Snow Friday

The four of us met today and caught up with where we're at. Brittany and Kelli have done a lot of work on their poster for the Posters-at-the-Capitol, and they only need to add a discussion, do some editing (which Jody is going to oversea) and then plan it out on a PowerPoint slide ready for printing. They have the beginnings of a great paper that perhaps KRJ might like to publish. Both Jody and I are very proud of what they have accomplished.

One thing that stood out to me as a result of Kelli's research so far is that New Zealand teachers use a lot of teacher made materials to instruct in reading. That is to say, they use non-purchased materials 64% of the time and purchased materials 36% of the time. Kentucky teachers, on the other time, use purchased materials 100% of the time. This is something we definitely will be following up with further investigation. Another thing that stood out to me (again, Kelli's research) was the difference in the focii of the interventions. Kentucky focused more on phonological awareness as an intervention, whereas New Zealand focuses more on comprehension. This is something we will keep in the back of our minds too.

Our schedule, as I mentioned in my last blog, is firming up, and I feel comfortable now that it's falling into place. We have a great range of schools to visit, and I think we're going to be overwhelmed with data once we get to those schools!

We discussed our travel, and there is unanimity in the thought that instead of flying from Christchurch to Wellington, we'll go via train and ferry. The cost is about the same, and since we have a full Sunday in which to travel, we may as well see as much of the country as we can. Brittany is going to have to bring her seasickness pills! ;-)

Our next step is to email all the schools who have firm dates and send them a couple of documents: one with information about ourselves, and the other with an outline of what we hope to achieve during our visit.