It's hard to believe that we have completed all 9 sessions of RPI. We have covered so much in that time and there has been so much learning that has been done. 

Looking back at the progression of what I have implemented over the terms I think there have been more changes to my practice during the last 3 terms than I have realised.

I think the RPI allowed me to use the knowledge I have gained from working in a Maniakalani school over the past 5 years and really broke it down and allowed me to gain a better understanding of pedagogy and practice. It allowed me to bring the components together and embed them in my practice more. I loved all the resources we were exposed to and hearing different ways to implement aspects of the pillars into my practice.

The key things that really impacted my practice the most this year were the structure of the guided reading planning, rather than the skill being the main focus and always being the first part taught I am now incorporating it differently using the guided reading framework. I think this makes a guided reading lesson more interesting for the learners too.

The vocab work has also had a big impact on my practice. The idea that research has shown vocabulary knowledge to be a key predictor of reading skills really stuck with me. I now value the importance of building in regular vocab activities throughout my programme. Often I would have vocab as an after-reading activity or a quick discussion during reading. I am now regularly using the spotlight activity to target my vocabulary teaching more. I have also become more aware of tier 2 and 3 words, previously I was probably focusing more on the tier 3 words but these don't necessarily build a wider vocabulary as quickly as they are more context-specific. It has been good to think about vocabulary that can be used across different contexts.

While these are only a couple of the skills that I gained from RPI, I think the next step for me to develop is the collaboration aspect and building students' skills to allow for successful collaboration as these skills can be transferred across curriculum areas. I also want to work on the sharing aspect through the quality of our blogging and building more opportunities for comment and feedback. I am heading off to add the blog post check list to my site.

I am looking forward to taking these skills forward in the future to create a really balanced and effective reading programme. It will be great to be able to use everything I have learned to build a balanced reading programme from the beginning of a school year. 

Term 3 Reading Survey Reflection

Coming to the end of RPI it was interesting to redo the Reader Survey. It seems that overall there has been a small shift in the students' enjoyment of reading at school and also their enjoyment of reading in their own time. There was also a small change in the time that they enjoyed reading. in term one the most common time they enjoyed reading was at school, in term 3 there were more students who enjoyed reading at home, particularly before falling asleep. It would be interesting to find out more about what has changed for them and why they enjoy reading at home more. Are they finding books that they are enjoying and therefore what to be reading at home more or is there something about reading at school that is discouraging?

A highlight from the survey was that one student's response was that to be. a good reader you needed 'fluent thinking, a good vocabulary and imagination.' When I asked them what they meant by fluent thinking they described reading aloud fluently. It was great to see this response because these are skills we have been teaching.