What Does A Specialist Reading Teacher Do With A Book?

Tiger, Tiger by Beverley Randell     Book Introduction by me

Tiger, Tiger is a first red level, RR3, book. It is a non-repetitive text.

Apologies for poor photo quality.

The child has already read several (3 or 4) pink level, RR1 RR2 repetitive texts. Eg of a repetitive pink level text = Playing. Not by Beverley Randell. It has photos of a boy with his toys etc on the right and one line of text (demarcated properly with punctuation) on the left that says:

I am in the tent. I am in the box. I am in the sandpit. I am in the tree. I am in the car. I am in the bath. I am in bed. Children can go backwards and forwards between decoding because they know, and knowing because they can decode on a book like this – if we like. And they will be well on the way to knowing 4 HF words.

What they have learned from RR1 and 2 – pink:

They have 1:1 word correspondence, pointing under each word automatically or nearly automatically. Some have difficulties with words of more than one syllable and can say the word, but want to point at more than one word. We sort that as we go. They notice spaces between words.

They will know a few HF words from RR1 and RR2. They will know that the words on the page tell us exactly what to say. They will know that we read the whole sentence smoothly up to the full stop. Some of their pink level books will have had more than one line of print on each page, so they will be on the way to doing what full stops tell them.

They will have composed writing every day (about their interests or about a read book) and we will have written it between us, the child doing what they can, or what they can learn right now, me doing the rest. They will have put together a cut-up version of their sentence – all reinforcing the HF words they have used and using their eyes to notice which word is which, using what they know about phonics to discriminate one word from another, using their search for meaning to tell them which word comes next.

They will usually know or be on the way to knowing most single letter sounds and may have had a go at blending in class – at this stage (pink) they are not always able to blend, even the letters they know, but some are beginning to have a go.

If they don’t know enough letters, we will make an alphabet book as one of our daily activities, with a page for each letter, usually a letter a day but 2 or 3  a day when the book is nearly finished and the child gets the idea of learning letters and does not need to focus so intensely on every one. We will start with the child’s own name letters and then letters that come up most commonly in texts. Learning a letter includes write, read, relate to picture, sort from among others, upper case, lower case. Later in the lesson series we will put digraphs etc in the alphabet book.

Intro to Tiger, Tiger. Full intro at this stage. I want the child to be able to read the book independently. Clay calls it taking the bugs out. I know this book very well and have read it with dozens of children so I know where the bugs are. Most bugs will be to do with alternatives to a child’s own vocabulary or their own speech, or book language.

This below looks like loads, but will take about 2 minutes, tops, in practice. It may seem dry, but I am trying to include as much detail as possible in writing this. In practice, this process is dynamic, interactive and fun.

Child has not seen this book before. Books later in the lesson series will have briefer intros.

Text and what I might say

Comments

“Let’s read Tiger, Tiger”         pg 2 “Look! There’s Tiger” “Can you say tiger?” The child is not looking at the words. Pg 4 “There’s Mother Monkey. Say Mother Monkey.” “And who do you think that is?” Child says ‘Baby Monkey’ “That’s right, it’s Baby Monkey.” “And look, they are asleep. Say asleep.” Pg 6 “Oh! Baby Monkey is not asleep now” Pg 7 “Here comes Baby Monkey!” Pg 8 “Look at Baby Monkey! He’s down isn’t he.” (or some such) Pg 10 “What’s happening now?” “If Tiger is hungry, what does he want to eat?” Child says “Baby Monkey. ”Pg 12 “Now look, Mother Monkey is awake and she’s screaming for Baby Monkey to come back.” Pg 14 “Oh… Look!” “Here comes Tiger.” “Let’s say that.” “Ok. Let’s read it and find out what happened to Baby Monkey.” I have introduced the story and 8 out of the 55 words

I show the book and open it at the first reading page. I don’t go on about the title.  There is no part in the book that says Tiger, Tiger – getting them focused on the title might set them up to want to say Tiger, Tiger – setting up an error before we start. We will always refer to it by its title on subsequent occasions. pg 2 If I ask a child to tell me who it is, they are likely to say lion – many do. Children with EaL often say lion when they see a tiger – so that would be an error on the very first page that will need correcting. I am avoiding errors as much as possible. I am scaffolding the book so they can read it as independently as possible. Some main vocabulary words are ‘in the child’s mouth’ so when they come to read, they are likely to say them. pg 4 If we don’t rehearse Mother, the child is likely to say Mummy.  They always know it’s Baby Monkey.  This is because they are likely to say sleeping – an unnecessary error that we would have to sort out. I might show the word asleep briefly – noticing it starts with  a It is not always me doing all the talking. They do join in and chat, some more than others, but I don’t want the child to start getting side-tracked away from what will support his independent read. pg 7 We rehearse this in a dramatic voice. We are setting up tension in the story that will pay off on page 15. pg 8 Child will chat and maybe say something about him eating berries. pg 10 They always know who Tiger wants to eat. pg 12 We might do a bit of monkey screaming here! We will discuss what Mother Monkey might say if she is calling her baby.            pg 14 We say the phrase in a dramatic voice. I pretend I don’t know what will happen at the end… I am trying to lure the child into wanting to read it and find out… They might tell me what they think will happen. They handle the book as they read. They look at the words as they read. A brief noticing of the picture as they turn the page will remind them of the story, if they need reminding. We will come back to the pictures after the read, as we chat about the story.

We go back to page 3 and the child sets off reading. Getting the first page right sets up the success of the rest of the book so we may read it twice. They will read the book using the meaning – they know the story from the intro – and using the letters and words they know. I will tell some of the other words if I think they won’t be able to work them out, but I will expect some working out of appropriate words and will let the child know which words to have a go at, if they don’t do it themselves. I will model, quickly, how to work through one or two words as appropriate. A focus at this stage could be “If you don’t know a word, say the first sound.” Or, “Get your mouth ready to say that sound.” This often means the child will say the full word. If not, they have begun to use some letter-sound knowledge and I will be able to tell what they need to work on tomorrow. It is often amazing that a child at this stage will blend hun from hungry, and then say hungry, or mon from monkey and then say monkey, or com from comes and then say comes, when they have not been blending before – the search for meaning is everything. We will come back to working through to the end of (longer) words later in the lesson series, if necessary.

At the end, we will talk about what happened. The meaning, the story, is always number one priority. We will talk about what the child wants to discuss about tigers etc. Day by day they gradually understand that sometimes it’s their time to direct our talk – sometimes it’s mine. We don’t want to use too much time talking – we are learning to read and write, but talk is a big part of it. I keep my talk to a minimum. Their talk is more important.

Things we might do after the read, depending on time and how much work we have done in the rest of the lesson. (New book intro and first read is always the last activity in our lesson.)

• Go back and refer to some of the words. Eg “You knew that said Tiger. How did you know?” ‘Because it has a t.’ Sometimes they will say (not very often) ‘Because that’s a tiger’ – in the picture. I will then say yes, and “Can you show me the word Tiger? How do you know?” – expecting reference to the word / letters. I will tell if they don’t know. This is maybe lesson 6. I won’t focus on an upper case letter at this stage unless upper and lower case are in the alphabet book.
• Pg 13 “Can you show me where it says up?” (They have already read this – we are focusing on rapid recognition and reading words with less contextual support.) They can usually find up. I ask them to show me another up on that page. “And show me up on this page.” Pg 16.

I might also show how up  is   in   (words from the just read text – not chosen arbitrarily) can have their sounds pushed into sound boxes, in order.

 

I will show them and they will do it themselves. I prefer to do this with 3 or 4 letter words – 2 letter words can be very tricky out of context. I would find CVC words in a book they have just read, and show the principle of breaking or blending. In writing, we will use boxes to work out CVC or CVCC etc as they come up. Maybe I will ask the child to tell me a word to find in the book, and if I do it right, he has to give me appropriate feedback. He will have to read to find a word to tell me to find.

I teach the principle using something in a book they can read. If they learn the principle, they can apply it to new situations. (Blending CVC is not the only principle – but it might be for a child at this stage.)

• Next day the child reads the book again, without my help, and I note whether they do what they learned yesterday. I will just tell any word the child doesn’t read. They usually read this second time at above 90% accuracy. (If they don’t, it is too hard and I should not have given it to them.) Here the child has to do ‘real reading’ again. It is not a memorisable repetitive text. The full intro yesterday and my tells today are to scaffold him to read successfully. This child might have been failing and knowing about it for a whole year. He might have been struggling with using GPCs and struggling to invent what books say and knowing that he is not really reading and feeling bad about himself for a whole year. I have to make sure he reads securely now. With a good intro and a good first read, they nearly always read well the second time.

After reading, we will always talk about the story again. Always. The story and meaning are number one priority.

We might play a word game with the book – but I don’t labour every detail to the point of tedium.

We might use the book as a stimulus to write. Out of a conversation, the child will compose a sentence and we will write it together. He will write what he can and I will do the rest or show him. We might use the sound boxes. We might write a word we have just been reading, and go back to look at it. We relate reading and writing. If the child is not sure what letter he needs – they often know the sound they want, but not the letter they need –  we can find it in his alphabet book. If it isn’t there yet, I will show. If he forgets his sentence, he will re-read the sentence so far, to get to the next word. When the sentence is written, the child will read it.  I will write the sentence on a card strip, cut it up, and the child will put it back together, using what he knows about words and letters and spaces and punctuation, to work it out, and then read it again.

He knows what it says because he wrote it.

He will take this sentence puzzle home to show his Mum. He can choose to take the book home too.

The book then goes in the child’s box and they can choose to read it as a familiar text as the first lesson element, another day. Each time they read it (maybe 5 in total) they will get more and more from it – more automatic word recognition, more fluent phrasing and expression, more use of punctuation, more experience of blending these particular phonemes in this particular order…

Book intro and first read  8 – 10 minutes

Writing and cut-up sentence – 10 minutes

So what did happen at the end?