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Written by Education Gazette editors | Originally Published in Education Gazette, 19 November 2020

A professional learning and development (PLD) programme delivered to five schools in the Cook Islands in response to Covid-19 has helped them make strides in their practice.

As school communities across New Zealand adapted to distance learning during Covid-19 Alert Levels 3 and 4, schools and teachers in the Pacific were preparing for how they would respond if they had to do the same in their countries.

The Ministry of Education invited Massey University’s PLD provider Tātai Angitu to support five schools in the Cook Islands – Araura College, Enuamanu School, Mangaia School, Tereora College and Titikaveka College – to help them prepare for learning from a distance.

Led by Dr Lesieli Tongati’o, Tātai Angitu facilitators Misha Shamdass and Jacky Yoshioka-Braid created a bespoke PLD programme that was able to be delivered entirely online through Google Classroom, where teachers could engage with the PLD in their own time at a pace that suited them. The modulised course on blended learning was supplemented with readings, videos and tasks as well as a weekly Zoom session.

“Terrific” opportunities

“The opportunities this offers are terrific – little things happened that were special: like  seeing a colleague join a Zoom session for the very first time,” says Tim.

“Teachers are now starting to explore these ideas with their classes. The work with the PLD facilitators all took place online, using a range of different technology platforms and apps.”

A barrier to using technology in learning in the Cook Islands has been limited connectivity, but this is rapidly changing. Some of the islands, including Rarotonga and Aitutaki, have recently been connected to the world by an undersea internet cable, however, until visitors return to the islands, and commercial demand increases, there is not the speed needed to support the seamless use of IT in learning.

Schools wanted support in a variety of areas, including transitioning to distance learning, lesson planning for NCEA subjects and levels, physical and emotional wellbeing, and leadership support.

Copyright © New Zealand Ministry of Education.
Republished with permission.

Click here to read the original article on Education Gazette.

Decoding is one of the key components needed for reading success

Written by Dr. Christine Braid | Originally Published in SchoolNews, 27 October 2020

Good decoding skills combine with a reader’s language comprehension to enable meaningful reading of a text.

Decoding skill requires knowledge of the alphabetic principle, which is the connections between the sounds in words and the letters associated with those sounds. A reader who has good decoding skills can read familiar and unfamiliar words accurately and rapidly, as Hoover and Gough’s 1999 research showed.

Capable readers are capable decoders; they can read a list of words, whereas a struggling reader cannot. Readers with weak decoding skills rely on the sentence’s meaning and structure to compensate for lack of skill with the code. When readers rely on compensatory strategies to read unknown words, they rarely focus closely on the word. Close focus on the spelling patterns (orthography) is essential for making a map of the word for later retrieval and for that word to eventually recognised by sight.

Why is decoding receiving so much attention?

International and national data show there is a persistent difficulty with reading achievement in New Zealand.

Teachers are realising that the current teaching approach is not sufficient for many children. One of the key problems is the range of spelling patterns in the words in the commonly used levelled books. Learners have to be directed to use strategies other than the printed code so they can work out the words. The approach makes learning to decode hard for many children and it makes teaching of reading difficult too.

Teaching decoding skills in the classroom

In order to teach children to become strong in decoding, teachers need strong teacher knowledge about the code, support of a scope and sequence of skills, and books that are decodable along that scope.

Decodable texts introduce spelling patterns gradually, giving children time to make orthographic maps and allowing teachers to teach the patterns of print explicitly and systematically.

Effective classroom practice for ensuring good decoding skills includes:

• poems, rhymes, alliteration, hearing sounds in words, phonological awareness training
• securing alphabet: letter shapes, sounds, names, and formation
• explicit teaching of blending sounds for decoding and segmenting for spelling
• multiple opportunities to read and spell words successfully
• children applying skills to read decodable books and write dictated sentences.

For reading to be successful, decoding skill is not sufficient, but it is absolutely necessary.

© Copyright 2020, Multimedia Publishing Limited, All Rights Reserved, Multimedia Publishing Limited is the proud publishers of School News, NZ.
Republished with permission.
Click here to read the article on schoolnews.co.nz

A new augmented reality resource developed by Tātai Angitu, author and Rangitāne descendent Pere Durie, and design company Māui studios seeks to breathe life into the ancient stories of significant places in the Manawatū.

The resource, a graphic novel with accompanying augmented reality app, is the first of its kind to be developed entirely in te reo first before being translated into English. The Māori Medium resource will be made specifically available in mainstream schools.

“Kaiako Māori are most often in the position of having to translate English resources into te reo Māori to use with their ākonga,” Māori Medium sector lead Tama Kirikiri says. “To be part of this ground breaking project, creating a first of its kind resource for both Māori medium kura and English medium schools is really exciting. Gen Z tamariki in kura today are part of the Youtube and Google generation where digital technology is integrated in their everyday lives. Utilising augmented reality and a high quality graphic novel to engage tamariki in this kōrero will speak directly to them and will certainly inspire them as creators of tomorrow.”

The full project team also included the head of Massey University’s Te-Pūtahi-a-Toi, School of Māori Knowledge, Professor Meihana Durie, as well as leading volcanologists Jonathan Procter and Stuart Mead.

The graphic novel shares the whakapapa of the place names of the region and was developed as part of a $1.91m, four-year programme by the Ministry of Education. The Ministry of Education have now also commissioned an English version of the resource to be rolled out to mainstream schools.

Targeted towards year 7-9 pupils, the resource was designed to give kura Māori and Māori medium schools a high-quality te reo resource. The graphic novel gives tamariki the opportunity to learn about the stories of the Manawatū and Rangitāne.

“It is critical to nourish the creative spirit and imaginations of our tamariki and mokopuna, irrespective of which school they attend, or which language is their first. We also understand there is an increasing need across kura kaupapa Māori to supplement teaching and learning activities with resources from the iwi and about the iwi,” author and Rangitāne descendent, Pere Durie, says.

To learn more about the process of developing this resource click here.

Young New Zealanders are turning off reading in record numbers – we need a new approach to teaching literacy

Christine Braid, Massey University

Meet Otis. He’s eight years old and until recently he didn’t want to read or write. Then his teacher changed the way she taught and things began to improve.

After a few weeks, Otis (not his real name, but he’s a real child) wanted to read and write at every opportunity. With this new-found knowledge and motivation his skill increased too. And his confidence.

So what was different? Technically, Otis’s teacher had begun using what is known as a structured approach to teaching literacy. Essential for children with a literacy learning difficulty such as dyslexia, it has been shown to be beneficial for all children.

The structured approach is a departure from what is known as the “implicit” teaching approach most teachers have used in the classroom. There are now calls for “explicit” instruction to be adopted more generally, including a petition recently presented to the New Zealand Parliament.

New data suggest this is an urgent problem, with growing numbers of young people turning off reading. According to a recent report from the Education Ministry’s chief education science adviser, 52% of 15-year-olds now say they read only if they have to – up from 38% in 2009.

The report made a number of recommendations, including that the ability to “decode” words become a focus in the first years of school. The importance of decoding to literacy success was reiterated by learning disability and dyslexia advocacy group SPELD NZ. It called for a change in teacher training and urgent professional development in structured literacy teaching.

How does a structured approach work?

Structured literacy teaching means the knowledge and skills for reading and writing are explicitly taught in a sequence, from simple to more complex. Children learn to decode simple words such as tap, hit, red and fun before they read words with more complex spelling patterns such as down, found or walked.

Learning correct letter formation is a priority. Mastery of these skills builds a strong foundation for reading and writing, without which progress is slow, motivation stalls and achievement suffers.

The simple spelling in structured literacy texts helps children decode the words and build confidence.
Author provided

The books children first read in a structured approach employ these restricted spelling patterns. Reading these with his teacher’s help, Otis built on his skills with simple words and progressed to decoding words with advanced spelling patterns.

These structured lessons also allowed him to master letter and sentence formation, so he made progress in writing too.

Old approaches aren’t working

By contrast, an implicit approach to teaching reading essentially means children have lots of opportunities to read and write, and learn along the way with teacher guidance.

Unfortunately, children like Otis can get lost along the way, too.

Implicit reading books use words with a variety of spelling patterns – for example: Mum found a sandal. “Look at the sandal,” said Mum.

When Otis tried to read these books, he looked at the pictures or tried to remember the teacher’s introduction before attempting the words. But he was not building his skills and was getting left behind.

Otis is not alone, and New Zealand’s literacy results support the calls for change. Despite many interventions and the daily hard work of teachers, it is common for schools to report 30% of children with low reading results and 40% with low writing results.

However, a Massey University study in 2019 found reading outcomes improved when teachers were trained in a structured approach. The results were particularly good for children with the lowest results prior to intervention.

Overall, the findings suggest the change in teaching had a positive effect on children’s learning.

Change is already happening

Fortunately for children like Otis, more teachers are now seeking training in a structured approach. One project based on the Massey research involved more than 100 teachers in over 40 schools. Teacher comments suggest the knowledge and training support has helped them change their teaching for the benefit of the whole class.

Further signs of hope include recent Ministry of Education efforts to develop structured approach teaching materials, and the resources now available for teachers on the ministry’s Te Kete Ipurangi support site.

No one pretends change is easy in a complex area such as literacy teaching. But every child like Otis has the right succeed, and every teacher has the right to be supported in their approach to helping Otis and his peers learn.

With courage and effort at every level of the system – not just from classroom teachers – a structured approach to literacy teaching can improve outcomes and have a positive impact that will stay with children for the rest of their lives.

Christine Braid, Professional Learning and Development Facilitator in Literacy Education, Massey University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.