KWL
I used the KWL strategy to teach a reading lesson on sleep. The story title was "Sleep is for Everyone". Since my first graders are slow to fill in charts, I instructed the KWL whole group using my Elmo and projector. The students gave prior knowledge about sleep and I filled in the chart. Next, we discussed what we would like to know about sleep and again I filled in the chart. After reading the text we placed in the last column what we had learned. For some of the questions like; "Do fish sleep?", I referred them to look in books or try the internet to answer questions that our story didn't. I liked using the KWL because the students generated their own questions which gave them a purpose for reading.
Book Acting
I chose five of my top readers to do this reading lesson. The book I chose was a 2.6 level book and I felt the top readers would benefit best from the story"The Magic Fish". A list of questions was used to guide my reading lesson, stopping after each page to get student's predictions and thoughts. We carefully looked at the pictures because this lesson would focus on retelling the story. After the story was read, I gave each student 2 or 3 black/white copies of the book pages. They all worked as a team to put the story in sequence looking at the pictures since the text was whited out. The pages were hung on a clothesline. After the story was in order, I modeled how to retell the story. The students then retold the story a couple of pages each. It was a great way to review the story and hear the different ways they expressed the story. I was amazed at one of my students who put a lot expression in her telling as well as reciting the repetions from the text. I will use this strategy again and next time I might use puppets!
Comments (3)
Julie,
I love both of these strategies. I use the KWL in my classroom a lot. I have never thought about using it for sleep. How did your students respond to that? I bet it was very interesting because it is something that they are familiar with. Great subject to get them talking and interested in.
Book Acting sounds like it went really well. I loved the fact that you had your students sequence their story and hang it on a clothes line. You could take this activity a step further and have them develop their own Reader's Theatre for this story and let them act it out in front of the class.
Posted by Emily Rhoney | March 21, 2010 9:00 PM
Posted on March 21, 2010 21:00
Julie,
I used the KWL too in one of my ten 10 strategies list. I like to use it especially for science units like pumpkins, bats, apples, and weather. It is great to assess prior knowledge and to get kids thinking about what they want to know. I always follow up with a little exploring on the internet to find some "real life" pics which really gets the kids excited to learn even more. :)
Posted by cheryl serrill | March 21, 2010 9:21 PM
Posted on March 21, 2010 21:21
Julia,
I like the Book Acting strategy you use with your students. It's similar to the Direct Reading Thinking Activity as you are predicting throughout the story. The using pages from the story to sequence is a super neat idea. I use a easy 4 to 6 square worksheet or sentence strip divided into parts and have the children sequence through their drawings. If they make a mistake with the order, they are able to cut apart their worksheet or sentence strip and fix their mistakes without pressure. Great idea!
Posted by Meredith Bromley | March 21, 2010 9:45 PM
Posted on March 21, 2010 21:45