Term 3 Reflection: Using Text Sets

Term 3 has been all about the creation and use of text sets. Text sets... what are those I hear you ask? This is a group of readings - some compulsory, some not - that's sole purpose is to build student's knowledge around a topic or focus.

For example, see this text set that I setup for one of my reading groups.

I have found that this is incredibly worth while. I have never had as much fun teaching reading as I have this term. I have also seen a remarkable shift in my students understanding and focus of a topic - they have genuinely been excited about it! But more importantly it is making a difference to their two biggest needs: applying knowledge and inferring.

Term 3 - Where to from here?

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During the last two terms I have been focussing my inquiry around what is it that I am doing to bring about a change to my student's learning. The evidence gathered from formative assessments, group teaching and observations was telling me that my students were falling short when trying to apply knowledge from one context to another. Another problem is that my students aren't able to read longer texts, read for a longer time before being distracted or bored and are therefore not as informed about the topic in question as they should be. This then leads to create tasks that are very low in thought. All of this from students who are reading at an age of 10 years to 13 years... Something has to change!

So in other words, I am falling short in teaching these skills to my students!

This term my focus is changing to looking more in depth at this problem. What can I change in my practice to solve this? How can I provide more opportunities to go deeper into a text that is both guided and free form? How can I relate one weeks worth of work to another weeks worth of work in a meaningful and contextualised kind of way?

Lots of questions... heaps to change... lets get started!