Educational Book Recommendation

Despite the advent of the kindle and e-books, educational books are still best bought in paper. Here is my recommendation to support your own research and development. 

Evidence Based Teaching by Geoff Petty

"...Evidence Based Teaching is for teachers with some experience. It makes use of the most rigorous research on what has the biggest impact on achievement, and shows how to use this in your teaching..." from the EBT website 

 Geoff Petty analyses the collection of research by Marzano from America and John Hattie from New Zealand in terms of the effect on learning. You will be surprised as some common myths are shown to be not so relevant (class size, finance etc) and less surprised at the methods that are the most effective. 

This book also looks at how to make best use of these methods and further how to conduct evidence based research in your own classroom so that you improve the learning of the your children. For anyone with a thirst for more educational insight. Easy to access and understand. This is a must for anyone's educational library. 

Essential Books for Primary/Elementary School

Over the last ten years or so I have become aware of how the fashions and fads that are new initiatives have diluted many strong traditional aspects of schooling. Going back further and the classroom was alive and rich in the depth of study through the use of class readers. This was the place of some of the very best cross curricular work. Texts used year after year led to revised effective programs that taught good literacy skills whilst allowing grammar to be taught in a context. To this end, my thoughts have turned regularly to what kind of books I would like to see embedded across a school and its curriculum.

A selection of Roald Dahl books from/including: The Fantastic Mr Fox, BFG, James and The Giant Peach, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, The Twits, Matilda, The Witches, The Magic Finger...

Beowulf - there are so many different versions but this one by Brian Pattern is accessible for children as young as seven.

Clockwork by Philip Pullman

Jabberwocky by CS Lewis

Poetry by Roger McGough

The Sound Collector by Roger McGough

The Listeners by Walter De La Mare

I know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly

Goodnight Moon by Mary Wise Brown

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

Kensuke's Kingdom by Michael Morporgo

The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister

The Mixed up Chameleon by Eric Carle

Oh Fabjous Day Collected by Sandy Brownjohn

Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown

The Guard Dog by Dick King Smith

The Hodgeheg by Dick King Smith

The Rattle Bag edited by SeamusHeaney and Ted Hughes

The Snowman by Raymond Briggs

Where's Wally? (various) 

Magazines and Comics - as many as possible in as many places as possible

Charlotte's Web by EB White

Percy the Park Keeper by Nick Butterworth

The Iron Man by Ted Hughes

Traditional Tales including: Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, Little Red Riding Hood, The Gingerbread Man,Cinderella, The Ugly Duckling - These need to be revisited many times so that children internalise their structures and devices. For six to eight year old children use with alternative versions such as Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs or Goldilocks by Allen Ahlberg.

Myths and Legends including: Theseus and the Minotaur, Daedalus and Icarus,

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime

 by Mark Haddon

Anything by Michael Rosen

Treasure Island by Robert Lewis Stevenson

Silly Verse for Kids by Spike Milligan

 

Five Children and It by E Nesbit

Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey

Lots by Julia Donaldson like The Gruffalo and The Snail and The Whale.

Holes, There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom by Louis Sachar

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett


 This is far from a comprehensive list and I have realised that it will need to be developed and refined over time. These texts should be incorporated through a number of platforms within the school including:

• class reader
• guided reader
• shared reader
• class library
• school library
• recommendations list
• holiday reading list
• extended reading list
• home reader

Rubics for Website use.

As the terms work comes to a close, my thoughts turned towards assessing the children's work. I have to admit that visiting every child's website has been a chore. I have been done it three times this term. That's twenty five children to a class, five forms a year group, two year groups. Roughly 250 websites. Visiting topic webpages and blog reflections. Then to have to do the same whilst recording NC levels to feed back to the children and then have them do nothing. It is to a degree soul destroying. The answer is Assessment for Learning. I did this in two different ways.

I went first with the year six classes and broke down NC levels 3, 4 and 5 into sentences to describe websites. Level 3 focused on some evidence of work. Level 4 was a well presented website whilst level 5 showed a clear awareness of the audience as the website was constructed. I asked the children to use the teams (discussed in previous post here) to review each team members website and match the work that they had done with the sentences. The children then identified the level of best fit and a target of something to do next. I did this exercise with some three weeks of work left so that the children could then put into action their self appointed target and improve their work. The exercise worked very well and the children responded enthusiastically.

The year five groups worked in a slightly different way. We listed all the features that the children had been working on over the last few weeks on their websites. These included: Title, pages, subtitles, text, pictures and layout. The children then worked in pairs to construct sentences about each of these that described work 'At the expected level for the class', 'below the expected level for the class' and 'Above the expected level for the class'. The children started slowly and needed two to three worked examples across the statements but responded as the lesson went on and feedback during the plenary to create a whole picture. The children were also able to identify what level of the statements applied to their own websites. They were particularly honest too.

In the Zone: Characteristics of Scaffolded Learners

I have always like the expression 'In the Zone'. A statement that refers to a flow of actions or thinking where each is done in an optimal if not peak performing way. Sports people are often described as 'in the zone' when they are performing on the field, court or track consistently at their best.

The best example of this was game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals for Basketball in 1994. The New York Nicks vs. The Indiana Pacers. After each team won the home games from the first two matches, The Pacers visited The Nicks at Madison Square Garden in New York. The game looked to be going the Nicks way until the Pacers star man Reggie Miller got 'in the zone'. He scored 39 points in the game but 25 of them came in the 4th quarter to give the Pacers a 93-86 victory. With Reggie in the zone he was scoring from all over the court, particularly with every long 3 point throw going through the hoop. There is one moment where he intercepts the ball and in a split second turns and steps out of the area in order to shoot (and score) 3 points.

How does this translate to learning? The expression 'in the zone' evokes thoughts of Vygotsky's zone of proximal development. This zone represents the edge of a child's learning; the limits of his or her constructions of what they understand of the world. If children are taught with this in mind the content of a lesson is planned to where the child is at. A child's personal learning is considered. Learning is scaffolded to support and fit around the child's developmental zone of proximal learning.

What does a child look like when they are learning in their zone?

Characteristics of children 'in the zone'

Children:

• are excited and on task
• have a clear understanding of what they are learning
• feel comfortably challenged
• are able to act independently of the teacher
• can identify the relevant skills or knowledge they already possess that relates to the learning experience
• know how to find support to parts of the learning that is difficult
• are 'in the zone' in relation to the stage of development they are at

Teachers who want to create learning experiences for a child to work in their zone must do so from where the child is at. This means that they must make assessments. Sometimes formal but often informal verbal and observational,frequent quick assessments can ensure that learning is facilitated at the right level or in the right place for the pupil.

I suppose in the analogy with Reggie Miller 'in the zone' then surely that makes Spike Lee the bad teacher?