English
Term 1 Week 9
Familiar reading
Using familiar texts;
Read to a friend
Read to a book buddy
Film yourself on an ipad (Change focus eg fluency and phrasing or reading to punctuation)
Checklist bookmark (Who, What, Where, When and Why)
Pretend you are a teacher and read to a group.
Spelling focus
Soundwaves Students enter this code world989 at www.soundwaveskids.com.au
Strategy
Brainstorm words containing the spelling focus and use these words to;
Look/say/cover/write/check
Put each word into a sentence
Find the rhyming words for your words
Colour code your words into sound chunks
Draw a picture to match your words
Sight Words
Use the following sight word list to use daily https://www.oxfordowl.com.au/oxford-wordlist
Using your sight word list you could;
Spell each word out loud to a family member or pet
Put each word into a sentence
Write your list in rainbow writing
Apps and interactive programs
Reading Rockets: activities and ideas for building reading skills at home (you may need to paste this link into your browser: www.readingrockets.org/audience/teachers
Nouns
Nouns are words that name people, places, things, ideas and states of being. Certain nouns refer to things that are able to be counted for example, ten toys. Some nouns refer to uncountable things, for example, air, research, happiness, snow, hair, traffic and so on. There are different types of nouns:
common nouns (the vast majority) are the names of classes of things and begin with a lower-case letter, for example, boy, girl, name, verb, biography, computer.
proper nouns name specific people, places, things and acronyms and begin with a capital letter, for example, Cathy Freeman, Sydney Harbour, Olympic Games.
abstract nouns name concepts or things that cannot be seen, for example, democracy, hate, joy, honesty, hypothesis.
collective nouns name groups of things, for example, team, family, committee, flock, bunch.
mass nouns name things that you cannot count, for example, gold, milk, sunshine, furniture, traffic, information.
Using your grammar focus you could;
Identify the grammar focus in your writing
Identify the grammar focus in your readers
Write sentences and colour code the grammar focus
Teach a family member about the grammar focus.
Writing
Writing ideas;
Informative
Write what you are grateful for every day
Write the steps on how to tie your shoes
Write the steps on how to make your lunch
Write the steps on how to brush your teeth
Describe your favourite animal
Describe your friend
Describe a family member
Paragraphing Strategy
Explicit teaching
Students need to understand that sentences focussed on one idea or like ideas can be grouped together within a longer text to form paragraphs.
Paragraphs break up large blocks of text (visually as well as for meaning) so that the reader can easily follow and digest the information or ideas contained in persuasive, informative and imaginative texts.
At this stage students should learn to use paragraphs to group sentences about like ideas; separate different ideas; or, segment distinct parts of the text.
General strategies
Name, identify and explain the purpose of paragraphs in texts. Embed the terminology in your teaching to familiarise students with the paragraph as a text feature. For example, instead of asking ‘Who would like to read next?’ say ‘I read the first paragraph and I would like someone else to read the next paragraph.’
When reading shared texts in any learning areas or during guided reading, draw students attention to the use of paragraphs. Where possible prompt students before reading so that they can focus on that aspect during the reading.
For example - The text on this page is organised in three paragraphs. As I read it, I want you to think about why the writing has been organised that way. I will ask you for your ideas after I have read it.
Explicitly teach students to plan and compose texts in paragraphs with a range of graphic organisers or text scaffolds appropriate to the learning area and subject matter.
Engage students with frequent experiences of reading and viewing texts organised with a range of text features. Invite students to comment on the organisation of text and ideas. Prompt students to consider what sentences can be grouped together and what happens if that grouping is changed.
Activities to support the strategy
Activity 1: idea groupings (links to data in mathematics)
This is an interactive activity that aims to support students’ confidence for grouping ideas logically, in order to develop their use of paragraphs in writing. It can be facilitated whole class or with smaller groups.
State a question or topic on which all students will able to contribute an idea, e.g. What do you like best about school holidays?
Provide each student with a sticky note to record their idea.
Ask students to get into groups by finding students who have similar ideas (depending on the size of the group you may like to select a few students as group coordinators or directors and rotate this role).
Share the ideas and evaluate the rationale for groupings as a class.
Variation: Students place their sticky notes on the board for display and students are invited to have a go at organising 2-3 ideas at a time until most or all of the ideas are grouped.
Extension: Students use the ideas and the groupings to compose a text in response to the original question or topic using paragraphs.
Activity 2: paragraph reconstruction
This reconstruction exercise can be done as a modelled or guided whole class activity, in small groups or individually. It supports student understanding that grouping ideas logically is important to overall meaning. It can be adapted to suit any learning area:
use an example text of 2-3 paragraphs, deconstruct into sentences and jumble the sentence order (keep the punctuation intact).
provide students with the list of sentences or display on the IWB (students can cut and glue the sentences, number them, highlight them or write them in order to complete the task)
explain the text purpose and subject matter, e.g. This is an imaginative text about dragons.
Students need to try to reconstruct the original text by reading the sentences and organising them into likely paragraphs.
use a graphic organiser to differentiate the activity for your learning context, e.g. include the initial sentence or first few words for each paragraph, indicate paragraph length, include a few, some or most sentences to vary the amount to be reconstructed appropriate to student readiness.