In the September school holidays I was lucky
enough to attend the 2014 NZLA Conference in Tauranga. I would like to thank
NZLA and TTLA for providing me with such a valuable professional development opportunity.
It was a very worthwhile experience and I went away buzzing with ideas on how I
could further improve my classroom literacy practice. It also enabled me to
gain an insight as to how the national literacy conferences are organised and
run. As a result I have a better understanding of how I can contribute to
organising the 2016 NZLA Conference, in Northland.
Two keynote speakers that stuck out for me were Dr
Mere Berryman and Rob Southam. Merry Berryman spoke about enjoying education
success as Maori: a home school approach to learning and literacy. Mere
reminded us that no matter what background a child comes from, every child arrives
at school with skills. We need to consider how we value these skills, rather
than saying that a child comes to school with ‘nothing’ or very few
experiences. Having heard similar comments time and time again, as well as
previously teaching children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds made her
words really hit home for me. Another gem of Mere’s was when she shared about
providing students with responsive feedback, where you initially only respond
to the message in their story instead of any punctuation and spelling errors.
The importance of positive teacher-student and home-school relationships were
also a focal point of her keynote.
Rob was a
fantastic keynote speaker and even more exceptional considering she was asked
to present on the morning of the conference, due to Stephen Graham been
unwell. The content she shared was light, but inspiring. She spoke about the
latest trends in children’s publishing, shared a smorgasbord of books to hook
young readers in and touched on the importance of correctly teaching reading
strategies. The fact that Minecraft has motivated so many of our reluctant
readers to read more, especially boys, was also mentioned. This is something I’ve
personally noticed in my own class too.
My purpose for attending this year’s NZLA Conference was to gain a
better insight as to how I could further improve my writing programme in my
year 4 classroom, as well as to take away ideas around improving student
engagement with my reluctant readers and writers. I felt that the ideas needed
to be fresh, practical and have some evidence to support their success in the
classroom. Louise Sherrington’s workshop around building reading stamina during
independent reading sparked a few ideas for me and really got me thinking about
how I can support my struggling readers to build their stamina. Louise is a
literacy coach in the Gold Coast, as well as a friend of Sheena Cameron’s. She
shared how reading stamina wasn’t only important in the classroom, but that she
also believed kids are failing tests because of a lack of reading stamina. Louise
talked about how we shouldn’t expect that all children can simply sit down and
read for thirty minutes. She compared it to how you wouldn’t expect an adult to
run a marathon, if they struggled to run for ten minutes. It takes time, effort
and practise. Louise shared a variety of practical strategies to improve
children’s reading stamina. Some of which I am looking forward to trialling in
my own class.
Gay Gilbert’s workshop was the presentation that I personally got the
most out of during the conference. Her topic was called Picture the Writing.
Gay enthusiastically shared her experiences of running an integrated visual art
and literacy programme – something she did for years. Immediately I thought of
my target group of writers, all students who love art. Something that I know I
am guilty of not making enough time for in the classroom.
Gay gave examples of ‘hook ins’ she had used over the years e.g. taking
a live chicken into school, putting jam on the concrete and watching the ants
come out of the cracks to eat the jam, observing a praying mantis or a group of
snails, swinging on the swings while closing your eyes, taking kids out in the
rain with raincoats on. Straight away I noticed that all of her ‘hook in’
activities were hands on and authentic; that also enabled all students to have
a shared experience. During, or straight after the activity children would
sketch pictures. Criteria was co-constructed and set for the sketches, as well
as the major art piece. Different media was used for different art projects.
Close up photographs were also taken and put on display for further reference.
For example when the chicken was taken into the class close up photos were
taken of its different body parts e.g. feet, beak, wing and feathers.
In Gay’s classroom reading, writing and visual art all dovetailed
together. Narrative and personal writing runs through their school like a
heartbeat. ‘We can’t give children rich lives, but we can give them the lens to
appreciate the richness that is already there” by Lucy Carkins. Other genre
such as explanation is only taught when it’s relevant. She was very passionate
about not forcing genre and teaching it where it didn’t fit. Gay often told her
children not to over egg the pudding, referring to too many over the top,
fluffy language features. She will also scribe for children for five minutes,
when needed. Gay doesn’t only do it for the lower learners, but for the top end
learners too. She’s found this to be a very successful strategy to get boys
moving with their writing.
There are so many inspiring ideas to take away from the 2014 NZLA
Conference, but to start with I will be focusing on introducing the following
things:
- Using strategies to support my target readers in building reading stamina.
- Integrating visual art into my writing programme.
- Making a genuine effort to spark excitement in writing by using hook in activities that are authentic, vivid and sensory experiences.
- Being a scribe for children when needed, for a maximum of five minutes.
- Reading more children’s books, myself. This will enable me to not only listen to the children buzz about their books, but to contribute as well.
- Tracking down a copy of ‘The Day the Crayons Quit’, by Drew Daywalt and reading it to my class.
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An example shared by Gay Gilbert, during her workshop - Picture the Writing
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