Building understanding

Comprehension & recounting Stories: 'This Is Me'

Secondary

Communication and language

﻿Hallo there everybody, it's good to see you all. Today, we're going to read a story together, it's called "This is Me". And the story is told through pictures and explains how a young girl creates a self portrait. For the grownups, when we're reading through the first thing that we'll look at is the conventions of how we're holding the book up right, the texts going from one way to the other, turning the pages. So all of those things that make a book, a book. So it's a good idea if you have a real copy of it, or you can transfer this to a different book later down the line. We will have a look at the different kinds of questions that we might ask to check for understanding and to help lead a child's understanding as well. We'll start with the basic level one questions, things like, you know, can you show me? Where is? Find things like, where is the girl in the picture? Where is the picture? You might also use that second level of questioning if you're adding some extra challenge, which really looks up finding the quality of objects. So can you find the blue thing on the page? Or how many of such a thing we might have? We'll talk through that in a moment. So the first thing that we'll do is we'll read the book together. We'll have a look at some questions and we'll then go on to how we can encourage a child to demonstrate the understanding of the story. So that would be sequencing what happens first, what happens in the middle, what happens in the end. We're just going to focus on three in a sequence, but you could always make it harder in a four or five. So that's this lesson. Before we continue, let's just take a look at what we might need. Okay, for this lesson you will need potentially very little. I recommend that you have some key question words ready. If your child uses symbols, then they are really good to have to hand write now. Things like choose, show, look, where, find, key question words that we'll use today. It might also be useful to have a symbols or signs for the keywords that are relevant to the story. So we would have a book, a girl, a mirror, a picture, paint, maybe the prompt to look, maybe glue is in there, wool is in there, button is in there, and key verbs like stick and cut might also be helpful. If you have a mirror and a piece of paper and some paint or a pen lying around those might be useful too. And there is an associated set of slides that you can download here as well, which will help you with the sequencing part of this story. So some physical resources to print out. And again, not necessary, but useful. So let's take a look next at how are we going to get the room ready. Getting the room ready for learning. I would recommend reducing distractions within the room that might mean closing the curtains so that we can't see the street outside. It may mean turning off a fan. It may mean turning off an overhead light or the television, but as well as preparing the room, we must prepare the children to be ready for learning as well. Some children will require a run around outside first to exercise their hands maybe to begin, perhaps a snack, perhaps an opportunity to change position, to take splints off, whatever is the best position for them to be learning. You will make that best. Really important to create some interests, that curiosity and anticipation for the child, by sharing the resources that you've gathered together, talking about what might happen, show the excitement. If you model how excited you are to begin, then that will be infectious. And the child would be really interested in the lesson coming up. So press pause while you get the room ready, make sure that you take the opportunity to prepare yourself as well, and we'll begin very shortly. It's time to begin. So let's get ready. Look, listen, and let's learn together. Here we go. So before we begin with our story grownups, let's take a look at the different questions which we might be using as we go through the book. Now this book is told through pictures. So there aren't any words in there. It might be nice to simply flip through and ask questions. It might be nice to name things first and then go back and ask the questions. So type one level one questions are really only asking the child to match something or to find something or to name something. So as you are looking at the page, you might say, where is mirror? And the child will point to the mirror for you. You might say, show me a mirror, and then they have to locate the item for themselves. You might ask them to find a girl in the picture and then they will point to the girl. If you are going to make it slightly more challenging, then you're looking at asking the child to describe a quality of an item. So not just naming it, finding it, locating it, but identifying it perhaps by colour, by classification or category. So find the furniture or find the animal or find the vehicle. Or you might ask how many of something as well. So that's a numeracy skill as well that we're bringing in there. So the type one questions are easier. The type two questions make it a little bit more challenging. And the only reason I tell you this now is so that you can be aware of when we're reading through the story exactly what it is that I'm prompting. So, let's take a look at the story. This is me. Open the book. This is me. Turn the page. Girl. Mirror. Girl in mirror. Turn the page. Draw. Picture. Can you find the girl? Point to the girl. Girl. Where is the mirror? Where is the mirror? Mirror. Girl. Mirror. Turn the page. Girl. What's this? Paint. Paint brush. Picture. Girl. Paint. What colour? What colour? It's yellow. How many paints? Count. One, two. Two paints. Yellow paint. Brown paint. Turn the page. Girl. What's this? Button. Glue. Glue. Button. Button. Eyes. Eyes. How many eyes? Count. One, two. Two eyes, very good. Turn the page. What's this? Scissors, cut, wool. Girl. Find glue. Point. Find glue. Glue. Picture. Stick. Where's the girl? Girl. Picture of girl. Stick on the wall. Girl. Picture of girl. How does she feel? Look. Happy. Sad. Happy and proud. Good picture. Girl proud and happy. Turn the page. Lots of things. Can you find blue? What is blue? Very good, mirror. Blue mirror. What cuts? What cuts? Very good. Scissors cut. Find the paint. Find the paint. Paint, very good. What colour? Yellow, very good. Turn the page. It's finished, the end. Okay, now that we've read our story, it's time to remember what happened and put them in order. So we start with a grid like this. Three different holes or boxes to put our sequence into will help the child structure exactly what's required. Next we take three pictures from the story. One from the beginning, one from the middle, and one from the end. We're going to put them in order. So if you have the resources in front of you that are downloadable as part of this lesson now is the time to get that grid in front of you, and to cut those three pictures out. Take a moment. Next we each picture in order. So here, I'm going to try with these. Slide them in just like that. Picture one, picture two, picture three. Now let's check. Am I correct? First the girl puts the picture on the wall, then the girl looks in the mirror, and then the girl draws with a pencil. Is that the right order? No, okay, let's try a different one. Looks in the mirror, sticks the picture on the wall, draws with a pencil. Is this correct? What do you think? Yes or no? No, let's try something different. The girl looks in the mirror, the girl draws the picture, then the girl sticks the picture on the wall. Yes, that's correct. If you're interested in different variations for the sequencing, I would recommend first asking the child to put it in order if that's an appropriate request for them, and they may do that quite freely. If not, it might be worth you putting them just as I've done here, you putting them in order, and then the child checks to see if it's correct. It could be that you keep jumbling it up as part of a game, and the child has to put it back into the correct order. You might set the order first. This is how it goes, and you tell the story with just those three pictures and then the child has a go after that. So lots of different ways of approaching it, depending on what is the most appropriate for your child. Our story today is "This is Me" and it was written by Charlotte Guillain, and illustrated by Katriona Chapman. It's published by Harper Collins as part of the "Big Cat" Lilac Series. Next, let's take a look at how we can use the story that we've read and the activities that we've just explored to extend the learning further. Let's see what we've got. Okay, let's extend the learning. In order to make this activity more challenging for your child, use that second type of question. Second level of question more often and use it on every page. If we are counting things, let's count things to three, if we're counting to three, then let's start counting to four. If we are identifying items by colour, then ask the child to classify that object. Can we find the paint brushes? Maybe you can go and collect things from around the house that are also used for making marks on a page. For the sequencing activity, I've used three pictures that are from the story and therefore very familiar to the child because I'm hoping by the time we're sequencing that we will have read the story multiple times three. If you want to make that more challenging, maybe four or five images would be appropriate, or to make it even more challenging, use symbols with the items, the objects, or the verbs, the actions from the story so that the child then has to put that in order with the symbols much, much harder. In order to make this more simple, repetition is key. Use drama, really engage the child using the real objects from the story, the paintbrushes, the mirrors, the pieces of paper. Single words are going to be really useful. So if you strip back all of the other language and just use the key words and maybe only put in one or two questions to make it more accessible. In order to extend this beyond some more ideas for you, why not do this the same with another storybook, perhaps something that's more familiar to the child. Why don't introduce poems or other instructional texts other nonfiction texts. One fun activity to do here would to encourage your child to follow the instructions that are provided by the pictures here to create their own portrait. Why don't you get a mirror and some wool and some glue and some buttons and some paint for yourselves and give it a go. Thank you everybody for sharing this story with me. I hope that you have a go at the suggestions for different ways you could extend the learning and extend the activities associated with this book. I've enjoyed being with you very much. And for me for now, goodbye. If you would like to share photos and videos of your child's work with us, then please share them via Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, and tag us @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

Comprehension & recounting Stories: 'This Is Me'

Comprehension & recounting Stories: 'This Is Me'

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