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.

So of that 20, were they all on purple RWI books, or am I misunderstanding?

Did you say they re-assess every term? We assess every half term and find that MOST children move up a RWI level with each assessment. We've now done 4 assessments this year, and MOST children have gone up by 3 levels (with one instance of staying put). Our bulk group at the moment (Y1s) is purple, which, at 1c/b comprises 'average' Y1s.

No, only this group is on purple. I don't know what colour the other groups were on.

I think they're assessed every half term. Some go up but most stay in their group. It takes more than half a term for the group to move up a colour.

I know kids in one group last year started on pink and did pink, yellow and orange in a year.

I could be missing something here CG as I haven't read through the thread but what is happening in the childrens' literacy hour that is more important than learning to read and spell? Of course I understand that they will be missing something - even something valuable - but what is more valuable than learning to read?

My experience is with children who can already read and write but have 1 hour of RWI daily.

AllChildren - that's what school thinks.

I think that reading is the most important thing - but I'm not sure that spending an hour a day, instead of literacy, is the right way to do it.

For example, instead of 6 kids spending an hour with a TA, each of them could have had 10 minutes 1:1 doing a structured phonics program like dancing bears.

From what I observed I think they would have made more progress doing dancing bears for 10 minutes, than an hour of RWI.

I thought RWI went really slowly. And while that may be appropriate in KS1, it's not helping these kids to make the accelerated progress they need to make.

And these kids need to learn to write as well as learning how to read.

I teach RWI in a school where it is taught throughout. I think it is excellent. The writing elements are well thought out imo and we have had some fantastic results to show for it. We have seen our reading and writing levels shoot up during the year it has been taught.

It is just synthetic phonics though, properly taught synthetic phonics will get you to that standard. It must be said that Jolly Phonics is an excellent scheme too, but that it is often not used correctly and therefore can be a bit of a waste of time. So I expect RWI is the same. I can actually see how it could all go horribly wrong if it wasn't being monitored correctly.

We expect most children to be off the programme by midway through year 1, it has only spread out so far across the school because standards were so variable before it was introduced. I wasn't teaching there then.

It shouldn't go slowly. The children should be assessed often to work out what phonics they need next and immediately moved to that level.

Would you say it is necessary/suitable for able readers in Y2 HumphreyCobbler?

No - we would not be teaching it for able readers in Y2. And often not for able readers in Y1

teaching it TO

sorry, am very tired

Confused, it sounds like you are making a lot of effort to do your job well

I don't have any direct experience of RWI, but my understanding of it is that it is aimed at younger children who are learning initially to read and write rather than older children who haven't yet "caught on" I have heard from local schools that it is very successful as an initial teaching system for many children.
However, I am not sure about it being used as a catch-up programme, which is what it sounds like is happening in your school.

AllChildren - I think it's awful to do reading instead of literacy these kids are missing out on novels, and poetry, and plays and non fiction.

They're missing out on all the reasons why we learn to read.

And it's very hard for them to ever catch up.

they'll probably leave primary school on L3s and go into bottom sets in secondary school and fail their GCSEs.

I wouldnt be complaining if they were missing out on French and assembly.

I just can't see how they'll ever catch up the way the interventions being done.

As humphrey
As we have only been doing RWI for 18 months, there is still an ironing out period. We have now got a quarter of Y2 off the scheme, and will be expecting far more off the scheme by this time next year as 70% of Y1 are now in group E+.

For the children off the scheme, I've used ideas from the RWI comprehension and adapted them for different texts. We're having fun with this.

confused the purple books are part of the Get Writing scheme, so children are getting a literacy lesson in reading, writing and spelling. TBH I think it makes more sense to start with simple text before introducing more complex ideas. In addition to this, the school should be running a curriculum to fill in some of those gaps outside of RWI.

(Personally, I think the literacy strategy introduced a mishmash of genres to young children, who hadn't yet embedded the important skills. I think RWI does this.)

You can teach literacy without following the literacy strategy mumblesmum.
I teach interventions before/after school and during assembly and lunch breaks confused

Absolutely mrz. I was talking about the very start of the 'literacy hour' when so many genres were introduced for young children to learn within that hour.
So much of this can be covered within a creative curriculum.

We've never followed the literacy hour or the literacy strategy/framework

Lucky you! Managed to duck out of the framework!

My book loving DD is in reception and is learning to read using RWI but I have to say, there is no joy in it for her. She has been read to since birth, she has always loved books and has been 'reading' to herself since she was about 18 months. And while she still loves me reading to her, she no longer enjoys reading to herself. I really think RWI has sucked all the life out of books for her. I think we are expecting too much too soon from our kids. Let them play, explore, imagine. All this worry about making progress each lesson is having the opposite effect.

mumbles - we do literacy and maths in the morning. And then creative curriculum in the afternoon. We don't cover literacy in the creative curriculum.

By missing out on literacy they are really missing out on all of literacy. They're missing out on the class novel (which I think is hugely important) and if they do do writing in the afternoon it's not marked for writing, it'll be marked in the context of science or history or whatever.

These children are 7, 8 and 9 years old. They're not young. They should be allowed to play around w ith poems and listen to novels and make up imaginative stories and learn how to write a letter and everything else the other children in their class get to do.

They are missing out. The school is not compensating for the fact they miss out on literacy.

(not to mention the teacher doesn't even know what they're learning in RWI so can't extend it / support it in the afternoon)

Thanks everyone for helping me to clarify my thoughts. I think I have 3 separate issues here - only one of which I have a strong case for.

1. Children on RWI make no progress in writing.

This is inarguable and unacceptable. The school have given me the statistic showing this. (And don't dispute them)

The school must now show me
a) How these kids are going to start making progress.
b) What they're going to do differently next year to make sure we don't have the same problem again.

1. RWI is not a very efficient way of teaching kids to read

This is subjective. I think there are quicker ways of teaching these kids to read.

As a governor the only argument I have for this is that not all kids make 2 levels progress, nor do all kids make a level 4. So far weaker arguments.

1. Kids should not be withdrawn from literacy

This is my weakest and most subjective argument. It feels very wrong to me, but even I'm having trouble articulating why it's so wrong.

Again we have the same stats (not all 2 levels progress / L4) to show that we're doing something wrong.

I'll see how the meeting goes, and only discuss points 2 and 3 if it seems OK to.

And then we get into the even weaker stuff.

1. I haven't seen evidence that school is trying to 'close the gap'.

This is the point I probably care the most about. But need to be very, very careful about saying.

1. I don't think it's acceptable for the weakest kids to be taught by TAs instead of teachers.

We were discussing the Sutton Trust report at last weeks govs meeting, so school are aware of the problem - except that (of course) they think RWI is brilliant and their TAs are doing a brilliant job and that the Sutton Trust findings don't apply to them.

Looking at this from a different angle, it appears that the infant feeder school's reading results are dire. Perhaps they should consider training, to use the early readers your junior school is using for catch-up (which are actually designed to get the majority of KS1 children reading at L2a/3.

Your school could then introduce the appropriate RWI junior school intervention programmes.

As for withdrawing from literacy lessons. I think you'll get the argument that the very weakest children can't access a 'class reader'.

I do believe that RWI is a very efficient way of teaching children to read in KS1 and I think your strongest argument is that your junior school is using resources designed for infants, not juniors, AND that they are having to use these resources because of the poor reading level on entry to the school.

The systematic and lively programme is organised by an in-school manager

All staff (teachers and assistants) are trained together by one of our trainers who has taught and managed the programme (no cascade training is used)

The children read and write for an hour each day, grouped according to their reading level. (Two, 20-minute sessions for Reception children.)

Children do not struggle because the work is too difficult or get bored because the work is too easy.

A few children who need extra support to maintain progress work with a reading tutor (teaching assistant) for 10 minutes in the afternoons to ensure that they do not fall behind their peers.

fds.oup.com/www.oup.com/pdf/oxed/primary/rwi/RWIParentLetterApril2011.pdf

I think you're right - I'm totally prepared to believe that RWI is very good in the infants.

And that part of my problem is exactly what you said, something designed for 4 - 6 year old's isn't the best resource for 7 - 9 year olds.

The infant school has introduced RWI this year. Which should reduce the number of L1s we get coming up - but doesn't change the question of 'what should we do with the L1s / Ps'

I don't see why the weakest children can't access the literacy lesson. Surely that's what differentiation is about? They may not be able to read it, but they can listen and understand it..... They may not be able to spell but they can come up with the ideas......

(There are 1 or 2 children out of the 90 who can't access literacy or any other lesson due to severe learning difficulties - I'm not talking about them)

Additionally, there is the Comprehension and Get Spelling for lower KS2. The comprehension scheme has class readers and is about 40% reading, 60% writing, with a focus on improving your work.