1. Administration Updates
Keep updating your appraisal reflections & ICT expenditure
Staff Mtg’s
NS Writing and Reading
NS Writing and reading (cont.), Report Form, Assessment processes
Call back in Friday 8 Oct. for report training
BOT visit - begin in Year 1- 2 moving to Year 5-6
CWSN meeting next week

2. Making Sense of the Reading and Writing Standards SPS August 2010
Peter Mulcahy

3. Key messages and introduction to the
Overview:
Key messages and introduction to the
Mathematics Standards.
Assessment and Overall Teacher
Judgement (OTJ).
Reflection of Evidence.

4. Literacy Standards Key Messages:
1. Demands of literacy across the curriculum and the shift after 3 years at school
“ In the early years, students engage mostly with texts and tasks that have been deliberately chosen to advance their literacy learning (see page 9), but as they progress through school, they are increasingly required to read and write texts for other learning purposes.”(National Standards, p. 5, paragraph 4)

5. 2. Use of Ready to Read Series
Free to all schools, developed in New Zealand to support teaching and learning.
The Ready to Read series is the core instructional series for New Zealand students in years 1-3 …
3. Consequences of choice of text
“consequences that their choices of written texts and related tasks have, for their students, in particular curriculum areas.”
National Standards, page 8, bottom column 1 top column 2

6. 4. The difference between Yrs 5&6, 7&8 lies in the increased accuracy and speed
The text and task demands of the curriculum .. E.g. Standards, bottom of pgs 28,31
5. The illustrations of the standard and how they illustrate behaviours, and are examples of the skills, knowledge, and strategies that the student independently uses when working with a variety of texts. The characteristics of text become more complex from year to year. Refer to N.S page 18

7. Chapter 3 p49 6. OTJs/Key messages Refer to National standards page 13
Teachers required to use several sources of evidence in order to make a sound judgement about whether a student meets the standard. See chapter 3 of the Effective Literacy Practice handbooks for information about reliable sources of evidence. P.13 National Standards
Chapter 3 p49

8. 7. Seen Text for Running Records
As part of the OTJ we are using evidence from seen text
“The reason for using a seen text for the instructional level record is that we want to see how well the reader orchestrates the various kinds of reading behaviors he controls, given that his reading is being guided by the meaningfulness of the text.”
p.23 (An Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement)
Using “Seen” and “Unseen” Texts Using Running Records: A Resource for New Zealand Classroom Teachers MOE 2000
“The text used for a Running Record will usually be a seen text-one that the student has previously read. It will not, however, be a text that the child has read so often that they may have memorised the entire text (5). For example: the text selected will be a text that the child has recently read during a guided reading lesson. The child’s familiarity with the text will support the reading by providing prior knowledge of the content and language, and so the reading is likely to be an example of the best processing that the student can do.
Usually the “seen” text is a text that the child has previously read once only. Emergent readers, however, may be given texts that they have read several times before, because this can help them feel at ease as they get used to the process of having a record of their reading taken.

9. 8. Running Records are valuable
Not only do they offer us a detailed look into a child’s developing processing system but they also provide evidence of what is emphasised and neglected in a teachers’ classroom instruction.
Page 79
An Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement, M. Clay 2nd Edition 2002
9. OTJ’s
Teachers need to make “OTJ’s about a students progress and achievement - they are “required to use several sources of evidence…”

10. Making an overall teacher judgement (OTJ) in relation to the Reading and Writing Standards.

11. Definitions of achievement
Above: A student’s current level of achievement maps more closely to a standard above that year's standard.
At: A student is currently meeting the standard.
Below: A student is not currently meeting the standard and maps more closely to the preceding year's standard,
Well below: A student’s current achievement against the standard is such that it maps more closely to a standard more than one year below

12. Sources of evidence to support decision-making
Bev and I thought that this modelling of a process might be useful for the participants.
Observation of Process
Evidence gained from informal assessment opportunities:
Learning Conversations
Evidence arising from Learning Conversations:
Focussed Classroom Observation
An Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement
Student books and tasks
Running Records
Student peer assessment
Conferencing
Interviewing
Questioning
Explaining
Discussing
Overall Teacher Judgement
Test Outcomes
Evidence gained from assessment tools, including standardised tools:
An Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement
PAT
STAR
e-asTTle/AsTTle V4 12 12

13. Alignment of Tools Alignment of Tools website: Reading
Alignment of Tools website: Writing

14. Making an OTJ
What is involved
in this?

15. While deciding the OTJ consider the evidence:
Principles we need to apply when considering evidence
Relevance – is it relevant? What makes it relevant?
Alignment – does it contribute to ‘best fit’ decision making?
Independence – is it reflective of student’s independent work?
“When making overall judgements, it is not enough
for teachers to consider how well a student is reading and
writing. Teachers need to specifically consider how well each
student is using reading and writing as interactive tools to
enable them to learn in all curriculum areas”
Reading and Writing Standards pg 13

16. Activity - Assessment of children to a Standard:
On your personalised sheet record your decision for some of the samples:
Do your own year level first.
Attempt other children close to your level.
Discuss a couple of samples
Teacher curriculum and pedagogical content knowledge is essential for making a dependable OTJ.
Overall teacher judgements, constructed with students, are the basis of the reporting in relation to National Standards.

17. SPS
Reading and Writing
- the LLP

18. Signposts
The standards are signposts that indicate where most students can reasonably be expected to sit on the NZC road map at particular points in time. The Literacy Learning Progressions indicate what students need to be able to know, do and understand to move between signposts.
“The framework of the standards is the same as that of the Literacy Learning Progressions. “ (pg. 8)

20. Literacy Learning Progressions
Activity:
Begin developing teacher friendly reading stages for the LLP