Week 5 Term 1 - Teacher Practice: Reading Journey for Year 9 English: Understanding your literacy (February 26 - March 1)

It is that time of the year where the annual AsTTLe and PAT Reading tests take place. These tests are an opportunity for both student and teachers to understand where they are in their literacy (reading and writing) journey, what areas of opportunity there is to improve on and what their strengths are. We have just recently completed our PAT Reading Comprehension Test with our Year 9 students. Before we launch into our first text study for the year, I wanted to start this unit of learning with their PAT reading results. I wanted to use this as an opportunity to work with the students in helping them: 

Understand their data

What it means to them

What it means to me as their teacher

How we can work together

What I have done with my students so far in this part of the unit is looking at the data and unpacking the data. As they are in Year 9, I have tried to keep the languaging relevant and 'light' to them. We looked at the overall picture for PAT stanine reading levels. 

Looking at the PAT Stanine Reading Levels

It is important to explain the data to students so that they understand what it is and how it applies to them. I made it clear that the curriculum levels are there to help teachers, students and families understand where they're positioned in terms of the curriculum level. I then shared the student's PAT reading levels (February) and went through it with them one on one going through: 

• Sharing their data: The reading level that they achieved from the PAT Reading Comprehension test

• Identifying their strengths: Identifying their strengths that they already have in their reading comprehension is the next part of the conversation. We have just started this discussion and it is interesting as my students (those in Level 2 to those in Level 6) do understand what the strengths they carry in their literacy. So we have started to talk about what they can do with reading, what they find easy, what they enjoy - affirming and identifying it as a strength. 

• Areas to improve on: When we start this part, I am going to get the students to identify 3 areas they think they need to improve when it comes to reading - I will scaffold it and give them some options to consider (achievable goals that can either do in their own time or at school). It could be - Discover your reader identity - find out what you type of texts you like to read and spend X amount of time during week reading these texts. Vocabulary - Building work banks linked to the texts and spending time to explore to these specific words to the text to help them understand the text. 

• Goals: I hope to get the students to the point where they can some reading goals for Term 1. I am hoping to do this by the end of Week 6 Term 1. Increasing reading fluency and a healthy and safe reading culture in the classroom is one thing that I want to create in my class for my Y9 students this year. 

A colleague has created a post PAT reflection worksheet for students to work through so that they can reflect on their literacy journey and work through the next steps and actions. I really liked it and I have started to use it this following my conversation covering the four parts I have outlined above. 

The Big Picture! Post PAT Reflection Document

Next Steps: 

• I am hoping to get through 'The Big Picture' in our next class (Tuesday Week 5)
• From here I will create a check in point to see where they are at with their reading goals. 
• Once the students have completed on this, I am going to put them in reading groups. The students will read through the same text but their reading comprehension questions will be customized according to their group (reading level groups). They will stay in their reading groups for Term 1 and then I will mix them up in Term 2.