Literacy Observation

Writing and Reading Observation - Year 1 

When I come in the children are doing songs - singing parts of speech. Children all know nouns, conjunctions, adjectives - impressive!

Teacher begins writing modeling. Think aloud "hmm what am I going to write about today?" Think about audience (books go home on a Thursday. This could be good to give class writing books more purpose. Have been trying hard to establish purpose in my writing where I can - writing to David to read to us, thank Ag for fixing our bear so this affirms Murray Gadd PD for me - he put such a focus upon ideas and purpose)

Introduces today's story - "I'm going to write about something I did when I was little that I wish I  hadn't done. One of those times when you look back and think oh that was a silly thing to do!"

Establishes story - starts out stating basic things and adds detail/juicy words as she tells it to the children. I need to do this more with my writing. Model how to add detail to story. "I was at the beach" turns into "I was at the beach with my mum, dad and brother"

Children are focusing more upon language features then I do.

“A person place or a thing is a noun” - comes from song. 

Modelling book - space drawn Teacher think aloud: What am I going to write about today? Think about audience - parents as audience. Books go home during the week once a week. One of those stories of some I did that I wish I didn't. She buried her jandals at the beach in a hole. 

Praise of language - deep hole - not a shallow

What is it called when you use the same language again and again? Repetition

Lock ideas  in Head Where to start the story - start (going to the beach), Go over WALT - look for words we know. Word garden and the word bank. 

DIG - sound out the a robot - D-I-G. kind of like stretch machine but could be good as each sound has a move so maybe help children to know how many phonemes in a word 

Use of an A3 alphabet card

Greater focus on story rather than language

I don't know a word -  am I'm going to sit and wait for a teacher to go past? 

Feedback time - what did you like about the story?

Colour coded when they go over it. Doesn’t use symbols. 

Talk to learning partner about story - first sentence

Has  3 writing groups with writing rotations. 

First group - 1 code breakers

Children have a card use magnifying glass to look at letters. Then figure out a word and write it down - fast words?

Self managers - alphabet card

Highlight for finger spaces - M and H - Good scaffolding tool.

Newest children highlight the card for  “I like” and word bank the 

Have children do an activity before they get started on writing.

Self assessment - different star stories. taken from writing matrix - children self assess wen they are done. 

 Activities are all set up - ready to go on tables. 

College teacher  is in the room so she can work with students - also a teacher aid. With my TA - as soon as she comes in you can get her started. This is what happens here - teacher aid arrives during modelling and children go off. 

“Wow writer of the day” - M. It gets hung up in the window - great incentive. 

Children read to the class - sharing writing 

 Reading 

Write unknown word on hand

Whiteboard kidney table - can write new words on it

Do I rearrange timetable to have reading and writing in the same block?

Links to writing are constant

From observing the reading it  affirms that I am doing a good job at my reading programme. I feel my modelling books are great for writing down those unknown words as it keeps a record unlike whiteboard as it gets rubbed out.