Action Research Chantal Smith Liberton Christian School Is Blogging a Useful Tool for Supporting and Monitoring the Personal Reading of my Year 6-8 students?

Level 3-4 Personal Reading Learning Outcomes Children will be able to: Keenly select and read independently and for enjoyment. Develop clear interest in reading. Keenly select and pursue reading; independently and for enjoyment. Select and justify preferences. Components of the current personal reading programme included… A selection of stimulating reading material in the classroom. Daily silent reading sessions. “Book Club” sharing sessions. Personal reading each night as part of homework. Visits to the school library to borrow books.

Broad Aim To use blogging to support, enhance, and monitor the Year 6-8 Personal Reading programme. Specific Focus To develop a Reading Blog and use it to… Increase or maintain student participation, interest, and enjoyment of Personal Reading. Provide more opportunities for students to select and justify preferences. Monitor Year 6-8 student achievement of Personal Reading outcomes.

Baseline Data I carried out a survey to find about student: Enjoyment of personal reading. Attitudes towards selecting books and justifying preferences. Opinions about the opportunities they have to talk about books they are reading. Reading habits. The survey asked for comments and self assessments on scales.

Survey Results showed… Most students expressed interest and enjoyment in Personal Reading. One student did not enjoy or have an interest in personal reading. Most thought personal reading could be more interesting. Only half of the class had a positive attitude towards book selection and being able to justify their preferences. Only 6/23 students said they had enough opportunities to talk about the books they read in Personal Reading. They felt their personal reading would benefit from having more time to talk. Students who said they did not enjoy talking about the books they read gave reasons of shyness and not enjoying talking in front of a group of people.

Research Questions Can blogging be used to increase (or maintain if already positive) students’ participation, interest, and enjoyment of personal reading? Will a reading blog provide students with opportunities to select books and justify their preferences? Is a reading blog a useful tool for monitoring Year 6-8 students’ achievement of Personal Reading outcomes? Will a reading blog provide students with more opportunities to talk about the books they are reading?

Closed garden Drupal set up Writing book reviews. Polls Post reviews Comment on a review and reply to each others’ comments.

way Teaching along the signposts Questioning skills -Poll questions -Asking questions -Replies Giving feedback - Comments -Replies Use of polls -To find out how effective a book review was. -To support selection and justification of preferences. - Wording of criteria. Writing effective reviews

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Teacher’s Log During silent reading sessions everyone is on task and has a book. Some are working on their book reviews or are planning a poll. Students are asking to use the blog during morning tea time and lunchtimes. Students who have read the same books, but who don’t normally talk to each other are coming up to each other and saying “hey you know that part…what’s the name of…” One student who is usually slow to complete written tasks was first to publish his review on the blog.

Before The Reading Blog After The Reading Blog Student : “I don’t read. I have better things to do in my spare time.” This was the one student the baseline survey showed had no interest or enjoyment in personal reading. After a week of trying to ignore the excitement of his classmates towards the new reading blog, the student came to school one morning and said: “Mrs Smith, I read a book in one night, it was this thick! Can I review it on the reading blog?” 3 weeks later… “Mrs Smith, can we not have a time limit on the reading blog so we don’t feel rushed?” What effect did the reading blog have on students’ interest and enjoyment of personal reading?

Before The Reading Blog After The Reading Blog When asked why she doesn’t like talking about the books she’s reading, this student said: “They (her peers) don’t really want to know, which is sad.” “I like to read and I like writing reviews, but often people don’t have time to listen. But with this it’s cool! Mrs Smith, we should have a writing blog too!” “It made reading more enjoyable”. …Effect on interest and enjoyment of personal reading “I did love to read, but not as much as I do now.” “I did love to read, but not as much as I do now.”

How did the reading blog affect students’ attitudes towards book selection?

“It got people interested in other people’s books so they tried reading different ones.” “If you don’t have a book to read, just go onto the reading blog! I have plans for what I want to read next. It helps you get more exciting books.” “You choose books you wouldn’t normally choose. Reading the reviews helped me to select books. It was good to find out what others liked about books.” “It makes it easier to choose books to read.” “People have used good words in their reviews to persuade me to read their books.”

“I got one person to read a book because they thought my blog was interesting.” “You could read the books others read and find out why they read them. If you like the review they did then you read the book.” “ It was really good. I was able to express my feelings about the book on the blog so people would know how good the book was.” “I read books after reading some reviews.” “It helped because people recommended books.”

Do you read more as a result of the reading blog? Most of my Year 6-8 students read for between half an hour to two hours every night. These students didn’t read more as a result of the reading blog. Some students did begin reading more in their own time as a result of the reading blog: “It motivated me to finish a book so I could turn it into a book review.” “It was cool. It made me read more.” “It motivated me to read more chapters at night.” “It motivated me to start and finish a chapter book.”

Did the reading blog give you more opportunities to talk about the books you read? Before The Reading Blog After The Reading Blog 6/23 6/23 students said felt they had enough opportunities to talk about the books they read. They felt their personal reading would benefit from having more time to talk. The students who said they did not enjoy talking about the books they read gave reasons of shyness and not enjoying talking in front of a group of people. 19/23 19/23 students said they feel the reading blog has given them the opportunities they need to talk about the books they read. These students said that talking about books on the reading blog has made reading more enjoyable. The students who cited shyness as a reason for not wanting to talk about the books they read during Book Club participated actively in the reading blog. “I enjoyed talking to people, and they talked to me.”

Conclusions Will a reading blog provide students with opportunities to select books and justify their preferences? Can blogging be used to increase or maintain students’ participation, interest, and enjoyment of personal reading? We gave reasons for why we chose books, using polls, reply, and comment tools. It made us think more about why we chose books. It got us talking about books outside of the blog too. We suggested books and read books suggested to us.

Is a reading blog a useful tool for monitoring Year 6-8 students’ achievement of Personal Reading outcomes? Will a reading blog provide students with more opportunities to talk about the books they are reading? Concrete evidence of student achievement. Reviews, polls and comments provided authentic contexts to assess outcomes. Removed a common barrier to achievement in personal reading - locating age appropriate books to read. We asked questions and gave feedback. We agreed and disagreed with reviews. We talked to people who had read the same books. We asked where reviewed books could be found to read. We arranged to borrow books off each other. We interacted on the polls.

Discussion and Next Steps Next Steps To develop… The level of depth in responses, possibly using a tool such as the Thinking Hats. Questioning and feedback, criteria for polls. A writing Blog. Discussion Capable readers and writers – contributed to success. It removed barriers to achievement of Personal Reading outcomes - locating age appropriate books - increasing motivation for reading and writing - “ICT appeal” It supported the special character of the school – choice of reading material. Impact of Action Research on teaching practice Identified a real need. Involved students directly. Enhanced a part of the daily class programme. Raised possibilities of using Blogging and similar tools in other curriculum areas.