Stone 1.mp4

Direct Instruction

The learning intention for this lesson was for the students to summarise the main ideas in a text. We were also introducing reciprocal reading to the group.

This lesson took place in the first couple of weeks of term one when I was establishing the reading programme for my class. This video shows the first time that the group used reciprocal reading to unpack a text, although I had introduced the idea to the class before. In this lesson we were still focussed on the framework of reciprocal reading and getting used to the various roles.

Extended plan here

Reflection

The students were particularly quiet and shy of the camera in this lesson. It was captured very early on in the term and it was our first time using reciprocal reading to unpack a book. I had to use a lot of wait time, which I have cut out of the film (it made the video too long and was very dull to watch!). However, in the second session of reciprocal reading (the second half of the video), you will notice that the students begin to talk more. I wanted to accurately portray the set up - in reality it takes a few sessions at the start of the year before all of the students openly share.

Things to note

As this was my first video of the year with a new class, many of them are camera shy! Some of these students are still developing their academic language, while others are often quiet and reserved in class. I wanted to show this group because these are the students who will benefit the most over time from doing reciprocal reading - from having to take responsibility for part of the lesson and from speaking out more. Due to the nature of reciprocal reading, these students don't have to always have the answers, but can speak up when asking questions instead.

You may like to compare this lesson with my reciprocal reading lesson from 2019. This was captured later in term one when the students had more confidence, with an articulate group of learners. With that group, we used reciprocal reading for a short time and it quickly became a framework that supported conversation and helped us to learn turn taking. In contrast, I will use reciprocal reading with this group for the entire term or until they are confident enough to freely share their ideas and predict, ask questions and summarise texts.