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https://blog.insidegovernment.co.uk/schools/evidence-based-teaching#:~:text=Evidence%2Dbased%20teaching%20(also%20commonly,personal%20judgement%2C%20or%20other%20influences.

https://evidencebased.education/evidence-based-practice/

https://phonicshero.com/phonemic-awareness/

https://www.readingrockets.org/reading-topics/phonological-and-phonemic-awareness

https://www.twinkl.co.uk/teaching-wiki/multisensory-learning

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Overall, even though I have already implemented a lot of activities for EBL and multi-sensory learning to build up my students’ phonemic awareness, after researching it more, I fully understand the benefits of it. I will be incorporating more activities in my future lessons.

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Another way I build up EBL using multi-sensory techniques is when I teach comprehension through reading stories. I like to take my student’s choices into account, so I like to ask about their interests and hobbies. This way, they will be more engaged and interested in the story, but I make sure that I choose a book that is level-appropriate with pictures and includes the phonics sound that we are learning. The students need to have the tools and have built up their vocabulary and knowledge around the story first. Putting music or beats to the story, bringing in toys or flashcards with characters, or asking students to act it out encourages them to have fun whilst learning, as well as giving them a multi-sensory experience.

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When teaching English, I build up phonemic awareness with my students with a variety of prompts, flashcards, and physical resources such as segmented flipcharts (Picture 1), and build-up-the-word boxes. The more the students can interact and participate in multi-sensory activities, it will help them retain information. For younger students, it is important to build up each phoneme of CVC words, and a flip chart with the vowel in the middle of the word will help build up their recognition of each sound and word. Asking students what they already know first will also help the teacher gauge where the students are with their knowledge. Visuals, pictures, songs, chants, and videos also aid in developing their phonemic awareness. As I stated earlier, it helps to put small circles under each phoneme in the word so that the students can pronounce the word correctly (Picture 2). I clap out each individual sound (p-e-n), and then I will ask the students to chant chorally, then in pairs, and individually. Then build up to the students reading the word, example sentence, and then students making their own sentences using the phonics sound.

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Phonemic awareness is under the umbrella term of phonological awareness. Reading Rockets states, “Phonemic awareness is the ability to identify and manipulate individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words.” How I incorporated phonemic awareness within this maths lesson along with multi-sensory techniques was when I taught the students about the pronunciation of each unit. I broke down each measuring unit into individual phonemes, with a small circle under each, and then I clapped each syllable in a beat (cen-ti-me-ter). I let the students clap their hands, stomp their feet, or bang lightly on their desks so that they develop their phonetic and phonemic awareness of each word. My overall aim for this lesson was that students were aware of different units, could say them correctly, and apply their knowledge using real-life materials. The higher-level students were able to answer questions and use the correct pronunciation, and they expanded their knowledge by using the new words in complete sentences.

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One recent example of how I demonstrated EBT and incorporated multi-sensory activities with my students was when we were learning about measurements in maths. The students learnt about units for length, mass, capacity/volume, and temperature. I used real-life examples of equipment that we use to measure each component (ruler, a meter ruler, scales, measuring jug, and thermometer) and put the students into stations where the equipment rotated. By the end of the activity, the students played with/ used/ touched/saw each set of equipment. This kind of informal assessment let me understand whether the students know what each object can measure by walking around, listening to conversations, and observing how students use the objects. Additionally, I used a gamification element where students must answer a given question in teams or individually (with whiteboards) about a specific unit of measurement, and then they chose from a ‘mystery box’ or use a spinner to win Class Dojo points, stickers, or stationary as small prizes. I was able to reflect and adjust questions orally to accommodate each individual learner. Once I was confident that my students understood the content of measurements, I broke the class up into stations again, put the measuring equipment back on each station, and gave them a list of things that they had to measure and write using the correct units. For example, I gave five objects (a book, a pencil, an eraser, the height of their chair, and the height of the cupboard), and students had to measure them and write X mm/cm/m, then put them in order from shortest to longest. This was a formal assessment, as I graded it after. I believe that this kind of assessment is more beneficial in some circumstances than a written test.

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Along with EBT, multi-sensory learning is a practice that teachers should be doing. Twinkle states how this approach is all about encouraging learners to use more than one of their senses when taking in new information. “This learning style promotes using activities that appeal to our visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, and tactile senses.” I personally love using multi-sensory experiences with my grade 2 class, and I can use EBT to reinforce the lesson content. I can observe first-hand what the students are able to do, given a set list of instructions, and I can see how they apply their knowledge. There have been some experiments which I graded with a set rubric (formal assessments), and some informal activities where I ask questions in class and where students can match up vocabulary words with pictures.

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Inside Government states, “Evidence-based teaching is the principle that teachers should use research to make informed decisions about learning, rather than being led by what has been used in the past, personal judgement, or other influences.” From my own understanding, evidence-based teaching (EBT) and techniques are a way to help students improve their learning. It is a practice whereby the teacher must reflect on their own teaching, re-evaluate, and restructure their instructions, and decide what works best for the students. EBT focuses on the outcomes and results. There are a few ways to incorporate this into the classroom, for example, different kinds of assessment. Formative, summative, and informal assessments are crucial for teachers to check where students are with their learning.