The Reading class was always quite entertaining because there were many thrilling activities attached to the “Book of the Week”. The children thoroughly enjoyed the “Oxford Reading Tree” series and looked forward to the literacy hour.
In class I had created a corner where the ‘Book of the Week’ would be displayed and children would be counting days to get a hold of their copy. I always followed a set pattern as far as the reading was concerned. We all sat in a circle on the mat. The copies of the story were distributed. We went through the pictures first, covering the text. The logic there was to satisfy their curious minds that focused on the visuals primarily.
To ensure that their interest in reading the story would remain, I encouraged them to construct their own version of the story through the evidence in the pictures. So when we finally got down to reading the story, they followed with their fingers quite rigorously so as to compare the similarity and differences in thoughts. The reading was always a quiet and focused activity. In the process, they underlined all the interesting words that were either new or challenging to be discussed later.
Once the vocabulary had been examined and clarified, the children heard and followed the story a second time, only this time through my recorded voice. I made sure, I added the appropriate expressions gathered through the story punctuation.
On the second week, I always planned an additional activity to the story to help children exercise their analytical skills much needed in developing good reading skills. Here, I’d like to share a fun activity that I prepared for my students while reading the ORT stage 9 book, “The Litter Queen”.
The story rotated around a magical adventure that the famously familiar characters of the series embarked upon while on a picnic to the country-side. There they encountered the Litter Queen who used them to litter the beautiful country-side and enjoyed the ignorant behaviours of the people throwing their rubbish and spoiling the country-side beauty.
After a lot of thinking, I came to the conclusion that if they were to examine the story and characters and reflect on their learning, the best way to do it would be through a ‘trial in a make-belief courtroom’! I divided them into groups of six. The group had to work independently to come at a unanimous decision on whether the ‘ruining of the country-side’ was the responsibility of the people or the litter queen who controlled the thinking and actions of these people.
The vocabulary was key to this trial. The flashcards were pasted on the soft board. “Judge, Lawyers, Jury, Witness, Defendant, Evidence, Verdict, Penalty”. Each group was provided with a chart paper to present their case in whichever manner they wished. A lot of recyclable material like cloth strips, old coloured paper, newspaper and plastic bags were also given to each group to use their imagination and creativity to the maximum.
As I walked about the classroom, I could sense their strong debate on whether to blame the temptress or the tempted. “Kipper had no choice! She would have punished him harshly for not following her commands!”; “He did eventually come to understand his weakness!”; “No! He was just saved by the magic key which started to glow just in time to get him out of his misery! I would blame the Litter Queen who used him to destroy the greenery around!”; “And what about the time that they stopped at the fast food outlet? They threw their garbage out of the car window!”, “Only because the bin was full!”, “So, we shouldn’t make an effort if the bin is full? It doesn’t become right!”
The discussions were the true learning that had happened that day. Eventually, majority of the groups presented their trial in pictures on the chart framing a ‘guilty’ verdict for the litter queen who forced poor Kipper to commit the crime. They signed their names as members of the Jury. The penalties provided quite a lot of humour in the class! One group sentenced the Queen to a 100 years in a cell filled with rubbish and smell! Another one punished her by demanding her to clean the country-side and apologize to Kipper!
Only one group out of four declared Kipper as the culprit, as he had the tendency to be lazy about taking care of the environment!
I allowed them their viewpoints and appreciated the art work that was finally displayed on our soft-boards in the corridor.
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