Making novels accessible for everyone.
This year we have been making great use of our headsets at school. We have been able to enhance our teaching (and student engagement) of the novel, Master of the Grove by Victor Kelleher by providing audio files to our students. Each of the teachers at year 8 have graciously given up their time to record the files and the students have been just as eager to get their hands on them. The files have enabled weaker students to access, what would otherwise be, an inaccessible novel.
We have also scrapped one of our previous tasks, chapter summaries, in favour of a comic strip. Instead of having to complete a summary of every chapter, students were allocated one chapter in which they had to summarise the main information in four frames of a comic. We completed the first chapter as a class on the IWB and I showed them one I had prepared earlier using Toondoo. Students presented their comics to the class at the beginning of each new lesson to recap what happened in the previous chapter. These comics were then pinned up at the back of the room in chapter order so that students had a constant visual summary of the text. Students were able to draw their comics by hand or use one of the many web 2.0 comic creating tools on offer.
We have found that these strategies, as well as summarising the information prior to reading, has greatly assisted those students with lower literacy levels in successfully completing the novel.
Do you have kids that don’t follow along in the book as they listen? I had some success with audio books in the past, but that was a constant issue.
To keep the high level kids engaged, maybe you can let them read ahead and then record chapters for other students to listen to.
Cool blog, I enjoyed the read!
Hi John, thanks for your comment. I know in the past that we’ve had kids that did not follow along but I didn’t notice it as much with this novel. We only read one chapter at a time in class, which meant students were only listening for approximately 20 minutes.
I encourage my brighter students to read the novel for a second time as you pick up a lot more when you read a novel for a second time. If students asked whether they could keep reading ahead, I usually allowed them to do so. The only time when I didn’t allow them to read ahead was when we were doing activities specifically related to that chapter.
Cheers,
Mark
Hi & sorry for contacting you this way. Just couldn’t find your email.
I’ve created a software that assists words memorization & provides a way to exchange dictionaries. You might find it useful. Available at http://wordoholic.com
Thanks for your time,
Alex.