Exploring New Inquiry

As the term progresses and the children have developed a high quality understanding of POGIL and it is working effectively, I have found a need to change my inquiry slightly - to cater more effectively for the needs of all my students - specifically the two children in my class who have dyslexia.  As POGIL is quite a student directed style of learning there is a lot of reading and writing - which does not suit these children all of the time.

We are conducting student led conferences at the moment and one of the mums of the dyslexic children in my class sent me through the following article Dyslexia Daily - 17 ways a teacher can support a student with dyslexia before coming in for her student led conference.  I thought it was quite relevant and pertinent at the moment and so have explored some of the ideas in it.

I have taken the following things from this reading that I can change and implement in my programme immediately:

• Talk regularly:  As these students often work with the teacher aide, when they have problems or are confused I often trust the teacher aide to help them out.  I will change this so that they have opportunities to talk to both myself and my teacher aide when they are stuck so that they feel valued and that they can come to me at any time when they are stuck.
• Watching carefully:  Within this student led style of learning, the children are often in charge of talking to other students before they see me if they are stuck - and so I allow them time to find a solution to their problem before jumping in to help.  I do the same with my dyslexic students and believe that this is the right approach however I feel that I may need to provide more explicit modelling for these students around how to find help from other students - as often they are probably focussed on paying attention to what they are being asked to do and so may miss out on the more subtle hints and modelling that is occurring.
• Visual Clues:  Providing visual clues is one thing for dyslexic student that automatically makes their day so much easier.  The dyslexic students in my class have visual clues in their books to help them alongside the written text but I will try and incorporate more visual clues around the classroom rather than just having it all written.

As a result of reading this, and of my ongoing thoughts around my inquiry, my next focus for my inquiry is:  What strategies and processes can I put in place that directly support my dyslexic learners within the POGIL style of teaching that is occurring in my classroom.