Literacy in our Space - Toolkit Reflection

I recently attended a toolkit session held by another teacher where she reflected and talked about the different way they are teaching literacy in their space. In her 2/3 hub she found that many of the students in her class were very disengaged in their literacy sessions, the students didn't want to attend their reading groups, were not motivated to write and in general were very unresponsive to the lessons. Therefore, she took a new take on literacy to make the sessions much more interesting to the students and to get them involved in literacy. 

Through using 'learn, create, share' and putting the learners at the heart of the learning process this resulted in the literacy sessions becoming more interesting for the students, it gave them more motivation and and encouraged learner agency. The literacy sessions for the week are structures as follows; a theme/topic for the week is chosen i.e. eggs, on Monday the focus in on the learn strand i.e. find 5 facts about eggs from QR codes, library books etc, as the week progresses students then move into the create element i.e. create a poster and then at the end of the week the students share i.e. on seesaw or to their class members and the class members are engaged to comment on their posts.

The most important thing I took out of this talk was how this teacher has adapted her space and her literacy program to meet the needs of her learners. I love how this new process of learning has got the students engaged and has incidentally without them knowing has got them doing their literacy work. It has made the learning process fun and engaging. It is evident that student engagement is at the forefront of this program.  Further important points that I have taken out of this session includes;

• Working with their students needs and catering to these needs
• Acknowledging that what works one year with one group of children won't work the next year - you need to cater to the students in front of you and these needs will change completely from year to year
• The importance of student agency
• Ipad apps very effective for learn, create, share
• Encourages self-directed learners

On reflection, I now have some questions, what about the children that don't do the work? What accountability processes are in place and how do you ensure that all are working? Overall, I found the talk to be very valuable, it helped me to think of new ways to teach literacy in the classroom, gave me great ideas and really made me realise how important it is to change your programs to fit your learners as student engagement is the most important aspect to teaching. 

Useful resources 

Learn, create, share site: http://www.manaiakalani.org/our-story/learn-create-share