Developing Language and Literacy at Broome Primary School www.magabala.com Aboriginal Early Childhood Initiative Leadership Trial 2009
School in Focus: Broome Primary School District: Kimberley Project: Aboriginal Early Childhood Initiative, Key Speech and Language Leadership Trial The book Loongie the Greedy Crocodile was used as a springboard for the following language and literacy learning experiences. The planning sheet highlights a range of intentional teaching opportunities that can be used to develop oral language and literacy with early childhood students. They are culturally inclusive of ESL and ESD learners and can be extended or refined to cater for a range of student s abilities. It is important to note that all the language areas support the development of each other e.g. you need to build up the students vocabulary and ability to form sentences and use of connectors (syntax) to effectively develop their oral narrative skills. The students involved in the language experiences were engaged, motivated and already had a lot of background knowledge about crocodiles which was a fundamental reason for the book selection. Selecting a book with contextual relevance helps to bridge the gap between oral language and literacy as it builds on and extends students conceptual knowledge (schemas) about a context they are already familiar with. Broome Primary school was involved in professional learning in oral narrative/texts and semantics. This involved in class modelling of oral narrative and semantics strategies by Support Officers from the Swan Speech and Language Team. The resources that follow illustrate some of the oral language learning experiences that the Kindergarten and Pre-primary students were involved in: making Crunching Crocodiles and then recounting the experience. The rest are for schools to download, laminate and use! Click on the Oral Narrative/texts powerpoint for more information about the language area.
Oral Narrative Recount Narrative: A visit to Broome Crocodile Park Procedural Narrative: Making Crunchy Crocodiles and recounting the procedure. Retell Narrative: Retelling the story Music & Movement The story is called Loongie the Greedy Crocodile When Who Where First Event Event Event Event Event Conclusion Never smile at a crocodile Teasing Mr Crocodile 5 little monkey s jumping in a tree Teasing Mr Crocodile, You can t catch me! Along comes Mr Crocodile as quiet as can be SNAP! (4, 3, 2, 1 monkey s ) Away swims Mr Crocodile as full as he can be! www.sparklebox.co.uk Comprehension Blank comprehension questions Text innovation: Three Billy Goats Gruff (change to 3 Australian Animals going over a bridge and a crocodile is under the bridge) Barrier game: billabong scene with Australian Animals, trees, large rock and a crocodile Semantics Schema: Brainstorm what the students know about crocodiles before & at the end of the theme Labelling body parts of crocodiles Describing crocodiles Comparison: comparing crocodiles to other reptiles e.g. snakes, lizards Word association: words that go with crocodiles e.g. saltwater, mangroves, teeth, snap Definition, synonyms & discussion of unfamiliar vocabulary in the story: Greedy: gluttonous: hungry Slippery: slimy/smooth/slips away/oily Slide: move smoothly Perched: balanced, hanging Loongie the Greedy Crocodile Art by Lucy & Kiefer Dann Illustrated by Bronwyn Houston Drawing crocodiles from real life or picture observations Using various colours of green paint to paint crocodiles. When they are dry, students are to glue 3D white cardboard teeth onto the mouth Making an egg carton crocodile Phonological Awareness Onset-rime: Sound/letter correspondences: Cc, Ll, Gg Words that rhyme with crocodile (smile, while, file, mile, tile, pile, bile, dial) Odd one out: use rhyming words from the story to judge whether they rhyme with ile words or not Segment and blend: sm - ile, m - ile, t -ile Deletion & manipulation: how do you change pile so that it says file? Syllable level: Classification 1 2 3 creek shellfish crocodile fish mangrove sunbaking teeth Loongie animals Odd one out: Which one is the odd one out? creek, green, crocodile Fluency: tell me 3 words with 1/2/3/ syllables Phoneme Level: Segment & blend: Use Elkonin boxes & counters to segment individual sounds & then segment/write the sounds in the word c r o c Maths Concepts: fast/slow, wide open/closed shut, long/short, under/over Measurement: after making box construction crocodiles compare lengths, use cubes to find out how long they are, which is the longest, shortest, medium sized?
Oral Narrative Teaching text types within the context of a theme Australian Animals/Reptiles Recount: Visiting Broome Crocodile Park Retell: Loongie the Greedy Crocodile Procedural Recount: Cooking Crunchy Crocodiles Engaging students in recounting experiences and retelling stories develops their comprehension, vocabulary, syntax and grammar. Real life/multi-sensory experiences e.g. cooking, excursions provide rich and authentic opportunities for teaching and developing vocabulary. Photographs, food and equipment can be used as visual cues to prompt discussions and recall of the events. Steps on the floor scaffold the students to sequence events in order, provide key information, use conjunctions to join ideas and pronouns to reference people/characters. The following examples are scripts that the teacher could model extend and refine vocabulary, sentence lengths and syntax according to the language abilities of your students.
Recount Narrative PP/Yr1/Yr2 (See Narrative Framework: Recount Structure 3) Theme: Reptiles/Australian Animals Excursion: Visiting the Crocodile Park Last week our class visited the Broome Crocodile Park because we are learning about reptiles. First we walked through the huge crocodile jaws to go into the park. And then we met the Croc man and he showed us some small crocodiles that were in the lake. Next he fed chickens to the all the big crocodiles in another lake and they snapped at each other with their sharp teeth. Next we walked around and saw a huge old crocodile that lived in his own waterhole. The Croc man threw a large ball on a rope and the crocodile jumped up, bit into it and shook it around. After that we saw two golden dingoes. At the end we saw a Barking Owl and he flew down to the edge of the cage, stared at me with his huge yellow eyes and made funny barking noises at me. I thought it was a fun day because I loved watching the crocodiles snap angrily at the other crocs and fight for their food.
Procedural Narrative (See Narrative Framework: Procedural Recount Structure 1) This is how I made a crunchy crocodile First I spread cream cheese on the celery. And then I cut the cucumber legs. And then I cut the cheese for the big teeth. And then I cut the tomato for the eyes.
Procedural Narrative (See Narrative Framework Procedural Narrative: Structure 2) Making Crunchy Crocodiles I made a crunchy crocodile. I needed celery, cheese, cherry tomatoes, cream cheese, cucumber and a knife. First I cut a long piece of celery for the crocodile body. And then I spread cream cheese along the top of the celery. And then I put four cucumber legs on. And then I cut the cheese into zig zag teeth and put them in front of the celery. At the end I cut a cherry tomato in half and put them on top for the eyes.
Pictures for use with Procedural Recount: Making Crunchy Crocodiles Equipment/Utensils Ingredients
Semantics: Description Steps (For a copy of description steps with picture cues follow the link to the National Aboriginal Early Childhood Project resources through the Portal) Animal name Group/category Colours/patterns Size Body covering Body parts & function Location/habitat Special features
Semantics: Crocodile Description Show students a plastic crocodile or photograph and use a description chart & the following points to describe its features. Encourage students to take turns to describe the crocodile and other animals using the description chart or steps. Animal Name Category Colours/patterns Body Covering The way they move Location Size Body Parts Special Features Crocodile Reptile Dark green/grey green, dark olive or greyish brown on their back. The belly is yellow to white. Large & long (up to 5 metres long). Leathery, hard scales (ridged, bony scales) on their back and legs. The belly has smooth scales. 66 sharp teeth (4 th tooth on either side of lower jaw is exposed). Long snout, nostrils; four short legs with five-toed webbed, feet; long, strong tail; yellow to white belly, scaly back/body. They are strong swimmers - propel themselves through water using their tails, crawl along land. Fresh water or salt water rivers, mangroves and estuaries. They have no predators (except for humans), are carnivorous (meat eaters). They have powerful jaws with as many as seventy teeth, which they use to kill their prey e.g. fish & other animals they find in or near the water i.e. turtles, snakes, crabs, small mammals & birds.
Crocodile pictures for labelling and description activities
Crocodile pictures for labelling and description activities
Crocodile Snap: What Am I Description Cards SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!
Crocodile Snap: What Am I Description Cards What am I? What am I? I help the crocodile to walk, swim & have 5-toed webbed feet with sharp claws. I am long and strong and help to propel the crocodile through the water. What am I? I have hard, ridged bony scales along me. This acts as armour. What am I? I am small and hatch out of an egg that is buried in the sand. What am I? I am powerful, strong and have as many as 70 teeth that I use to kill prey. What am I? The dark olive green/brown body covering that helps crocodiles to blend into the water so they can sneak up on prey.
Comprehension Questions Literal, inferential and evaluative Page Comprehension Questions Title page 1 3 Who is on the front page? Where is he? What do you think the story will be about? Why does Loongie have no friends? How would you feel if you had no friends? What did Loongie do everyday? Where were the birds and the fish? 5 What do you think will happen next? What do you think he will do? 7 9 11 13 15 17 After the story What is happening on this page? What do you think he will do? Why was his mouth watering? How can we tell he is hungry/wants to eat the shellfish? What is happening? What are longbums? What made his teeth all broken? How can we tell he is worried/upset? What is happening? Where is he swimming to? What is a hero? Why are the longbums the heroes of the creek? Find one that can fly/swim/fish Why are the fish and animals able to return to the mangroves? Name something in the story that was green/could fly/had scales What made Loongie swim out to sea? What do you think about Loongie and what he did? Do you think it is fair he had to leave Walaman Creek?
Phonological Awareness Phoneme Level: Segment & blend word cards and then match to the pictures leg croc shell fish teeth crocs
Phoneme Level Segmenting