Until recently I had always taught reading through a carousel of activities. Why? Because this was just the done thing. In every school I had taught in, in every classroom. Pretty laminated comprehension cards printed off and a lovely coloured timetable to ensure that each child got to read with the teacher for their slot once a week. This can of course work. But does it work better than anything else? Have we actually tried other ways? Naturally it has had some successes but surely a system where 80% of the time children are not being guided or often not actually reading isn't the best way to deliver our reading lessons?
So fast forward to now and it appears there is an unstoppable wave of support for the 'new' whole class style. Reading centered and comprehension rich, my class now have access to a new, high quality text every single week, with this in mind I try to shy away from Dahl and Morpurgo (please don't shoot me). This in conjunction with a rich strain of non-fiction and poetry has seen reading take on a whole new life in my classroom.
Monday morning begins with the introduction of a new text, recently this has included Cogheart, The Dreamsnatcher, Ned's Circus of Marvels and Who Let the Gods Out? Highly detailed, well written, engaging and relevant. The children have demolished them with such enthusiasm that the local Waterstone's are now planning their staff party in The Ivy. An extract is selected from the focus text, the introduction or build up to a key event always work well. The children then read this, targeted children read to myself, this changes each day, and then the whole session is given over to discussion.
The first step is to engage with the vocabulary the children are unfamiliar with. What words do we not know? What techniques do we have for working out meanings and intentions of the author? These are discussed, debated and agreed upon. Lots of suffix and prefix work can happen here too.
We then examine the characters that the extract has discussed explicitly. This enables those that are perhaps struggling to grasp the content fully to verbalise their level of understanding and seek assurances from peers thus eliciting any misunderstanding. Small snippets of information are retrieved and it is easy for me to see who has accessed the text fully.
The same exercise is completed for locations and settings and additional information found that begins to develop the children's understanding of author intention. The example above highlights that one child felt it was significant that the location was 'cloudy' as this 'makes it difficult for anyone to see who is out there and what may attack them'. This higher level thinking adds greatly to my running assessment for said child.
The final part of the Monday session focuses on interpreting the text and the feelings of the characters that have been introduced. Moreover it develops our habits of discussion skills and enables the children to debate and reflect on how they understood a characters actions. The guilt of Malkin in the prologue of Cogheart is a perfect example of this.
Tuesday and Wednesday focus on high quality detailed questions and answers. The questions are limited to four a day and the children are encouraged to highlight significant text that they wish to use verbatim in their answers. When answers are discussed any missed detail is added in purple pen so that I can see which is their own work and which they have magpied. It also demonstrates to the children the level of detail they could go into on each question. Most children tend to have some purple pen on each question and don't be concerned if there is an awful lot of purple pen to begin with. This is a skill that takes learning. We have moved away from the idea of Point Evidence Analysis to Point Evidence Explain. For example, I think Malkin feels guilty about leaving John behind (point). I think this because in the text it says 'the fox gave a whimper of disapproval. It should be you John.' (evidence) By giving a whimper and wishing to swap places I can tell that Malkin feels like he is letting John down and wishes he could swap places with him (explain). The children have quickly picked up this habit.
Thursday, we move away from fiction and read a linked non-fiction text. In the Cogheart example our non-fiction text is based on robotics. The texts are taken from a range of sources, non fiction books and online websites and the questions look at features, the difference between fact and opinion and interpretation of purpose.
Friday then looks at a different text type. This could be a poem, an advert or a song even. A good example of this is using Thriller having completed work on Abi Elphinstone's The Dreamsnatcher. The two link very well and the emotive language of song lyrics is a real gold mine for assessed interpretation skills. As with the fiction work, purple pen is used to add to answers and every session reading and the skills of reading are reinforced.
So that's us. Sounds like a lot of work but it isn't. I can give every child the same amount of 1-1 reading time as during carousel but with this method they get to see a new quality text every week plus a range of linked ones.
There are a few top tips:
1. EVERY CHILD and I mean EVERY CHILD reads with a ruler (this may change towards end of year) with black text on white paper the brain is already busy enough reading. Help it out and eliminate the risk of slipping down a line.
2. Post it, highlight, underline, doodle! Anything that helps locate the information or prompts memory. I have had one boy who drew a stick man each time a new character was introduced to speed up information location when the question referred to a character.
3. Share your texts! This method is printer heavy. I would urge you to print off rather than use ipads for many many reasons. However this can be costly so try and share as many resources as possible.
I hope this has been useful. Do ask if anything is a little unclear and happy reading.
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