Book 8: A Strange Little Monster

A Strange Little Monster

Written by Sue Whiting and illustrated by Stephen Michael King

This book belongs to the Aussie Nibbles Series which allow beginner readers to experience the mysteries, humour and thrills of reading. A Strange Little Monster is about a little monster who doesn't like to scream, shout or be scary like her family. She prefers to sit quietly or play her flute.When Sasha the little monster is faced with a difficult situations, her ability to play the flute saves the day. The concept of the book is accepting yourselves and accepting others. The book is for 6 to 8 year old. In a guided reading lesson, students can identify emotion, inferences in actions, and the messages about acceptance.

Book 7: The Adventure of Life

The Adventure of Life
Written by Jean-Benoît Durand and illustrated by Robin Gindre

The Adventure of Life is a book which tells kids about the world and the many interesting facts that are within it. It answers the questions which kids love to ask such as Why did the Dinosaurs die? Why foxes have different kinds of ears? and how fast mice grow compared to humans. The illustrations in the book are quite modern and retro; they definitely add a different dimension to the book. In the classroom setting this book is effective in science and English. The book can be used as a tuning in activity for a science topic as well as a guided reading lesson and a presentation of a particular aspect.

Towards a Model of Reading

There are four main areas of importance that can be identified when thinking about reading
The contexts in which we read
The texts we read
The knowledge we need in order to read
The skills we employ as we read

Week 7 Workshop

English Language and Literacy

MINI-TEST
What are the four que systems?
Semantics, syntax/grammar, graphophonic, graphological, pictorial

What are the four roles of the reader?
§ Text Analysis - Critique, bias from point of view
§ Text User - Relate the text to their lives, function of the text, what do i do with the text, identify text types and use according or purpose
§ Code Breaker - Letters and sounds, structure, punctuation, phonics
§ Text Participant - Readers need to understand the text, know what the author is telling you

- All these are necessary but none are sufficient by themselves -

What are the teaching strategies for reading?
§ Shared
§ Guided
§ Independent

Three main focuses in an effective reading program (Winch, pg. 198)
§ Texts
§ Reading cues or sources of information
§ Reading practices or roles of the reader.

Guided Reading
§ A thinking, problem solving approach to reading
§ Talking, thinking and reading
§ Students learn how to become code breakers, text participants, text users and text analysts.
§ Use the question WHY? why did the author do this, why do the characters
§ Have a particular group of kids in mind when framing the question - match the learning needs to the particular group of kids.

Guided Reading Lesson - Mythical Creatures, written by Tracey Michele
The guided reading will be for a Year 4/5 with moderate reading ability. Read the whole book
What will these book be about? What is mythical?
Does anyone recognise the mythical creatures on the front cover?
Looking at the contents page, how many creatures are there and what are they?
Do you think the writer is being fair in telling us about this topic?
After reading about each creature - Where is the mythical creature located? What does located mean? What are some of the characteristics? What are characteristics

Book 6: The Shack That Dad Built

Book Title: The Shack that Dad Built
Author: Elaine Russell
Year: 2004
Genre: True Story


'Elaine Russell' has based this story on her life and the memories she had as a child, when they moved to La perouse in New South Wales. The story is about her dad building a shack on the beach with tin, rubbish tips and a dirt floor'. This story illustrates a true story about a young indigenous childhood, which showed both a bit of comedy and sadness. The story is written in small paragraphs on each page, with a large bright picture about illiusutrating what is happening in that piece of text.

This book would be suitable for middle-upper primary, as it would be a bit harder for younger students to understand who the indigenous people are and the difference in cultures. This story would be suitable to use in an English lesson, or SOSE if studying indigenous culture.

Book 5

Out Of The Blue

Stories and Poems About Colour

Written by Hiawn Oram and Illustrated by David McKee

This book is a collection of stories and poems that have the underlying theme of colour. For each colour there are a few stories/poems. The illustrations are quite startling, intense depictions of colour. The book can be used for a few years. There are simple stories and complex ones but all have illustrations which tell the story well.

Book 4

Scooby-Doo - The Camping Caper

Written by Gail Herman

Scooby-Doo The Camping caper written by Gail Herman is a mystery in an easy to read format. It is one of many in the Scooby-Doo series. The book would suit beginning readers it’s about a super sleuth dog (Scooby-doo) and his companion Shaggy who belong to the Mystery Inc gang. It evolves around the many mysteries they get involved in. The camping caper is illustrated by Duendes del Sur, the pages are colorful and would capture the attention of early readers. The Mystery Inc. gang goes camping in Coolsville Woods and mysteries need to be solved it allows the reader to help solve them. Scooby-doo and Shaggy go to collect fire wood because they didn’t want to hear a scary story been told by the gang around the campfire, however walking in the woods was a scary story all of its own.