L.Potter Professional blog.

During my professional development Matt from Manaiakalani has come in once a week to help me with the Ipads and show me how I could use them as a learning tool. I have found this very helpful as I have been able to implement what I have learnt into my classroom teaching.  I also feel like I have become more confident in trying out and experimenting with the things I have learnt from him in my class. We have been learning about how to use EE (Explain Everything). On Explain Everything we have learnt how to draw illustrations and add text, which has allowed me to teach typing and publishing skills as part of my writing lessons.  I have also learnt how students can take pictures and record themselves reading stories. I have incorporated this into my reading programme and used this as a follow-up activity where students have been talking pictures of their story and recorded themselves. I have found this really helpful as I can spend time listening to the students read and work out...

This term I decided I would like to find a way to increase student achievement in reading and look at different ways to improve my students reading while also making it something that they enjoy. At the beginning of this term I incorporated buddy reading into my reading programme. This allows students an opportunity to read with older students and share a book or poem that they have read in our class reading programme. Afterwards my students have been able to talk about the book that they have read to their buddies which has helped build on their understanding and created discussion about the book. Part of our school wide focus this year is increasing students levels in reading and their enjoyment with reading. I have found that this activity has definitely added to this as they are always keen to read and share their learning and what they have read in class with their buddy. As well as increasing their interest in reading, I have also noticed an improvement in their reading, which ha...