Reciprocal Maths Update

Background:

Previously GO for teaching and The Wong Teacher posted about their Reciprocal Maths idea. After a number of weeks gradually introducing the context, then the skills, the process has turned out well on at least a surface level.

Issue:

With any new technology or development, the first pass is always improved on. The Reciprocal Maths idea is no different. Several areas for improvement were found.

While the reciprocal reading concept of continual cycles for each section works for texts, it doesn't work for maths problems which tend to be only one or two sentences that need to be comprehended then acted upon. Reworking the roles with a single cycle in mind resulted in many consequent changes including altering the roles, the flow, and the example questions.

Fix:

Two of the most critical changes relate to clarifying when events happen in the cycle. Those changes were adding a "solve" step into the cycle and grouping the Questioner with the Comprehender and Clarifier is meant to clarify when they are needed.

Sentence prompts were another part adjusted.

   
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Reciprocal Rea...Maths!

The issue:

Comparing various data points over several years, GO for teaching and The Wong Teacher came across a trend within students' numeracy skills. Students seemed to be capable of interview style assessments and problems that were pure abstract maths, but were less capable when solving word problems.

The hunch:

Students are having difficulty comprehending word problems therefore reducing their test scores and not presenting an accurate measure of mathematical capability. This is not to say that students' numeracy skills are in fact much greater than they test or that the assessments were flawed. In fact the comprehension of word problems may be closer to a reading comprehension issue than a numeracy issue.

The proposed solution:

GO for teaching and The Wong Teacher figured that if a literacy component is required to solve mathematical problems, then literacy skills in maths should be taught. To achieve this, we took the concepts of reciprocal reading and tried to adapt them for usage in a mathematical context. See our first attempt below. This Reciprocal Maths™ is intended to leverage peer learning and increased oral language use.

Teacher Inquiry 2021

 This year we will be focusing on increase maths achievement through oral language.

Below is a brief introduction to the planning of this initiative, including a backwards map and initial data of a cross section of our classroom. 

Most changes will be implemented through a range of activities in a range of groups by both teachers at different times.

Student Voice

At the conclusion of the plays the students were asked some very basic questions and put their hands up. Eye closed to allow them to be honest and not just copy their mates.

Surprisingly the larger majority of student found the 5 weeks extremely difficult. On the other hand the large majority enjoyed the process and wanted to do more.

After this students were ask several more questions to blog about. Reading the responses it was pleasing to see that overall the students perceived they had improved in their oral language. Was this necessarily true........Short answer is NO! Even though they enjoyed it, were they ready to take on Broadway?? Absolutely not, but there was enough positive energy and excitement that it will be interesting to watch their improvement over the next 5 weeks. Students wanted more so they have been given the remainder of the term to put together one last performance. Surely 4.5 weeks of practice will be better than a 2 week period......... Only time will tell.

Overall however ever student took part and didn't shy away from the challenge.

Oral language through performance

An under utilised and extremely good resource are the plays in the school journals. Why?? You can search reading level, topic and amount of parts in each play. This makes planning easier.

These were used to enable students to develop their oral language skills in a realistic setting, that they had on most cases not been exposed to.

Students started with just understanding the vocabulary in the text and how it was used to tell a story. Something they have always done through guided reading!

The next stage was to learn their part, this proved very quickly to be the challenge. They had never been asked to learn lines before. Why is this important? They quickly realised learning their part in isolation was difficult but learning as a group made the "cues" easier and soon the flow came to their reciting. Listening was a skill they didn't first think they needed, but soon it was as big a part as say their lines. Another part that helped was they also needed to have an under study partner. Once they had their lines, students were tasked with thinking about the character interactions and expression of certain lines.

Once they were learnt we could go on to expression and delivery of lines. This was the fun stuff! Students experimented with anger, sarcasm, excitement etc; Something they found they never did when reading before.

This all tied together over a 2 week period, with a "show" at the end. No lighting, no props, and costumes, just voice and body to tell the story.

Vocabulary and non-fiction texts

Across the board in LS1, but especially among the lower ability readers, there seems to be a big deficit in vocabulary (in all learning areas). To alleviate the deficit this year, Grant and I are explicitly teaching new vocabulary to students and making them use it in context to strengthen the understanding.

I have also made a push in reading to read non-fiction books on a wide range of topics. Many of the topics are ones the children have never come across or talked about in detail. Coupled with explicit vocabulary teaching, I hope this will expand the children's prior knowledge and vocabulary.

To work in conjunction with the reading of non fiction texts, I have a series of tasks for students to complete after reading a text. The tasks range from simple tasks that would be used in the junior school to more complex tasks such as creating a hierarchy graph of ideas in the text.

Boosting literacy through oral language

In an effort to boost not only reading comprehension, but also the confidence to present an answer, we are increasing the amount of oral work students are doing.

We are attempting this in multiple ways including performing plays and regular oral presentations for IRL (in real life), and screen casting and FlipGrids for the online component.

Using FlipGrid and screen casting allows students to actively consolidate their thoughts and understanding through preparation to provide a well scripted exposition.

Off the cuff oral presentations and performing in front of their peers improves the confidence to communicate ideas. At the very least, presenting and performing will help desensitise students to being in front of a crowd, which in itself can be a crushing fear.

Phonics, decoding, and spelling

One issue we have across the board (but especially for our target learners) in LS1 is the ability to decode and pronounce new words along with spelling already known words. In an effort to alleviate this we have instigated a phonics programme.

The phonics programme is based on Yolanda Soryl's phonics professional development course Grant and I both attended. While we have both taught phonics previously Soryl's programme consolidates many of the phonics practises and concepts into a coherent course based in New Zealand accents.

After an inconsistent start, we have found a place for a phonics lesson within our unconventional schedule. Perhaps one of the most powerful practises, though, is continual exposure and practise through the days and weeks. A particularly good strategy is bringing up phonics at random points throughout the day.

Collaborative Inquiry

With the change in direction of the cluster and school with PLD, preconceived ideas and the group of student in LS1 we decided to run a collaborative inquiry this year.

What does this mean??

We will target oral language through Reading, Writing and Maths.
We are also focusing on improving Maths attainment through integrated topics using the HPE, Arts and Oral language curriculums.

The way the majority of content is covered is in differentiated groups. This will mean the target groups get "hit" from all different directions, from both teachers throughout the year.

We are also going to have 2 focus groups.  One group which teachers traditionally always focus on, the group who are "nearly" there but need a push. The second group is going to be a group that is operating ahead of where they need to be.

The rational behind this is to give a wider range of approaches a go, and to keep ourselves thinking, reflecting and planning throughout all lessons. An observation of previous years inquiries was that too much focus was put in to a specific area. This in turn frustrated us as there seemed to be no escaping the pattern of focusing below the chronological level and when shifts weren't obvious teaching self esteem suffered.

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