I have changed my focus group. I have five children in my focus group and they are all girls. Three of the girls have already turned 6 and they can write a sentence independently. They can spell many basic everyday words and are attempting to use their letter sound knowledge to write some difficult and tricky words. One of the girls is reading at Green 1 L12 and the other 4 girls are reading at Blue 2 Level 10. They work well together however there are 3 girls who are quiet and shy. When prompted will share their ideas. They can have conversations and share ideas freely when in a small group.
Over the last few weeks I have been using pictures from books as a resource to help my class with their writing. I select images that will hook the children, engage them to have a rich conversation.
Sometimes images are from a story we read. I have been using Dr. Janie Van Hees gifting rich vocabulary word groups.
We start with a visual prompt:
Who is in the picture- characters and giving them names- Baby bear, Mother bear, Mother hen
Where are they- in the deep dark forest, warm nest.
What happened- they are hungry, feeling scared.
I have also talked to the class about a BME:
Your story must have a:
Beginning
Middle
End
Some children in the class are beginning to understand what this all means.
Over the last few weeks my focus group with my support have been writing sentences with a BME.
Findings:
When writing independently:
I am noticing:
Ideas being repeated - words being repeated,
Confusions and therefore lots of mistakes- children keep changing their ideas or cannot hold onto initial idea or does not have that entire idea in their head before they start writing.
They dive straight into what happened- for eg- she is hungry.
It has to be their idea and I need to give them waiting time which can be a bit difficult with 14 other children in the classroom.
Next steps:
Work in small groups or I walk around as everyone writes.
Continue using our i-Pads as a resource to record our sentences- Say my sentence- listen to it and now write the words for my sentence.
Children that have a good memory can work on holding one part of their story in their head.
Activities in the classroom:
Play memory games.
Puzzles
I spy games
Over the last few weeks I have been using pictures from books as a resource to help my class with their writing. I select images that will hook the children, engage them to have a rich conversation.
Sometimes images are from a story we read. I have been using Dr. Janie Van Hees gifting rich vocabulary word groups.
We start with a visual prompt:
Who is in the picture- characters and giving them names- Baby bear, Mother bear, Mother hen
Where are they- in the deep dark forest, warm nest.
What happened- they are hungry, feeling scared.
I have also talked to the class about a BME:
Your story must have a:
Beginning
Middle
End
Some children in the class are beginning to understand what this all means.
Over the last few weeks my focus group with my support have been writing sentences with a BME.
Findings:
When writing independently:
I am noticing:
Ideas being repeated - words being repeated,
Confusions and therefore lots of mistakes- children keep changing their ideas or cannot hold onto initial idea or does not have that entire idea in their head before they start writing.
They dive straight into what happened- for eg- she is hungry.
It has to be their idea and I need to give them waiting time which can be a bit difficult with 14 other children in the classroom.
Next steps:
Work in small groups or I walk around as everyone writes.
Continue using our i-Pads as a resource to record our sentences- Say my sentence- listen to it and now write the words for my sentence.
Children that have a good memory can work on holding one part of their story in their head.
Activities in the classroom:
Play memory games.
Puzzles
I spy games
