A joined up lesson - making the most of students' flashcards

Making a learning record with flashcards

I'm a firm believer of doing more with less - and a massive fan of good text books. Students need something familiar in the hands/bags, a structure they can grab onto and a bit of a routine they can enjoy diverting from...not glued to turning the next page at all, but able to thumb back through recognisable patterns, structres, chunks & lexical sets. And then have the confidence to be able to close the book, with learning internalised, push their English skills into deeper water with friends to help & to challenge.

Oxford Phonics World textbooks have a lovely set of flashcards tucked away at the back, which are a great resource to expand learning; introduce or review words (in this case CVC patterns), make sets or mix everything up! 

• Teacher tip = have each student mark each of their cards with their own favourite colour (important these are different, so you can unmix easily when you play games etc) before cutting them out. And give each student a ziplock bag with their name on, to prevent losses!

Here we went at 16 recently studied words (shoert i and e sounds). Quiet time to cut carefully = also time to recall the pictures/sounds (which are on the reverse side). Many ways to review at this stage - teacher-led or students challenging each other etc. 

Matching & categorising: Wordwall

There's a 'blank' picture dictionary at the back of the classbook, which I love, because the artwork is the same, but it is in alphabetical order (not by unit)...a subliminal dictionary skill implanted! My approach with strong students = take a card, find it in the picture dictionary, and 'do your best' spelling it (after you've sounded it out) logically. Then check on the back & high fives, noticing a consistent pattern with the middle vowel sound/spelling. Students can do this together & correct/reinforce/referee each other (including comments on letter writing/legibility!) or competitively. Either way, teacher is passive but actively monitoring output carefully & encouraging constantly :)

Using wordwall as a follow up - I love this as there are so many different formats of game you can select per set of words (in this case). The thinking bit = different images, but clearly the same item. Creating these sets, you can add audio - male/female voice, lots of dialects to chose from. Be careful that you use a consistent sound that you want your students to model/mimic (US, Kiwi or Scottish ones that bend vowel sound? Or consonant sounds that disappear into glottal stops?!). You can have wordwall 'pronounce' all your cards, both sides, or just the one. Or none. Think about what you want your learners to do!

My mum thinks I can't read or spell!

Refereeing each other!

Delighted to share the news that mummy is horribly mistaken, and that her soon to be 10 year old is battering all the reading & spelling challenges I can think of!

The pathway has been - not trying too hard at the start...on the carpet variety rug-rat class to get used to just doing 'different' stuff, being brave, singing out loud, jumping about & being a 'whole' learner. Making mistakes, exploring words & having fun.

Pushing on now with Oxford Phonics World (3) and Everybody Up series + Oxford Read & Imagine graded readers > sky is the limit. A 'bullet-proof" class as they dive into any & all activities beyond the predictable. Makes my Friday afternoons a lot to look forward to and always a challenge to come up with something new & challenging!

Being bold readers

Game in play today - first time my class had seen it = Chip-O

Fantastic outcome (no idea who won!) with reading skills above level; helping each other out, and also asking for help when a bit stuck (not really stuck, just unable to decode eg consonant clusters like 'truck' or 'flag' etc which we have not got to yet). When a game is not a waste of time!

Reading to write - boardwalking (running!)

We had an end of term kind of feel yesterday, and playing one if our favourite 'race' games went down well. Re-reading an old reader is never a waste of time, but my copy seemed to have lots of mistakes in it as I read it aloud!

When the children noticed a "mistake" they ran to the board to spell out the proper word. Lots of giggles and rethinking/double-checking. Silly teacher can't read - but the students can, and they can spell!

How hard can a game be?

It was a slow day and one of our trio was absent - bit pointless pushing on with a new project if we have to re-start & epxplain everything all over again next week.

I really like Junior Scrabble as a fall back for strong students, because it allows them to show off how well they can spell. "Seeing" words in ajumble of letters is a very difficult thing to do in a second language at any age; it os doubly tough when your culture does not involve playing games. Seriously, when was the last time a Japanese person told you they played Colditz, Kerplunk or Top Trumps at the weekend?

So, I would argue that not only is the actual game a bit hard, but the entire concept of game play something that needs to be taught...and that getting the 'perfect' answer is not strategy one! So, chill out players, and let the teacher (who knows what you know, so this actually works nicely as review, a test almost) supply you with hints - not the actual words you can make of course!

Image via Wikipedia

Hinting - use your classroom language, naturally!

• A kind of ...
• The opposite of...
• It's big, and brown, and ...
• It sounds like...
• Use L1 if you are stuck/can do it eg "How do you say ******* in English?"

Making/doing crosswords is also something students are not often exposed to (and top > bottom spelling is something we avoid, right?!).

Anyway, that's my share. My lads really enjoyed their 'easy' lesson as they had to think their socks off! What kind of word/game play do you do with your students?

Aggressive spelling!

I really enjoy my noisy boys on Friday afternoons, as they bring a lot of energy to the end of my week, and challenge me to come up with fresh ways to keep them interested/give them scope to bounce off each other & call each other 'stupid' - very competitive issue!

The blackboard is a fine tool for these lads, last week demanding each other 'hurry up", "write more neatly", "learn the alphabet properly", etc. We were reviewing old vocab, but while we were up I wanted to see if they were ready for a 3 letter spelling challenge. On paper, they are OK but rubbing out too much. On the board, they made it a 'death race' - first one finished (with my 'ok') clouted the others. OK, not much of a game but satisfied & motivated them!

As you can see, the spelling is working out nicely, and the confidence from this will transfer nicely to more sedentary exercises. What I like most about this class is just how much one of the boys in particular has blossomed; he used to be extremely shy & self-conscious, and burst into tears at the drop of a hat - even if I looked at him funny...not these days, and I commend him for having the stones to stick with it. Strongest reader at his age in my classes :)

ABC waiting time

I found my smart Monday evening girls amusing themselves cleverly - spelling their names and other words they 'know' on our large carpet mats. Good for them! I despair of how little advantage is taken of the resources we have available for children & parents in the school.

• We used to leave a PC for free use - never touched.
• We left our games out on a shelf - thrown around, bent out of shape & broken
• BBC TV, Discovery Channel etc left on for free - volume muted
• Streamed BBC & Virgin radio (as was) into the school - asked to turn it off

Erm. As a school I think we have to be an oasis of English, and any opportunity to get more exposure likely to be welcomed. I think. "Silly daddy", Eleanor likes to say.Maybe she's right.

Anyway, I was delighted to see my super polite and hard-working crew challenging each other to spell stuff, including new words from their Story Tree readers, set for homework last week. Who cares if they had to double-check?! Excellent application & lateral thinking.