Springboards into Literacy

On Saturday 28th February I saw David Hornsby present "Springboards into Literacy" at the National Museum of Australia. Since then, I've been mulling over the ideas he presented and trying to find time to write a post to compile my thoughts and share them with the world!

David Hornsby was challenging the notion of teaching literacy in the structured literacy block where reading and writing don't intersect. He reminsced about the good old days when you could walk into a classroom and be absorbed into the theme that students were reading and writing about, when hands on learning, play and imagination were all part of the experience of becoming literate.

He began by reading us a couple of great books that draw you in and remind you the value of exploring quality literature with students. Both books were by Colin Thompson and present different perspectives of life and death. If you're looking for a book that's great for any age, check out The Short and Incredibly Happy Life of Riley by Colin Thompson and Amy Lissiat. If you find it, you're in luck, as everywhere I've looked is sold out. (Might be time to buy online!) The other book was Dust and was darker and more solemn - perhaps better for an older audience.

David Hornsby then explored Springboards into Literacy through three different avenues:

• Project Based Learning
• Science
• Art-full Pedagogies

Project Based Learning
David Hornsby discussed the Project Based Learning program at Croydon West Primary School, where students have enjoyed improved reading results as a result of their commitment to this program.
Here, students in the early years begin each day with 100 minutes of "Explorations" where they develop their oral language and social skills through project based learning and are invoved in activities such as construction, cooking, games, beads, computers, dress-ups, science experiments and interaction with nature. Students then move into share time where they have the opportunity to present and discuss the things they've learnt. After the recess break students start a session of free writing, during which most students write about what they were doing in the morning.
As James Britton said, "Reading and writing float on a sea of talk." For a detailed review of research on Project Based Learning click here.

Science
Not being particularly scientific-minded myself, I found this session particularly valuable. David Hornsby began by posing the question "How do you teach science - not at all; through reading scientific texts; or through experimentation?" I'm ashamed to say that I don't give my students enough time to understand science concepts through hands on exploration and discussion. I try whenever possible, but I feel that sometimes our science-focused units of work don't really lend themselves to this sort of exploration.
David Hornsby pointed out that in order to really comprehend a scientific text we need to have first explored the concepts and the language to describe those concepts before reading the text. For the purposes of the presentation, he used videos of a teacher conducting science experiments. He invited us to make our hypotheses about what would happen and then showed us the video. We then had a chance to discuss and reason about the result. In a classroom this could lead into students writing an explanation and drawing a diagram.
Science can be used to engage students in reading and writing for real purposes. Through their experiences they can develop a greater interest and understanding of how the world works.

Art-full Pedagogies
David Hornsby finished up by discussing how the Arts can be used as springboard into reading, rather than a final product or response to reading. He talked about how art can be used to engage students in the topic and discussion prior to reading the book. I really like this idea and am trying to find ways to implement it with my teaching. David shared with us how students at one school considered their own perspectives on 'grannies' before reading the book Our Granny by Margaret Wild. Students created playdough grannies and did roleplay interviews as grannies. This developed the concepts and language the students needed in order to make connections with the text when they read it. What a great way of exploring critical literacy and the images and stereotypes we develop!

All in all it was a great day and left me with much to work on. Check out Friday Fun at the end of this week to see how I apply the Art-full Pedagogies with our Readers' Theatre lesson.

I'd love to hear what other people thought of this Professional Development workshop. If you were there as well, please leave your comment below.

Sculpture Garden Sunday

Today I popped in at Sculpture Garden Sunday at the National Gallery of Australia. There were kids and families everywhere enjoying the music and getting creative. It got me more motivated for my first lesson on Tuesday. Our Readers' Theatre is going to be about a dinosaur sculptor, so I thought it might be a bit of fun to sculpt our own dinosaurs. After seeing the fun ideas today, I'm keen to see how my students explore their own creativity with the resources available.

Literacy Unit - Rowan of Rin #3

We are working through the book Rowan of Rin by Emily Rodda. Last week we read chapters 5 and 6 and focused on dialogue and feelings. For an overview of activities in earlier chapters please use these links:
Chapters 1 and 2
Chapters 3 and 4

Chapters 5 and 6 - Summary
The party of Rin's strongest heroes (and Rowan) begin their journey. The journey is filled with challenges to test the depth of each traveller's courage. The steep climb exhausts Rowan who consequently faints - leading the others to grumble at his weakness. Rowan recovers quickly and, upon checking the map, discovers that a verse has appeared which seems to give warning about the forest they are about to encounter. With this new information, the party continues on. Deep in the forest they encounter a mass of spiders which they must pass through in order to continue their journey. Ellis, who has a paralysing fear of spiders, cannot bear the task and flees back the way they had come. With a sense of urgency, the others work out a solution to passing through the spiders and continue their journey.

Activities

Code Breaker

• Look at punctuation and format for dialogue
• Consider the alternatives used for 'said'
• Students work in pairs to practise reading the sections of dialogue using appropriate expression

Text Participant

• In their groups from last week, students consider how the characters were feeling during the events of chapters 5 and 6 and produce a news interview on video. (It is worth mentioning here that after watching the first set of videos, students had many ideas for how to improve them. We made these adjustments to the second set of recordings: costumes, fake microphone, interviewer and interviewee both in shot, filmed outside, use of tripod, introductions to characters.)

Text User

• Discuss how an author provides insight into a character's thoughts and feelings by showing, not telling.
• Students find examples of how different characters are feeling and the words that show these feelings. For example, when Ellis is terrified, Emily Rodda describes the sweat on Ellis' face rather than writing "Ellis was terrified".

Text Analyst

• Explore how authors shape a story to win sympathy for the protagonist. Discuss why this is important and how it has been used in other stories ie. Cinderella, Snow White.

Bring it all together

• Students write a short story using the things they've learnt during the week. They choose a conflict eg. A girl wants to go to the movies with her friends, but she needs to convince her parents to let her go. As they write they need to gain the reader's sympathy, show feelings without telling and use correct punctuation for dialogue including words other than said. (This was a much bigger task than I could have imagined, so I was lucky to have such a capable group. I was particularly impressed with one student who did a really brilliant job of bringing all these aspects together in his story.)

Here is the complete Rowan of Rin unit.

3rd Teaching K-6 Carnival

Welcome to the March edition of the Teaching K-6 Carnival. This month we don't have as many articles, but the ones we do have will really challenge you to stretch and grow as a teacher and learner.

Innovate - Beyond the Slate

Kelly Hines shares Why I Have the Best Job in the World posted at Keeping Kids First. She reminds us of what children are capable of when asked the right questions. Kelly posed the question "What can you do to change the world?" andgot an amazing response from her students.

Kakie presents How do children see & learn about race, color and culture? posted at Bur Bur & Friends: Community Park, saying, "As educators in this diverse world, it is important for us to understand how ALL children come to learn about color, race and culture in a way that is developmentally appropriate. This post is an excerpt from a book that does just that. It was written based on extensive research and studies and is a book all parents and educators should read."

Christina shares Present Movies posted at Early Childhood Teacher. Here she outlines a great video project she did with her students around the holiday season. She encourages students to form clues around a mystery present and as a result students develop oral language skills and thinking skills.

Also on the theme of holidays, Vera Lang presents Free St Patricks Day Crafts Templates: Prancing Leprechauns posted at Fine Craft Guild .com, saying, "This great project just costs 2 sheets of paper. ...and you'll have a REALLY CUTE Leprechaun Marionette! FREE template & tutorial. Pull the strings to make him dance to the rainbow's pot of gold. Fun & Easy Project for K-6 kids."

Brain Strain

In this edition we have two posts that will stretch your mind and help you to consider the mental workout required by teachers as students in their various roles. Both point out the importance of stretching beyond the comfort zone in order to make progress with learning.

Scott Barry Kaufman shares Learning about Learning: an Interview with Joshua Waitzkin posted at SharpBrains. This is a fascinating interview revealing what one can achieve when fully committed to learning. Enjoy a human brain in full display.

Graysen Walles presents Teaching - A Tough Career that makes a Difference posted at The Teachers Movement, saying, "Teaching is the greatest career on the planet, and it is also the most challenging career on the planet. Why?"

Look No Further

Susan Greenwald presents her book Two Plus Two is not Five at Teaching Addition, Subtraction, and Multiplication Facts. This resource can be used for systematically teaching children number facts.

Meaghan Montrose presents Effective Learning Strategies and Study Skills- Part 1 posted at TutorFi.com. This post is a set of study tips for students to use for completing homework.

Why not submit your post for the next carnival?

At this stage, editions of The Teaching K-6 Carnival will be posted monthly on the 7th. I will be collecting submissions throughout the month, looking in particular for posts that discuss and exemplify innovative teaching and the integration of technology in the K-6 classroom. I also invite a few "brain strains" to keep our minds alert and challenged. Please submit only articles of which you are the author and refrain from using this merely as a sales pitch.

If you have a relevant post that you would like to submit to the next edition of teaching k-6 carnival use our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Support this Carnival

If you enjoyed this edition of the carnival, you can support its continuation by sharing it with others. Link to us, add us to a tweet, stumble or digg us. Thanks!

Friday Fun - 6/3/09

Fun this week

The Egg
Our egg finished hatching and the alligator swam out into the container and kept on "growing". The girls took it home on Friday as we think it may have grown as big as it can.

3D Model of Rin
The same girls also made a lego model of Rin (from Rowan of Rin by Emily Rodda). They brought it in to share with us. They said I could include a photo on the blog. (I hope I've labeled it right!)

Readers' Theatre
This week's script was about a family walking across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It included lots of facts about the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Prior to reading the script for the first time, I played a Flickr slideshow of images of Sydney Harbour Bridge and gave them some time (about 5 minutes) to talk about both the images and their own experiences of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Students were allocated to new groups and settled and sorted themselves quite quickly. We performed on Thursday - some in the school hall and some at the school amphitheatre. I made a video recording that we can look back on later to determine the progress students are making.

Integrity
Our Integrated Inquiry focus this week was on Integrity. This is a tricky concept for children (and many adults) to grasp. We broke it down to honesty and responsibility. I also tried to explain it as knowing the right thing to do and doing it, even if no one else will see. We read and discussed a story about a king who was looking for an heir to his throne. You can read a version of the story here. We watched the following video:

We read and reflected on a comic about a boy, George, who wanted a puppy and had to learn about responsibility. I tried to show the following video where adults discuss the topic of integrity, but only the sound would work.

Maths
We were working on four times tables this week and using the strategy of double it, double it again. For example, if you are trying to work out 4 x 3, you can double 3 which is 6, and double 6 which is 12. I found that I needed to use a number of strategies with the four times tables as some students were finding them quite difficult. We will use next week to review the strategies we've learnt so far for the 2, 5, 10, and 4 times tables.
We've also been trying some more difficult number patterns that include two elements. For example, in this pattern the rule is + 3, then -1:
6, 9, 8, 11, 10, 13, 12, 15, 14, 17, 16
We also did some pre-algebra work balancing equations. For examples, please check out this video clip.

My Classes and SuperClubsPlus
In the lab this week had all the passwords we need so we spent some more time becoming familiar with My Classes. Students were able to create their own book reviews for others to read and comment on. The reviews were pretty good for a first try, but I'd like to see a little more effort put into content and editing. Students are getting a little lazy in an attempt to get their ideas down quickly.
Students are incredibly engaged with SuperClubsPlus and it's giving them a chance to achieve many of the outcomes in our curriculum. Students are communicating with one another both online and in person in order to "get their stars" and set up their homepages. In their reflective journals, this week, many students commented on their challenges, successes and plans in terms of what they are achieving in SuperClubsPlus.