Day Five: Planning a Reading Programme

 

Another Friday, another great learning day. It was reassuring to see what was instructed about Planning a Reading Programme are things I do already. Fitting everything into the timetable is something that is complicated enough as it is, so my take away is that things need to be concise and focus on quality over quantity. With the time we have, we want to make sure we are giving them the best learning opportunities to succeed and grow as readers and writers. 

It was great to see the apps that they suggested were ones that I am familiar with and have used regularly. 

In my class, we like to be competitive so the use of Literacy Planet is a great way to focus on the key aspects of phonics, spelling, grammar, comprehension and sight words. This is something that I have just set up to introduce into the class next week as it gives them key learning opportunities in a way that will engage them. 

Epic is another great resource to be used in the classroom. This is an app that has hundreds of book options. These range from non-fiction, fiction, read to, audio, videos and graphic novels (these are a huge hit for my year 7/8s). I really liked the idea today to get them to choose a text that is based on the theme or topic we are focusing on. For example, when they are doing D.E.A.R they are encouraged to find a book that has a science fiction setting or a text about the sun as they are the topics that they could be reading about for the week. 

On a side note, Anna shared a great idea where you use Epic to find the author's purpose of the text by using the book covers. I have now designed an activity that my students will use next week where they have to use the skill of skimming and scanning to complete it. 

Having high expectation activities and finding ways for students to self manage was something that stood out to me today. Ensuring that the activities meet the following are crucial. 

In my class, my students are year 7/8 so they are close to going to high school where they will need to be able to manage themselves, complete work to a high standard and learn. Exploring the different ways that we can plan and show this to the children as allowing them to have visibility is crucial. I find allowing the children to choose what order they get work done or giving them a set order works best for my learners. 

Incorporating more reading to write and writing to read was an interesting concept and I really enjoyed the opening sentence activity we did and I look forward to doing this with one of my learner groups.