RPI 3: Text Selection

Today I learnt that there are many digital tools to help with keeping track of what/how learners are reading which I would like to try including: using voice to text for independent reading, Google forms as a reading log, google keep to make paper texts digital. So far students independent reading has been unmonitored so these tools will help a lot.

I really enjoyed the fact that flexible grouping is useful in reading as I have only ever done one or the other. Next term I am keen to introduce mixed ability grouping maybe once per week or so and encourage reciprocal teaching in these groups.

The multi text types based on a theme is something I really enjoy searching for especially when reading is integrated into our topic. In Term 2 our topic focus is "Where else other than Earth, can humans survive?" It was great to have the opportunity to brainstorm ideas and search for texts. I have found a combination of fiction and non-fiction, as well as multimodal texts such as videos, posters and a range of journal materials to use so far. I will be building a whole google site based on the topic and will add the reading materials I have found for this. That way it'll be like a one stop shop for project based learning as well as on our reading task board.



I'm excited about the reading strategy skill builder materials that were introduced this week. This will be a great resource to really get my head around effectively teaching the strategies to my learners and not just my random attempt.

I have finally started reading a novel to the class which they are thoroughly enjoying and we are using it as an opportunity to practise prediction what will happen based on previous events and chapter titles. We are reading 'The Twits' by Rhoald Dahl which the students seem to really enjoy. It has some great new vocabulary for them also which is promoting great discussions. I need to start adding this vocab to a word wall of some kind so they are able to see and use this in their writing and discussions.


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