to focus on supporting my 8-9 year old readers achieve and fill necessary gaps in their reading using the appropriate approach. Specifically, I have chosen to pinpoint the skill of word decoding and making connections from vocabulary to text to support students' reading achievement. 

Observations 

My target group are at a 8-9 year old reading age and have made little or no progress over a period of 3 years according to running records. The running records display that this group of students have progressed point five years on average throughout the past 3 years and 1 has stayed the same level. As a group they lack in decoding difficult words yet have exceptional comprehension skills. Over the past 8 weeks, I have noticed that the contributing factors to their progress in reading could be influenced by certain behaviours, well-being, and interests in reading. 

The table image below provides some insight on behaviours that may influence their reading abilities and progress.

Research

In my research, I have looked at CoL blogs; previous and current and engaged in team meetings and discussions about reading achievement. There have been similar inquiries that focused on students who were below the curriculum level for reading and remained at an 8-9 year old average. 

Investigate 

How can I support their progression in reading levels? I plan to trial some alternatives found in my research and whether they are effective and successful over time. I plan to also take into account student interests, their current situations and allow them an opportunity to structure their own learning for enjoyment. 

What steps am I going to take to change my practice? 

Trial reciprocal reading to enhance team building skills and create digital modelling books that are vocabulary focused. From my research, these are two effective approaches of supporting and accelerating student reading achievement ie decoding words and relating it to context of text.