Book talk in MI

10th June 2024Stacey McClare

Today we were introduced to our new text, “so you think you’ve got it bad? A kids guide to life in Ancient Egypt.” First of all we took part in a silent conversation where we explored the front cover of the text. We then moved onto the blurb, reading it with our partner and discussing our ideas. We then moved onto looking at the features of non fiction, playing some fastest finger first games and voicing the sections we would like to read about based on the contents page. We then used read around the robin to explore the glossary and discussed some of the language with our mini crew and whole crew. We then took part in a partner 1 and partner 2 read where we read the first section of the text. We gave our partner critique after reading for a minute then swapped our role. We then took part in an independent read before listening to Mrs McClare read the text back to us. We explored our reasons to read, using the text to find the answers and adding our own opinions and thoughts. Our exit ticket looked at true and false statements which consolidated our learning.

Poetry – Book Talk

7th June 2024Laura Hamill

Over the last two weeks, Crew Hamill has focused on poetry for their reading lessons. We have looked at two poems that are linked to our expedition learning – Chocolate Cake by Michael Rosen and the Augustus Gloop song from Charlie and The Chocolate Factory. We have done a lot of discussion on what a poem is and identified the different features. We have then had a heavy focus on inference, really testing our skills of pulling information out of a text and using clues within it to answer questions about thoughts and feelings. We have then worked in pairs to answer inference questions about the characters. We cannot wait to apply these skills to our demonstration comprehension questions and written comprehension next week.

Book Talk – ABC

7th June 2024Ruth Shields

In book talk this week, we have honed back in on our inference skills and how to ensure we are answering the questions with enough detail. We have focused on ensuring that we are reading around the text but also checking back to the question so we can ensure we are selecting the right information. In addition, we’ve also had a focus on vocabulary and how we need to understand the words we’re reading as this will help our comprehension of the text.

Our do now activities, have given us the opportunities to use our inference skills on not only images but also text which is the one we find a little tricky. We were able to give some good reasoning for our inference. We started using a new strategy where we either agree, build on or challenge (ABC) someone’s answer but ensuring we are doing this in a respectful manner.

Book talk in MI

4th June 2024Stacey McClare

Our entry ticket allowed us to develop our inference skills around a picture which certainly raised lots of questions and discussions. We then worked on our words per minute by reading our text again! We really tried to ensure we were being fluent but also taking in what we were reading. We then took part in an echo read, read around the robin and an independent read where we recapped the text and some of the language in it. From here we looked at our reasons to read before acting out parts of the poem! Our exit ticket assessed our understanding of the stanzas in the poem! A great reading lesson MI 🙂

Book Talk – Poetry

23rd May 2024Laura Hamill

This week, Crew Hamill have started something new in reading – poetry! We have looked at the famous poem by Michael Rosen: I love chocolate cake. We have started with an extract of this poem that details his love of chocolate cake as a result of having chocolate cake for tea as a little boy. He talks about a time he had chocolate cake for tea and then crept downstairs for leftovers without wanting to be caught by his mum and dad. We can’t wait to read the next extract to see if he gets away with it or not! We began by text marking the poem, highlighting key vocabulary, interesting parts and things we loved or thought were important. After this, we used our inference and retrieval skills to answer a number of questions about what had happened in the extract. We have also had several opportunities to read aloud, focusing on pausing and pace. Today, we also watched Michael Rosen himself re-telling his poem and made notices about his expression, both in his voice and in his face. We then used this to perform part of the poems ourself!

Book Talk – predictions

22nd May 2024Ruth Shields

Our do now activity was a prediction about where we thought the tunnel led. We discussed the importance of giving full answers using because to explain why we thought that.

One of our predictions was thinking the bunny was about to enter Easter Egg Island which is a direct link to our current reading text about chocolate. We also had predictions about the bunny going to a fair because these are happy and bright places.

Once we’d given our predictions, we discussed how this could link to emotions and how currently the bunny is feeling upset but something is happening that will start to change his mood.

Our fluency focus was pausing and we are becoming more confident with pausing in the correct places to help our comprehension.

Finally, we went through the text and highlighted any vocabulary that we were unfamiliar with and text marked the definition.

Book talk in MI

20th May 2024Stacey McClare

Our entry ticket allowed us to recap the text so far! We were all excited to tell Mrs McClare what happened on Friday! Mrs McClare then asked us a few questions, ‘Who was knocking at the door? Why did the man wear a turban? What is a merchant? Why did the man smile wickedly? Define concealed, what about slaughter? We then used our knowledge of the text to order events from the story in a sats style question. We then thought about what one of the characters may be saying and wrote out thought bubbles. This got us thinking about the next part of the story. We then moved onto reading the next part of the story where we used a partner read, echo read and independent read. Mrs McClare modelled using punctuation when reading. She gave us two examples then we voiced which was better and why. 

Our main part of the lesson today was looking at language in the text. We read different parts of the text and looked at different questions involving language. We unpicked how we answer the questions and where we go in the text to find the answers. 

Our exit ticket allowed us to think about one of the main characters and if she was right doing what she did. We gave our reasons for our answers.

Book Talk in Crew Hamill

17th May 2024Laura Hamill

This week, Crew Hamill have delved deeper into the story of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We looked further at key vocabulary within the story and practised our skimming and scanning skills by finding them in a word search. We have had a big fluency focus this week and each day we have focused on a different element – pausing, pace, accuracy and expression/intonation. For book talk, we read through the text and focused on pausing at punctuation to ensure our reading made sense. We then text marked our section of the text, identifying vocabulary words, important parts, parts that were exciting and parts that we loved. Once we had completed this, we answered quick fire questions about what we had read. For our second book talk lesson, we focused on pace as we read, ensuring we were reading at an appropriate pace – not too fast or too slow. We then continued with our retrieval and fluency focus, answering questions – first guided and then paired – about what we had read.

Demonstration comprehension in MI

16th May 2024Stacey McClare

Our entry ticket allowed us to work on our inference skills where we used a picture to answer questions. We really thought about the reasons for our answers and used the picture well to support us. We then read the next part of the text using a chorus read, independent read then a read around the robin. We tried to apply the skills we had been using all week- using the punctuation when reading along with expression. We explored the text as we read unpicking some of the vocabulary together. Next we moved onto our demonstration comprehension questions where Mrs McClare modelled her thought process in order to answer the questions. We were all so eager to voice the answers to the questions and used the text well to find the answers. We thought about the questions were asking us, comparing what, why and when questions. We had so many great answers and the excitement in our lesson today was fantastic. It was clear we had a good understanding of the text which was fantastic. Our exit ticket allowed us to think about the characters feelings where we wrote thought/speech bubbles for them. We then explained our answers explaining why we thought this.