SchoolBased Curriculum Development Section Primary 8 March, 08 Sharing Session

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School-Based Curriculum Development Section
(Primary) 8 March, 08 Sharing Session
TWGHs Tam Shiu Primary School Opening a Treasure
Chest Experiences in Reading Weeks

• Presenters
• Miss Lam Wai-man Helen
  (Acting Principal)
• Mr Tang Pui-chi
• Miss Chan Yeung-ming Eve

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Curriculum Planning of Reading Weeks

• School Level Planning
• Reading Week Focused teaching of one reader in
  a week related
  stimulating tasks -
  other teaching such as textbook, dictation
• Create curriculum space to legitimize reader
  teaching by fixing two weeks in every school year
  very early to avoid last-minute rush.
• Choose readers with reference to students prior
  knowledge (matching the GE topics), consensus
  from teachers and students interests.
• Identify reading, speaking, listening and writing
  skills to be taught in collaborative lesson
  preparation meetings.

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Readers in Different Text Types and of Different
Content
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Readers at different levels taught in different
modes
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Advantages of reading weeks over reading cycles

• Sustain students attention and interest due to
  condensed time intervals
• Maintain a consistent learning atmosphere and
  teaching style- students more ready to be
  engaged teachers more ready to teach
• Provide prompt feedback on both teaching and
  learning such that teachers are in better
  position to understand students level of
  comprehension
• Offer enough time for hands-on stimulating tasks
  in close conjunction with reading. This
  facilitates reading motivation and comprehension.
  (Gutherie et al. 2006)

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Engaging students of different abilities in
reading Traffic-light Sandwiches
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Target skills in the reading week for
Traffic-light Sandwiches
Link to Scheme of work
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Tracking and enhancing understanding through
questioningTeachers asking questions at
different stages of reading(Worksheet 1, 3 and
Qs in classroom)
Link to PPT
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Tracking and enhancing understanding through
questioning Students creating their own questions

• Integrating a stimulating task with reading
• Tracking, enhancing and consolidating students
  understanding of the text because students
  questions shed light on their understanding of
  the text
• Enhancing their ability to use wh-question words
• Helping more-achieving and less-achieving
  students through teacher feedback

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Tracking and enhancing understanding through
questioning Questions created by students

• More able students
• Where do they come from? (Kitty)
• Earth Planet Flurp
• China USA
• Where did they want to go? (Sally)
• Planet Flurp
• Planet Zorb
• Hong Kong
• Who is the pilot? (Vanessa)
• Fleix Flora Floras Dad
  Felixs Mum

• Less able students
• Where they go to? (Sam)
• Japan AmericaPlanet Flurp HK
• Who in the spaceship cried? (Louis)
• Felix Flora
• Who sleeping in the sofa?
• Flora Felix Waitress

• More creative children
• What is Felix and Flora? (Leo)
• E.T.
• Who drive the spaceship? (You can choose more
  than one.) (Kitty)
• FelixFlora SpaceshipNo people

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Tracking and enhancing understanding through
questioning Questions created by students

• Teacher used students questions to consolidate
  understanding and pointed out grammatical
  problems

• Feedback to students
• Clarify students understanding of the story
  (high priority)
• Appreciate creativity in questions
• Point out grammatical mistakes in questions
• (low priority)

• Students discussed problems of their classmates
  questions

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Engaging students in multi-sensory tasksHelping
students with auditory, visual, tactile and
kinesthetic needs
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Engaging students in multi-sensory
tasksVisualize the invisible

• Using the PPT to tell the story
• Using pictorial word cards
• Inserting pictures into worksheets
• Visualizing the process of preparing real
  sandwiches

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Scaffolding Presentations
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Engaging students in multi-sensory tasks
Role-playing with expressions

• Rewrite part of the story into scripts and
  highlight feelings of characters at different
  parts of the plot
• e.g. Flora (cried) oh Felix, wherere we?
• Felix (calm) Dont worry, Flora.
  Ill go outside and have a look.
• Understand characters feelings by reading aloud
  with appropriate intonation and pausing
• Help students to develop deeper understanding of
  the story
• Cater for needs of auditory and kinesthetic
  students
• Scaffold the reading aloud and role-playing
  processes to cater for needs of more-achieving
  and less-achieving students

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Scaffolding role-playing
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Engaging students in multi-sensory tasksWhy
rapping and how to rap?

• Why?
• Exposing students to rich English learning
  experiences
• Catering for different learning styles
• Providing hands-on stimulating tasks associated
  with reading
• Appreciating the rhythms and rhymes of poems

• How?
• Choosing rhythmic poems
• Demonstrating how rapping is conducted (showed to
  students a website for rapping teachers
  self-made video on rapping)
• Adding some personal responses, imagery,
  repetition, onomatopoeia, gestures etc to let
  students interact with the poem
• Helping less able students
• - from word-level acquisition to text level
  understanding
• -through repetition
• -from slow to quick pace
• -from small group teaching focusing
• on vocabulary to large group rapping
• for enjoyment

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Engaging students in multi-sensory tasks Poem
for Rapping
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Scaffolding rapping
Lets see how the students rap.
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Students responses to the reading week
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Some reflections on motivating students of mixed
abilities to read

• Questioning at different cognitive levels, from
  both students or teachers, at different stages of
  reading helps to track and enhance students
  comprehension
• Different pedagogies could be used to cater for
  different multi-sensory learning styles (Breadth
  questioning, role-playing, presentation, rapping
  )
• One pedagogy could be scaffold at different tiers
  for students of different learning abilities
  (Depth words to text accuracy to fluency)
• Students who are given multiple experiences of
  stimulating tasks related to the reading would
  have better comprehension and motivation because
  situational interest would help students engage
  in deeper understanding (Guthrie et al, 2006)

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References

• Gardner, H. (1984). The development of competence
  in culturally defined domains. In R. Shweder and
  R. LeVine (Eds) Culture theory Essays of mind,
  self and emotion. Cambridge University Press.
• Dunn, R. (1990b). Rita Dunn answers questions on
  learning styles. Educational Leadership, 48(2),
  1519.
• Guthrie, J. T., Wigfield, A., Humenick, N. M.,
  Perencevich, K. C., Taboada, A., Barbosa, P.
  (2006). Influences of stimulating tasks on
  reading motivation and comprehension. Journal of
  Educational Research, 99, 232-245.