Liz Kane Literacy - Day One

 Day One

Science of Learning 

Word recognition

(PA, decoding, accurate

word reading)

X

Language Comprehension

(understand spoken

language)

=

Reading Comprehension

Overlearning is another way of saying automaticity

Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction

Successful teachers spend more time in guided practice, asking questions, checking for understanding and

correcting errors.

When material is overlearned, it can be recalled automatically and doesn't take up any space in working memory. - Rosenshine

Does everyone remember what we learned yesterday? Or who can tell me what we learned yesterday?

Vs

Let’s review what we learned yesterday.

Questioning

• ask a large number of questions
• ask students to explain what they have learned
• check responses of all students
• Provide feedback and corrections

“Have you understood? vs What have you understood?”

Stages of Practice

• Guide student practice
• Obtain a high success rate
• Independent practice
• Monitor students in independent practice

Students need extensive, successful, independent practice in order for skills and knowledge to become automatic. - Rosenshine

Different reading strategies and modalities serve unique purposes in literacy instruction, fluency development, and comprehension.

Instructional & Oral Reading Strategies

• Echo Reading: The teacher or a proficient reader reads a line or short sentence aloud with proper expression and pacing, and the student immediately reads the exact same passage back ("echoing"). Exceptional for building fluency, inflection, and decoding confidence in struggling readers.

• Choral Reading: A group or class reads the same text aloud together in unison at a shared pace. Reduces anxiety for lower-confidence readers and reinforces proper pacing, cadence, and pronunciation without putting individual students on the spot.

• Shared Reading: The teacher explicitly models reading strategies while using a visible text (such as a big book or projector). The teacher handles most of the reading while prompting students to join in on familiar phrases, analyze words, or make predictions.

• Guided Reading: Small-group instruction where a teacher works directly with a small set of students who share similar reading levels. The teacher introduces a targeted text, supports students as they read independently at their own pace, and guides comprehension strategies.

• Partner / Paired Reading: Two students take turns reading a text aloud to each other. Often pairs a stronger reader with a emerging reader to provide peer scaffolding, peer correction, and continuous engagement.

• Buddy Reading: Similar to paired reading, but typically pairs students from different grade levels (e.g., a 5th grader reading with a 1st grader). Builds mentorship, active listening, and confidence for both students.

• Popcorn Reading / Round Robin: Students take turns reading passages aloud sequentially or calling on peers at random. (Note: Largely discouraged in modern pedagogy because it induces performance anxiety, disrupts comprehension, and leaves inactive students disengaged).

• Whisper Reading: Students read aloud independently, but at a soft whisper level. Allows a teacher moving around the room to assess individual decoding and fluency without students distracting one another.

Knowledge

Connection for memory - Phone = talking and listening so Phoneme is the sound

Graph is a visual, so grapheme is the visual of the sound - letters

what do words mean eg ed means in the past

Principles of Structured Literacy

• Systematic & Cumulative - Follows a scope and sequence, simple to complex, builds on prior learning
• Explicit - Simple, direct, reduces cognitive load
• Diagnostic - Monitoring, responsive, aiming for mastery

Cognitive Load Theory

Our job is to cause learning by

• reviewing prior learning
• teach explicity
• guide practice to independence 

This enables information to be stored in long-term memory.

I do we do you do or I do we do we do we do we do you do

Is the task writing the long date or doing the activity? 

Implications

• Be very clear about what we want the students to learn
• Teach systematically and cumulatively
• Be direct and explicit - cut out redundant information
• Give worked examples - modelling
• Daily review and retrieval practice
• Predictable routines with low variance - lining up, seating plan
• Checking for understanding

Students now need more interactive lessons than in the past

I do, We do, You do! I speak, we speak you speak, I write, we write, you write

Perky Pace

Four Principles of Structured Literacy

1. Systematic
2. Cumulative
3. Explicit
4. Diagnostic

The fundamental goal of understanding CLT is to...

➢ Optimise Intrinsic Load

➢ Minimise Extraneous Load

Whole Class Reading

Whole Class Reading – why?

“By and large, your initial instruction should begin with effective, explicit teaching at a whole class

level. During this time, learners needing further support or further extension can be supported in the moment, and later on in the lesson, as responsibility is released to students.”

Dr. Nathaniel Swain, Harnessing the Science of Learning,
p. 181

We don't need to teach Tier One, as they will learn these as high frequency

We focus on and teach Tier Two, not Tier Three, as low frequency and very context dependent.

Whole-class teaching and then targeted interventions for those who need it, rather than several groups reading different novels.

1. We say the word to articulate the word
2. Child-friendly definition
3. The word in context
4. Check for understanding with examples and non-examples

Using structured literacy approaches with School Journals, Connected, etc

Regardless of decoding proficiency, all students need to access year-level texts to develop skills and knowledge alongside their peers, such as vocabulary, comprehension, and content knowledge.

Spelling Lesson - The Code

Every lesson starts with a review

Focus on the explicit teaching and reducing the cognitive load at a perky pace.

The 4 elements of a Code Lesson

1. Review
2. Teach
3. Practice
4. Apply

Whole Class Writing

Sentence Types and Conjunctions

Alphabet Visual even senior ākonga have gaps

Sentence structure is not the type. 

When thinking about type of sentences think about the job the sentences do!

There are four different sentence types.

1. statement

2. question

3. command

4. exclamation

Each sentence type is used for a different purpose.

Statement

• A statement tells us something

• It ends in a full stop (.)

Examples

I like eating ice-cream.

Since Lake Taupo is near the mountains, it is very cold.

Question

• A question asks something

• It ends in a question mark (?)

Examples

Have you ever seen a whale?

The sun is shining, but should I go for a swim?

Command

• A command tells us to do something

• It can end in a full stop (.) or an exclamation mark (!)

• You can always put a please in front of a command

Examples

Line up by the pool.

As soon as you are ready, put your chairs up andget your school bag.

Exclamation

• A sentence with specific vocabulary to express

force or strong emotion

• It ends in an exclamation mark (!)

That was terrible!

Marine reserves, underwater national parks, must be protected!

A clause has a subject (The dog) and predicate(verb/verb phrase) (ran or ran quickly).

The dog ran. 

The dog ran quickly.

A clause is a group of words with a subject and predicate.

They are the building blocks of sentences.

A phrase is a group of words that work together to make meaning.

It is missing either a subject or predicate.

wags her tail

The dog

What makes a sentence?

A sentence must contain a SUBJECT and a PREDICATE.

SUBJECT - who/what sentence is aboutwill contain a noun or a pronoun (a thing, person or place)

PREDICATE - what the subject does will always contain a verb (something that shows an action)

Example

The Siberian tiger pounced on the unsuspecting deer.

What makes a simple sentence?

Has one subject and predicate. It is not necessarily simplistic.

Example

The Siberian tiger pounced on the unsuspecting deer.

Conjunctions - There are two types of conjunctions:

Coordinating Conjunctions: can make the sentence a compound sentence

Conjunctions that can join two or more independent clauses. This creates a compound sentence.

The storm was getting closer, so the campers quickly packed away their gear.

Independent clause      coordinating     conjunction  Independent clause

We add a comma before a coordinating conjunction in a compound sentence.

Subordinating Conjunctions: make a complex sentence

A subordinating conjunction is a word(s) that creates a dependent clause and shows the relationship between that clause and the main clause

Example:

While we have the time, we should pack for the trip.

Complex sentences have two clauses:

Dependent clause - A clause that cannot stand alone because it begins with a subordinating conjunction.

Example:

although she was tired

SC            S         P

Independent clause - A clause that can stand alone.

Example:

he enjoys basketball

S                 P

Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) Assessment

The role of Dibels

WHY? - Screening and progress monitoring

1. How does this student compare to their peers?
2. Is this student at risk of reading failure?
3. What next to get this student back on track?

Why use ORF as a screening tool?

ORF is used to check a student’s reading health.

ORF is a one minute standardised, individually administered measure with unseen connected text.

The intent is to capture a students’ accuracy and fluency with a connected text.

Reliability & Validity Measures

Reliability – strong reliability indicates that changes in scores are due to student growth rather than test/form differences = trustworthy

Validity – strong validity indicates that the measure is measuring our skill of interest i.e. reading proficiency = useful

Assessment

I was privileged to attend the National Assessment Conference 2021 and the Gifted NEX Online Symposium to start the holidays. Below are my key takeaways and provocations for my practice moving forward. 

I shared this with staff during term three at a leadership meeting.

If I have an apprehension in New Zealand at the moment, it's not because we're not smart enough. It's because we're not courageous enough. - Pat Sneeden 2017

This quote is an excellent thought to hold onto as I look into the assessment of ākonga. Changing our students, whanau, and community thinking on assessment will require courage.

Over and over again, we hear that the knowledge of the learner is most critical. Do we know our students at a deep level? How do they learn, what stops them from learning, what frustrates them? Who do they think are the champions that support them and want to help them?

Any assessment needs to build the mana and connectedness of students and be a partnership between the student and teachers.

Webber and Macfarlane 2018 unpack what mana is for gifted Maori students.

• Mana Tangatarua: being confident and open to appreciating differences. 
• Mana Tū: being persistent and determined
• Mana Motuhake: having a positive self-concept concerning learning and success.
• Mana Ūkaipo: understanding they belong and have connections to places and spaces.
• Mana Whānau: are connected to whānau and aware of collective agency.

Can these also be utilised with all students to support their learning? How does assessment look if we are considering mana enhancement?

Suppose we are talking about the learner's knowledge. Could a learner profile support both the learner and their supports to deepen the understanding of the individual? 

• Could this learner profile help them realise they have things to teach others and have something they can learn from them?
• Understand they are connected, and their culture is valued.
• Support who they are and from where they come.
• Identify positive role models that they can aspire to mirror.
• Show that many people from their cultural group have achieved success.
• Identify what they are good at and help them know what areas they need to develop.
• Support them to understand their family, peers, teachers, and members of the wider school community care about them.
• Support them to know what their gifts, academic strengths and interests are.

We must always keep asking the questions of why are we testing? What is the purpose? Do our assessments ensure the realisation of the Learning Support Action Plan vision?

A vision for an inclusive education system where every child feels a sense of belonging, is present, makes progress, where their wellbeing is safeguarded and promoted, where learning is a lifelong journey, and where children and young people with learning support needs get the right support at the right time.

This Learning Support Action Plan vision caters for the students on the edges however if we plan and prepare to those edges we get benefits for all students.

A Conversation with Leslee Allen - Junior Assessment and Play Based Learning

Dr Sarah Aiono has a conversation with Leslee Allen, teaching principal of Kaurihohore School (Whangarei), and creator of Number Agents.

Leslee is a passionate advocate of developmentally responsive teaching, including the value of both explicit instruction and child-led learning through play. The conversation also discusses some misconceptions around school reporting, MoE requirements and systemic responsibilities schools have.

Takeaways from the podcast

• The school has no reporting to Board for Years 1-3. No benchmarks as markers for where they should be for Year 1-3. No recording of data anywhere except for the target students. 
• The school believes it is utterly unfair to use benchmarks for students in these early years because each child's developmental progress is so different. For example, girls develop cognitively earlier than boys, yet boys develop movement skills earlier than girls. Do we measure girls movement skills and then call them below if they have not developed their movement skills yet? If a child is cognitively at two years, why compare them to a five-year-old benchmark?
• Since the changes, teachers are now asking how cognitively developed the students were when they started school. 
• Benchmarks are false as not a marker to progress and do not consider the variability of factors that could impact a child's development. 
• A teacher who understands the child well will know when they are ready for the next part of their learning journey and show us they are prepared for the next step. For example, children will start to ask how to spell words when they are ready. 
• Still share a lot with parents about their learning, especially why they are doing something. For example, they are learning to hop because it supports their balance and strength development. 
• Reporting to the Board is done by curriculum levels from Year 4-6. There is no mandate from the MOE or ERO, reporting to Boards on which learners are above, below etc. The only things needing reporting are how schools are doing on their goals at the start of the year.
• The MOE policy states that schools have autonomy, meaning we can create our curriculum and make our own decisions around assessment and reporting. 
• The school utilises data to unlock student and teacher needs and the new learning as part of an inquiry by teachers and leaders. Data is helpful from Year 4-8 as it is helpful to see patterns in cohorts, e.g. gender, years, ethnicity etc. The annual report is written for the leadership team in the school, not the Ministry of Education.
• The Principal reports on the targets set in the annual targets around well-being, writes a narrative for the MOE about well-being, how they have developed trauma-informed practice, and what processes and procedures are in place to support well-being. The targets help ensure we make sure the children are happy and doing well.
• The National Education Learning Priorities (NELP's) are excellent and will drive the school's targets into the future. 
• The MOE wants assessments that are useful and dynamic and paint a good picture of the child. MOE wants our children to be happy and ensure they are doing well. 
• Robust systems are in place to identify and track target students throughout their school years. 

Thoughts and More Questions than Answers

What does success look like at Years 1-3, so we know play-based learning, structured literacy and individual interventions meet our learners' needs? Do we need to know?

How do we measure success, engagement and well-being through the school? 

Why should we not just trust

• The students will be getting all they need in the first three years at school based on the developmentally appropriate practice in the community.
• The teachers know their learners and are inquiring into their practice as part of a professional growth cycle, ensuring meeting the needs of their learners.
• Our assessment for learning is utilising the most appropriate information?

Where does Hero fit? Do we

• Use Hero in place of multiple Google files or link these in Hero to the students? 
• Student feed for communicating with student and caregiver.
• Using tracking flags to keep target students at the front of mind.
• ensure goals are shared with students and caregivers so that there is a partnership for the students learning.
• ensure our Hero Milestones/Expectations fit our expectations for Year 1-3 if we follow Kaurihohore School lead?

How does assessment at Year 4-8 look?

• Are the assessments functional for teachers and leaders and designed to improve both teaching and learning?
• Are the assessments dynamic, mana enhancing for the learner and teacher and paint a good picture of the child?
• Is the assessment a partnership between the learner and teacher