St. Boniface Literacy Project
WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED SO FAR?
OBSERVATION
Our focus on learning about the children through close and
systematic observation has helped the teachers become much more
aware of the children's avoidance and anxiety behaviours and
to intervene more quickly in supportive ways. Their increased
focus on observation has raised the need for developing new
record-keeping strategies which in turn has raised questions
about instructional strategies in general.
- The behaviour of our at-risk students demonstrates
a high level of anxiety and avoidance. This anxiety/avoidance
takes many forms: withdrawal, acting out, inattention,
defensiveness, dependence. Sometimes a child demonstrates
a predominant anxiety/avoidance behavior, sometimes a range.
We've become more adept at noticing and identifying these
behaviours. We've begun to develop a list of such behaviours.
- Being able to observe and identify the children's
anxiety/avoidance has made it possible to engage in instruction
that seeks first to diminish and subsequently to eliminate
the anxiety. We have explored a range of ways of providing
instructional support to discover what works with each individual
child. Different strategies are needed for different children.
- We have observed the children's anxiety/avoidance
behaviours in one-to-one settings, in small groups, and
in whole group instruction. The teachers have discovered that
the opportunity to work with the child individually has enhanced
their own ability to pick up on anxiety/avoidance behaviours
in the classroom and, rather than attempt to deal with that
behaviour directly, they are now becoming more adept at providing
support which allows the child to engage. They have learned
that not every child needs the same support.
- Since the beginning of the project (in late September)
the teachers have identified a marked decrease in the children's
dependence. The children are all now much more able to
initiate literacy activities and to sustain engagement.
- By changing their focus from "fixing the child" to "learning
from the child" the teachers have discovered how to respond
to the individual child's needs in ways that lead to less
avoidance and more engagement on the part of the child.
- The teachers' observations of their individual
case study children has proved beneficial with all children
in the classroom. The teachers have learned to be more observant
of all their students and are now more knowledgeable about
their individual strengths and their learning strategies.
- We've discovered it's important to record behaviours
that are no longer happening as well as new ones that are
emerging. The absence of anxiety/avoidance behaviours is
as strong an indicator of engagement as the development of
strengthened learning strategies.
SUPPORT
The teachers have been exploring ways of putting the learner
in control of the learning. They've learned to start with
the children's vulnerabilities, finding out what they are
and ways of compensating for them. What they've found is that
this sort of support has relaxed the children to an extent
that all of their parents have commented on it and the children
are demonstrating considerably increased engagement with and
success in literacy activities.
- We have worked to discover exactly what the case
study children are capable of doing independently. Being able
to identify their independence level is crucial because it
provides an indication of what engagement looks like for a
particular child. It offers a baseline against which to assess
their anxiety/avoidance behaviour.
- Once we've located what the child can do independently,
we have explored increasing the complexity of the literacy
task with an eye to providing just enough support to help
the child sustain his/her engagement. We've discovered various
ways of keeping the child going in one-to-one instructional
situations and then attempted similar strategies in small
group and whole class situations. We're learning that judicious
attention to what the children are attempting to do and offering
support as quickly as possible has allowed the children to
function more independently for longer in the classroom.
- We've extended our exploration to situations which
are beyond the students' current level of functioning in
order to discover ways of helping the children participate
and learn from complex literacy activities although they are
yet incapable of engaging in them on their own.
- We've explored ways of creating a balance, both
for the individual case study children, as well as for the
classroom as a whole, between activities which the children
can engage in independently and those which require some or
a great deal of support.
- We've begun to identify and describe various kinds
of support:
- working at a task together—shared reading,
shared writing, working collaboratively, then offering
the child an opportunity to attempt the task independently
(being ready to 'share' again if it should be needed)
- providing practice within a group context and for
a real audience (not just teacher as examiner); i.e.,
readers theatre creates a situation requiring repeated
readings of a difficult text in a group context as well
as for subsequent performance for a real audience
- asking the learner if help is needed, then asking
the learner to identify what help would be useful
- asking questions
- to help the learner analyze the task situation
- to help the learner verbalize the strategies they're
using
- to help the learner verbalize other potential strategies
- to find out "How did you do this?"
- providing the learner with some choices for the outcome
of what they're doing
- making it legitimate and encouraging the children
to work with partners
- demonstrating and verbalizing our own strategies,
talking about how we engage with reading and writing
- providing the children with exemplars and a range
of printed resources
- pointing out when the children are successful
LEARNING
The teachers have learned a great deal about learning and
teaching. They've learned to slow down, to give the child
time, to take their lead from the children at the same time
not losing sight of the complex tasks they want them to be
able to handle independently. Most important, they've begun
to learn from the individual instruction how to keep the child
in the classroom and to learn in small group and whole group
situations.
- We've learned to shift our gaze from teaching
to LEARNING. Our emphasis on learning to observe, on making
inferences and interpretations from our observation, serve
as a basis for instructional decisions and has shifted our
attention to learning from the learner.
- We've discovered that the children have a range
of productive learning strategies at their disposal but that
our instructional activities haven't always permitted the
children to use them. We're learning to make openings for
the children to use and extend their strategies.
- We've found that growth can be very uneven. Gains
can be made in one aspect of literacy and not with others at
a particular time. Growth in reading may not be mirrored by
growth in writing; and the converse—growth in writing
can outstrip growth in reading.
- There is no one path to literacy proficiency.
Some of the children have engaged with reading more easily;
others have taken off with writing.
- We've explored ways of more closely integrating
reading and writing activities. We've found the children become
more independent readers/writers when the reading is supported
with writing and the writing supported by books.
- We've learned the importance of not lowering the
goals for the at-risk children. We've learned not to be afraid
of keeping them in challenging situations but to find ways
of supporting them so they can be successful.
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