My students speak about what holds them back from being a confident writer

How can I use PAT data to help my students improve?

Looking closely at my class PAT Vocabulary Reports, gave me very useful information about what my students understood about the meaning of the words in the test. It showed me the percentage correct for each word in the test and this was a really good place for me to start helping my students improve in vocabulary as this would have a direct impact on their writing.

The words were copied onto card and we began our lesson by simply reading the word. We used circle time on the mat where students were each given a word to read, and on completion, they would receive a new word. This process went on until all students were confidently pronouncing the word correctly. Thereafter we matched sentences with the words to show understanding of the meaning of the word. I must say all students loved this process as it was a great way of building vocabulary.

I then created a close activity based on the word list and I could tell the students were enjoying this activity because we had been doing a lot of sharing about the meaning of the words.

Finally students even attempted a spelling test of the words, doing averagely well at first, but then getting even better as they challenged themselves to do better in each successive test. It was great to see the boys who didn't enjoy writing, participate actively in the process. The engagement was incredible. HP one of my Priority students who always avoid writing, sacrificed his lunch break to complete one of the vocabulary tasks.