Monday 11 June 2018

Descriptive words - students' writing will be more interesting and full of details...



I believe that with movement, students learn faster and remember things easier than trying to learn without. For example, clapping of hands is a movement that helps students to remember and identify the sounds of unknown words easily.....WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Clapping of hands is now a strategy that students in my class use to record sounds of new words that they cannot spell.

Not everyone know how to do this but most students are doing it and others are copying what others are doing. This will continue to be a focus for all students to use and I will make sure that it will be reminded and used.

However, I want my students to improve the quality of their writing now that they can write without stopping. Most students' sentences are basic and in the next three weeks, I will be focusing on this hunch:

Will emphasizing on descriptive words when reading a story; and encouraging an attitude of playfulness and sense of fun around new topics help students gain mastery over aspects of using descriptive words in their writing?

What are my deliberate actions? How am I going to do this...

Read a book 5 times a day repeatedly - look at each character and discuss some words from the book that describe the particular character
(develop students’ ability to describe something using their own words)

Create a word wall particularly with adjectives along with pictures

5 - 10 mins before writing - learn through play - do hands on activities (eg. winter - we may have to walk around outside - identify descriptive words - use sensory.)

Model writing a shared story - emphasize on using descriptive words (use 'sentence frame' to help students with creation of their story)

Follow this routine; - shared writing - guided writing - independent writing

What I’m looking for that shows I’m making a difference to student progress....

Increase students' word and vocabulary recognition

Students’ writing will be more interesting and full of details

Encourages students to use new vocabulary words

Increase students’ ability to clarify their understanding of new topics





Friday 8 June 2018

Check Point #2 - After 3 weeks of using 'clapping hands - phonemic awareness' to help my students write their story without stopping!

What exactly happened in class with my students?


Students stopped whenever they can’t spell an unknown word. They talked during discussions time with the help of the sentence frame but in terms of writing, it was really hard to keep them motivated once they got stuck with a word that they don’t know its spelling.

How did I do it in class?

For 15 minutes every morning, we read a rhyming poem/story, and sang songs. We used some words from our poem to demonstrate clapping hands and record sounds at the same time (on the board). Practice doing that for a while with a small group or the whole class, and allow children to help each other through playing and exploring with peers.

Critique (Pros & Con)

- some students pronounce words differently / wrongly  eg. very as fery, think as fing, with as wif etc and so they record it wrongly (Teachers need to be aware of this and praise the child for the effort)



- however, clapping hands enable students to hear sounds
- clapping is fun and children are engaging because it’s like playing



- it was hard for new entrants because they need to know the associate sounds for each letter first (However, I believe that it is fun for them to try and learn from their peers - they don't have to know all sounds and letter names before doing this)

Final Thought

I think overall, clapping of hands to hear sounds help students write their story independently without stopping.



  • PV, JJ, PL (3 students) - I need to think of ways to motivate them to be able to do this independently. They can do it with others but lack of courage to transfer what they know and do it when they write independently.
  • Need to make children clap and say the unknown words slowly in order for them to hear sounds.. I have noticed that some students are hearing & recording lots of sounds because they are saying words slowly.

  • I also believe that with movement, students learn faster and remember things easier than trying to learn without. For example, clapping of hands is a movement that helps students to remember and identify the sounds of unknown words easily.....WHAT DO YOU THINK?



Next Step:

Next learning goal - adding descriptive words to make their story sounds interesting, and give more details to their story.

Share students problems and successes with parents in a way that it helps students and parents to practice doing the same at home.

Tuesday 5 June 2018

Cut Up Sentences - for all new entrants!


I have been a Reading Recovery teacher for some times and what really amazed me was the using of cut-up-sentence. The sequencing of words to create a meaningful thought along with searching for visual information, I thought was very powerful and a very simple activity to be used in class. 

According to Reading Recovery teachers, cut-up-sentence is also use to teach phrasing and fluency. And I think this is perfect for our ESOL students because it helps them to practice saying foreign language multiple times. 

HUNCH
Will using of cut-up-sentence (with ipads) everyday increase new learners' confidence to create a meaningful story, and help with phrasing and fluency of their reading?

How am I going to do this?
In a small group of 5 during writing I will ask each child to compose a story (one or two sentences) then I will assist the child if needed to complete the story.

I will then write the sentence on a piece of paper while the child watches.

Next, I would cut the sentence up (word by word) while the child watches.

Then I will scramble the words, and the child reassembles the sentence.

Give the child his book to stick his work in and draw pictures. Remind the child to keep reading his work or maybe rewrite his story down (this might help increases his vocabulary knowledge).

These are short video clips of what I have done in class last week. The sentence that they are reassembling is a short shared story that we have created. I thought if I would start off with using their shared story would be a good practice.


The person above is very confident with reassembling his story. (The story was rubbed off from the board)


The child above was also confident in doing so. But as you can hear, they need lots of this in order to improve phrasing and fluency in reading.



Because they are in a group of three, they can easily be helping each other as you can see in this video.

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