Kia Ora, Talofa Lava, Malo e Lelei, Kia Orana, Fakaalofa Lahi Atu, Bula Vinaka and Namaste
Welcome to my Professional Blog!
I am a year 4 & 5 teacher at Glen Innes School, and this year I am again fortunate to embark on a year-long journey with the Manaiakalani Kahui Ako cluster as a Community of Learning within school teacher at my school.
This is purely inquiry-based learning, so any refreshing ideas (feedback/ feedforward) via comments are welcome. They will enable me to become a better within-school educator.
Inquiry 2025 - Planning for an Effective Teacher Inquiry with my Senior Leadership Team (SLT)
Reconnaissance - Student Inquiry Foci
Collaborate with your school’s leadership team and colleagues to identify areas where your inquiry will make a powerful contribution to wider school and cluster goals.
From what you know already about your classes and your school’s profile and leadership goals for the year, share a possible inquiry focus.
Frame your focus as a desired change in student learning, NOT a change in teaching (as yet!)
My Inquiry Focus for CoL 2025:
I have chosen The Achievement Challenge 3 as an area of focus:
Lift the Achievement in Reading for all students, with a particular focus on boys and Maori students (both genders), years 1-13.
My inquiry focus question is:
Will exposing Year 4–5 learners to diverse texts and explicit instruction foster reading independence and reduce reliance on devices or peers for support?
I am focusing on this inquiry question because, for all of my learners, English is their second language. They are scared to take risks. They need lots of practice, motivation, vocabulary, and spelling words to use in their writing and build self-confidence to produce a good piece of writing.
For all the above to happen successfully, I have done the whole class profiling and selected 8 mixed learners to investigate and see what I can do differently to assist them and bring about successful change regarding my inquiry topic. Profiling is the activity of collecting information about someone. In this case are the learners. This inquiry will investigate the nature of the student’s strengths and gaps in their valued learning outcomes in detail.
Profiling can be done in so many different ways. According to OpenAI, 2025, profiling in reading can be done by:
To effectively profile students in relation to whether exposing Year 4–5 learners to diverse texts and explicit teaching promotes reading independence, I will gather data on their current reading habits, abilities, and reliance on support. Here's how profiling can be done:
1. Diagnostic Assessments
Reading Level Tests: Identify each student’s reading level (e.g., using PM Benchmarks).
Running Records: Analyse fluency, decoding strategies, and error patterns.
Comprehension Checks: Use written or verbal questions to assess literal and inferential understanding.
2. Observations
Classroom Behaviour: Track how often students ask for help, use devices, or seek peer support during reading tasks.
Group Work: Note levels of independence in small literacy groups or during silent reading.
Engagement: Monitor which types of texts capture students’ interest and encourage persistence.
3. Student Surveys or Interviews
Ask questions like:
“What do you do when you don’t understand a word?”
“Do you prefer reading with a partner or alone?”
“How often do you use a device to help you read?”
4. Teacher Anecdotal Records
During lessons or interventions, maintain notes on students’ reading progress, challenges, and independence over time.
5. Peer and Self-Assessment
Provide checklists or rubrics that allow students to reflect on their reading strategies and independence.
6. Digital Usage Tracking (if applicable)
Review logs or reports from reading apps to see how frequently and why students use devices (e.g., for definitions, read-aloud features, etc.).
This profiling helps establish a baseline to measure growth in reading independence and the effectiveness of introducing varied texts and explicit instruction.
To address my inquiry, I will also be incorporating the Better Start Literacy Approach (BSLA), which I just started the professional development on the 5th and 6th of May, 2025.
According to OpenAI (2025), the Better Start Literacy Approach (BSLA) is for early identification and ongoing monitoring of students' literacy development.
Here's how BSLA supports profiling:
✅ 1. Structured Assessment Tools
BSLA includes initial and ongoing assessments that profile key early literacy skills, such as:
Phonological awareness
Letter-sound knowledge
Oral language and vocabulary
Word reading and spelling
These provide detailed diagnostic information on each learner’s strengths and needs.
✅ 2. Individual Learner Profiles
BSLA helps create individual learning profiles based on data collected during assessments. This shows where students are on their literacy journey and what support they might need to become more independent readers.
✅ 3. Progress Monitoring
BSLA encourages regular, short assessments (e.g. every 6–10 weeks) to monitor progress over time. This ongoing data is crucial for:
Tracking improvements in decoding and comprehension
Identifying reduced reliance on external support (devices/peers)
✅ 4. Data-Informed Grouping
You can use BSLA data to form literacy groups and plan targeted explicit teaching based on learner profiles—helpful for testing your research question in group contexts.
✅ 5. Supports Intervention Decisions
Profiling through BSLA also helps in identifying students who need additional support or extension, aligning well with your focus on promoting reading independence.
In Summary:
BSLA is a robust tool for profiling in your context. It not only helps assess where students are at the start but also tracks the impact of your teaching approach on their independent reading skills, providing both qualitative and quantitative insights.
To address the above, I have planned a series of interventions.
My Planned Interventions for Term 1:
Create a Google Questionnaire Form to understand and know my learners better.
Discuss with last year's/ previous teachers regarding the learners' reading in class.
Collecting baseline data - from Term 1, 2025.
Collecting reading data from their e-asttle and Progressive Achievement Tests (PATs)
Meet/ discussion with the principal and senior lead teachers.
Met/ discussion with Ms. Naicker (CoL) teacher.
Ordered various National Library books to expose my learners to a variety of texts
Record my reading lesson(s) to observe my learners and myself.
Collaborate with my SLT to assist me to better/improve my reading planning site.
Group reading sessions.,
Encourage students to write book reviews at least once a week.
Thorough planning, including exposing my learners to a variety of texts, encouraging discussions, addressing their questions, and prompting them to engage in literal, inferential, and evaluative questioning, will significantly assist them. Additionally, this approach will foster greater reading independence, reducing their reliance on devices or peers for decoding and comprehension.
Reference:
OpenAI. (2025). ChatGPT [3.5]. https://openai.com/chatgpt
