Lowestoft Network
Gemma Constantine Northfield St Nicholas Primary School, Lowestoft, Suffolk
Title of case study (40 words)Improving writing: Maximising children’s progress through Lesson Study.
Who might find this case report useful? Give two suggestions (6 words each)
Primary school subject leaders.
Ks1 Teachers looking to improve writing.
Key points: Write two key bullet point messages to capture the attention of someone who may want to read this case study on the web (12 words each)
- Maximising the use of speaking and listening to improve the quality of story writing.
- Children will become more independent writers if they are given moreopportunities for speaking and listening through the planning stages of writing. Actively talking about what they are going to write and using role play to act out their ideas.
Names and usual roles and contact details of LS group members
Class Teacher delivering lessons in LS2
Class teacher observer of Case Pupil 1 in LS2
Class teacher observer of Case Pupil 2 in LS2
Section A: Context and overall aims(250 words)
The school is a larger than average primary school situated in an area of relatively high social disadvantage. The proportion of pupils who are eligible for free school meals is nearly twice the national average. Almost all pupils are from White British families and only a very small number are at the early stage of learning to speak English. There are considerably more pupils with special educational needs, including those with statements of special educational need, than typical for this size of school.
The case study took part with year 1 pupils at the start of the summer term. The children typically join the school at a lower than expected level for their age, but make good progress throughout the school. The majority of the children in year 1 are currently working at a level 1; with a minority working towards level 1 and a couple of children working at a low level 2 in writing.
Improving writing standards is a main focus throughout the school. As the class teacher I chose the 2 case pupils because I felt that there was something holding them back in their writing which was making their progress slower than expected.
I am a class teacher who has been teaching in year 1 for nearly 4 years.
Section B. Aims of the LS, class(es) and case pupils you worked with
The senior leadership team within the school had identified improving standards in writing as a priority focus throughout the school. It had previously been identified that children who join our school at nursery level have poor speaking and listening skills compared to the national average. It was suggested that teachers try to include more speaking and listening activities into the planning stages of writing to improve writing standards in general. As a class teacher I was aware that I needed to do more activities with my class to promote speaking and listening rather than getting the children to write without planning and talking about what they were going to write. I was also keen to try to include more role play into my literacy lessons to help children build up a picture of their ideas before they write them down. From looking at the model for writing in the initial stages of the lesson study It became more apparent to me that I needed to work on the’ capturing ideas’ stage of writing as too often I would brush over this stage quickly to get to the end result of them writing a story, when in fact the children needed to be given opportunities to develop their vocabulary and the language for writing. We decided to do this through the use of storytelling, role play, hot seating and story planning. We looked at the work of P. Corbett and used imitation, innovation strategies.
Imitation: Listening, joining in, getting to know stories well. Beginning to internalise story structures and sentence patterns.
Innovation: Taking a story you know well and using it as a basic structure for a new story. Borrowing and adapting story structures and sentence patterns.
I wanted to provide children with various opportunities for speaking and listening to help them with their story writing as this had previously been a problem area within my class. We decided that we would use a familiar story as a starting point to get children to write their own story using repetitive story language with a familiar structure. We wanted to use speaking and listening to improve the way pupils write stories; encouraging them to plan their story in a variety of ways before actually writing it.
The first case pupil was chosen because she is a fairly able writer but she struggles to think of imaginative ideas for stories and will often choose to write the minimum even though she is capable of writing more. She has recently become more independent with the mechanics of writing but struggles to think of her own interesting ideas. She will often join in with discussions on the carpet sharing her ideas but finds it hard to transfer these ideas into her story writing.
The second case pupil was chosen because he is a very slow, reluctant writer. He has been having small group phonic sessions everyday working on the initial sounds but still has trouble using his sounds to help him sound out words for writing. He lacks confidence and relies heavily on adult support for ideas and for help with writing and sounding out in general. He also finds it difficult to remain focused on a task and lacks enthusiasm for writing. His writing is often untidy and his letter formation is poor.
Case pupil A was working at a level 1b in writing at the start of the lesson study. Case pupil B was working at a low level 1C for writing at the start of the case study.
Section C: Your first research lesson1 (RL) – planning, delivery, observations and analysis meeting(300 words)
As my current topic was ‘Growing plants’ we decided to use ‘The enormous Turnip’ story as the focus for our literacy week over the next 3 weeks. Initially we wanted to ensure that the children were familiar with the story, the repetitive story language and the story structures within it; as eventually they would be writing their own version of the story. The learning objective for the first lesson was:
‘To sequence the story of the enormous turnip and use the pictures to help retell the story using appropriate story language.’
We used dictaphones for the children to record themselves retelling the story. I was looking for the children to firstly remember the correct order of the story and secondly to hear them using the correct story language from the book to help with their retelling. At the end of the lesson we listened to the children’s recordings and checked them against our success criteria. Using the Dictaphones meant that I got a chance to hear children who I hadn’t worked with; re-retelling the story. I taught the lesson as the class teacher and the observers worked with the case pupils; observer A with case pupil A and observer B with case pupil B.
Our post lesson discussion showed that case pupil A who I had previously described as lacking confidence and enthusiasm; was actually really engaged in the lesson, he was able to retell the story in the correct order and confidently used the repetitive language from the book to help him. The children were in mixed ability pairs for the activity and case pupil A was more confident than his partner (who is more able) at retelling the story. Case pupil B was keen to have a go at recording her retelling of the story but needed support to get the story in the correct order; even when she was prompted to use the pictures to help. She got confused and muddled trying to remember the repetitive story language form the book and needed constant reassurance that she was doing it right. As the class teacher I would have said initially that case pupil B would have been more successful in the lesson than case pupil 1 because of her writing ability. In the case pupil interviews the children were asked what they thought they might do next – I had previously mentioned that the children would eventually be writing their own story based on the enormous turnip; case pupil A was very keen to answer and explained that he was going to have a giant carrot in his story and a flying bat. He already had the enthusiasm for writing that we were looking for but had not expected from him based on his previous attitude towards writing. As a result of the findings from this lesson I decided that I would continue the lessons outside of the lesson study observed lessons. In the follow up lessons the children were given opportunities to act out the story of the enormous turnip in small groups before the next lesson study observed lesson. In the second observed lesson the children were going to start planning their story using a story planning template.
Section D: Your second research lesson (RL2) – planning, delivery, observations and analysis meeting (300 words)
After a series of lessons familiarising the children with the book through retelling and role play we moved onto the planning stages of their story writing. In RL2 the children were using a simple story planning template to decide on 5 characters for their story – a man, a woman, and 3 animals, what their characters were going to pull up and what would happen at the end. We decided that we would keep their story very similar to the enormous turnip story as the focus for their writing was to get the structure of a simple story using repetitive language.
I taught the lesson as the class teacher and the observers worked with the case pupils; observer A with case pupil B and observer B with case pupil A.
The post lesson discussion showed that all pupils were engaged in their story planning and all knew which parts of the story they had to think about and plan. Both case pupils could think of their own ideas for their story; thinking of new characters and vegetables that could be pulled out. Case pupil A stuck to his original ideas from the first lesson and chose a giant carrot and a bat as one of his characters, he could talk freely to observer B about his story and his ideas. He knew exactly what he wanted to happen in his story. He tried hard to use his sounds to help him sound out words and had a go at doing a lot of the writing on his own; most of which could be decoded by an adult. Case pupil B also had her own ideas for her story and could write her ideas down with a little support and reminders of what she had to plan next. Both case pupils were asked to think of some ‘wow’ words to describe their characters both could do this well and included some of their ‘wow’ words onto their planning sheet (‘wow’ words – describing words).
During the pupil interviews the children said that they had enjoyed drawing pictures of their characters. ‘My favourite was drawing my animals for my story’. Both the children seemed keen to start writing their stories. After discussions with my fellow colleagues I decided to continue with the planning stages of the children’s story writing and in the following lesson the children created a storyboard; showing the sequence of their story from start to finish using pictures. The children included key words underneath their pictures. It was felt that this would provide another visual aid for when it came to the children writing their own stories in the lesson study observed lesson 3.
Section E: Your third research lesson (RL3)– planning, delivery, observations and analysis meeting(300 words)
In RL3 the aim was to get the children to begin to write their own version of ‘The enormous turnip’ story; using all the work we had done previously to build up to this lesson; to help.
The children were given the opportunity to use both their story plans and their story boards to help them write their story and get it in the correct order.
I taught the lesson as the class teacher and the observers worked with the case pupils; observer A with case pupil B and observer B with case pupil A.
The post lesson discussion showed that both pupils were engaged in their story writing. Both case pupils used their story plans and story boards to help them write their story. Having some of their ideas already written down also meant that the children had a starting point for their writing and could all make a good start. Both case pupils remembered the repetitive language from the story and could use this in their own story; case pupil 1 to a lesser extent. Case pupil A is usually a reluctant writer but he was keen to write down his story and tried hard to work on his own using his sounds to help him sound out unknown words for writing. He needed a little adult reassurance but did not need refocusing on the task so often and was more enthused than usual in the lesson.
Case pupil B also relied on her story plan and story board to help her write her story but worked much more independently and had all of her own ideas for writing. She included some of the ‘wow’ words that she had thought of and written down in the planning stages of her writing and used the repetitive story language to help her write her own story; also remembering the correct order.
The children were excited by the thought of other people reading their stories and enjoyed the fact they had written their stories in their own little books. Some of the children suggested ‘putting our books in the library so that the big children can read them’ which I thought was a lovely idea; and lovely to see them so proud of their work.
When discussing the lesson study as a group; we agreed that talk for writing had really helped to develop the children’s skills for story writing. The use of retelling, ordering, sequencing, acting out, sharing ideas, and planning had really helped to imbed the children’s ideas in their minds. They therefore had the confidence when it came to writing. Case pupil A really shone during the retelling and role play stages of the lessons which I had not expected and he had many good ideas when it came to discussing his own story; he still struggled with the mechanics of writing but his enthusiasm towards writing had certainly improved. Case pupil B was also more confident to have a go knowing that she had the safety net of her story plans to rely on if she got stuck.
Section FImpact on pupil learning and progress(250 words)
I will certainly continue to use this approach for other writing tasks carried out in my class. I feel that the children were much better prepared for writing having spent the first 2 weeks building up to it and giving them the building blocks to write their own story (using a familiar story as the starting point). I feel that this approach gives pupils who struggle during the writing stages somewhere to shine; through role play and retelling; as generally the children who were poorer writers were better during thetalking and sharing of ideas stage. The planning stages are beneficial to all children but also give the more able writer’s time to plan and structure their stories in their head before writing it on paper. I have seen some progress with the children’s writing by using this approach and feel that if I continue to imbed these approaches into my teaching it will have a significant impact on the children’s progress in writing.
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Section G Impact on practice and future teaching
Section H: Impact on departmental and school approaches to teaching, learning and to CPD.
I have benefited from planning collaboratively with other colleagues from different schools and have enjoyed planning and sharing ideas. I feel that in the future it would benefit other members of staff in my school by carrying out a lesson study on a smaller scale; perhaps in pairs within key stages. As I already plan with the other year 1 teacher I feel that it would be more beneficial to pair up with another teacher perhaps working in year 2. I feel that it would also be beneficial for staff to collaborate with teachers from others schools; again on a smaller scale as the time out of the classroom to do a 3 cycle lesson study can be a bit much. As well as gaining knowledge from collaborative planning it has also been useful to spend time focussing on specific children and their individual learning styles and needs; as the outcomes of the observations have also impacted on my teaching. We found it very interesting to focus on case pupils as when you have a whole class to focus on; individual children’s needs can sometimes get over looked; especially if the child is quiet and lacks confidence. We found it very useful using P. Corbetts work combining imitation and innovation strategies to improve story writing. We found that using role play, hot seating and story planning helped get the children ‘ready to write’.
We all agree that discussions with fellow colleagues about the lesson study project would be of great value to our schools and the pupils within them. Discussions at staff meetings and the sharing of findings would help implement the lesson study project on a smaller scale within our individual schools and with other schools in close proximity.
Section I: Personal reflections (100 wds)
I have enjoyed carrying out the lesson study and feel that it has been beneficial to my professional development. I will continue to use the strategies implemented in the lesson study cycles and will ensure that I use the ‘sequence for writing’ and P. Corbett’s approach when it comes to story writing with my class. I also feel that these strategies will help in other areas of writing with my class and feel that it is important not to rush into writing but to give the children plenty of opportunities to plan what they are going to write and share their ideas with their friends.
© P Dudley 2011