# data[].attributes.body
= Tools of effective practice - Deliberate Acts of Teaching / DATs
DATs that focus on learning in order to meet a particular purpose.

Instructional strategies that build students knowledge/ strategies/ and awareness in literacy learning.  DAT that generate motivation and interest that enable them to engage in increasing complex learning tasks, adapt their own strategies, see how their learning is progressing, and learn how they can move forward.

Literacy teaching strategically, means integrating -

a sound knowledge of how students learn and continue to develop as fluent and independent readers and writers.

The ability to select strategies on the basis of a continually growing knowledge and understanding of their students and the patterns of progress.

The ability to choose engaging texts and tasks- engage them in rich experiences with texts.

An awareness of the connections between reading, writing, oral language and visual language that enable them to help the students make those links.

An awareness of the skills that their students will need for cross-curricular learning and ongoing education.

Instructional strategies are most effective when their use is planned to meet specific objectives in literacy programmes. Also as spontaneous tools.

How students learn and what teachers do-
1.  How Students learn             2.  What teachers do

1. Imitate .            2.  model /demonstrate

1. identify and face challenges and overcome problems

2. set instructional objectives based on students' identified needs

plan activities with appropriate challenge

provide opportunities for students to solve problems independently and through interacting with others

1. Understand and help set learning goals for tasks.

2. construct shared learning goals with individual students and groups of students.
help students to understand the learning goals of tasks.

1. make connections

2. show students how to activate their prior knowledge

help students to see relationships between what they know and what they are learning.

help students to develop awareness of when to activate prior knowledge and to ensure students make connections

1. practise

2. provide opportunities for practise through text-based activities

monitor learning and plan next steps

1. develop the ability to apply their learning and transfer it to new contexts.

2. plan opportunities for students to apply learning

show students how to use their learning in new contexts.

monitor this transfer.

1. respond and seek feedback

2. give timely and appropriate feedback

provide opportunities for students to act on the feedback

1. reflect on and regulate their learning

2. help students to build metacognitive awareness

encourage students to evaluate and reflect critically on their learning.

DELIBERATE ACTS of TEACHING - to extend understanding of the code of written English, their ability to make meaning of text, and their use of critical thinking skills when reading and writing.

Instructional strategies-
Provide direct instruction - focused, explicit, direct instruction that makes 'visible' what proficient readers and writers know and do.

Provide goal-directed instruction - DAT directed towards specific goals that students recognise and understand.  Tools to achieve the objectives.

Be deliberate - using instructional strategies consciously, ie what and why, how and why.

provide multiple opportunities to practise - repeated exposure= reinforced learning.

Provide a class culture and environment that facilitates learning. - community of learners, where there is a climate of respect ad collaboration, where classroom management and organisation are effective, and where everyone sees the business of developing literacy learning as something to be valued.

Maintain students' motivation and enjoyment. Students' learning is enhanced when both they and their teachers find learning activities relevant, challenging and interesting.

Use the same instructional strategies for teaching across the curriculum.

Be flexible and culturally responsive- regarding what instructional strategies selected.  Students cultures linked to in tasks and planning, etc.

Praise and encouragement - crucial aspect, but not a DAT.

Effective use of DATs-
Teacher strategic decisions /responsive problem solvers - teaching that is aligned with student identified need.
Support that scaffolds the zone between what students can do and what challenges them.

This supportive purposeful guidance (through DATs) of scaffolding, moves towards handing responsibility over to the learner and builds on what they already know and can do.

MODELLING
modelling or demonstration is the most powerful and pervasive form of instruction.
Modelling happens all day long, but deliberate, goal directed modelling is an essential teaching tool.

Articulating how they arrived at a solution / thinking aloud as they go through a process, the teacher (or peer) provides the learner with a model of how a proficient writer or reader works. - Making learning 'visible' = helps students know what to do as well as how to do it. = enhancing students of literacy-learning process, -especially if students are encouraged to articulate what they have learned from the modelling.

Teachers demonstrate the skills that students need to master, discussing them, providing (and modelling the use of) new language that the students need to master.

(insert pic pg 82)

A combination of modelling and directing (or explaining) may be necessary.  Modelling especially useful for those experiencing difficulties in their literacy learning.

PROMPTING
Encouraging the learner to use what they already know and can do.  Focuses students attention and build their metacognitive awareness and confidence.  Teacher needs a detailed knowledge of the learner.

Prompting- a reminder / a strong hint / a clue / or a gentle nudge to help students use their existing knowledge and literacy strategies to make connections and reach a solution.

A prompt often takes the form of a question then allowing 'wait time'.

Prompting helps students to understand how and when to use their knowledge and strategies.

QUESTIONING
Planned questioning can help build students' metacognition awareness of how they comprehend a text or how a text they are writing will affect its readers.  It is more effective to use fewer questions, strategically placed in a discussion or conversation.

Questioning can help students reflect critically on the deeper levels of texts.

Teachers need to be ask a range of questions and know why they are asking them.

Questions can be effective when -

they are directed towards helping students to meet a learning goal.

they are centred on and draw out students' knowledge.

there is adequate "wait time" for students

appropriate follow-up questions or probes are used to extend students' thinking

Questioning has the potential to ask questions that require students to explain their choice of language in their writing or to think critically about text - linking their thinking about texts with their knowledge and experience.

Students responses should be valued, sometimes added to by modelling more appropriate language or syntax.

'Think, pair, share' - where students form their own questions about texts can be useful for generating conversations.

Attending to questions, and probing responses is important- ie "how do you know that?", "what evidence can you find to support your thinking?"
Students responses give important information re their learning and next learning steps.

Questioning can unlock the understanding of a student who is struggling , it also offers a good model to students and shows them how to develop their own questioning strategies - such as self-question, especially in shared writing and reading to help them create texts and make meaning of texts.

Thought-provoking questions - a highly valued part of learning.

GIVING FEEDBACK
Purposes - to affirm; to inform; to guide future learning.
Feedback has been described as the most single factor that enhances achievement.

Feedback is most effective when it relates to specific learning goals that students recognise and understand, and to the ultimate goal of students monitoring and enabling their own learning.

Feedback can be descriptive or evaluative-
Descriptive - describing or explaining what has or has not been achieved and why, as well as giving information on how to learn further or what to do in order to succeed.
Evaluative feedback involves making a judgement about what the learner is doing or has done and carried the idea of approval or disapproval.

The primary role of feedback is to enable students to reflect on their use of strategies and on their learning- that using effective strategies is what causes their success; this is crucial to building students' metacognition.

It is especially useful to encourage students themselves to suggest what they could do to solve the problems they identify.

Feedback may be verbal or non-verbal, spoken or written.

Feedback on a students writing is especially important, but a teacher should not allow their feedback to take over ownership of the learning task- by "improving" a piece, but where the students voice is lost.

Success criteria = valuable focus.  Students need time to act on the feedback.

TELLING
Supplying what the student needs, such as a unknown word.  Goal is to fill the gap so the student can maintain their momentum and move on.
Telling when students can use a particular literacy strategy in a given a task.

EXPLAINING
Extension of telling, teachers may explain a strategy, or a task, an activity, or the content of a text, ie -

what they want the students to do and think about while reading

how a certain task will help them achieve their goal

the background to a certain topic

Explanations are verbally explicit - aimed at students gaining their own understandings - re classroom task ie buddy reading, giving peer feedback.  Explanation can clarifies both the text content and a text feature.
eg pg 90

DIRECTING
Giving a specific instruction, used for a purpose- ie "read the next two paragraphs and think about..."

Integrating instructional Strategies
Teachers use a combination of instructional strategies- based on professional judgement, instructional objective and student learning goals, student knowledge and prior experience- and the nature of the learning literacy session.

Classroom conversations
Conversations directed towards a goal- teachers should know why a discussion is being held and what the desired outcome is.

For quality conversations- trust is a prerequisite.

Teachers have a crucial role in -

enabling students to 'own' their statements, opinions and responses.

supporting students in actively talking about how they make meaning and develop awareness in their written-language activities

clarifying their own understanding of what each student says

creating an environment where students can converse without feeling that they have to wait for the teacher's evaluative comment on what they say.

Teachers probe responses and get students to clarify, justify and elaborate on what they have said.  Planned and focused conversations can support students in becoming increasingly thoughtful and critically aware when reading and writing texts.

Approaches to reading and writing
DATs help students reach a number of essential literacy related goals.

Mini-lessons
Short period of explicit instruction - in a specific skill or item- that arises from an identified need for one or more students.

Approaches to reading
An instructional reading programme that includes a range of approaches to reading.

Through these approaches, they can help students to:

apply learned skills and strategies as they read and write increasingly diverse, complex and challenging texts.

think deeply and critically about those texts

build confidence as independent readers

Reading to students
A daily part of every classroom programme = implicit learning occurs.

Reading aloud gives teachers opportunities to introduce complex or connected themes/ideas/ modelling strategies / explore language features.

Reading aloud- become familiar with the text prior to reading it, to ensure fluency and expressively.

Supporting students responses -
depending on instructional objectives-  the teacher may encourage students to respond to the text, to predict, to discuss- ie create shared mental images.

Shared Reading - teachers and students can participate in collaborative reasoning to solve literacy-related problems.

Teachers can deliberately extend their students -

understanding of the themes/ideas

use of reading strategies

appreciation of literacy devices, such as imagery

vocabulary

knowledge of the purposes and characteristics features of different text forms.

Shared reading = conversation about the text.  approx. 2o minutes.

The text should be introduced in a way that builds students' curiosity.  Brief - aim to have the students relate the text to their own experience, make some predictions about its content, structure and features.

Share the learning goal.

The same text can be shared once to several times, depending on nedd and learning goals, length and content-related purpose for reading.

Whatever the learning goal, the teacher models the behaviour to be learned by 'thinking aloud' for example.

At the end the students review their learning goals and decide how far they have achieved their objectives. - this may involve discussing the theme, overall meaning, its effectiveness as a piece of writing, or the strategies the students used in reading the text.

Effective teachers ensure that their students understand exactly which strategies they used to process and comprehend the text and encourage students to think about how they can apply this knowledge and awareness when reading other texts.

Following up
This depends on the instructional objective(s) of the session.
Teacher could work with a small group, students could re read individually or in small groups practising new strategies they have learnt, writing based on the text...

Shared reading= the teacher takes greater responsibility for the reading and reads . the text aloud.

Guided reading= the teacher helps the students read the text themselves (not aloud, but silently).

During guided reading the students often apply or practise reading strategies and skills that have been introduced to them through shared reading.

Before the session - decide on the purpose- both students and teacher needs to be clear WHY they are reading the text.

Reciprocal Teaching of Reading

Four explicit strategies for reading comprehension:

formulating questions to stimulate thoughtful discussion

clarifying ideas and information in the text

predicting what might follow, using prior knowledge and information in the text;

summarising information in the text

The teacher initially leads the group, explaining and modelling strategies to show how the reader actively constructs meaning.
Students gradually take over more and more of the responsibility by taking turns to lead the group and generate discussion as the group members jointly examine the text.

Literacy circles
Small groups read the same text independently and share their interpretations and personal responses with others in the group.

Having students mark parts of the texts helps to focus their discussion of a text, for example, where they:

found a passage particularly impressive, interesting or confusing

what to ask the group questions about the plot, characters, or information.

want to clarify their thoughts about the theme or meaning of the text

found the language or writing style impressive

can relate an event or episode in the text to personal experience

Approaches to Writing
Students are grouped for writing instruction.
Groups formed by identified learning needs- shared strengths, needs and next steps- writing goals are established for each group.

The teacher works with each group in shared and guided writing sessions and group conferences.

Shared writing
The teacher and a group, or the whole class- working together to plan and construct a text (or part of one)
Giving explicit instruction in how to use relevant writing strategies.

Teachers use a range of instructional strategies.
Such as modelling, explaining, how to link and sequence words and phrases into simple, compound or complex sentences.  Or focus on text features or a particular text from.

Writing by deconstructing an exisiting text, searching together for the writing features and literacy devices that the writer has employed to create the text.

In every shared writing session - the students have a specific purpose for writing and also a learning goal (that the students are aware of) - reflected in the set task(s) for the session.  Leading students into shared writing through collaborative discussion about what they could write together to meet their purpose.

During the session
During shared writing the teacher acts as a scribe, writing where the students can see easily, generally students contribute most of the text in response to questioning/ prompting from the teacher.

Text is recorded and constantly reread and amended as students and teacher work towards communicating their ideas, promotion of the draft text reinforces the importance of on-going editing, especially to strengthen the deeper features of the text.

Using 'think pair share' enables all students to contribute.

Concluding the Session
Students proofread the draft text- attending to surface features, it may be compared to the modelled text, to see if it meets the learning goal.

Conversations enable new writing purposes and writing goals to be identified - students are involved with helping plan the criteria that will show they have met the learning/writing goals.

Conversations will encourage students to build understanding and awareness of quality writing.  ("what makes this writing have this impact on you as a reader?"  "How can we make our writing as effective as this?")

Over a series of shared writing sessions- all of the processes used in writing can be demonstrated and discussed- forming intentions, crafting, recrafting, and sometimes presenting to an audience.

The same learning goal or writing purpose can be explored over several sessions.

After a successful shared writing session, many students are ready to write independently- as the session will have clarified for them the purpose for the writing, the writing strategies and skills they need to employ, and the features of a text that meets the purpose (ie what success looks like- clear about the learning goal and how they will know that they are learning what they planned to learn).

Guided Writing
Often following shared writing- working intensively with a small group of students who share similar learning needs.  The teacher knows what the students have already learned, what their needs and interests are and what their next learning step will be.  The next learning step is explicit in the learning goal for the writing activity. (The model developed during shared writing)

All students work in their own draft books, writing their sentences individually, then share with the teacher and with each other.  The students learn from one another as well as from the teacher, seeking, offering, and responding to feedback as they think, talk, and write their way through the task, while the teacher monitors the progress of each student.

This is often used with students who need extra support but is equally useful for extending high achievers, and all students.

Guided writing provides students with additional scaffolding.

Independent writing
Students will write independently for a specific purpose with a clear understanding of what achieving 'looks like'.

Often the independent writing task is generated through shared writing.  After the shared writing session, many are ready to use the writing strategy or skill they have learned with the group.

As well as completing teacher-directed tasks, students need time to write for their own purposes.  They need opportunities to write about their own experiences and things that matter to them, and share their writing.

Teachers should not reduce the students sense of owning their own writing- but help them reflect on what they have written and how the reader will feel when reading it.

Students should be encouraged to share writing with a buddy, a group or the class.  Effective teachers model collaborative ways of talking about writing so that their students are supported in sharing their work and can help clarify their meaning and extend their thinking.

Making meaning of, thinking critically about and enjoying their own texts and one another's is rewarding and helps establish a community of writers.

Summary of Guided Reading Years 5 to 8 Ministry of Education, New Zealand 2006

Guided Reading

Students with similar identified learning needs come together with their teacher to read, think about and discuss a text that vary in purpose, form and content. Through this social interaction students can take risks, try new strategies and give and receive feedback.

Discussion in guided reading – a key to exploring deeper meaning.

Decisions made are not a matter of simply ‘matching’ students to a level

Some students even though they may be confident readers may need a lot of help and encouragement in participating in group discussions such as:

·       making connections between prior knowledge and the text.

·       forming and testing hypotheses about the texts

·       asking questions

·       creating mental images or visualising

·       inferring

·       identifying author’s purpose and point of view

·       identifying and summarising the main ideas

·       analysing and synthesising ideas and information

·       evaluating ideas and information

·       going back into the text and discussing builds competence in:

·       drawing conclusions and providing supporting evidence

·       distinguishing fact from fiction

·       locating and summarising information

·       organising ideas and information using graphics organisers such as conceptual maps timelines and grids

·       examining text from different perspectives

·       exploring the use of language to convey emotion or point of view or to persuade

q  Provide feedback that affirms and reinforces learning and encourages further learning

q  Model the use of specific strategies, reading behaviours, and thinking processes, for example by thinking aloud

q  Develop and display a shared goal and agreed success criteria so that  the students can ‘see’ what they are learning

q  Begin y using shared reading or reading parts of the text to read aloud to the group – reduce the amount that students have to read alone

q  Provide visual supports – write the  students’ questions or predictions on a chart or whiteboard in order to highlight challenging words and to note student responses  and ideas

q  Chunk the text into smaller parts to reduce the demands of processing a long section of text all at once

q  Encourage the students to talk about what they have learned and how they have learned. Help them to develop awareness of how they can use what they know and can do in their contexts including all areas of the curriculum

q  Allow plenty of time for students to process and reflect on the text, especially when there are new learners of English

Deciding on a purpose

The purpose for guided reading session guides the selection of the text and how it will be used.  By talking with the group about why they are reading the text gives point to the session and strengthens the expectation that reading is for a purpose

The purpose must be reviewed at the end of the session to reflect on the learning

Some examples:

·       developing new vocabulary and ways of using language

·       deliberately practising strategies for word recognition or for comprehension e.g. summarisation or main idea

·       looking at words that describe characters in a story

·       identifying plots and subplots

·       exploring ways in which universal themes are represented in texts

·       predicting outcomes in narratives

·       forming and testing a hypothesis

·       inferring from the actions or dialogue of characters

·       exploring relationships between characters and how these develop and change

·       learning the conventions of a specific text form such as an interview, report or argument

·       comparing two writers points of view in their different texts

·       consider the structures of different text forms and how they are used in writing

·       locating information or evidence in the text that answers a particular question

·       using a table of contents, a chart, or a graph

·       considering how a particular feature of non-fiction, such as a flow diagram has been used in a science text to support or exemplify a concept

Choosing and using texts

Students will have meaningful experiences in guided reading if the chosen text:

·       reflects students’ interests and experiences

·       affirms their social and cultural identities

·       challenges them

·       uses authentic language

·       is interesting, enjoyable and informative

Texts are chosen for a variety of reasons or combinations depending on the objective and the learner’s need

They may:

·       have specific text features (such as layered diagram, a sub-plot, varying points of view, a range of cultural perspectives) that provide opportunities for the group to focus on strategies that help build their comprehension and critical thinking skills

·       Contain particular literary or language features, such as the conventions of a sonnet or the use of metaphor or innuendo

·       include features that will serve as models for student writing

·       fit with a current theme in science or social studies

·       consider how a particular feature of non-fiction, such as flow diagram, has been used in a science text to support or exemplify a concept

Things to consider when choosing a text – the supports and challenges

Most of the following points could be either a challenge or a support depending on the particular student.

·       The students’ prior knowledge, interests and experiences

·       the students’ interests in the topic or theme

·       The students experience with the form and or features of that text

·       the complexity of the concepts or abstract ideas in the text

·       the use of devices such as imagery, irony, or innuendo (e.g. in persuasive or poetic text)

·       cultural and ethnic perspectives

·       the complexity of the style and structure

·       the range and complexity of the vocabulary and sentence patterns

·       the length of the item

·       the layout including the line length, typeface, and use of captions or footnotes, diagrams, graphs or charts

·       the use of illustrations and the challenges that they present

Using a Whiteboard or Chart paper with the group

What could be recorded on a chart or whiteboard:

Before reading

·     State the purpose of the reading

During and after reading

·       Analyse the words that the group find difficult or interesting and talk about their meaning

·       Record and plot the main ideas and structure of the text

·       Locate specific information in the text

·       examine specific word level features such as syllabication

·       identify and explore words that convey an emotion such as anger or  surprise

Purposeful Follow up Activities

These activities should build on the purpose and the intended learning from the session and provide opportunities to practise such as:

·       Creating a chart, diagram or poster to represent a key idea from the text visibly

·       Exploring a tagged or cached Internet site for further information

·       Composing and drafting their own piece using the structure or language of the text

·       Creating a graphic organiser and using it to extract and analyse ideas or information from the text

·       Reading more about the topic being investigated

·       Reading other texts by the same author

·       Taking part in a drama activity

Possible Non Fiction Text follow-up:

·       Retell an amusing incident

·       Write a description of an everyday activity

·       Write to persuade

·       Write a set of instructions arising from their own interest and activities and get others to follow them

·       Use a range of sequential and descriptive graphic organisers to present factual information

·       Develop a computer – projected presentation, design a web page, produce a video, compile a series of photos on a given topic

·       Set out the same process in a different format e.g. as a flow diagram, drawing with speech bubbles, numbered sequential text or narrative

·       Write a report arising from a theme such as conservation and choose visual material that effectively supports and extends written text

Evaluation of the lesson

Be critically reflective:

·       What did the students gain from their reading of the text?

·       How well did I align my instruction to their individual needs?

·       How do I know what learning took place?

·       How did this match my objective?

·       Did things happen as I anticipated?

o   Were there any surprises?

·       It there anything I would do differently

·       What did I learn about a particular student and their reading that I didn’t know before?

·       How successfully was the rest of the class engages in worthwhile literacy activities?

·       What reading strategies will I focus on next time – for individual students or the whole guided reading group? What information about these students will inform that decision?

·       What skills and strategies from the session might students be able to transfer to other texts to their writing?

·       What did I learn about my own planning and teaching interactions?

o   Did I model the effective use of language?

o   How well did I use instructional strategies such as feedback, prompting, or questioning?

o   What do I need to address?

·       What progress can we celebrate?