English Developmental Continuum P–10 – Speaking & Listening
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Ideas communicated: scaffolding learning from 1.0
Indicators of Progress
- Students listen with sustained concentration, for example, they identify points of interest when listening to an explanation.
- Students name signs and symbols in their environment.
- Students retell stories and order events using story language, for example, using different techniques to recall and invent well-structured stories.
- Students listen and follow instructions accurately, asking for help and clarification if necessary, for example, they follow simple and then more complex directions.
- Students begin to talk about simple causal relationships in their experiences.
- Students sing their favourite songs, recall nursery rhymes and suggest rhyming words, and listen to stories and provide parts that are repeated.
- Students, with support, can discuss similarities and differences between what they hear and their experiences, for example, they say what their life is like and how it differs from the life of a child presented in a story they heard.
Teaching Strategies
During speaking and listening: Tuning in to ideas
The learning and teaching approach for speaking and listening is illustrated for students responding to the story The Little Red Hen.
Collate and recall what they know about the story
Students recall what they know about The Little Red Hen so far and collate this information. The following sequence of activities can help:
- Show The Little Red Hen. The students look at the front cover and describe what it shows.
- Ask, Make a picture in your mind of what is going to be shown on the first two pages of the story . Refer the students to the pictures they have in their mind or their mental picture of the story. What did the pictures show on the first two pages of the story? Look at the pictures you’ve made in your head.
- Ask students to retell the beginning of the story in their own words.
- Repeat this sequence of activities for other pages of the story. Talk about the pictures they have in their mind or their mental picture of the story.
4W&H picture questions
This strategy asks students to practise suggesting and answering questions using what, when, who, where, and how .
Ask students 4W&H ‘main idea’ questions about the story so far:
- Who have you met so far?
- Where do they live?
- What does each one do?
- How do they do these things?
Perceptual comprehension
Ask students questions about perceptual aspects of the story so far:
- What is the colour of the dog’s pants?
- How many animals have we seen so far?
- Where was the dog sleeping?
- What was the cat doing first/second/third?
Visual memory
Briefly show the associated relevant pages from the story. Obscure these pages and ask students to recall the names of as many objects as they can in each picture, or ask, What is the colour of each item?
4W&H story questions
This strategy asks students to practise suggesting and answering questions using what, when, who, where, and how .
Students talk about the new ideas in sentences on the pages. Show the picture on a page and say, Look at this picture. What is the Little Red Hen doing in this picture? The students can suggest and answer the 4W&H questions:
- Who? Who is in the picture?
- Where? Where is she?
- Why? Why has she stopped?
- What? What is she doing/carrying?
- How? How will she carry what she sees?
Similar questions can be posed for other selected pages.
Comprehend word meaning
Review the vocabulary so far. What is another way of saying:
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4W&H story review questions
This strategy asks students to practise suggesting and answering questions using what, when, who, where, and how.
Ask students 4W&H ‘main idea’ questions about the story so far:
- What did the Little Red Hen find?
- Where did the Little Red Hen find it?
- How did she plant it?
- Why did she plant it?
After speaking and listening: Consolidate and review
The learning and teaching approach for speaking and listening is illustrated for students responding to the story The Little Red Hen.
Recall and retell
Students show what they know about the story so far. They retell what they heard/remember about the Little Red Hen and her friends so far.
They can answer the questions:
- What have I been told?
- What do I know now?
- What pictures have I made in my mind about the story?
Use prior knowledge to infer
Students use prior knowledge to infer what will happen next in the story, Little Red Hen’s wheat has grown. What might she do next? What might her friends say? Students talk about what they think the family might do next.