Teachers - Read, Write, Inc

[ConfusedGovernor]

I observed a RWI lesson yesterday and was very surprised by what I saw.

The school are thrilled with RWI and keep telling us governors how wonderful it is.

The statistics say otherwise, which is why I asked to observe a lesson.

(In particular, while adequate progress is made in reading, no progress is made in writing)

It is a junior school and I observed an hour lesson of 6 Y3 students all currently working at NC L1. All who have been in this RWI group for 2 terms now.

What I saw was:

• The children made no progress - they were taught nothing new in the hour.

• They read about 20 words, which they could already read before the lesson started.

(They read these words over and over, off the IWB and from their books - but it was still only about 20 different words)

• They wrote about 3 sentances, again with no new words or punctuation in them.

• The students weren't challenged. There was no opportunity for kids to read or write harder words. There was no differentiation at all.

Can any teacher tell me what's going on?

Why does schoool think it's brilliant?
Do you think it's brilliant?
What do you do teach reading / writing to kids in Y3 who can't read or write?

Do you teach writing in RWI, or do you teach it separately?
Do you spend a whole hour on RWI?

I'm well aware that as a governor I'm not allowed to have any opinion on teaching.

But I have a meeting after Easter to discuss why the kids aren't progressing and just want to know more about how the whole thing works, or should work.

I am a TA and I teach read/write inc to yr 2 students who are struggling with literacy. It works for our school, because it is a highly structured programme and that is what many of our children need. You can't judge a whole programme by only observing one class; of course there is writing but generally it is a book a week and so you don't write every day - on day 1 you normally just read the book. Towards the end of the week the student is expected to write a story with a very structured framework (depending on what level they are on). Every day they practice speed sounds, sounds of the week, new vocab. We often use magnetic letters and white boards to practice spellings. The idea really is taking phonics to the extreme and turning learning reading and writing English into an exact science as much as you can. Children understand that there are 'green words' which you can 'Fred talk' using the 'speed sounds' which they learn at the start of each lesson, and 'red words' which you can't sound out, or 'Fred talk'

RWinc lessons should be pacey and punchy (if you have been trained properly). Personally I find the books a little dry. If you are a good teacher you will incorporate other ideas into your lessons, be creative and not always follow the weekly schedule to the letter. But to answer your questions:

• no i don't think it's brilliant, but it does seem to work well for some students who need a lot of structure/and or students who are struggling with literacy. It is also good at getting the students to really think about what they are reading and therefore encouraging comprehension - reading with understanding of what they are reading rather than just reading by rote
• each lesson is an hour long over 5 days (although we only teach over 3 days and tend to do a book every two weeks)
• there are lots of different writing exercises: hold a sentence, where students have to hold a sentence from the book in their head and write it, edit a sentence, build a sentence, and finally writing the story, which is their version of the story written independently and prompted by pictures (although recently the books have changed so this section has changed slightly). As they move up the programme through the different levels the writing exercises are freer, less structured.

If the children aren't progressing I would suggest that is more a result of how the programme is being delivered (i.e. not very well!) as opposed to the programme itself. No programme is perfect, but if you have a good teacher they should be able to get results.

One really good think about the programme is that it is taught in small groups so you can give really focussed attention to the children that need it and any issues which require extra support are identified quickly.

I hope that helps!

I teach it and if organised and implemented properly it can work wonders. If not...

I feel it also can stifle creativity in individual teachers too especially in meeting the criteria as a model school where Ruth Miskin's word is law. I don't think it suits some learners, particularly boys with speech or attention issues. Also the writing aspect can be neglected within a session. I'm a little uncomfortable that children's work can be scribed and the individual class teacher should pick up their formation and writing elsewhere. I can be hard to for a teacher to keep track of individual children if they aren't in their group too. It has its pros and cons.

Thanks.

The lesson was 'pacey and punchey'. From what I can tell the lesson was being done properly. All of the kids were engaged all lesson.

My problem is the kids didn't learn anything new in the hour. And this seemed to be how the program was designed.

I though kids were meant to make progress in every lesson.

• Would you expect children to make progress in every RWI lesson?
• Are they meant to make progress in every lesson?

RWI does teach most kids to read. My problem is how quickly it does so. Same with writing.

• do your kids move up a sublevel in writing after half a year of RWI? And if so is that because of RWI, or because they have been taught writing outside of RWI?

The kids did hold a sentence and edit a sentence and started work on writing the story. It really didn't seem like very much. It didn't seem enough for them to ever make a sublevels progress.

Basically I don't see how RWI alone could get you from a 1c to a 1b in writing.

How do you know that the children could read the words alread? If they are L1 in Y3 it could be that they need a huge amount of repetition to secure learning. (On the other hand, it does sound a bit weird to me )

I use RWI Freshstart at KS3 (which is very similar, just a bit more age appropriate reading materials) and the lesson you describe doesn't sound particularly familiar.

embles, you say

Children understand that there are 'green words' which you can 'Fred talk' using the 'speed sounds' which they learn at the start of each lesson, and 'red words' which you can't sound out, or 'Fred talk'

Were you told in your RWI training that red words couldn't be sounded out?

How do you approach them, when teaching, if not through sounding out and blending?

The book they read was one they'd read the day before - which I believe is how the program works.

All the words on the IWB were words from the book.

So I don't know that they could read the words yesterday - but I do know that they at least attempted them yesterday. And they seemed to read all the words easily.

I do think these kids were learning to read. I just think they could have learnt quicker using a different method. And these kids are in Y3 so need to learn to read quickly.

In reading they had all made progress in the 2 terms. but I thought they'd be challenged every lesson - not just on the day they changed the book.

I'm not a fan from observations of single lessons and reading but I've never taught RWI or attended training however, what you describe matches my observations.

What would you expect to see to demonstrate that progress had been made?
Preferably exactly, rather than in vague notions.

It could be the teacher taught a pre prepared/practised lesson to impress the visiting governor?

I would expect to see new knowledge introduced

revisit previously taught knowledge/skills
teach new knowledge/skills
practise
use

the teaching part seems to be missing

It could have been a different lesson because I was there - but I don't think so. Because the whole point of it is that it's a structured programme which the TA doesn't deviate from. I'm fairly sure this is the standard lesson for day 2 of a book.

Also the observation was arranged at fairly late notice.

To demonstrate progress I would have expected the TA to teach them something (eg a new sound) or for them to read words they'd never read before.

I would have expected them to read some words they found hard.

With writing i think these kids could have attempted much longer/harder stuff than they were asked to. They were totally spoonfed. Some of the group probably needed that - but some didn't.

The kids were only allowed to write sentence. And I'm fairly sure half of them would have happily written more.

I've been told by very able children that they only write briefly each day and in a very structured format.

In the 'Get writing' scheme, which accompanies the phonics, there is a structured progression in writing skills, which is effective for the majority of children who are progressing steadily. We are having to provide intervention for the faster movers, to reinforce sentence structure and punctuation.

Despite what others say, RWI can be used flexibly, and as the teacher, you can make opportunities for extended writing. (We were told this quite clearly in our training, and we all do this.)

We run the scheme for 4 days a week, and on the fifth day we do an extended writing scheme with our own classes, so that we can check children's progress. We also frequently compare RWI/curriculum books to compare their work.

Apart from the improvement in the children's reading, we are finding a marked improvement in spelling, as the children write the sounds they are learning daily. This has probably been the most noticeable improvement, as our reading levels were already good.

My reception aged DD is learning to read and write using this method. We're really surprised (and pleased) at her progress.
Anyway, I was told by her teacher that when they\re in their groups, they work on one book a week. When the teacher explained the system to us, it did make perfect sense ... unfortunately, I can't remember what she said

I am also a governor of a school that uses RWI both as a tool in KS1 to teach kids to read and as an intervention in KS2 to help those who are behind. From the monitoring we have done this year it is clear the kids are engaged with the program but surely you can only evaluate progress after the termly assessments? The inclusion co-ordinator is present at the pupil progress meetings to help assess if individual kids on the intervention should continue or come off. In our school it has definitely helped kids get back to where they should be then come off the intervention rather than other programs we used previously which kids could be on for years with relatively little real improvement.

It's the termly assessments which show that progress has been made in reading - but no progress has been made in writing.

But it's only expected progress that's made in reading - not accelerated progress. So although these kids are learning to read they're certainly not catching up to where they should be. They finish the year still behind their peers.

I would expect kids on a one hour a day intervention to make accelerated progress.

I really don't think it works as a KS2 intervention. Or at least I don't think it works if you stick rigidly to it and do it instead of literacy.

I don't think withdrawing a child for an hour per day away from teaching is effective in 'closing the gap' it allows them to learn what their peers knew and they didn't but their peers are learning new things inthose five hours that they aren't. Interventions need to be additional not substitutes for other teaching IMHO.

Our children are making expected progress in writing using 'get writing', which incorporates the phonics learning, used 4 hours per week with the whole of KS1 and YR.

It really depends on expectations I suppose

Am not a teacher, but what they told us parents:

RWI at our school & I am broadly a fan (although only one of my DC has been thru it completely).
The don't differentiate because it's supposed to be as homogenous as possible.
I don't expect each single lesson to mean progress, a lot of it is reinforcement of things that have been taught previously but may not have settled firmly enough (yet) in child's skill set; gotta get the basics strongly in there before moving on. RWI relies on rote activities to really embed in the child's brain the Learning Objective. In reception they spend a whole day on each letter; you'd think teaching "d" was a 5 minute job, but they made it into 200 minutes. Thing is, the child remembers D better that way, and for longer, because "D" made such a huge impression. And so on, with other letters & sound groups.

I think RWI is better for reading then writing, but that's not surprising, reading has to precede writing.

I agree with others that any problems here are not really with RWI but rather with applying it appropriately or whether it's best use of resources for these specific children.

ragged 200 mins just teaching d!!!

200 mins is hyperbole on my part, (probably?), but teaching "d" most the day, anyway. Mixed with other things (like Art & PE & lunch).

I don't expect each single lesson to mean progress - but do teachers?

My understanding was that children were meant to make progress in every single lesson.

OFSTED do ...
as a teacher I would expect new learning to be introduced and previous learning consolidated and as literacy coordinator and SENCO I look for it when observing lessons.

Intervention programmes are good if used sensibly and as an addition to literacy lessons. Mostly IME a teacher has been on a course then briefly explains it to a TA and says 'Oh, these are the manuals and the session sheets to fill in' and leaves them to it. No wonder the results are hit and miss. And TAs may have to prep sessions and assess outcomes in their own time.

I have been a 'TA victim' of the above but in other instances have been on courses and have prep time allowed for in my timetable AND get time for feedback sessions with my teacher. Results depend on how well the school manages the programmes.