Pre-teach the vocabulary. This is able to be used across the school. Could be done visually. The teacher could scribe. Children to thinking and discussion prior to reading. If you give an introduction to a book before reading, can support with engagement. Talk about things that will come up. I like this because it takes the guessing out of things. You could laminate and make these independent work when not working with the teacher. Colour coding the lines to identify relationships and connections is another way to do this when children may not be confident with writing.
Classes could also do this as a class and have as good evidence for learning throughout a unit.
Great way to get kids thinking about the words and their meaning. This helps to get kids involved and discussing ways to understand words.
Sharing knowledge kids have, building knowledge, pre-teaching vocabulary, teaching organisational structure.
I LIKE: Creating thinking opportunities, for example, reading a book about a kid going to the beach. Students do an activity or have a discussion about what they would take to the beach. Discuss and introduce the book.
Have a look in Reading Comprehensions book PM 29. Word attack strategies chart.
One thing to Up to 50% of words have a prefix or a suffix. Teaching
Dictionaries- A lot of children don't use a dictionary well. If we spend time on teaching dictionary skills, it can be a game-changer for being able to comprehend words and build their bank of skills.
Post it pointers-Pop it on those words that kids don't know yet.
Word Hippo - Gives support for words. Synonyms and antonyms. Sometimes if you try something but still don't understand, you can still look around at other sources.
Do kids have the tools they need to read?
Predicting is about engagement. A smart guess about the information we have in front of us. Everyone needs to make a prediction or they won't be as engaged. How do you know this? What clues do you have? Revisit predictions otherwise there is no point in doing them. Predict the future of characters outside of the book.
How does predicting support comprehension?
Modelling predicting. The teacher can model making predictions about a text. This will show children how predictions can be made by looking at clues that are given. They can also learn how to do it. Talking about all the different parts, title, cover, blurb etc. I do, we do, you do.
Thinking Hand...wait for five while we think. Use in think pair share. The think time is important. A shared book can provide opportunities to use prediction skills. Use the words, I predict. Elaboration question...why do you think that? The teacher can make a wrong prediction to show that our predictions are not always right.
INFERRING
'Author and Me'
I Do, We Do, You Do
In modelling, children just watch the teacher and are not expected to do anything apart from noticing.
Using the text, read through and model how you infer. We infer depending on our prior knowledge. Inferring is cross-curricula.
Summarising-
Keywords…unlock the meaning of a sentence.
Note-Taking. Modelling how to do this will help. Use abbreviations, graphic organisers, symbols.
Using text and symbols key competency.
Summarising chart which can limit the number of words used to summarise a sentence. Can link to oral language if students are able to work in groups and discuss which words are important.
Retelling-Recalling all the ideas with the text while summarising is the main point.
See story path, Hoola hoop activity, ideas for retelling slide. Using puppets, graphic organisers etc. Older kids can make puppets for big books and then retell them to younger kids. STory stones for retelling. Visual summaries and senses summary. Uses the senses about a character which also encourages writing. Story sticks: Setting, characters, problem. Can add new settings to their sticks. Can do orally first and then write.
I like the Story making frame. Talking strip - retelling.
Activity Article Note-Taking
Jan 1992, storm, 3 containers HK to US. 29000 yel ducks, blu turtles, green frogs. Spread through sea. Some frozen, Indo, Aus, Jap, US. GB.
Little Ducks book and article that relates. Available as a download with a dot to dot connections activity.
Doing things on a regular basis will be more beneficial.
Good listeners are better comprehenders. Dictation is good for this.
Inferencing-
Inferring about what is in the teacher's handbag. Inferencing about ourselves. Great idea for the start of the year. ME BAG. Create inference bags showing different ideas and items from within a story.
Creative tasks are the glue that helps stories stick with kids. Diorama idea. Looking at quotes that justify ideas about what has been added to the diorama or creative activity. These creative opportunities are important to run alongside their other tasks.
Make sure creative tasks are in the reading programme.
Images can be used to develop inference skills. Comics are great to infer what is happening and what the characters might be saying. Proverbs can be used to look at what they might mean. (List of proverbs are on the Literacy site).
Synthesising -
A classroom that supports comprehension should include:
Slow the process down and value the time of talk.
Reciprocal reading is about comprehension and looking deeply into the text. Too intense to do it all the time. Check the reading book for prompts and resources.
Some of the key points for me:
- One Goal: Be more creative with the learning activities by using our shared book. Create activities that kids can make things and talk about them in relating to the text.
It is important for children to know that it is ok to makes mistakes and not always get things right.
Discuss how the different types of talk and listening vary depending on the context. Using to I Do, We Do, You Do model suits oral language and learning about listening and speaking. Use the model/share approach. This gives the listener a role too.
The amount of teacher talk time within my class needs to be something I focus on and improve. Do my kids know that learning comes from talking? Interesting about the hands up point. If we encourage kids to talk in sentences and make the time for it, this could have a positive impact on children being able to develop oral language which then translates across the curriculum.
Why ask one student to speak when we could give that opportunity to do so?
Developing a Think Pair Culture.
Move from hands up to a structure that looks like this:
This creates opportunitiesfor children to talk. Research says 5 seconds for thinking time where there is no talking. Give kids something to talk about. Be explicit. We are going to do a prediction, tell them what to think about. The amount of time for talking varies depending on what they are thinking and talking about. You don't always have to share back.
Pairs can become threes. This is good for new language learners.
Visual criteria can be good. Schools can make their own versions of these. Can create charts to show what good listening looks like. The hands talking is a great visual to show what a conversation looks like. Can use the
Talk partners - Can be daunting for kids if you say get into partners. If you change partners often, don't worry about ability. If for longer periods of times, closer in ability works better. A compass can be used for groups of four so groupings of different sizes can be established.
If you spoke first last time, let your partner speak first this time. Choose ways to vary who talks first and second etc. Use a signal to indicate when to switch.
Name Selectors-
For those situations where the same person is talking, you could use a name selector. These can be online, on sticks, stones etc.
My Goal for Oral Language: Make and use sharing sticks or stones. Introduce these to the kids through our oral language programme this term. These can be used for class discussions and sharing when learning. Do I do this for Literacy groups or is that too much?
ListeningStudents actively listen to each other and not just the teacher. Louise's Inquiry:
Conversation cards can be used to help students to show good listening. Do one speech bubble sentence stem in order for children to develop these listen ing and speaking skills.
Think pair squares, think pair record, think, pair, walk and talk...can be introduced when kids start getting a bit bored with Thinlo Pair Share.
Having own whiteboards for activities, allows all children to have a go at writing/recording.
Listen to your partner and share what they said.
Share three ideas, talk and write a new one. Using name selectors help kids become active listeners.
Some activities to try:
Call A Friend - Children sit back to back and have a phone conversation. Could be for news, lesson review, retelling stories, ideas for writing.
Activity: Listening to the audio of a video but just listening. Make three columns and take notes on these.
Setting - On a lake, in a boat
Characters - An old man
What's happening? - Fishing and a fish is
From Short Shorts on You Tube.
Barrier Games: A barrier between the speaker and the listener. One explains where to put things. Great for learning positional language. Works well with turn-taking, listening, questioning and can become an independent activity.
Can use in Math for whole class games, tangrams.
Radio New Zealand for listening to stories. I think this will be good as children are so engaged during visual videos so I am keen to give just listening to stories a go.
QUESTIONING - Asking more open questions.
I wonder - We don't always need an answer but being able to wonder is a lovely thing for kids to do.
When preparing for guided reading lessons, rather than using your time to create text specific follow up activities, use generic activities that you have taught the kids and they know how to do. One idea is to use the questions dice to ask and answer questions in pairs. Why do you think...? Can I have a fact? Five or ten minutes but rich and beneficial.
You don't need evidence for everything!!
Our expectations are not very high when expecting children to speak in sentences. and in speaking in listening. This can be quite quick to fix.
When children are sharing, expect them to elaborate and make sure children know that they will need to elaborate.
Close links to reading. Eg I think she is sad. I think she is sad and my evidence is...
Talking Strips
Stop Elaborate and Listen!
Elaboration questions or statements can help the teacher to talk less. Microphones, talking sticks etc can help the talk be controlled and the children have ownership. Extend the length of sentences.
When you're talking, can you talk to the rest of the class?
Paraphrasing can be helpful but don't overuse it. Pause and let kids think.
Pause for think
Play for talk
You can use pause and play symbols to show children when to have thinking time and when to start sharing. Talk time for 15 seconds. Teacher may need to count that time.
Think Aloud -Teacher says what they are thinking and then say what they think. Kids take about that.
Make a statement and children talk about that.
Goal: Pause and play for thinking time and talking time.
Using different groupings to increase opportunities for students to talk.
The horse shoe is the best.
