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.

confused you should have a designated RWI manager to discuss all your questions with.

Will the school's RWI manager be the best person to know if other schools work in the same way as the OPs school?

Yes. They will have access to a RWI advisor and to teachers at a local 'model RWI' (ugh!) school. They should have allocated time (on top of ppa) to observe and work with teachers and TAs. For instance, our manager is addressing sentence construction with one of the early writing groups, as we noticed a gap.

The SENCO is the RWI manager, and they'll be at the meeting.

Tbh this all feels a bit like the 'emperors new clothes'. I've been told for the last 3 years how wonderful RWI is. By loads of different teachers and schools. The stats at our school don't support it 'being good' - and after observing a lesson, and looking at the stats, I'm really at a loss as to why everyone thinks its good (as a KS2 intervention)

Except that:

A) the school only expects SEN kids to make expected progress - it doesn't expect them to catch up. A lot of kids on RWI make expected progress. (but lots don't)

B) if I was a Y3 teacher, and all my L1s and Ws were taken out of literacy, and I wasn't held responsible for their lack of progress, I'd probably be happy to believe the SENCO that it was a brilliant scheme.

C) You can always find a reason why X doesn't make progress that doesn't implicate the teaching Especially if they're on the SEN register or FSM, or LAC, or EAL

Isn't it likely they will work in a similar way unlike the descriptions here which show schools work in different ways

confused we started this year with 7 Y3 children in KS1 groups. Only two are left now - one is ready to move but her teacher has requested she continues with the phonics as it fits in with her own interventions and the other is certainly progressing through groups, albeit slowly.

Although it's a PITA, assessing each half term for group changes means we are very aware of non-movers.

All our Y1 SEN children are making progress as well - again slowly. They are also given other interventions, as I mentioned before. They are all meeting their targets in reading.

As a KS2 intervention for

7 out of how many? That's an awful lot out of 30 - and more than I'd expect to be below L2 out of 90 if you're using RWI from reception.

We don't use fresh start. We use the regular scheme in Y3 and 4 and then for those kids who still can't read in Y5 we do something else.

No way we should we have so many kids below L3 in Y5 if RWI is as good as everyone claims.

Why are your SEN children making slow progress on RWI? Almost all of them should make the same amount of progress as their peers. Very few kids on the SEN register would not be expected to make a L2 by the end of Y2.

My pupils have all improved in their writing levels since the Autumn term. That may be because we have focused creative writing sessions at other times.

As far as making progress in each session, I don't think any child could between two one hour sessions. I understand the repetition can be worrying but as long as it is aimed at the right level then the review part is massively helpful. The point is you revisit sounds, words, concepts until they are embedded. And if the group is not suitable the children move on immediately.

What sort of progress would you expect to see between sessions?

confused '7 out of how many? That's an awful lot out of 30 - and more than I'd expect to be below L2 out of 90 if you're using RWI from reception. '

7 Y3 out of 60! I didn't say they were all L1 at the end of Y2! 3 of them were L1, 4 were L2. These children had only been doing RWI for 2 1/2 terms as we only implemented it in Oct 2010.

Could you suggest they look at Fresh Start for your Y5s?

confused 'Why are your SEN children making slow progress on RWI? Almost all of them should make the same amount of progress as their peers. Very few kids on the SEN register would not be expected to make a L2 by the end of Y2.'
The slow movers are Y1 children who are finding it difficult to blend and retain sounds, but they have all made progress since the beginning of the year. They are meeting their individual targets, and most are well on their way to be within L1 by the end of the year (therefore L2 by the end of Y2).

It's not that I'd expect to be able to measure progress in one hour - its that I'd expect the kids to be challenged. I'd expect them to find something in the hour hard. And for a lot of the kids it didn't appear that any of it was hard.

I assume there wasn't a huge spread in their reading ability in the group - but there was a huge spread in their cognitive ability. And it doesn't seem right that all of those kids would complete the same amount of work in an hour - or the same amount of challenge.

It is definately true that the kids weren't given the opportunity to read different or harder words. Why not? If they can read CVC words why weren't they challenged with loads of different CVC words?

And they were definately only allowed to write one sentence. Why? Some of those kids were bright and quick workers. They had the time and the ability to write more than one sentence.

But instead they just had to wait for the slower kids to finish.

I dont see how they could make progress if they weren't being challenged.

mumble - your statistics are impressive.

Ours aren't. I have no idea why.

Many of the words in the book match the sounds being covered at that level. Therefore children are learning to read their 'green words' phonetically.

However, regarding broadening the reading experience: In all books there is a vocabulary check, so vocab is stretched from early on. The children should be allowed to write more than one sentence if they can (with a check against the objective)! Teachers need to be a little bit proactive, even though the plans are there in a book! They may even need to differentiate within their group!

The partner talk and modelling by the teacher should be constantly stretching the children's vocabulary and writing skills. There is so much 'my turn, your turn' with teacher modelling; partner work to encourage discussion; 'uplevelling' of sentences; 'popcorning' words to expand vocab. In every book, the feelings, thoughts, words of the main character are explored and developed.

Yeah...... I am quite a fan.........

Lots of training that hasn't worked though - I see many posts from teachers on MN and TES talking about red words to be learnt as 'sight' words because they 'aren't phonically regular'

Teachers, TAs and parents, too.

Red words are repeated daily, and are repeated from book to book. So they're learnt (orally and written) by continual reinforcement.

mumbles - Thanks. It's been really helpful to hear what you like about RWI.

I did see almost everything you described. They did do vocabulary stuff. And discussed the characters feelings.

And there was 'uplevelling' of the one sentence they wrote (if that means adding adjectives :) )

I don't think I'll ever be a fan (of doing it at KS2 instead of literacy) - but I can see what you like about it, which will help with my discussion.

even just allowing the children to write more than one sentence would be an improvement. That should be easy and non controversial for school to implement. (although space in the get writing books is very limited. )

And it would also be easy for the words on the IWB to be CVC words, but ones that weren't in the book.

So, I can see there are some easy ways for school to improve how they're doing RWI. Because I think it's very unlikely they'll get rid of it.

from comments by the teachers, I do think a huge appeal of this intervention (for the teachers) is the fact it removes the lower ability kids from their literacy lesson :(

AFAIK because of my complaining last year about kids being removed from literacy, this year far less Y4 kids are on RWI.

Thanks for the clarification on how they are taught, mumbles - I am guessing that none of the training refers to them as sight words which cannot be learnt using phonics though, which is a claim I see repeatedly.

mumbles do you use RWI as a whole school program or just as an intervention?

I think I'd readdress mrz's question to confused! Does your school only use RWI as an intervention programme? You said that it is used in Y3 and Y4. Is is not used for the initial teaching of reading from YR or is your school KS2 only?

I would be puzzled by 6 children with poor reading skills in Y3 if they have been taught RWI from YR (statistically I would expect the number to be 2 or 3 at the most, assuming a 3 form entry. Is it a big school?). That would imply that in 4 years they haven't progressed very much at all. On the other hand, if they have been taught by 'other methods' before starting KS2 it could be more understandable.

But understand that I am looking at this from the perspective of KS3. In cohorts of between 140 - 150 each year we usually only get one or two children who significantly struggle with reading due to some form of SEN. Depending on the intake I pick up some 25-30 children in each Y7 from about 4 or 5 main feeder primaries (though some of the primaries send us noticeably more poor readers than the others do). Most of these children have no significant problems with improving their reading quite rapidly with the FreshStart programme and make good progress in most curriculum areas.

But, it may be that the extra maturity that they have helps them to progress better. I personally doubt that this is a factor, but primary colleagues may say that it is quite significant.

Maizie - its a junior school, so it only goes from Y3 - Y6.

The attached Infant school doesn't use RWI.

And far more children are arriving with poor reading skills than should.

I think about 20 of our 90 children started Y3 on a L1 or P. :(

Hope that changes soon.

mrz As a whole school programme

5 days /wk in YR (20-30 min sessions)
4 hours per week in KS1 (Ditties and Get Writing)
RWI Comprehension in Y3/4 combined with creative curriculum.
Fresh Start in Y5/6 as an intervention.

Organisation and logistics are a bit of a nightmare as there are 10 groups in Y1/2 at the same time.

Confused I didn't realise you were talking about a junior school! That's a bit different. In KS2 at our school (as mentioned) Y3 chidlren join KS1 groups ditty or Get Writing groups. The Y3/4 teachers are use the RWI Comprehension books - good if used well.
The comprehension scheme combined with a teacher who doesn't want to do extra work, could create an uninspiring lesson, lacking a clear objective. It is almost too prescribed, but with lots to fit in. Teachers need to work out their own plans for this, which ime some are unwilling to do.

Were they using the comprehension books and get spelling in the lesson you observed?

No, we only use it as an intervention for kids who are below L2 at the start of the year.

Which I think was about 20 out of 90 kids!

We don't use the comprehension program.

I observed the bottom group who were reading purple books. So really pretty low ability for Y3s.

However, as you'd expect, there's a variety of reasons why those kids were so far behind in reading. They certainly weren't all stupid.

Were there 20 in the group?

In KS1 we run 10 groups - max 16 in my top group in which I run a Comprehension-based programme.

You're right, purple RWI is very low - around 1c/b.

No, there were 6/7 in the group.

I think at the start of the year there were 5 groups of 6. (some Y4 kids as well as the Y3 kids)

But the crucial thing to remember is that RWI is being done instead of literacy. So out of 30 kids about 6 are being removed from literacy.

And then we can't understand why our writing levels aren't improving.

There is no way I think 20 kids should be removed from literacy. 1 or 2 with significant SN, yes. But the vast majority of them could have understood and participated in the main literacy lesson - even if they couldn't read or spell.