School-Based Curriculum Development Section (Primary) 8 March, 08 Sharing Session

1. School-Based Curriculum Development Section (Primary) 8 March, 08Sharing 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

2. 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.

3. Readers in Different Text Types and of Different Content

4. Readers at different levels taught in different modes

5. 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)

6. Engaging students of different abilities in reading Traffic-light Sandwiches

7. Target skills in the reading week for Traffic-light Sandwiches Link to Scheme of work

8. Tracking and enhancing understanding through questioningTeachers asking questions at different stages of reading(Worksheet 1, 3 and Qs in classroom) Link to PPT

9. Tracking and enhancing understanding through questioningStudents 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

10. Tracking and enhancing understanding through questioningQuestions created by students 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 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 Flora’s Dad Felix’s Mum

11. Tracking and enhancing understanding through questioningQuestions 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

12. Engaging students in multi-sensory tasks:Helping students with auditory, visual, tactile and kinesthetic needs

13. Engaging students in multi-sensory tasks:Visualize the invisible • Using the PPT to tell the story • Using pictorial word cards • Inserting pictures into worksheets • Visualizing the process of preparing real sandwiches

14. Scaffolding Presentations

15. 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, where’re we? Felix (calm): Don’t worry, Flora. I’ll 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

16. Scaffolding role-playing

17. Engaging students in multi-sensory tasks:Why 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

18. Engaging students in multi-sensory tasks: Poem for Rapping

19. Scaffolding rapping Let’s see how the students rap.

20. Students’ responses to the reading week

21. 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)

22. 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), 15–19. • 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.