Book talk in MI

13th November 2024Stacey McClare

Today we looked at a poem linking to WW2. We enjoyed exploring the text today, unpicking language and text marking. Before reading, we looked at the text, thinking about what we noticed. We thought about how the text was laid out, what the pictures were showing and what the text reminded us of. We had some great discussions before we even started reading! We then looked more into the structure and layout, we looked at the title and the stanzas used. We thought about whether all poems have rhyming words and found some examples ourselves. From here we explored each stanzas, unpicking vocabulary and unpicking what the words actually meant. This was a great reading session where everyone was really engaged in the text. Our exit ticket allowed us to share our thoughts on the poem, we thought about if we liked the poem and if it evoked any feelings. We related our thoughts back to our expeditionary learning discussing some of the lessons we have already completed.

Activating our inference skills

12th November 2024Laura Hamill

Today, we continued to activate our inference skills by looking at a poem. We were introduced to the poem yesterday and worked hard to pull the text apart, identifying key vocabulary and labelling the text with key information and notes that we felt were helpful in our mission to understand poetry and what they poem was actually about. We then used these notes today to delve deeper into inferring the feelings of the characters. We began by working as a crew to identify the key points in the text for the first character, Chloe, and discussed how we thought she was feeling at each of these points. We used evidence from the text to support our ideas (E.g. she was happy at the beginning because she was looking out into space with open eyes). We then created a line graph to detail our findings. Following this, we worked in pairs to do the same for the second character, Max. Once we’d done this, we brought both graphs together to compare their feelings throughout the poem. We identified that Max was a much happier, more positive character, whilst Chloe was much less positive as she worried a lot and was scared by the idea of adventure.

Reading in Crew Hamill

8th November 2024Laura Hamill

After having a heavy focus on retrieval skills during Autumn 1, Crew Hamill have shifted their focus this half term and begun looking at inference skills – using clues from the text in order to provide an appropriate answer that is backed up with evidence from the text. To help us with this, we began by taking part in a hot seating activity in which we worked in mini crews to create questions that we would like to ask the main character of our story. One person then pretended to be this character and attempted to answer the questions, using what they knew from the text as support.

Following this, we then looked at some demonstration comprehension questions that we again focused on our inference skills. After working through how to answer this style of question with Miss Hamill on the board, we were given three questions of our own and three matching answers. We had to work in mini crews to match the question to it’s correct answer, using what we knew from the text to support us with this.

Reading in Crew Godley

8th November 2024Laura Godley

I have been so impressed with the children’s resilience with reading this week. We have achieved level gaming and improved our comprehension skills. Leon and Oliver have been working hard in RWI and applying this when reading speedy green words. Great work, Crew Godley!

Book talk in MI

9th October 2024Stacey McClare

We really loved the activate part of our reading lesson today, an inference activity. We read a short passage and discussed the questions in mini crews. I was blown away with some of the ideas the children came up with! We then moved onto another non fiction extract on evacuation. We used lots of our expeditionary learning when discussing the text further. There was some great skimming and scanning of the text today to find answers during our reasons to read. I was particularly impressed with the questions children were asking and how engaged they were. Our exit ticket really showed children’s improved confidence with skimming and scanning.

Book talk in MI

7th October 2024Stacey McClare

To activate our lesson we looked at a variety of photos and thought about what we knew from looking at the pictures. We thought about who the pictures were, what the people are doing and how they are feeling. We tried to give reasons for our ideas and thought about how they relate to the story we have just read. We then looked at our text for the lesson, recapping fiction and non fiction and how this text was different to the story. We used a partner read, a read around the robin and an independent read. We unpicked the language as we read, text marking unfamiliar language. Our reasons to read allowed us to demonstrate our understanding of the text where we texting marked as we skimmed and scanned the text. Our exit ticket allowed us to consolidate our learning through a summarising question. We ensured we text marked as we ordered each statement.