Eleanor's ECL310 Blog

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#PictureBooks

Using the hashtag #picturebooks presented, obviously, many different images and blogs about picture books. One of the common posts that kept appearing was #illustrations and the many beautiful images that appeared within this hashtag. Many people drawing images they created in their mind through reading novels that don’t always have images within them. The creation of different characters was interesting as I feel like people will always interpret books in different ways. My idea of what Felix from Once looks like may be completely different to another persons and seeing these interpretations is really interesting. 

A particular blog i found interesting was @wodlesspicturebooks-blog which I have reblogged a post below. This blog explores the beauty of wordless picture books and the amazing stories they can tell without words. I find when you show children images or illustrations they notice a million things that didn’t seem to even appear when you first looked at the image, so these types of books would be fantastic to share and discuss in class. The interpretations students would create would be amazing. Students could create their own stories. The versatility of wordless picture books is enormous, and through finding this blog I feel inspired.

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Another excerpt from “You Can’t Take a Balloon Into the Metropolitan Museum is shown here. You can see very obviously that in each box/image there are certain characters/important features that are highlighted in color, while the rest of the image is shown in black and white. This is a style used by the authors which denotes attention to these specific assets in the story. The balloon is one of the aspects of the images that maintains it’s yellow color on every page. It is meant to catch the eye of the reader and show the focus on it. When the little girl and her grandma are shown in the museum, they are also always pictured in color, and sometimes along with a sculpture or piece of artwork like shown above. This type of selective coloring is another important and value part of wordless picture books. Illustrators and authors of wordless picture books often use this type of shading and coloring to their advantage. Most likely, the reader will be drawn immediately to the colored image and often ignore or skim over the rest of the black and white image. It is this selective strategy that can be directly related and assimilated to fit into reading real words in books. The strategy of looking for key words is just like looking for highlighted or colorful pictures. It can help to know that you don’t necessarily need to look at everything, or read every single word in detail to understand a story. 

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ABC Education Resource

The resource I explored was a game that educates students about similes. 

Students need to build their ‘dream machine’ which is a bike that can do unique things. The game then takes them through what makes a simile and how using similes can ‘paint a picture’ in their writing. After practicing with pre-made similes students then practice describing their dream machine by creating their own similes. By the end of the game the student will have created an advertisement colourfully describing their dream machine which they can then print off to display or keep. 

This game would be a good addition to explaining what a simile is and how to use it in writing, however the game is restrictive with only allowing the students a few words in their descriptions. Another activity in class would make this resource more useful. This could also be used as a small activity in rotational learning groups as it’s engaging and would become more useful in addition to other activities. 

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Phonics Debate

What I think I know:

Phonics is the sounds that letters and letter combinations make.

Phonics is a relatively new concept taught in schools.

There are lots of different sounds and it can get confusing for students at times with multiple sounds for one letter combination or one sound for different letter combinations. 

Confirmed:

Phonics is about codes within words (or code sounds).

Students won’t be ‘pro’ with reading these sounds from the start.

Misconceptions:

Phonics is only taught in the early years.

Phonics is the only strategy in which to teach students how to read properly. 

New Learning:

Phonics is essential to beginner readers.

Students need to learn the coding techniques to work out what the words are.

Students need to develop spoken language and have meaning to words first before students start reading or learning about phonics. They also need to be exposed and engaged in reading before learning how - reading with parents/adults.

Students need to learn how to break the code of the English language.

Wonderings:

How do I cater phonics to be inclusive to all? How do I help students with learning disabilities such as dyslexia?

How do I make the most of using phonics in reading lessons?

What is the best way to teach phonics?

Is phonics used across all schools?

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This a recording of a powerpoint slide show.

Each slide would be able to be stopped for as long as the discussion for each question went. 

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Placement Reflection

During my placement I was in a grade 1 classroom. There was a strong focus on literacy in this year level with multiple lessons of literacy subjects a day. A lot of the literacy program in the grade 1 year level used groups and rotations. This seemed to work well as each group was able to work at their level and wasn’t too bored with the material presented or found it too hard, and the use of groups catered to large variety of literacy levels. 

Writing was done as a whole group and they incorporated themes from their inquiry/humanities units within writing to keep a theme for the term. I was able to run all the writing lessons from halfway through my first week. The school used the 6 + 1 writing traits and this made it easy to progress my lessons step by step for the students to create their first solo researched inquiry reports. I modelled how to research animals (with given sites) and group information into categories. I also modelled how to then take the information from research and brainstorms and write paragraphs using the categories to separate information. The students really loved writing about their own chosen animals and created quality drafts for me to mark and return. I didn’t get to stay to see their final outcomes, but I was able to observe some finals in the making.

Reading was taught with rotation groups. This meant I was able to take my own guided reading groups as well as observe how other activities were created for rotational groups. The rotations worked well and the students understood the routine. However, many of the activities for groups not working with the teacher used worksheets which didn’t always seem to be engaging for the students.

Lastly, once a week the grades 1′s had phonics focused rotations. These were every Wednesday morning and incorporated rotation groups again (15 minute rotations). Each week every group was introduced to a new sound (digraphs, trigraphs, etc) and had to practice with the teacher before going off and using it in a writing activity/worksheet. Having not experienced phonics (because this was my first time a younger years classroom) before I noticed it helped students a lot with their reading. And they recognised many sound combinations when reading.

This is an image taken of the classes rotation groups for phonics(top) and reading(middle). Next to this display was a display of the 6+1 traits which the teacher would use to show the students what focus they were using for that lesson.

The students also loved having books read to them. They loved silly and funny picture books mainly and their favourite was the book ‘The book with no pictures’ by BJ Novak. I read this to them multiple times in the two weeks. 

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Handwriting

Handwriting to me also expresses some personality into a writing piece as everyones handwriting is unique. A handwritten letter always feels more personal than a message sent on Facebook or via email.

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Posters

The poster I made was actually inspired by a stamp a teacher of mine during one of my placements had. To help students with the editing stage of their writing she would stamp their drafts so they would make sure to check everything off. 

My poster uses this editing acronym to explain what exactly they need to do in the editing stage of writing. 

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Reading Memories

Some of my fondest memories of being read to in primary school where by my Prep and Grade 2 teachers. 

My prep teacher loved Enid Blyton and throughout the year she would read to us all the Magic Faraway tree series whenever there was free time before the end of the day or during lunch eating times. I remember getting so lost in the stories she read and getting excited when we would move on to the next book in the series, thinking about how cool it was that we were reading big chapter books. At the end of the year we didn't end up finishing the last book and i remember asking mum if she could get it for christmas so we could finish the book at home.

In grade 2, the book i remember reading as a class was the adventures of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie by May Gibbs. Our teacher encouraged us to bring in our own copy if we had it at home so we could read along with her. I remember using my mums copy of the book (from when she was a child), so it was older than a lot of my friends books and the pictures weren’t in colour. It was awesome that we could all read along with our teacher if we wanted and it made me feel like I could read a big chapter book myself. 

There are many other memories of teachers reading to me or my class all through my primary school life, but these are the 2 that stand out the most in my memories.