Ideas Communicated: Scaffolding Learning From 1.5
Indicators of Progress
- Students recount and describe familiar experiences and events in a logical sequence, and describe their feelings and beliefs.
- Students vary what they say in line with their intended purposes, for example, to describe, or to retell.
- Students comment on, evaluate, and talk about characters in stories or television programmes, and about how they are similar to or different from people they know.
- Students show knowledge of simple narrative genres by suggesting how stories might finish, and by suggesting new endings to stories.
- Students ask who, what, when, where, why and how questions about events and stories they have heard and use questioning more strategically to collect information.
- Students give simple directions for more familiar contexts.
- Students recount real and imagined stories using the conventions of familiar story language, for example, they maintain the theme through the narration and refer to relevant detail.
- Students understand how to create spoken texts to communicate their intended message and to meet their goals and purposes.
- Students recall what was said in order and answer questions about details in a presentation.
- Students listen to others in their class, ask relevant questions and follow instructions, for example, they listen to the rules for playing a game and ask questions about them.
- Students listen to a story and select the main idea and some of the subordinate ideas.
- Students select the words in a spoken text that describe the individuals or objects, the actions and how they were done.
- Students respond to familiar spoken texts in different ways and link them to their own experiences.
- Students describe the characters and events referred to in a presentation, identify key aspects such as highlights, and make relevant and constructive comments.
- Students say how the events in a story they hear could be understood differently from the perspectives of others.
- Students say how a story they have heard might have been told differently from the perspective of other characters.
- Students learn the meanings of unfamiliar words by linking them with situational and language contexts.
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 serial story Little Obie and the Flood written by Martin Waddell and published by Walker Books Ltd, London in 1991.
Create spoken text
Students engage in story telling that they know they will share with class peers. They create:
- a play or a story about what Little Obie would tell Effie about what happened when he got home
- a modern day Little Obie story (the family goes to a park for a picnic and sees a storm coming).
Students decide:
- the questions they would need to answer (encourage them to use a question chart to organise what they will say)
- the key vocabulary and sentences they will use
- how they will tell their story (how they will use their voice to make their story more interesting).
4W&H questions and complex sentences
This strategy asks students to practise suggesting and answering questions using what, when, who, where, and how .
Students answer 4W&H questions about items or event shown in the picture, such as, Who is in the picture? Where do you think they are?
Students are asked to comprehend more complex sentences that refer to the picture information. Cue students to use the picture to assist them to infer, and to visualise forwards and backwards in time, e.g., What could the horse have done a few minutes earlier?
Use 4W&H questions about events heard
This strategy asks students to practise suggesting and answering questions using what, when, who, where, and how .
After a student has told their story, others ask examples of each type of question below. Students are supported to answer each question using appropriate phrases:
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Who questions: |
The bus driver… Her mother … |
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How questions: |
By calling… By running away from… |
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When questions: |
After his mother… While she… |
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Why questions: |
Because he… If… In case… |
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Where questions: |
At the bridge… Under the… In between… |
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What questions: |
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What if questions |
It might have… The car could have… |
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Do questions |
No, the water… Yes, the car… |
Create spoken texts
Students make up a concrete or action model to show a sequence of events described in the story. They create a sequence of visual images or construct three-dimensional models to depict the sequence of events. Students use these to put themselves in the context, re-enact what they heard and talk about the events.
Students use the objects to talk about what Little Obie, Grandad, Wally, etc., did. They develop their own scripts for what the characters might say.
They practise deciding how they say each event, providing enough information to tell a story, and prioritise and sequence what they intend to say. They learn to say who is in their story, where it takes place, what happens and what each person does.
Infer feelings and motives
Students infer feelings and motives:
- If you were Little Obie, how would you feel starting off?
- How would you feel when the weather became dark?
The focus is on students using speaking and listening in the context of meaningful action sequences.
Word choice in texts
Use the concrete or action model of the events to develop new vocabulary in explicit ways and to assist students to link new vocabulary with that they know. The focus is on learning new vocabulary in the context of meaningful action sequences.
- The story said the rain and wind lashed at the canvas. What does ‘lashed at the canvas’ mean? How would you illustrate/demonstrate this phrase in your action model? How is this different from saying the rain fell and the wind blew? Why did the writer use these words? Students act out and explain the differences.
- The story said the water was rushing and rising. It gurgled around the wagon wheels as they forded the creek. How is this different from saying the water was moving when they crossed the creek? Students act out and explain the differences.
After speaking and listening: Consolidate and review
The learning and teaching approach for speaking and listening is illustrated for students responding to the serial story Little Obie and the Flood written by Martin Waddell and published by Walker Books Ltd, London in 1991.
Retell and record ideas of story
Students show what they know about the story by retelling what they heard/remember about the story.