Hello readers,

It has been a while since I have last updated on my inquiry progress. Practicum has been busy but I have not forgotten about my inquiry project. If you remember my post about my synthesis, I had set up some goals for myself to achieve during my long practicum. I have done many of the goals that were outlined in my post. For example, I make the effort to tell my students when I have seen an improvement in their academics or if I notice that they are working really hard. For many of my students, their reading and writing has come a long way from the first time that I met them. It is so great to see when the students are making progress in school and with that progress, comes newfound confidence in their own skills and learning.

I have also tried, and will continue to try, to give my students options on how they can show their learning. This has been a learning experience for me as well, as I seek to address the diversity of my learners in the classroom. For those who struggle in writing in particular, I allow these students to focus on drawing and telling me their understanding rather than asking them to write it out. This helps to alleviate that stress and anxiety of writing for these students. There are still opportunities for these students to continue to practice their writing, but the fact that they are given options to demonstrate their learning in their own way, allows them to build up confidence in their own abilities. I have done this through my fairytales unit for example. I have refined my story maps to allow students to both draw and, if able to, write about fairytale story elements.

I have noticed that over the past couple of months, the overall confidence of my students is improving. They are more sure of themselves and they are really starting to trust in their own abilities to succeed. For example, I know that many of my students know their letter sounds. Whenever they come up to me to ask how to spell a word, I encourage them to sound out the word by stretching it out and breaking the word down, and to simply write the sounds that they hear in that word. It may not be “book spelling”, but the students can feel confident in themselves that they know all of the letter sounds that they hear in a word without having to rely on the teacher for help. That sense of ownership over knowing that they spelt a hard word all by themselves, helps to build that self-confidence. That is probably one of the great things about being in Grade 1- perfect spelling does not matter!