Twinkle Twinkle Little Star - graded reader + intergalactic app

Yusuke's Water Planet

Personalising irregular verbs

Another day, another graded reader (I know, I do go on a bit)...

A recent reader leant lots of practice to irregular past tense verbs; cool for teacher, bit of a pain in the neck for the learners "Why are they different?" Erm, well, the Vikings & Anglo-Saxons.....

Imagine you were a spaceman and went to another planet; draw it and describe it. 

Already dark outside, I asked my lads to turn around & look carefully out the window. What could they see - 'stars' a fairly glum response. Yes, but no. That bright one is not a star lads. Your book is called "Red Planet". Any ideas what that particular one is? Penny dropping. Don't believe me? OK, let's check with Star Walk app on my phone. Shock & consternation as the screen shows a live image of what the heavens should be looking like - including constllations, satellites, and...(coming to that) as you move it around. Very cool :)

What planet is red? OK, let's search for Mars. Presto, arrow navigates us to rendez vous with our celestial neighbour, with the cursor exactly over there. Now you believe me?!

Can you see Mars?

OK chaps, what can you see in the sky next week? A "suissei"? You mean a comet? What's it called? OK, let's search for that. Navigated to a spot in the carpet under the board. Oh! Can we see it yet? Why not?! Decent speculation and then a prediction for where it might be next class - come back and find out!

I love this app, as it lends itself to all sorts of searches, besides helping you walk into lamp-posts at night :) I even saw Father Christmas last Christmas Eve!

Who says life is dull for Japanese school kids?

"Yesterday, my friend Toru had a shower, used the internet, did his homework and went to bed late. He didn't get up early, send a text message, catch a bus or eat pizza."

"Yesterday, my friend Takuro had a shower, used the internet, did his homework and went to bed late. He didn't get up early, send a text message, catch a bus or eat pizza."

Takuro and Toru interviewed each other about yesterday. They go to different schools, and were not 'cheating' over this quick written follow up. Nevertheless, the result was worryingly predictable - they go through life as kids in Japan on a very plain trajectory!

I shouldn't complain, because these two lads are really coping well with the number of irregular verbs in the English language and different /ed/ sounds for even the 'regular' ones in the simple past tense. As learners they are excellent canvasses to work with.

Using Voicethread with graded readers

It is possible, if you work frantically, to have a full scale Voicethread production of a graded reader, such as OUP's Story Tree orange level one seen here, up and published in an hour.

We did not get into this 'cold'. Students have been asked to listen to the CD and to read along at home. This is not homework as such, but our efforts at an extensive reading programme. A book a month is a very gentle commitment I think!

We have also 'milked' this source heavily - it is full of verbs in the past tense - regular and irregular - which we have worked on previously eg using a word cloud to retell the story as best we could & to find the verbs in their past form > write the present tense form. We have also identified how to pronounce the three different /ed/ endings (from the CD).

I gave my boys the camera and asked them to find some of the main 'ingredients' in our story. Those things we couldn't photograph we drew quick pictures eg museum & shop. The students were assigned characters to speak for (reading ahead skills) and then Jim's quick keyboard skills were needed to find the right images/press record etc. We were against time pressure so we did not go back and edit - so what you hear is very much what we did. Pauses are there when someone wandered off thinking they'd finished!

Image via CrunchBaseI hope you'll take a few minutes to follow the link over to Voicethread and leave a comment yourself for us (or leave us a note here). Personally, I think this is a lovely (free) tool that teachers should be able to exploit easily for this kind of personalisation. Involves everyone in a production that would otherwise stay 'hidden' in the book. Performing brings out the characters and imagination, and a lasting finished product is something they can share & go back to with pride. All our classes work is linked for parents to discover on Edmodo too, which if you have not thought about using for classes yet, I'd take a look. We love it!