Burst and Bubbles

 

Burst and bubbles presentation

All of the students I work with have Neurodevelopmental
disorders, some of whom have complex communication
needs and limited experiences of generating language, 

My inquiry was to  focus on How can we use the Key
Competencies to help motivate students with complex
needs and see a shift in their writing. 

Writing presents many challenges to my students with
complex needs. To develop writing skills they need to learn
to generate an idea, to think about language, think about the
words, spelling and controlling their writing tool ,etc. and
eventually students need to be able to do all of these, within
the one task, to become writers.  

At Sommerville we have been fortunate enough to have
Dr Sally Clendon take professional development over the last
few years. As a result of Sally Clendon's guidance as well as
strong routines and behavior support, I was able to implement a
range of strategies and have noticed a difference in my student’s
writing skills. 

All my students are ORS funded and are working within level one

of the curriculum.

(If I used the traditional NZ  writing assessments they would be well
below their curriculum level for writing)

 

To assess my students, I  used the developmental writing scale

for beginner writers developed (Sturm, cali, Nelson and

Staskowski, 2012) adapted by Jane Farrall to see how my

students progressed.

 

 The scale has 14 levels and overall gives us information about

how to help a student move to the next level.

I used three different interventions for my students and was able
to see an overall improvement in their writing

One of the interventions was the use positive behaviour support

Due to writing being so complex, Motivating my students to write was
very challenging. I found that beginning a task and getting students to
stay focused is an ongoing issue. Students require lots of support
and motivation to just get started. I used a range of visuals.
All my students responded well to the FIRST-THEN visual Eg,
First writing -then choosing, This strategy worked well and
helped motivate them, as they knew they would get a reward as
soon as they completed their writing

Another intervention was-  Writing for real reasons

My students are not motivated to write, they need to know why they
must write, the purpose of writing and how is it going to help them.
(Eg talking about their weekend)

After looking at the research by Dr Sally Clendon, I encouraged
whanau to be involved. Each week they sent in a range of photos
from the weekend. These were events that the student could relate to,
they have had the experience and were more eager to share. 

It is authentic and students are more motivated. 

I noticed that the more involvement we had from whanua, the better
the outcomes.

For those whanua that were not involved we used Photos from daily
school activities.

The other intervention that was really useful, was 

Colourful semantics

The approach is used in stages and helps children develop
language and vocabulary in addition to grammatical structure.

Colourful semantics is an approach created by Alison Bryan. It is
aimed at helping children to develop their grammar but it is rooted in
the meaning of words (semantics).

It encourages students to use wider vocabulary and make longer
sentences

By using these three different interventions with my students I
could see the difference in their writing. They were wanting to
write more and were more motivated.

Students needed explicit teaching, the use of a device for writing
was not a motivator.

Out of my six target students Two students moved up three level,
Two moved up two levels and two moved up one level.

For the students and their whanau this was massive as
previously most of them made no attempt to write at all.

2019 Inquiry, why writing ?

If students with complex needs are able to manage themselves, will this help them improve their writing outcomes?

Scanning: The students that I work with have difficulty managing themselves. They need to learn how to manage themselves to be able to engage and participate in writing.

Focusing: In 2019 for my inquiry I will be focusing on how the Key Competencies (Managing Self and Relating to Others) increase student engagement and improve writing outcomes for students aged 5-12.

Developing a hunch: An emphasis on behavioral and cognitive engagement as well as teaching social skills will enhance my students ability to focus and increase their writing skills.

I will be using Helen Timperley's Sprial of Inquiry throughout my inquiry which works well with the specifically designed for Manaiakalani framework "Learn Create Share". You will see labels from both models as they interlock well.