Reader Profile Survey – Reflection

The initial Reader Profile Survey showed that only four students had a public library card, and most students were interested in science books and comics. After introducing extended Sustained Silent Reading (SSR), regular library visits, and giving students more choice in what they read, providing different resources and platforms, I noticed a positive change in their reading habits, engagement, and confidence.

In the follow-up survey, around seven more students had library cards, giving them greater opportunities to access books outside of school. Students were also exploring a wider range of genres, including fantasy, comics, science, and novels. They showed more interest and excitement when choosing and reading books in their own time. Creating a mini library in the classroom, along with regular visits to the school library, has also increased students’ interest in reading.

More children are now enjoying reading in my class. The Reading Intensive Programme (RPI) has made my reading programme more engaging, enjoyable, and meaningful for learners. Students have enjoyed using different ways to show their learning, including digital technology. The reading task board and weekly links have supported students to understand the “Must Do” and “Can Do” components, helping them become more independent and engaged in their learning. They are also beginning to recognise their own progress and celebrate their achievements. How will we Track Success?

The RPI has allowed me to see why reading is at the core of learning. It has helped me develop a better understanding of my learners, their engagement, the importance of providing choice, and how to strengthen engagement with whānau. I have also developed a better understanding of texts, explored different digital tools, and learned how to empower students through reading. Most importantly, I have seen the importance of students taking ownership of their learning and understanding how they know they are successful.

Thank you, team. The RPI course was very interesting and valuable for me. My personal growth has been in providing meaningful challenges for both my learners and myself, while making the most of the many resources available through Manaiakalani Trust. 

The RPI has allowed me to see why reading is at the core of learning. It has helped me develop a better understanding of my learners, their engagement, the importance of providing choice, and how to strengthen engagement with whānau. I have also developed a better understanding of texts, explored different digital tools, and learned how to empower students through reading. Most importantly, I have seen the importance of children taking ownership of their learning and understanding how they know they are successful.

Thank you, team. The RPI course was very interesting and valuable for me. My personal growth has been in providing meaningful challenges for both my learners and myself, while making the most of the many resources available through Manaiakalani.

Going Forward

Going forward, I will continue to make Create a regular and manageable part of my reading programme through short response-to-text tasks, student choice, collaboration, and visible learning. This will support students to become more independent readers, demonstrate their understanding in different ways, and take greater ownership of their learning. I will involve whanau to make connection, by blogging, having family library visits, tasks and activities that will invove learners family members, author visit, regular buddy class reading, and give more time to create their learning.

Thanks Kiri, Jess, Dorothory, and Amiee

 : Day 8, Term 3, 2026

Creative Learners

Empowering our students to think creatively

Unlocking Creativity in Learning

Digital tools like Canva, Adobe Firefly, and podcasts make it simple and engaging to share our learning with students and the wider community. Integrating creative approaches into education is essential for deepening understanding and helping learners share their insights.

Recording and publishing the poem Te Marama gave me valuable insight into how differently learners interpret text when given the chance to think deeply. It was a wonderful blend of creativity and fun! Throughout the session, we explored how multimodal tools can build on students' ideas and create rich learning experiences.

For our main post-reading task, we used digital tools to design creative responses for a resource register. I focused on a structured post-reading activity titled "Questions That Make Me Think!" To elevate the task, I incorporated student choice and collaboration, giving learners options in both the tools they use and the tasks they complete—such as focusing on character or setting. Recommended tools for these tasks include:

• Visual & Storytelling: Google Drawings, Storyboard, Book Creator, and Canvato

• Audio & Interaction: Voice recorder, Kahoot, Nearpod, Socrative, and Quizlet

Exploring the shared links sparked a timely idea for our school’s upcoming "Snack Attack" event next week. I plan to use Canva to design an instructional guide as well as our class promotional poster.

Finally, we explored using short films and book trailers to recommend texts to others. Effective book trailers can feature reading, reciting, singing, role-playing, interviews, cooking, crafting, or simple science experiments. Creating a short film to elicit an emotional response and "sell" the book Down Came the Spiders by Ally Russel was a highlight of the session. It gave me a great opportunity to reflect on and adjust my own instructional planning.

Thank you Team, It is really helpful and I am looking forward to adjust my planning more learning more creativity.

Weekly Reflection: Thinking Beyond the Literal

This week’s learning focused heavily on how to stretch our students past basic, surface-level reading and get them thinking beyond the literal. At the core of this is the 4Cs—Critical Thinking, Communication, Creativity, and Collaboration.

One of my biggest takeaways was how powerful multimedia can be for keeping learners active and engaged. However, it isn't just about showing any clip; it’s about making sure our local environment and culture are reflected in the images, videos, and media we choose. I also realized the importance of structure here—pairing media with a clear "After watching, do this task" instruction turns passive viewing into active learning.

We spent time looking at higher-order thinking frameworks like De Bono’s Hats, SOLO Taxonomy, and especially Bloom’s Taxonomy, which we unpacked in detail. The "Hawk’s Eye" activity was a real lightbulb moment for me. It showed me how to zoom in on learning, helping me guide students toward a much deeper, more focused understanding rather than just skimming the surface.

I also really enjoyed exploring how to teach figurative language—moving students into interpreting similes, metaphors, euphemisms, and idioms. The lesson series on the Cave Story was a great example of how to activate prior knowledge. Watching how students created mental pictures, drew them, and then compared their literal drawings to real photos highlighted just how essential figurative language is for engaging their imagination. Plus, build-in time for peer discussions showed how essential small-group talk is for building student independence before main tasks.

My Reflection & Action Plan (Moving Forward)

Exploring how to intentionally plan for critical thinking using metalanguage across multiple texts was invaluable. Dissecting texts, identifying specific language features, and crafting provocative prompts showed me that teaching metalanguage isn't just about labeling devices—it gives students the vocabulary to challenge how texts manipulate, persuade, and position the reader.

Over the next three weeks, our focus will center on figurative language (explicitly building in similes, metaphors, euphemisms, and idioms). To put these insights into practice, I will:

• Pair Contrasting Texts & Vignettes: Use contrasting text pairs alongside provocative prompts and text vignettes to to encourage students to actively question, compare, and access deeper meanings.

• Link Responses to Argument Writing: Integrate these prompts into text-based responses where learners form, defend, and write their own reasoned opinions and judgments.

• Launch the Digital "Google Highlight" Activity (Week 4): Replace manual tasks with a digital highlighting activity as an engaging, hands-on way for students to analyze text features.

• Localize & Structure Media: Continue using local images and video clips to anchor reading tasks, ensuring every piece of media is tied to a clear, actionable follow-up task.

Very interesting session. Thank you!!

                    Vocabulary (& Decoding): Day 6

It was great to start off the session by sharing how we implemented our learning from the last three weeks. These sessions offer a wonderful opportunity to both share my own experiences and learn from the insights of others.

My biggest takeaway was seeing how these strategies can be adapted across different curriculums, and how they empower learners to take leadership in their own learning journeys.

Ultimately, strong vocabulary and decoding skills are essential for allowing learners to communicate effectively. Mastering these tools helps them express their ideas, deepen their thinking, and develop critical understanding. To support this in my classroom, I plan to explore different vocabulary applications such as Wordwall, Vocabulary.com, and Quizlet.

To build deep understanding, I will structure my lessons around immediate, near, and far transfer of these vocabulary words:

Slides to support my journey:

• Immediate Transfer: I will start by having students use target words like nutrient or absorb (linking Term 3 Topic/Inquiry- Healthy Body and nutrition) in structured sentence frames right after interacting with the word wall.

• Independent Activity (Near Transfer): I will challenge them to apply these same words to a new context, such as writing a healthy menu description for an athlete.

• Far Transfer: Weeks down the road, I will ask them to use the vocabulary metaphorically—explaining how a car or a plant needs "fuel" to function—and use strategies like "word association" and "Which would you?".

• We had turn to do 2 vocabulary activityFinish planning and implement TWO vocabulary activities: 1) one robust, interactive approach you designed in Session 6;

To deepen their understanding further, I can integrate morphology by breaking down these science words into their roots, prefixes, and suffixes. For example, exploring how the prefix mal- changes nutrition to malnutrition helps students unlock deeper structural meaning. This multi-layered approach ensures my learners truly own the vocabulary and can confidently adapt it to any future writing piece.

Currently, I am using selected pages from our readers to have students identify different voc to reinforce what we've learned. 

Moving forward, I am planning a focus on morphology. I intend to back this up with multi-sensory engagement and expand our classroom word wall to help learners visually break down and understand word parts. 

Thanks Team!!🙏🙏🙏

 

    Planning a Reading Programme: Day 5, Term 2

We started the session with reflections. I found that my tamariki are enjoying recording themselves while reading. They are becoming more confident in accessing their weekly tasks independently. They are able to check off the success criteria and articulate their learning clearly.

The LTR recordings have allowed me to identify the exact mistakes children make while reading, which helps me provide targeted support and ensures equity for all learners.

             Equity

Planning, maintainning and sustainning of a reading programme

The session also focused on the planning, maintaining, and sustaining of a reading programme. Learning through the class site allows learners to access their learning easily and independently, as everything is organised clearly for them. My task board includes “Must Do”, “Can Do”, and independent activities, which help learners manage their time and learning responsibilities effectively.

Digital Reading Apps

We also explored a range of digital reading apps such as ReadTheory, Epic, LiteracyPlanet, and Sunshine Online. I am already using most of these apps. I learned how to assign reading books to support children’s reading with follow-up activities, which is a great time saver. I have added theme-based books for my class on Epic and ReadWorks.

From next week, I plan to use the follow-up tasks from Sunshine Online, including writing activities, quizzes, and opportunities for children to record their reading. These tools will help strengthen learner engagement and provide more purposeful reading experiences.😃

There were also examples of timetables shared during the sessions. At the end of the session, I had the opportunity to review my own timetable and make adjustments by adding videos and other digital resources to better support learners’ engagement and understanding. Time was also provided to update my task board with follow-up activities and a mahi tracker.

The integration of reading and writing was explained well, and it encouraged me to place a stronger focus on frontloading learners with vocabulary, and before reading tasks. This will help build understanding, confidence, and success for all my learners.

Thank you for the great session today!👍👍👍👍

Reflection on small group teaching 

Currently, our school is using a theme-based approach where children are exposed to key vocabulary across learning areas. Prior to reading, I use videos, stories, and vocabulary activities to frontload learning for the class. Students are also encouraged to research using key words and phrases. As the theme is integrated across most curriculum areas, it helps strengthen understanding and creates a lasting impact on learning.

To support structured literacy, I can use explicit and sequential teaching of reading skills alongside these themes. This includes pre-teaching vocabulary, modelling comprehension strategies, teaching phonics and word patterns, and giving students guided practice during shared and small group reading. Using modelling books, word cards, and repeated exposure to key vocabulary helps students make connections between reading, writing, and oral language. Structured literacy also encourages deliberate teaching where skills are broken into manageable steps and revisited regularly, helping learners build confidence and deeper understanding.

8th May 2026 – Term 2
Day 4: Small Group Reading (Comprehension)

Today's session began with a recap of the previous lesson on text coverage. I have banks of books for my different groups now. I am adding using different genres and using themed bases.

The focus today was on how we are moving forward with small group reading and encouraging students to generate their own questions while engaging with a text. In the new English curriculum, Te Mātaiaho, there is an emphasis on explicit teaching, sequential approaches, deliberate planning, shared and buddy reading, and the importance of strategic actions when processing complex texts. Preloading vocabulary and concepts is also essential.

I am using modelling books to record learning intentions, success criteria, students’ responses, unknown vocabulary, and group discussions. This serves as a valuable tool for learners to refer back to. There was a great disussion on this today and how to use e-modelling book. 

It was a great session introducing texts and their purposes using a structured cycle.

It is important to build students’ background knowledge by using pictures, images, videos, and oral discussion, as well as identifying key vocabulary from the text. Making vocabulary visible through word cards and encouraging predictions using illustrations helps make reading more engaging and memorable. Very interesting!

Running Records

It is helpful to know that we can use any texts to analyse what learners can and cannot read by identifying reading patterns. Take away is the fluency scale as this gives the progression as well asking the learners to assess their reading. 

I found the Rob and Wiseman and Ragtags methods useful as well for demonstrating fluency to learners.

My reflection on running records is that I need to focus more on encouraging self-correction in my learners.

There was an in-depth discussion about fluency learning what we observe as teachers when a learner reads aloud. Using a fluency scale is a great tool to inform and track student progress.

I will introduce  rewatchable videos allows learners to self-reflect. It helps them build awareness of their own learning as they rate their own reading and that of their peers.

For learning discussions, I want learners to justify, explain, and articulate their understanding of the text to strengthen their oral language skills. I will also use self-assessment slides with my class that was shared in the session today.

Response to Text – Follow-Up Activities

There are many ways to assess comprehension. I will continue using the samples provided in the session and include videos in the task board before reading sessions to support understanding. The importance of asking questions were specific and sequenced that I will start using in my class.

In order for me to understand my learners progress

The session was interesting. Thanks Team!