Today I made a double lesson English to get through the reading tests.
We started with our conversation and another boy said that he was ready. He did it great too. There was just one short hesitation. I reminded the rest of the class that the aim was, that every one of them had this conversation with me by the end of the first quarter which was only one week to go.
I explained them, that if they still needed to practise, they could ask one of their class mates to read the "Mrs. Kündig part" and that they could try to give the answers without looking at the text. Because it's always there above the blackboard.
Today I asked them, what song they wanted to sing and the first answer I got was "what are you waiting for" and that's the song we sang.
Then the time had come for the "reading test".
Before the school started, I happened to see the boy that was struggling so much with standing in front of the class and I asked him how he felt about the reading today. He told me that he was very nervous. I said that I realised that he did so well with me in this room but as there were "hundreds" of ears around that he hardly read a word out loud. I told him, that there would be two chances for each child. One in front of the class and one with me in the room, reading to the dictating machine but I didn't want to torture him by making him stand in front of the class and that he could tell me if he didn't want to do it but he assured me that he would try and I told him how proud I was!
I handed out this Worksheet I found on the "penguin readers" homepage. It's a worksheet with questions about the six stories in the book. So while groups 3-6 read through the questions to stories 1+2 the groups 1+2 came to the front and we organised the order in which they were going to read.
Before they started reading I asked the class what they'd be doing while they listen to the story to make sure everyone was reading along and highlighting the unknown words.
Then group 1 started. The boy I talked to before school was the second reader of this group and I have to admit I was kind of nervous too. But as he started reading, he did this so beautifully I was close to tears! I'm not putting the videos in this blog but the recordings I made later in a separate room. So you'll get the chance to hear them all.
That's how we went all the way through all the texts. So we stopped after two texts and I let them answer the questions and had the next two groups to come to me to decide which of them would read which part of the text. There were four kids reading the Caterpillar story and they looked at me a little disappointed as I divided the text into four sections so I let each child read half the text. This meant that the class heard the text twice but they did not mind. And even those children who have already read the stories wanted to read again :-)
While they read I tried to highlight those words they didn't pronounce correctly and the other teacher filmed them.
After each story we discussed the vocabulary and after the second "what's a ___?" question I repeated all the longer questions with the class and asked them to use them as well and they did.
So after the last group was through reading I asked the class to work on this worksheet and took the first group into the other room. There I told them, which words they hadn't pronounced correctly and let them read. Here are all these FANTASTIC results:
Story 1 - The Rainbow Serpent brings animals onto the earth
Again I would like to point out the second reader. He's freed of learning targets in Math, German, French, English and "People and Environment". Can you notice a difference between him and the others? Well his text was a little shorter and maybe not too difficult but I think he did fantastic!
Story 2 - The kangaroo makes a friend
In this story the second reader is actually really good in English but after class, he admitted that he hadn't really practised with the audio book. Can you hear the difference here?
Before getting ready with the next group, I realised that the bell would ring in about a minute but the two girls still wanted to read their story so I quickly went back to the classroom and told the others to get ready for the break and ended the lesson as usual and this time I didn't have ask my questions twice. It's still not as convincing as I want it to be but a lot better than last time.
So I went back to the room and waited for the loud break-noise to go by and let the girls read their story.
Story 3 - The frog finds a voice
The second reader of this story is such a shy girl. She hardly ever speaks. But she did such a good job. At the end of the story you can tell how nervous she became.
In the afternoon, after getting through the "Klassenrat" (where the class sits in a circle and discusses issues) quickly I had the chance to record two more groups while the others wrote on a German project.
Story 4 - Man listens to the Platypus
The first reader has a "recognised language problem". Can you tell? Well I can't!
Story 5 - The caterpillars answer a difficult question
The sixth group will read on Monday. One of them was ill.
I'll write a separate post about how I sit here, trying to grade these readings...
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