Explicitly teaching listening strategies and visualization techniques to Prep students can improve comprehension and oral retelling

of text.

Abstract Comprehension is a fundamental skill, and as such, time should be devoted to teaching children to comprehend. Recent research supports the focused teaching of comprehension strategies and has found that children benefit from instruction at a young age. One particular comprehension strategy which has produced great improvements in comprehension levels is visualization. This strategy refers to the act of a reader creating pictures in their mind based on information they read or hear. The act of listening is also an essential skill. Directly linked to school success, listening impacts greatly on ones ability to read, write, speak and reason. Although listening is the first language skill to develop early in life, it is not an instinctive skill. Listening is a competence which also must be taught.

This intervention investigated the effects of direct instruction in listening and visualization techniques as a vehicle for improving comprehension and recall of text. The current study was based on the belief that a group of role-play and experimental readers exhibiting poor listening skills would benefit from explicit teaching in appropriate listening behaviours, in addition to training in visualization techniques. The aim of this study was to increase the amount of subject matter spontaneously recalled during a comprehension retell.

Both groupings of students were pre-tested and post-tested using the Record of Oral Language; the Comprehension Retell Task, the Visual Symbolic Processing Task and the Visualization Drawing / Oral Retell Task. The intervention group then received intensive instruction in both listening strategies and visualization techniques.

The results of this study indicate that training in both listening strategies and visualization techniques does appear to improve the comprehension and oral retelling of text for a group of Prep students. The improvements, as demonstrated by the statistical data, therefore support the hypothesis, explicitly teaching listening strategies and visualization techniques to Prep students can improve comprehension and oral retelling of text.

Introduction In simple terms, reading can be described as the ability to obtain meaning from sequences of letters represented as words. However, reading is an incredibly complicated act. It requires a solid understanding of the dynamic relationship between letters and sounds, as well as the coordination of various skills, knowledge and strategies. Effective readers use their metacognitive knowledge to monitor their reading activity, as well as draw on their existing knowledge and sensory capacities to further develop their comprehension of the text. This ability to comprehend is of critical importance during reading.

Comprehension is a process of reading. Successful comprehension relies on the readers motivation to make sense of the text they read, connecting ideas to their prior knowledge. Readers usually comprehend at the sentence level, however, in a bid to decode the text, a reader may occasionally descend to the word level. Comprehension can occur during the act of reading or after the act itself, as the reader reflects on what theyve read. Reading comprehension or lack there of, has been of foremost concern for a number of years (Fountas & Pinnell, 1996).

As comprehension is such a fundamental skill, a great deal of time should be devoted to actually teaching children to comprehend. It is imperative to instruct children how to understand and make meaning of what they read. Comprehension is a complex and demanding task, requiring the reader to possess a repertoire of strategies. Children must be taught how to analyse grammatical conventions. They must be taught how to interpret sentence propositions. They must be taught how to use meaning, syntax and visual cues to their advantage. Comprehension strategies therefore must be explicitly taught (Fountas & Pinnell, 1996; Munro 2008) 3

Researchers have found that children benefit from focused teaching of comprehension strategies and as such, comprehension instruction should be implemented from a young age even as early as kindergarten (Block & Israel, as cited in McKown & Barnett, 2007). Teachers must do more than simply teach comprehension strategies. The teacher must provide a name for the strategy being taught and identify when and how the strategy should be used. The teacher must also accurately model the strategy providing a verbal think-aloud dialogue so the students better understand the process. Finally, the teacher must provide opportunities for the students to practice using the strategy, within a secure group environment, ideally with a partner initially and then finally independently (Duke & Pearson, 2002).

One particular comprehension strategy which has produced great improvements in comprehension levels is visualization. The visualizing strategy refers to the act of a reader creating pictures in their mind based on information they read or hear. A readers inability to visualize is in fact a common obstruction of comprehension (Parsons, 2006).

Research in support of using visualization techniques to assist comprehension includes studies completed by Center, Freeman, Robertson and Outhred (1999), Guerrero (2003) and Parsons (2006). According to Centre, et al. (1999, p. 251) a representational visual imagery training programmewhich is embedded within a listening comprehension instructional programme, does appear to improve the listening and reading comprehension skills of a group of low comprehenders.

Guerrero (2003) further supports the belief that visualization is indeed a powerful tool in improving levels of comprehension and recall. Using specific instruction in visualization techniques with second grade students, Guerrero observed that 60 per cent of the research subjects showed progress in their reading comprehension.

Research conducted by Parsons (2006) further attests to the benefits of using visualization as a means of engaging readers to fully experience the realm of story. The author sought to explore the motivating factor which drives avid readers. Parsons (2006, p. 493) discovered that visualization allows readers to feel they are present in the story world or that they have actually become one of the characters. It is through this deep immersion in the story that meaningful comprehension and understanding of the text occurs (Parsons, 2006).

Scientifically speaking, visualizing whilst reading enhances ones comprehension and recall as it encourages right and left brain hemispheric integration. One is able to create new neural pathways, as well as correlate those already existing, by engaging both sides of the brain simultaneously. The expansion of the brains neural network improves long term memory and promotes more efficient learning outcomes (Marshall, 2008).

A distressing reality is that many children do not visualize as they read. Role-play and experimental readers in particular, who are not personally involved in the act of reading, often become passive spectators in the reading process. These readers rely on the illustrations to support their comprehension of the text. Visualizing is one such strategy which allows the passive listener to be more actively involved in the text. Role-play and experimental readers should be encouraged to create mental images as they listen to stories being read aloud. They should be encouraged to link these images with their own 5

experiences. These images can assist the role-play and experimental reader to better understand and remember the information they hear. Creating visual images aides in and improves retention for the listener (Marshall, 2008; Parsons, 2006).

Sandall, Schramm & Seibert (2003) reason that children who visualize what they hear whilst listening to oral stories, participate more actively in the story as they have engaged their imagination. However, a barrier to role-play and experimental readers visualizing as they listen to a story lies in their inability to listen appropriately. Listening is more than hearing. It is complex mental process requiring discipline and energy.

The act of listening was once an integral part of society, at times a means of survival. In the past, communities would gather and pass on information verbally through oral story telling. As the elder told stories, the rest of the community listened, visualizing what they heard. Speaker and listener would collaboratively partake in this linguistic form of communication. Listening was woven into daily routine, ritual and celebration (Marshall, 2008, Winch, RossJohnston, March, Ljungdahl & Holliday, 2004).

However society has changed dramatically since then. For example, technological advances have significantly impacted on the lives of children. Electronic entertainment has taken precedence over conversation, dialogue and active listening. Children are regularly occupied by passive listening experiences which require little or no thinking (Sandall, et al., 2003).

Listening is an essential skill, directly linked to school success. It impacts greatly on ones ability to read, write, speak and reason. Although listening is the first language skill to

develop early in life, listening is not an instinctive skill. Rather it is a competence which one must be taught.

Maintaining eye contact with the speaker together with appropriate body posture are two examples of the fundamental listening behaviours which children need to learn. Teachers can instruct children in appropriate listening behaviour by modeling and demonstrating the skills involved in being a good listener. The use of visual aides further enhances this understanding by providing a ready reference for children and reminding them of correct listening behaviours (Sandall, et al., 2003).

Children must also be given a purpose for listening. When provided with a motivation to listen, children are better able to focus on and understand what is being said. Once children learn the art of listening critically, they are better able to interpret, process and understand the information they hear (Sandall, et al., 2003).

This intervention focused particularly on direct instruction in listening and visualization techniques as a vehicle for improving comprehension and recall of text. It is based on the belief that a group of role-play and experimental readers exhibiting poor listening skills would benefit from explicit teaching in appropriate listening behaviours. In addition, the students would also receive training in visualization techniques with the aim of increasing the amount of subject matter spontaneously recalled during a comprehension retell.

It is anticipated that the students who have received the intervention will be able to: Demonstrate appropriate listening behaviours; Instinctively use visualization as a strategy to support comprehension; 7

Represent their visualization by drawing illustrations; Successfully and automatically retell a text verbally.

Prediction Explicitly teaching listening strategies and visualization techniques to Prep students can improve comprehension and oral retelling of text.

Method Design Utilizing a case study OXO design, the study compared the achievements of two similar groupings of students, a control group and an intervention group. Improvements in comprehension and oral retelling of text were monitored, following explicit teaching of listening strategies and visualization techniques for Prep students.

Both groupings of students were pre-tested using the Record of Oral Language, the Comprehension Retell Task, the Visual Symbolic Processing Task and the Visualization Drawing / Oral Retell Task. The intervention group then received intensive instruction in both listening strategies and visualization techniques. Both the control group and the intervention group were then post-tested, using the Record of Oral Language, the Comprehension Retell Task, the Visual Symbolic Processing Task and the Visualization Drawing / Oral Retell Task. The pre and post assessments hence provided comparative data pertaining to the effectiveness of the explicit teaching.

Participants The research was conducted at a small co-educational school with a total enrolment of approximately one hundred and eighty students. The school is located in a metropolitan area with a diverse socio-economic and multicultural neighborhood. The school has two Prep classes, each class comprising of sixteen students. Both classes contain approximately equal numbers of female and male students - eight boys and eight girls in the control group, seven boys and nine girls in the intervention group. All Prep students enrolled in the school, thirtytwo in total, participated in the study. Both classes of students were chosen as participants in

the case study as this enabled greater comparison and analysis of student performance data across the year level.

Students participating in the study ranged in age from fifty-six to seventy-four months. The average age of the students was sixty-three months. At the commencement of the case study all students were classified as non-readers with the exception of three students, Student JJ in the control group and Students H and M in the intervention group. Eight students from the control group and nine students from the intervention group, approximately 53% of all participants, spoke English as their second language. Again, almost half of the participants, approximately 47%, received the Governments Educational Maintenance Allowance. Table 1 (Appendix 1) provides a profile of the students participating in the study.

One Prep class was assigned to the intervention condition and as such received explicit teaching in listening strategies and visualization techniques. The second Prep class was the designated control group and therefore did not receive a fore mentioned intervention.

After consultation with each of the Prep classroom teachers it was evident that the students in this grade level presented with poor listening skills and therefore required specific instruction in appropriate listening behaviour. Contrary to this, both Prep classes reportedly enjoyed listening to stories and gained great pleasure from this activity. However, the requirement to listen during shared story activities appeared to be motivated purely by pleasure. The majority of students recalled very few details when asked to retell stories they had previously listened to. The students had not yet learned the importance of making sense of what they heard. Nor had they been taught the necessary skills essential for active listening. This consequently revealed a need to explicitly teach the students a further strategy 10

for listening to and understanding what they hear, one such strategy being visualization. The case study endeavored to address this inadequacy through teaching in listening strategies and visualization techniques.

Materials The materials used during the intervention are as follows: Tests (Appendix 2) o Record of Oral Language (Clay, et al, 1983) o Comprehension Retell Task o Visual Symbolic Processing Task (Munro, 2008) o Visualization Drawing / Oral Retell Task Lesson Plans (Appendix 3) o 10 lessons providing explicit instruction in listening strategies and visualization techniques Resources (Appendix 5, 6 & 7) o A collection of teaching tools, reference posters and black line masters used in conjunction with the lesson plans to reinforce learning. Stationery items o Various items including whiteboard pens, blank paper, coloured pencils, sticky notes, etc Equipment o Whiteboard o Photocopier o Laminator

11

Procedure Letters were sent home to the parents of all Prep students prior to the commencement of the case study. Parental consent was obtained for all participants. The case study - the pretesting, teaching sequence and post-testing - was administered by the classroom teacher.

Pretesting A total of four different assessment tools were used to gain information about the participants literacy related skills prior to the explicit teaching. All students were individually administered the following pre-tests: Record of Oral Language, the Comprehension Retell Task, the Visual Symbolic Processing Task and the Visualization Drawing / Oral Retell Task (Clay, et al, 1983, Munro, 2008). Due to the length of time required for the testing the students were withdrawn from class on two separate occasions, completing both the Record of Oral Language and the Comprehension Retell Task during the first instance, and the Visual Symbolic Processing Task and the Visualization Drawing / Oral Retell task during the second.

The first task, the Record of Oral Language, consisted of forty-two sentences arranged in three sequential levels of gradient difficulty. The students were required to listen to and precisely repeat a series of sentences. Due to the high percentage of ESL participants, all students commenced the task at Level One and progressed through the remaining two levels. The task was terminated when the student provided three consecutive unsuccessful responses. The task afforded valuable information regarding the students oral language abilities prior to the intervention (Clay, et. al., 1983).

12

The next task, a modified version of the Comprehension Retell, was administered in order to determine the students ability to understand and construct meaning from text prior to the intervention. Students were asked to listen carefully to a short dictated story. They were subsequently required to retell the story using their own words, thus demonstrating their understanding of text. Students, who experienced difficulty fulfilling this request independently, were then asked a series of questions, therefore revealing any additional knowledge they may have acquired from the text. (Munro, 2008).

The Visual Symbolic Processing Task was the third task to be implemented. Students were given one minute to complete the task of determining whether a specific symbol appeared in a corresponding series of four symbols. This task sought to determine the students visual processing capabilities pre intervention (Munro, 2008).

The final task, the Visualization Drawing / Oral Retell Task, was developed by the researcher. The task was designed and used pre intervention to measure both the degree to which students listened to and made sense of a text at a literal level and the extent to which the student represented their mental imagery pictorially. The students were instructed to listen to a short dictated story and form a mental image based on what they heard. Next, they were directed to draw an illustration representing this mental image. Finally the students were asked to retell the story using their own words. Students were prompted a maximum of three times using generic questions (e.g. Can you remember anything else?) with the purpose of further encouraging story recall.

13

Lessons The intervention group received explicit teaching in listening strategies and visualization techniques immediately after the pre-testing. The ten lessons were implemented over three consecutive weeks. Each lesson transpired for forty-five minutes, resulting in the participants partaking in a total of four hundred and fifty minutes of instruction. Lessons were held in the intervention students regular classroom and conducted by their regular classroom teacher. Each lesson was implemented in the morning and timetabled as part of the daily Literacy session.

The control group did not receive any explicit teaching in listening strategies and visualization techniques, and therefore continued to participate in their normal classroom program. However, it should be noted that the control group had recently been exposed to explicit teaching in synonyms and positional language in an attempt to improve their oral language. This was due to both classroom teachers of the control grade also being involved in action research projects, and therefore nominating their own class as the intervention group for each individual case study.

The lesson format was modeled on the Gallagher and Pearsons Gradual Release of Responsibility Model (1983, cited in Into the Book, 2009). Gradual Release of Responsibility Model 1. Demonstration 2. Guided Practice 3. Independent Practice 4. Application Gallagher and Pearson (1983) 14

This design facilitated the students transition from completing activities with the full guidance and support of the teacher, through to completing activities independently.

Content for the explicit teaching lessons was essentially drawn from the researchers own professional experience and knowledge of good teaching practices. However, a small number of initiatives used in the lesson plans were inspired by ideas presented in contemporary publications. The concept of the Listening Walk was replicated from a suggestion presented in Sandall, et al. (2003). This same article also provided inspiration for the Listening Star Reference Poster.

Munro (2006) offered a summary for teaching students the Visualizing Strategy. However, this concise sequence of lessons was designed for students who were independent readers. As the majority of participants in the present study were non-readers, the teacher narrated each of the texts used during the lessons. The term think-aloud was adopted from the writings of Duke and Pearson (2002). These authors advocated the use of the think-aloud as an effective instructional technique, stating that the practice, when used by both the teacher and the students, was associated with improved comprehension of text.

The majority of the lessons contained a passage of text composed by the researcher. However a limited amount of content was reproduced from commercially produced publications and consequently referenced accordingly. The reference posters and teaching tools were designed by the researcher specifically for the project in an attempt to reinforce student learning and improve learning outcomes.

15

The explicit teaching began with instruction in appropriate listening behaviours. These behaviours were revised incidentally on a daily basis. The students were then introduced to the visualization comprehension strategy. Instruction in visualization techniques continued for the duration of the lessons. Initially the students were required to visualize items based on a single word. But, as the students became more proficient in using the visualizing strategy, they were required to visualize items based on sentences of increasing length and complexity. A variety of visualization strengthening exercises and activities were included in the sequence of lessons to improve the students visual memories. At the end of each lesson the students were given opportunities to reflect on their newly acquired knowledge thus encouraging substantiated learning and progress to be made.

Each of the ten lessons is outlined briefly here. Lesson transcripts, administration procedures and resources are described in detail in the Appendix 3 - 7.

16

Lesson Focus
Teach appropriate listening behaviours

Teaching Strategy
Engagement Teacher highlights the importance of listening

Learning Activities
Teacher uses Listening Star Reference Poster to explain appropriate listening behaviours.

Introduce the visualization comprehension strategy Lesson 1 Focused Instruction Teacher explains visualization process

Students embark on a Listening Walk to practice their listening skills.

Teacher and students reflect on sounds heard during Listening Walk. Teacher use the think aloud technique to engage

Guided Practice Students practice visualization strategy in a safe and fun context

students prior knowledge and link it with the visualization process.

Teacher and students practice the visualizing strategy by playing a whole class game called Listen up. Reinforce the purpose for listening Engagement Teacher revises key content of previous lesson Revise appropriate listening behaviours Lesson 2 Focused Instruction Teacher explicitly explains Revise the visualization comprehension strategy Guided Practice Practice creating and describing visualizations based on a single word with teacher support Reinforce the purpose for listening Engagement Teacher revises significant content of previous lesson to ensure students Revise the visualization comprehension strategy Focused Instruction Independently create and Lesson 3 describe visualizations based on a single word Guided Practice Students work with a partner to practice visualization strategy Students independently practice visualization strategy by Independent Practice Students independently practice visualization strategy creating visualizations based on a single word. They then record their mental imagery on paper. Teacher helps students to reflect on their attempts and provides feedback where appropriate. Students work with a partner practicing visualization strategy using Mr. Orange and Mr. Yellow Teaching Tools. Teacher re-emphasizes the importance of listening Teacher uses Listening Star Reference Poster to re-explain appropriate listening behaviours. understand the visualizing strategy Teacher uses the Listening Star Reference Poster, the Visualizing Reference Poster and the Mr. Yellow and Mr. Orange Teaching Tools to revise significant content from lesson two. Teacher and students practice visualizing using Mr. Orange and Mr. Yellow Teaching Tools. Teacher and students practice visualization strategy in a safe and fun context Teacher and students practice visualizing single words using the Mr. Orange and Mr. Yellow Teaching Tools. visualization strategy Teacher uses Visualizing Reference Poster to explicitly explain visualization strategy. Teacher uses the Mr. Orange and Mr. Yellow Teaching Tools to describe and portray the visualization process. Teacher uses resources and content from lesson one to revise newly acquired knowledge. Teacher and students practice visualizing by playing a whole class game called Listen up.

17

Reinforce the purpose for listening

Engagement Teacher and students explore the benefits of visualization through

Teacher and students play a memory game called I went shopping to highlight the benefits of using the visualization strategy to aide memory.

Revise the visualization comprehension strategy

structured games Teacher and students play a memory game called Ears and Focused Instruction / Guided Mouth to highlight the benefits of using the visualization strategy to aide memory. Teacher scaffolds the students learning using the think aloud technique.

Lesson 4

Improve visualization ability through visual strengthening exercises/games

Practice Teacher and students explore the benefits of visualization through structured play

Students work with a partner and play the memory game Ears and Mouth to practice using the visualization strategy

Independent Practice Students work together to explore the benefits of visualization though structured play Reinforce the purpose for listening Engagement Teacher and students explore the benefits of visualization through Revise the visualization comprehension strategy Focused Instruction Identify key ideas that help create accurate Lesson 5 visualizations who/what? what doing? where? Guided Practice Create and describe visualizations based on a sentence with teacher support Teacher and students practice the visualization strategy together, identifying key ideas Teacher revises the visualization strategy, emphasizing the importance of identifying key ideas structured play

to aide memory.

Teacher and students play a memory game called Ears and Mouth to highlight the benefits of using the visualization strategy to aide memory. Teacher scaffolds the students learning using direct questioning and reflection.

Teacher uses Visualizing Reference Poster to revise visualization strategy. Teacher introduces the 4 Ws Traffic Light Teaching Tool and uses the think aloud technique to emphasize the importance of identifying key ideas in a text, such as who/what? what doing? and where? information.

Teacher guides students through the process of listening for and identifying key ideas in a text, such as who/what? what doing? and where? information.

Teacher leads students to reflect on their learning and Provide opportunities to verbally explore and reflect on text provides feedback where appropriate.

18

Reinforce the purpose for listening

Engagement Teacher and students explore the visualization strategy through

Teacher and students play a visualization game called Quick Draw to practice representing mental images using illustrations.

Revise the visualization comprehension strategy

structured play Teacher uses the 4 Ws Traffic Light Teaching Tool and to Focused Instruction emphasize the importance of identifying key ideas in a text, such as who/what? what doing? and where? information.

Identify key ideas that help create accurate Lesson 6 visualizations who/what? what doing? where?

Teacher revises the visualization strategy, emphasizing the importance of identifying key ideas

Using the think aloud technique the teacher assists the students to analyze a sentence and indentify the key ideas in a

Guided Practice Independently create and describe visualizations based on a sentence Teacher and students practice the visualization strategy together, identifying key ideas

text. Students practice representing their mental images using illustrations.

Teacher leads students to reflect on their learning and provides feedback where appropriate.

Provide opportunities to verbally explore and reflect on text Reinforce the purpose for listening

Independent Practice Students practice the visualization strategy independently Engagement Teacher and students explore the benefits of visualization through Students independently practice the process of listening for and identifying key ideas in a text Teacher and students play a game of Memory using 3D objects to highlight the benefit of using the visualization strategy to aide memory. Teacher uses the think aloud technique to emphasize the benefits of the visualization strategy. Focused Instruction / Guided Practice Teacher and students explore the benefits of visualization through structured play Teacher leads students to reflect on their learning and Independent Practice Students work together to explore the benefits of visualization though structured play provides feedback where appropriate. Students work with a partner and play a game of Memory using 3D objects to practice using the visualization strategy to aide memory.

Revise the visualization comprehension strategy Improve visualization Lesson 7 ability through visual strengthening exercises/games

structure games

19

Reinforce the purpose for listening

Engagement Teacher and students explore the benefits of visualization through

Teacher and students play a game of Memory using 3D objects to highlight the benefit of using the visualization strategy to aide memory.

Revise the visualization comprehension strategy

structure games Teacher revises through the process of listening for and Focused Instruction identifying key ideas in a text, emphasizing the benefits of using the visualization strategy to aide both memory and understanding. Teacher uses the think aloud technique to assist students to dissect a text. Students represent their mental images using drama and retell the text verbally. Independent Practice

Identify key ideas that help create accurate Lesson 8 visualizations who/what? what doing? where?

Teacher revises the visualization strategy, emphasizing the importance of identifying key ideas

Create and describe visualizations based on a series of sentences with teacher support

Students practice the visualization strategy independently

Students independently practice the process of listening for and identifying key ideas in a text. Students initially record their mental images of paper, but are invited to represent their mental images using drama. Students retell the text verbally

Provide opportunities to verbally explore and reflect on the text Reinforce the purpose for listening Engagement Teacher and students explore the visualization strategy through Revise the visualization comprehension strategy structured play

Teacher leads students to reflect on their learning and provides feedback where appropriate

Teacher and students play a visualization game called Quick Draw to practice representing mental images using illustrations.

Teacher uses think aloud technique to guide students through the process of listening for and identifying key ideas in a text.

Identify key ideas that help create accurate Lesson 9 visualizations who/what? what doing? where?

Focused Instruction Teacher revises the visualization strategy, emphasizing the importance of identifying key ideas

Teacher emphasizes the benefits of using the visualization strategy to aide both memory and understanding. Teacher and students represent their mental images using play dough. Students retell the text verbally.

Independently create and describe visualizations based on a series of sentences

Guided Practice Teacher and students practice the visualization strategy

Students independently practice the process of listening for and identifying key ideas in a text. They represent their mental images using play dough and retell the text verbally.

Independent Practice Provide opportunities to verbally explore and reflect on the text Students practice the visualization strategy independently

Teacher leads students to reflect on their learning and provides feedback where appropriate.

20

Reinforce the purpose for listening

Engagement Teacher and students explore the benefits of visualization through

Teacher and students play a memory game called I went shopping to highlight the benefits of using the visualization strategy to aide memory.

Revise appropriate listening behaviours

structured games Teacher uses reference material to review appropriate Focused Instruction listening behaviours, the visualizing strategy and to emphasize the importance of listening for and identifying key ideas in a text such as who/what? what doing? and where? information.

Revise the visualization comprehension strategy

Teacher and students collaboratively revise content from lessons 1 9

Revise key ideas that help Lesson 10 create accurate visualizations who/what? what doing? where?

Independent Practice Students practice the visualization strategy independently Students practice the process of listening for and identifying key ideas in a text. Students retell the verbally.

Teacher leads students to reflect on their learning and Independently create and describe visualizations based on a series of sentences Students reflect on their learning using words, and illustrations. provides feedback where appropriate

Provide opportunities to verbally explore and reflect on text

Post testing Post-testing was conducted over several weeks following the explicit teaching lessons. The four original assessment tools were used once again to assess the possible changes in the students learning as a result of the explicit teaching. Both the control group and the intervention group were individually administered the following post-tests: Record of Oral Language; the Visual Symbolic Processing Task; the Visualization Drawing and Oral Retell Task and the Comprehension Retell Task (Clay, et al., 1983, Munro, 2008). Once again, due to duration of the assessment the students were tested on two separate occasions, completing both the Record of Oral Language and the Comprehension Retell Task during the first instance, and the Visual Symbolic Processing Task and the Visualization Drawing / Oral Retell task during the second.

21

The Record of Oral Language was used again to measure growth in the students oral language abilities post intervention. The Comprehension Retell was implemented again to determine whether the students improved in their ability to understand and construct meaning from text as a result of the explicit teaching. The Visual Symbolic Processing Task was repeated to ascertain whether the students visual processing capabilities increased after the explicit teaching. The Visualization Task was completed again to ascertain whether students increased their awareness of text information at a literal level, and to see whether the students mental imagery representations included greater substance and detail as a consequence of the explicit teaching. The data from the pretest and post-test assessments were collated and analysed. The results are presented in the following section.

22

Results This research aimed to improve listening comprehension in the focus intervention group through instruction in appropriate listening behaviours and visualization methods. The results indicate that training in both listening strategies and visualization techniques, using a program such as the lesson plans outlined in this study, does appear to improve the comprehension and oral retelling of text for a group of Prep students. This conclusion therefore supports the hypothesis, explicitly teaching listening strategies and visualization techniques to Prep students can improve comprehension and oral retelling of text.

Table 2 Control Group Pre-test Post-test 9.1 11.9 3.1 3.5 6.1 7.2 5.1 3.1 3.6 7.4 7.1 6.0 Intervention Group Pre-test Post-test 11.7 15.6 2.1 1.9 6.2 7.3 3.9 7.9 3.1 9.8 13.4 13.2

Measure Record of Oral Language Comprehension Retell Task - Spontaneous Comprehension Retell Task - Cued Visual Symbolic Processing Task Visualization Drawing Task Visualization Oral Retell Task

Average Scores for the Control and Intervention Groups on Pre-test and Post-test Measures

Results from the pre-test data indicated that, on average, intervention students were reasonably matched to their control counterparts. From the onset, the average student in the intervention scored slightly higher results in the Record of Oral Language pre-test than the average control student, by 2.6 marks. Then again, the average control student achieved slightly better results in the spontaneous component of the Comprehension Retell Task, the cued component of the same task and the Visualization Oral Retell Task, by 1 mark, 1.6 23

marks and 1.2 marks respectively. Yet taking even these minor differences into account, the post-test evidence still indicates support of the hypothesis. Table 2 shows the average pretest and post-test scores for both groups.

Figure 1 demonstrates the Record of Oral Language Pre-test and Post-test scores for both the control (AA PP) and intervention groups (A P). On average, students from the control group improved their original pre-test score by 6.55%. However, students from the intervention group improved their original pre-test score by 9.23%. Therefore, the students participating in the intervention attained higher results than those of the control group, on average by almost 3%.

Figure 1
ROL Pre/Post-test Scores for Control and Intervention Groups
40

35

30

25 Score

20

15

10

0 AA BB CC DD EE FF GG HH II JJ KK LL MM NN OO PP A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Participants ROL Pretest ROL Post-test

The vast majority of participants in the intervention group demonstrated growth in their ability to accurately repeat sentences using the Record of Oral Language Task. Even those 24

intervention students who initially recorded a score of zero managed to achieve some degree of success in the post-test, ranging from a 2% to nearly a 12% improvement. The most significant score development between pre-test and post-test was recorded by two students from the intervention group. Both students, student D and student O, attained a 19% gain on their pre-test score. Admittedly, similarly impressive advances were achieved by students in the control group, with student BB and DD both achieving a 14% improvement on their initial pre-test score. Nonetheless, the overall results still maintain the proposal that the intervention students performed better than their counterparts as a result of the explicit teaching.

Figure 2 shows the results of the spontaneous component of the Comprehension Retell Task for both the control (AA PP) and intervention groups (A P). Initially the control group spontaneously recalled more information from the text than the intervention group, at a ratio of 3:2. In spite of this, the post-test data demonstrate that on average the intervention group surpassed their corresponding control, spontaneously recalling almost 8 pieces of information, and almost triple the amount of information recalled by the control.

On average the intervention group improved their scores for the spontaneous component of the Comprehension Retell Task by a massive 38.75%. Prior to the explicit teaching approximately one third of the intervention group were unable to spontaneously recall any information from the text during the pre-test assessment. However, after the explicit teaching experience, this same cluster of students improved their initial pre-test scores by up to 40%. These results add further substantiation to the suggestion that the explicit teaching had a positive impact on the intervention students.

25

Figure 2
Pre/Post-Test Scores for Spontaneous Comprehension Retell Task for Control & Intervention Groups
14

12

10

8 Score 6 4 2 0 AA BB CC DD EE FF GG HH II JJ KK LL MM NN OO PP A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Participants Spont. Comp. Retell Pretest Spont. Comp. Retell Post-test

Figure 3 illustrates the pre-test and post-test results of the Visual Symbolic Processing Task for both the control (AA PP) and intervention groups (A P). At the pre-test there was very little difference, on average, between the scores of students from the control group and those of the intervention group. Once again, the students receiving explicit training in listening strategies and visualization techniques continued to show a trend in the anticipated direction. The intervention students outperformed the control students on average by approximately 9%.

Five students from the intervention group, made exceptional gains in the Visual Symbolic Processing Task, improving their original pre-test scores considerably. Students H and I achieved a 27% gain, and Students A, M and O all achieving a 23% improvement.

26

Interestingly Student H and M are both competent readers, each student demonstrating a reading age beyond their chronological age.

Figure 3
Pre/Post-Test Scores for Visual Symbolic Processing Task for Control & Intervention Groups
25

20

15 Score 10 5 0 AA BB CC DD EE FF GG HH II JJ KK LL MM NN OO PP A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Participants Visual Symb. Process. Pretest Visual Symb. Process. Post-test

Figure 4 provides the pre-test and post-test data from the Visualization Drawing Task for both the control (AA PP) and intervention groups (A P). The median score for the pretest task was the same for both groups of students, 8.5. This was not the case, however, for the post-test results. Whilst the control group failed to improve their average score, the intervention group on average achieved a gain of 30%, demonstrating significantly greater growth than their peers. This outcome once again implies the students in the intervention group profited from the explicit teaching.

27

Figure 4
Pre/Post-Test Scores for Visualization Drawing Task for Control & Intervention Groups
25

20

15 Score 10 5 0 AA BB CC DD EE FF GG HH II JJ KK LL MM NN OO PP A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Participants Visual. Drawing Pretest Visual. Drawing Post-test

The results of this assessment task demonstrate compelling support of the hypothesis. After receiving explicit instruction in listening strategies and visualization techniques over half of the intervention participants improved their pre-test scores by 40% or more. Four students initially drew random items unrelated to the story during the pre-test assessment. However, the post-test shows how three of these students were able to recall, on average, 9 key ideas from the text. Two student from the intervention did not achieve any improvement in the drawing component of this task. However, one of these participants, student B, was able to verbally recall 20% more information from the text as evidenced by the Visual Retell Task. The greatest improvement recorded by the control was 10%, an improvement achieved by only two of the control participants.

Similar evidence can be found in Figure 5 depicting pre-test and post-test scores for Visualization Retell Task for both the control (AA PP) and intervention groups (A P). On 28

this occasion the pre-test results of the control group exceeded the pre-test results of the intervention to some extent. However the post-test figures indicate an increase in growth of intervention students, with the students obtaining a median score of 14 compared with the median score of 5.5 as attained by the control group.

Figure 5
Pre/Post-Test Scores for Visualization Retell Task for Control & Intervention Groups

25

20

15 Score 10 5 0 AA BB CC DD EE FF GG HH II JJ KK LL MM NN OO PP A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Participants Visual. Retell Pretest Visual. Retell Post-test

Thirteen of the sixteen intervention participants improved their post-test score by 30% or more, with one quarter of the participants increasing their post-test score by approximately 50%. The greatest gain was made by Student K, who initially failed to recall any information from the text. However after participating in the explicit teaching this student improved their pre-test score by 56%.

29

Analysis of the statistical data therefore indicate that the students participating in the intervention outperformed their corresponding control group as a result of receiving intensive instruction in listening behaviours and visualization techniques.

30

Discussion The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact explicit teaching in listening strategies and visualization techniques would have on the comprehension and oral retelling of text by Prep students. The results from the study provide strong support of the claim that use of explicit teaching in listening strategies and visualization techniques does improve the comprehension and oral retelling of text.

Upon reflection of the pre-test and post-test scores a number of inconsistencies are evident. But even these negligible irregularities all of which can be justified - do not refute the evidence demonstrated by the data.

The Record of Oral Language required students to repeat a series of sentences and as such provided valuable information regarding the students oral language abilities preceding and succeeding the intervention. The findings reveal that one student, Student F from the intervention group, regressed in their post-test score compared with their pre-test score. In spite of this outcome, this same student recorded the highest attainment level of all 32 participants in both the pre-test and post-test, achieving nearly 81% and 76% accuracy respectively. In terms of the Record of Oral Language Task, the discrepancy translates to a minimal 2 point difference. This decline in results should therefore not deter from the fact that the intensive instruction had a positive effect on the intervention group.

On average, students from the intervention group attained higher results in the Record of Oral Language Task than those of the control group, by almost 3%. By comparison, this difference may seem relatively inconsequential. However, considering the students from the control group had recently participated in two separate early literacy interventions, each time 31

as the intervention group, this result must hence be viewed as a major accomplishment in support of the hypothesis.

The Comprehension Retell was completed by the students to determine their ability to retell a narrated text, spontaneously in the first instance, then after being prompted or cued. It would appear from the results that the intervention students performed poorly in this task compared to the results of the control students. In contrast, the intervention group recorded quite significant improvements in their ability to retell the text spontaneously. In doing so, these students reduced and even exhausted their recollection of events and facts from the text and therefore had limited additional information to contribute to the cued component of the Comprehension Retell Task.

The Visual Symbolic Processing Task demanded the students to determine whether a specific symbol appeared in a corresponding series of four symbols, thus indicating the students visual processing abilities prior to and subsequent to the intervention. The results from the task indicated that the students receiving explicit training in listening strategies and visualization techniques outperformed the control students on average by approximately 9%.

The data for this particular task show a decline in the outcome of two intervention students, Students D and L. This apparent decrease in score is due to the fact that both of these students completed their pre-test assessment in a random fashion, despite explicit explanation. This action increased the amount of responses answered and therefore enhanced the likelihood of scoring an elevated result. The post-test results are a more accurate reflection of these students true ability as they completed this task in the appropriate manner. 32

Another student, Student G from the intervention group made very limited progress between the pre-test and post-test assessment. Prior to the intervention this student was referred to the Special Needs Co-ordinator. This student is currently awaiting further assessment.

As was predicted, the intervention group receiving intensive instruction in both listening strategies and visualization techniques were taught skills which allowed the students to retell and comprehension of a narrated text. These findings are similar to the research conducted by Guerrero (2003). The researcher sought to improve the comprehensive results for a small group of students by implementing a four week intervention based on teaching visualization as a tool for comprehension. Guerreros (2003) intervention produced favorable outcomes, with 93% of participants achieving improved text comprehension levels.

Comparable results were also attained by McKown and Barnett (2007) during their research investigating the use of higher-order thinking skills to improve the reading comprehension outcomes of lower primary students. The researchers concluded that instruction in an assortment of cognitive strategies, including visualization, had a positive result on the students comprehension scores. Almost three quarters of the students achieved 80% better in their post-test assessment after participating in the intervention.

The materials and methods used in the investigation were designed to allow for the study to be easily implemented by other teachers. Detailed lesson plans appear in Appendix 3, as do master copies of an assortment of resources used to complement the explicit teaching. One drawback to implementing the unit may be the time required to create the materials needed for each lesson. Commercially produced resources could be substituted as an alternative.

33

The use of a tape recorder or similar voice recording devise would also prove useful during the pre-testing and post-testing phase of the intervention. Documenting the oral retell of more capable students can prove to be quite challenging due to the speed of their retell versus the writing speed of the researcher.

Another possible amendment to the current study could be the inclusion of both anecdotal observations and an on-going checklist to document and assess the progress of individual students during the intervention. The researcher assessed the students work during the intervention, however only informal records were maintained. This modification would afford the researcher even more detailed information regarding the students ability.

It would be beneficial to follow up the current study with repeated assessment to see whether the improvements gained by the intervention students were maintained over a period of time. It is anticipated that the students would continue to use the learned strategies whenever possible, as well as continue to develop their knowledge of comprehension strategies throughout their primary education.

It would also be advantageous to study the effects of visualization training on early writing development of Prep students, as suggested by Centre, et al. (1999). After all, this study has demonstrated that visualization training can have a positive influence on the oral retell ability of Prep students. As reading, writing and speaking are so intrinsically linked, explicit teaching of the strategy may also assist the development of writing as well.

The current study conveys three key factors. Firstly, good listening skills are essential for school success. This research supports the belief that listening strategies can be taught 34

through explicit instruction. In doing so children are better equipped to translate, manage and comprehend the information they hear.

Secondly, visualization is a powerful tool and an even more powerful comprehension strategy. It improves long term recall and promotes a thorough understanding. Explicit teaching of the visualization strategy can improve the comprehension and retell of a narrated text as evidenced by the data presented in this study.

Thirdly, children who are not yet capable of reading independently can in fact benefit from instruction in comprehension techniques. By using higher order thinking skills, such as the visualization strategy, students can be taught to understand what they hear. Surely this would positively impact the students self efficacy, resulting in them being more prepared to comprehend a read text when the time comes for them to do so independently.

It is anticipated that knowledge of these key factors will help to assist teachers to correctly address the educational needs of the students in their care.

35

References Center, Y., Freeman, L., Robertson, G., & Outhred, L. (1999) The Effect of Visual Imagery Training on the Reading and Listening Comprehension of Low Listening Comprehenders in Year 2. Journal of Research in Reading, 22, 241 256. Clay, M. (2002) An Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement. Auckland, New Zealand: Heinemann Education. Clay, M., Gill, M., Glynn, T., McNaughton, T., & Salmon, K. (1983) Record of Oral Language and Biks and Gutches. Auckland, New Zealand: Heinemann Publishers. Duke, N.K., & Pearson, P.D. (2002) Effective practices for developing reading comprehension. What Research Has to Say About Reading, 3, 1 27. Fountas, I. C., & Pinnell, G. S. (1996). Guided Reading, Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann. Guerrero, A.M. (2003). Visualization and Reading Comprehension. Retrieved March 3, 2009, from http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/
1b/1b/69.pdf

Into the Book: Teacher Area: Visualizing: Lesson Plans Retrieved March 2, 2009 from http://reading.ecb.org/teacher/visualizing/visual_lessonplans.html McKown, B.A. & Barnett, C.L. (2007) Improving Reading Comprehension Through HigherOrder Thinking Skills. Retrieved March 3, 2009 from http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/ data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/28/09/00.pdf Marshall, M. (2008). Visualization. Retrieved March 3, 2009, from http://teachers.net/ gazette/JUN08/marshall/ Munro, J. (2006). Visualizing. Melbourne University Early Intervention Lecture Notes.

Munro, J. (2008). Melbourne University Early Intervention Lecture Notes. Paris, A.H. & Paris, S.G. (2007). Teaching Narrative Comprehension Strategies to First Graders. Cognition and Instruction, 25 (1), 1 44. Parsons, L.T. (2006) Visualizing Worlds from Words on a Page. Language Arts, 83, (6), 492 500. Sandall, N., Schramm, K. & Seibert A. (2003). Improving Listening Skills Through the Use of Childrens Literature. Retrieved March 3, 2009, from http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data
/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/1b/84/39.pdf

Winch, C., Ross Johnston, R., March, P., Ljungdahl, L. & Holliday, M. (2004) Literacy Reading Writing and Childrens Literature. Victoria, Australia: Oxford University Press.

36

Resources Tests Clay, M., Gill, M., Glynn, T., McNaughton, T., & Salmon, K. (1983) Record of Oral Language and Biks and Gutches. Auckland, New Zealand: Heinemann Publishers. Munro, J. (2008). Visual Symbolic Processing Task http://online.edfac.unimelb.edu.au/LiteracyResearch/pub/tests/VSP_SRS.pdf

Munro, J. (2008). Comprehension Retell Task http://online.edfac.unimelb.edu.au/LiteracyResearch/pub/tests/Retelling_TRS&SRS.pdf

Texts Norman, J. and Fletcher, M. (1991) Comprehension Checkpoints 1. Melbourne, Australia: Macmillian Education. Norman, J. and Fletcher, M. (1991) Comprehension Checkpoints 2. Melbourne, Australia: Macmillian Education.

37

Appendix 1 Tables Table 1 - Profile of Students participating in the study

Appendix 2 Testing Materials Record of Oral Language Comprehension Retell Task Visual Symbolic Processing Task Visualization Drawing / Oral Retell Task

Appendix 3 Lesson Plans Lessons 1 10

Appendix 4 Instructions for Games

Appendix 5 Teaching Tools Ears Teaching Tool Mr. Yellow Teaching Tool Mr. Orange Teaching Tool Mini Mr. Yellow and Mr. Orange Teaching Tools Stimulus Picture Strips Traffic Light Resource 38

Speech Bubble Posters Lessons Five and Six Stimulus Texts Lessons Eight, Nine and Ten

Appendix 6 Reference Posters Listening Star Visualizing

Appendix 7 Black Line Masters Thinking Bubble BLM

39

Spont. Comp. Retell Pretest

Spont. Comp. Retell Post-test

0 or 1 Intervention / Control Group

AA BB CC DD EE FF GG HH II JJ KK LL MM NN OO PP A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

74 72 57 61 69 66 63 61 57 56 62 70 57 56 60 63 60 64 63 64 65 58 58 65 62 60 60 66 61 63 69 64

1 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 1

0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 1

1 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0

11 9 11 17 14 10 2 13 10 12 0 7 10 4 9 7 22 20 14 7 0 34 0 8 8 0 8 0 18 8 21 19

12 15 11 23 16 12 4 18 13 14 0 10 13 7 10 12 25 25 17 15 4 32 1 12 10 5 12 5 24 12 29 21

7 2 0 8 4 1 3 4 2 4 3 4 0 3 3 1 3 0 0 1 4 4 0 3 4 0 4 1 2 0 7 0

7 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 2 4 1 4 0 2 3 3 11 4 6 9 9 10 3 11 8 3 9 7 11 4 12 9

3 3 0 4 3 3 2 4 4 7 5 3 7 4 0 4 4 3 3 2 2 3 0 1 1 2 2 1 1 3 1 2

3 0 1 5 2 4 1 4 3 7 7 5 7 5 1 2 2 5 5 4 3 4 1 2 2 4 3 3 2 5 1 3

5 5 6 2 9 4 6 9 7 7 9 8 5 9 4 3 4 1 8 7 7 5 1 15 2 4 3 11 11 7 10 3

7 5 6 8 10 3 7 10 7 11 9 11 6 9 4 6 10 3 11 6 12 10 5 22 9 8 7 5 17 9 16 6

14 0 3 12 11 9 3 11 8 0 14 5 12 10 3 0 13 8 9 9 10 7 0 12 0 0 0 8 12 11 12 6

13 0 4 11 10 7 5 6 8 1 15 7 11 11 4 0 14 8 20 14 16 16 0 20 8 9 11 11 16 17 20 14

9 0 4 9 6 3 6 4 5 8 9 5 6 5 2 0 8 5 5 3 10 6 0 5 0 0 0 0 5 3 10 3

Table 1 - Profile of Students participating in the study

Visual. Retell Posttest

Cued Comp. Retell Pretest

Cued Comp. Retell Post-test

Visual Symb. Process. Post-test

Gender 0=Female 1=Male

Visual Symb. Process. Pretest

Age in MONTHS

Visual. Drawing Pretest

Visual. Drawing Post-test

ROL Post-test

Visual. Retell Pretest

ESL No=0 Yes=1

EMA No=0 Yes=1

ROL Pretest

Name

14 3 4 9 8 5 5 5 6 5 9 7 7 7 2 0 16 10 15 11 19 20 0 15 4 12 14 11 14 14 21 15

Comprehension Retell

Instructions to student: I am going to read you a story. You must listen very carefully, because when I have finished, I am going to ask you to tell the story back to me. Read the following story to the student. Sammy the snake lived in the bush with his friends. He climbed trees looking for food. He ate birds eggs and small birds. Sometimes he would curl up and sleep in a tree. When it was cold he would lie in the sun to warm himself.
Text taken from Norman and Fletcher (1991, p. 19)

Upon completion, ask the student to provide a spontaneous retelling of the story in his/her own words. Award 1 mark for each idea in the text recalled by the student. Note the sequence of events.
Characteristic of retelling Main character Plot of the story Events of the story Ideas in the story No of ideas/ points 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 1 1 1 Students response spontaneous Students response cued

The main character is Sammy the Snake Sammy the snake lives in the bush Sammy lived in the bush with his friends He climbed trees to look for food He ate birds eggs and small birds He sometimes curled up and slept in the tree When it was cold, he lay in the sun to keep warm Snakes have to hunt food Birds do not like snakes Snakes do not like the cold Total

inferential ideas

Questions used for cueing: Who was the story about? Sammy the Snake (1 mark) What sort of animal was Sammy? Snake (1 mark) Where does the story take place? In the bush (1 mark) Who else lived in the bush with Sammy? His friends (1 mark) How did Sammy find his food? Climbed trees (1 mark) What did Sammy like to eat? Birds eggs & tiny birds (2 marks) How did Sammy like to sleep? Curled up in a tree (2 marks) How did Sammy try to keep warm? Lie in the sun (1 mark)

41

Visual Symbolic Processing Task http://online.edfac.unimelb.edu.au/LiteracyResearch/pub/tests/VSP_SRS.pdf

42

Visualization Drawing / Oral Retell Task

Instructions to student: I am going to read you a story. I want you to listen very carefully to the story and make an image in your mind to match what you hear. I will then ask you to draw a picture of your mental image. After that, I am going to ask you to tell the story back to me.

Read the following story to the student: David looked great in his costume for the fancy dress ball. He dressed as a pirate. He wore a black hat with a feather in it. Over one eye he wore a black patch and he had a red scarf around his neck. He wore a blue jacket and white pants but no shoes. In one hand he held a sword and in the other hand he had a bag of gold. It was really a bag of bottle tops.
Text taken from Norman and Fletcher (1991, p. 51)

Assessment Criteria Drawing Task

Oral Retell Task

Idea
Boy Pirate Hat Black (hat) Feather in hat Patch Black (patch) Over one eye Scarf Red (scarf)

Y/N

Idea
Around neck Jacket Blue (jacket) Pants White (pants) Without shoes Sword Held in hand Bag of gold Held in hand SCORE / 20

Y/N
David Boy

Idea

Y/N

Idea
Around neck Jacket Blue (jacket) Pants White (pants) Without shoes Sword Held in hand Bag of gold Held in hand Just a bag Bottle tops SCORE / 25

Y/N

In costume Fancy dress ball Pirate Hat Black (hat) Feather in hat Patch Black (patch) Over one eye Scarf Red (scarf)

43

Lesson: One Lesson Focus:

Duration: 45 minutes

Teach appropriate listening behaviours Introduce the visualization comprehension strategy

Prior Understandings:

Everyone has ears

Resources:

Ears Teaching Tool (Appendix 5) Listening Star Reference Poster (Appendix 6) Noisy outdoor area where students will have the opportunity to hear different sounds, e.g. voices, animals, traffic, etc

Whiteboard & whiteboard markers Instructions for Listen Up game (Appendix 4) Blank paper and pencils

Engagement:

Gather students together. Display Ears Teaching Tool to students. Use these to stimulate discussion about ears and listening, e.g. Can anyone tell me what these are? Where would I find them? Why do we have them? Direct the discussion so students understand that ears are important as we use them to listen to information.

Ask students to suggest how they should behave when they are listening. Accept and praise all suggestions. Display Listening Star Reference Poster and use this to explain appropriate listening behaviours. Invite students to demonstrate each of the listening behaviours in order to reinforce their understanding.

Tell students that they will have a chance to use their listening skills in the next activity, a Listening Walk. Encourage students to think about and suggest what a Listening Walk might involve. Explain they will be going outside and using their ears to listen to all of the different outside noises. Invite students to predict the possible outside noises they think they will hear. Record their responses on the whiteboard under the heading predicted sounds.

Once outside, instruct students to sit in a comfortable position. Remind students of the task and stress the importance of using appropriate listening behaviour.

Spend a couple of minutes listening to the various outside sounds. Next, allow individual students to identify and discuss the sounds they heard. Encourage all students to listen for that particular sound also.

Focused Instruction:

Return to classroom. Record the heard sounds on the whiteboard beside the predicted sounds list. Compare the predicted sounds with the heard sounds, highlighting the similarities and differences between the two lists. Discuss these with students.

44

Select a particular heard sound and discuss this with students, e.g. When we were outside we heard a bird singing. Did anyone actually see the bird making the sound? I didnt. How do we know that we were listening to a bird, even though we couldnt actually see the bird making the noise? Discuss responses. Help students to realize that they used prior knowledge stored in their brains to help them identify the source of the sound. Share and talk about your own personal experience of the activity, for example, When I heard the tweeting sound, I tried to remember if Id heard that sound before. And I had. Id previously seen and heard a bird make that sound. So as I was outside, listening to the tweeting sound, I thought about the animal that made that sound and imagined a picture of a bird Ask the students Did anyone else imagine a picture of a bird in their minds? Encourage students to describe their visualizations, for example: What did your bird look like? Where was your bird sitting? Etc.

Continue this discussion using other examples from the heard sounds list.

Guided Practice:

Explain to students that we can use our brains to help us better understand the things we hear, by making or imagining a picture in our mind. This is called visualizing. Help students to understand that when we visualize we see a picture in our mind based on something we hear. Check for understanding and repeat explanation if necessary.

Ask students to suggest times when they might visualize something they hear, for example, listening to a friend speak, listening to stories being read aloud, or listening to instructions in the classroom.

Tell students theyre going to practice visualizing by playing a game called Listen Up. Explain how the game is played. At the end of each turn allow individual students to discuss their visualizations, emphasizing the similarities and differences between these.

Reflection:

Using the Ears Teaching Tool and the Listening Star Reference Poster review newly acquired knowledge through explicit questioning, e.g. Why do we have ears? How do we behave when we are listening? What does our brain do when we are listening? etc.

Ask students to record their learning in a pictorial format on blank paper. Teacher to circulate, inspect and discuss students work individually.

Assessment: Can students identify appropriate listening behaviours? Do students understand what it means to visualize? Are students able to discuss and suitably describe their visualizations?

45

Lesson: Two Lesson Focus:

Duration: 45 minutes

Reinforce the purpose for listening Revise appropriate listening behaviours Revise the visualization comprehension strategy Practice creating and describing visualizations based on a single word with teacher support

Prior Understandings:

We use our ears to listen We make a picture in our minds to help us understand what we hear - visualization

Resources:

Ears Teaching Tool (Appendix 5) Listening Star Reference Poster (Appendix 6) Sticky note Instructions for Listen Up game (Appendix 4) Visualizing Reference Poster (Appendix 6) Whiteboard and whiteboard markers Mr. Yellow and Mr. Orange Teaching Tools (Appendix 5 ) Mini Mr. Yellow and Mr. Orange necklace (Appendix 5)

Preparation: Use sticky notes to conceal the listening behaviours on the Listening Star Reference Poster prior to the lesson. Engagement:

Gather students together. Display Ears teaching tool to students. Use these to review and discuss key concepts from lesson one, e.g. Can anyone tell me what these are? Where would I find them? Why do we have them? Direct the discussion so students understand that ears are important as we use them to listen to information.

Display Listening Star Reference Poster with the sticky notes. Invite students to identify each of the appropriate listening behaviours discussed yesterday. Remove the sticky notes as students correctly recall the appropriate listening behavior. Encourage all students to demonstrate appropriate listening behaviours in order to reinforce their understanding.

Ask students to suggest how they should behave when they are listening. Display Listening Star Reference Poster and use this to review appropriate listening behaviours. Invite students to demonstrate each of the listening behaviours in order to reinforce their understanding.

Ask students to recall something their brain can do to help them better understand the things they hear, visualization. Acknowledge responses and clarify where necessary. Ensure that all students understand

46

that visualization is when we use brains to help us to better understand the things we hear, by making or imagining a picture in our mind.

Practice the skill of visualizing by playing a game of Listen Up. At the end of each round allow individual students to briefly discuss their visualizations, emphasizing the similarities and differences between these.

Focused Instruction:

Display Visualizing Reference poster to students. Use the poster to reinforce and explicitly explain the process of visualization. Point to yellow circle and orange circle, Mr. Yellow and Mr. Orange, telling students, This is Mr. Yellow and Mr. Orange. Mr. Yellow is talking to Mr. Orange about a cat. Point to the purple talking bubble. Say, This is his talking bubble. He is saying CAT. Now, point to the red arrows beside the orange circle. Say, Mr. Orange is listening carefully to Mr. Yellow using his ears. Mr. Orange really wants to understand what Mr. Yellow is talking about, so he is using his brain and visualizing a cat. Point to the picture of the cat in the blue thinking bubble. Say, This is Mr. Oranges thinking bubble. See, he is thinking about a cat because Mr. Yellow was talking about a cat. Check for understanding and repeat explanation if necessary.

Sketch a basic diagram of the Visualizing Reference Poster on the whiteboard, leaving the talking and thinking bubbles blank. Point to Mr. Yellow and tell students This time, Mr. Yellow is talking to Mr. Orange about a flower. Write the word flower in the talking bubble. Continue explaining, Mr. Orange is listening carefully to what Mr. Yellow is saying using his ears. Trace along the arrows to show the information travelling into Mr. Oranges ears. Now, Mr. Orange really wants to understand what Mr. Yellow is talking about, so he is going to use his brain and visualize a flower. Draw a picture of a flower in the thinking bubble. Explicitly explain that Mr. Oranges visualizations are directly linked to what Mr. Yellow is saying. Check for understanding and repeat explanation if necessary.

Erase the words and image from the talking and thinking bubbles. Explain the process once again, this time, in reverse. Point to arrows beside Mr. Orange and tell the students, Mr. Orange is listening to Mr. Yellow talk about something. Point to Mr. Oranges thinking bubble. Say Remember, this is Mr. Oranges thinking bubble. He really wants to understand what Mr. Yellow is saying, so he is using his brain to visualize. Draw a picture of a boat in Mr. Oranges thinking bubble. Say, This is what Mr. Orange is visualizing. I wonder who can guess what Mr. Yellow is talking about. Accept student suggestions and clarify where necessary. Help children to understand that in order for Mr. Orange to be visualizing a boat, Mr. Yellow must be talking about a boat. Write the word boat in the talking bubble. Help students to understand that Mr. Oranges visualizations are directly linked to what Mr. Yellow is saying and vice versa. Check for understanding and repeat explanation if necessary.

Guided Practice:

Once students are familiar with the visualization process, involve them in the experience using the Mr. Orange and Mr. Yellow Teaching Tools.

47

Initially the teacher assumes the role of Mr. Yellow and a nominated student becomes Mr. Orange. Both the Teacher and student wear the appropriate necklace to assist with the identification of their role. The teacher tells the student a piece of information based on a single word, and records this in the talking bubble. The student visualizes what they heard and then draws a picture of their visualization in the thinking bubble. Explain that the picture does not have to be perfect. Teacher encourages and assists where necessary.

Once students appear confident with the experience, the teacher can take on the role of Mr. Orange with a student assuming the role of Mr. Yellow. This time the teacher draws a brief picture in the thinking bubble and explains that this is what Mr. Orange visualized after listening to Mr. Yellow. The students must then determine what Mr. Yellow has said in order to create that specific visualization. The teacher scribes the students suggestion in the talking bubble and confirms the accuracy their response. Once again the teacher offers encouragement and assists where necessary.

Reflection:

Review newly acquired knowledge by asking students to take turns explaining the visualizing process using the Visualization Reference Poster.

Assessment: Can students identify and demonstrate appropriate listening behaviours? Do students understand the visualization process? Are students able to discuss and suitably describe their visualizations?

48

Lesson: Three Duration: 45 minutes Lesson Focus:

Reinforce the purpose for listening Revise the visualization comprehension strategy Independently create and describe visualizations based on a single word

Prior understandings:

We use our ears to listen We make a picture in our minds to help us understand what we hear - visualization

Resources:

Visualizing Reference Poster (Appendix 6) Whiteboard and whiteboard markers Mr. Yellow and Mr. Orange Teaching Tools (Appendix 5) Class set of Mini Mr. Yellow and Mr. Orange necklaces (Appendix 5) Listening Star Reference Poster (Appendix 6) Blank paper and pencils Thinking Bubble Black line master (Appendix 7) Class set of Thinking Bubble photocopies x 2

Engagement:

Gather students together. Review the visualization process using the Visualizing Reference Poster. Reiterate the fact that Mr. Oranges visualizations are directly based on what Mr. Yellow has said. Once students are reminded of the visualization process, practice the visualization experience, as per lesson two. Again, involve the students in the experience using the Mr. Orange and Mr. Yellow Teaching Tools and necklaces.

Focused Instruction:

Ask students to suggest how they should behave when they are listening. Display Listening Star Reference Poster and use this to review appropriate listening behaviours. Invite students to demonstrate each of the listening behaviours in order to reinforce their understanding.

Emphasize to students the importance of listening whilst visualizing. Explain the person speaking gives key pieces of information for the listener. The person listening has to concentrate on these pieces of information and make a visualization based on this information. Refer to the Visualization Reference Poster to reinforce this concept.

Guided Practice:

Tell students they will be working with a partner. One student will wear the Mr. Yellow necklace, they will become Mr. Yellow. The other student will wear the Mr. Orange necklace, they will become Mr. Orange. Mr. Yellow will tell Mr. Orange a simple piece of information, e.g. the name of a vegetable. Mr. Orange will listen to Mr. Yellow, visualizes this information and attempt to draw a picture to

49

represent this visualization on a copy of the Thinking Bubble page. Remind students that the picture does not need to be perfect. Mr. Orange then displays and explains his/her picture to Mr. Yellow. Then Mr. Yellow confirms the accuracy of the picture. Students will then swap roles and swap necklaces. Teacher distributes materials and then supervises whilst students are practicing the visualization process, intervening where necessary.

Once activity is complete invite students to discuss their experience. Use questions to stimulate discussion, e.g. Did anyone find the task easy/difficult? Why? Was it easier being Mr. Yellow or Mr. Orange? Why? etc.

Independent Practice:

Provide each student with a copy of the Thinking Bubble BLM. Explain to students that they will do the activity again, but this time, you the teacher, will be Mr. Yellow and they will all pretend to be Mr. Orange. They will have to listen carefully and visualize what is being said. They will then have to draw a picture of their visualization on the piece of paper. Remind students that they are not drawing beautiful pictures, just a simple picture to show the main idea.

Say grapes. Ask students to visualize what they just heard and to then draw their visualizations on the paper.

Provide enough time for everyone to complete their picture.

Reflection:

Gather students together and invite them to display their pictures. Ask students to describe their pictures and explain why they drew them. Provide feedback regarding the accuracy of each representation.

Help students to understand their picture had to be based on what the teacher said, that being grapes. Compare similarities and differences between each picture. Discuss the accuracy of their representations. E.g. some students may have visualized purple grapes, whilst other students may have visualized green grapes. Remind students that this is ok because they were not told what sort of grapes, they were just told to visualize grapes.

Congratulate and encourage all students, especially those who may found the task difficult. Tell them they will have more opportunities to practice visualizing during the next lesson.

Assessment:

Do students understand the visualization process? Did the students illustrations accurately match the information provided? Were the students able to discuss and describe their visualizations?

50

Lesson: Four Duration: 45 minutes Lesson Focus:

Reinforce the purpose for listening Revise the visualization comprehension strategy Improve visualization ability through visual strengthening exercises/games

Prior Understandings:

We use our ears to listen We make a picture in our minds to help us understand what we hear visualization Our visualizations are based on the information we hear

Resources:

Instructions for I went shopping game (Appendix 4) Instructions for Ears and Mouths game (Appendix 4) Stimulus picture strips for Ears and Mouths game (Appendix 5) Clip boards

Engagement:

Arrange students in a circle. Tell students they will be playing a memory game called I went shopping. Explain the rules to the students. Play an open round for a few turns to ensure the students understand how to play.

Play the game. Once the game is complete, discuss the experience with students. Ask Did you enjoy playing the game? Why/why not? Who found the game easy/hard? Why? How did you remember the items each person said the bought?

Explain to students that visualizing may help them to remember the items easier. Using the students suggestions from the actual game explain how to visualize in order to assist their memory. E.g. Susan said she bought a bag of lollies. In my mind I imagined Susan holding her bag of lollies. Jeremy was next. He said he bought a block of chocolate. I then imagined Jeremy eating his block of chocolate, standing next to Susan, who was holding a bag of lollies. Etc.

Repeat the I went shopping game, this time cueing students to use the visualization strategy to assist their memory.

Upon completion of the game discuss the experience with the students. Ask Did anyone visualize each person holding their shopping item? Did this help you remember?

Explain to students that our brain is a very power thing. It is capable of remembering and storing many pieces of information. One way to help our brain remember things is to visualize, make pictures in our minds.

Focused Instruction/Guided Practice:

51

Tell students they will be playing another game where they will have to listen very carefully. Present one of the Stimulus Picture Strips for the Ears and Mouths game to students. Explain, This is a picture strip. See it has different pictures on it. I can read this picture strip by saying the names of the objects aloud. Demonstrate how to do this using one of the shorter Stimulus Picture Strips.

Continue explaining, Now, were going to play a game called Ears and Mouths. Ill be the Mouth and youll all be the Ears. Im going to choose a picture strip, but Im not going to show you the pictures. Instead, I am going to read the pictures to you. Remember, you are the Ears. Your job is to listen very carefully to the list of pictures, make a visualization of the list in your mind and then tell me the pictures on the list. Carefully demonstrate how to do this so all students understand what theyre required to do.

Play an open round to ensure the students understand how to play. Clarify where necessary Play the game. Once the game is complete, discuss the experience with students. Ask Did you enjoy playing the game? Why/why not? Who found the game easy/hard? Why? How did you remember the list of items?

Once again, remind the students that visualizing will help them to remember the list of items easier. Using the examples from the game explain how to visualize in order to assist their memory. E.g. The items on the card were book, watermelon and cloud. If I had heard that list, I would have imagined a book, resting on a watermelon, with a cloud floating above them both. This image would help me to remember the three items, book, watermelon and cloud.

Repeat the game again, this time cueing the students to use the visualization strategy to assist their memory.

Once again, upon completion of the game discuss the experience with the students. Ask Did anyone visualize each item from the list? What did your visualization look like? Did your visualization help you to remember the list of items?

Continue playing the game, gradually progressing through to the more difficult Stimulus Picture Strips where the students are required to visualize and recall an increasing number of items. After each game provide opportunities for student to discuss the experience.

Independent Practice:

Explain to students that they will play the game of Ears and Mouths with a partner. One student will be the Mouth, the person who reads the list, and the other student will be the Ears, the person who listens to, visualizes and repeats the list. They will then reverse the roles.

Play the game. Teacher to supervise and intervene/provide assistance where necessary.

Reflection:

Upon completion of the game discuss the experience with the students. Ask Was anyone able to visualize and recall each item from the list? What did your visualization look like? Did your visualization help you to remember the list of items?

52

Remind students that visualizing the information they hear helps them to remember that information better.

Assessment:

Were the students able to remember a list of objects? Can the students discuss and describe their visualizations?

53

Lesson: Five Lesson Focus:

Duration: 45 minutes

Reinforce the purpose for listening Revise the visualization comprehension strategy Identify key ideas that help create accurate visualizations who/what? what doing? where? Create and describe visualizations based on a sentence with teacher support Provide opportunities to verbally explore and reflect on text

Prior Understandings:

We use our ears to listen We make a picture in our minds to help us understand what we hear visualization Our visualizations are based on the information we hear Visualizing the information we hear helps us to remember that information better.

Resources:

Instructions for Ears and Mouths game (Appendix 4) Stimulus picture strips for Ears and Mouths game (Appendix 5) Visualization Reference Poster (Appendix 6) 4 Ws Traffic Light Teaching Tool (Appendix 5 ) Speech bubble Posters (Appendix 5) Blank paper and pencils

Engagement:

Gather students together. Tell students they will be playing a whole class version of the game of Ears and Mouths. The teacher will be the Mouth and the students will be the Ears. Re-explain the rules to the students. Cue the students to use the visualization strategy to assist their memory.

Play an open round to ensure the students understand how to play. Play the game. Gradually increase the number of items on each list depending on the capabilities of the students.

Upon completion of the game discuss the experience with the students. Ask Did anyone visualize each item from the list? What did your visualization look like? Did your visualization help you to remember the list of items?

Focused Instruction:

Invite students to collaboratively draw a representation of the Visualization Process on the whiteboard. Compare their accuracy of this representation with the actual Visualization Reference Poster.

Review the process as necessary, using specific questioning to encourage students to think about the visualization process, e.g. Why do we visualize what we hear? What do we do when we visualize? etc.

54

Remind students that the visualization is always based on the information heard. Explain to students that the visualizations can be still and frozen, like in a photograph, or they can be moving and changing, like in a movie. The more information given, the more detailed the visualization will be.

Ask, What do mum or dad do when theyre driving and they come to a set of traffic lights with the red light showing? They stop. Using this analogy, explain to the students that when we make our visualizations, we too sometimes need to stop and check if our visualization is correct. Explain that what we hear contains important pieces of information. When the students hear these important pieces of information, they need to stop, think carefully about the information theyve heard and make sure their visualization matches the information they heard. Display the blank 4 Ws Traffic Light Resource to the students. The important information might be a who / what clue - attach the red who/what circle to the traffic light; a what doing? clue attach the amber what doing circle to the traffic light; or even a where clue attach the green where circle to the traffic light.

Place the first speech bubble poster on the board brown dog. Read it to the students. Explain, Lets imagine someone is telling me some information. Point to the first speech bubble and say, When I listen to their information I have to ask myself, who/what are they talking about?. Reread the first speech bubble poster brown dog. Continue, The person is talking about a dog, a brown dog. I therefore imagine a brown dog in my mind. I cant imagine a black and white dog. It has to be brown because the person is talking about a brown dog Draw a picture of a brown dog on the whiteboard. See, this is a picture of what I imagined in my mind, a brown dog. Place the red who / what circle on the Traffic Light resource.

Replace the first speech bubble with the second speech bubble - the brown dog chased the cat. Read it to the students. Explain, Remember, I am listening to someone tell me information. Point to the second speech bubble and say, When I listen to their information I have to ask myself, what is the person saying the brown dog doing? Reread the second speech bubble poster the brown dog chased the cat. Continue, The person is talking about a brown dog chasing a cat. I therefore have to change my visualization of a brown dog to include a cat. Reread the second speech bubble poster the brown dog chased the cat. Add a cat to the existing brown dog picture on the whiteboard. See, this is a picture of what I imagined in my mind, a brown dog chasing a cat. Place the amber what doing circle on the Traffic Light Resource.

Replace the second speech bubble with the third speech bubble poster - the brown dog chased the cat under the house. Read it to the students. Explain, Remember, I am listening to someone tell me information. Point to the third speech bubble and say, When I listen to their information I have to ask myself, where is the brown dog chasing the cat? Reread the third speech bubble poster - the brown dog chased the cat under the house. Continue, The person is talking about a brown dog chasing a cat under the house. Because I have heard more information my original visualization has to change. I still imagine a brown dog chasing a cat, but now I imagine a house because I heard the person say the

55

brown dog chased the cat under a house. Add a house to the existing brown dog chasing a cat picture on the whiteboard. See, this is a picture of what I imagined in my mind, a brown dog chasing a cat under a house. Place the green where circle on the Traffic Light Resource.

Revise the process again. Discuss with students the changes that occurred in the visualization as more information became available. Help students to understand the more information that was given, the more detailed the visualization and corresponding illustration became.

Guided Practice:

Provide students with blank paper. Explain that they will now have a turn at visualizing some information all by themselves.

Repeat the above sequence of steps with the students gradually introducing pieces of information, one fact at a time using the old man sequence of speech bubbles (The old man / The old man put on his hat / The old man put on his hat and went to the park). After each piece of information is revealed, encourage the students to discuss their visualizations with a partner and together draw these visualizations on sheets of blank paper. Use the 4 Ws Traffic Light Resource and assist the students to answer the 4 Ws questions - who / what? / what doing? / where?

Gather students together and invite them to display their pictures. Ask students to retell the text, describe their pictures and explain why they drew them. Provide feedback regarding the accuracy of each representation.

Help students to understand their picture had to be based on what the teacher said, that being the old man put on his hat and went to the park.

Ask, What do you like about your picture? What do you like about another persons picture? Discuss. Compare similarities and differences between each picture. Discuss these. Encourage students to think about the text by using generic questions, such as Why do you think the old man went to the park?

Congratulate and encourage all students, especially those who may found the task difficult. Tell students they will have more opportunities to practice visualizing during the next lesson.

Reflection:

Use the Traffic Light Resource to review the 4 Ws questions. Remind students to listen carefully for important information and use this information to create their visualization.

Assessment:

Do students understand the visualization process? Did the students illustrations accurately match the 4 Ws information provided? Were the students able to discuss and describe their visualizations?

56

Lesson: Six Lesson Focus:

Duration: 45 minutes

Reinforce the purpose for listening Revise the visualization comprehension strategy Identify key ideas that help create accurate visualizations who/what? what doing? where? Independently create and describe visualizations based on a sentence Provide opportunities to verbally explore and reflect on text

Prior Understandings:

We use our ears to listen We make a picture in our minds to help us understand what we hear visualization Our visualizations are based on the information we hear Visualizing the information we hear helps us to remember that information better.

Resources:

Instructions for Quick Draw game (Appendix 4) Visualization Reference Poster (Appendix 6) 4 Ws Traffic Light Teaching Tool (Appendix 5) Sticky notes Speech bubble posters (Appendix 5) Blank paper and pencils

Preparation: Use sticky notes to conceal the 4 Ws concepts on the Traffic Light Teaching Tool prior to the lesson.

Engagement:

Gather students together. Tell students they will be playing a whole class version of the game of Quick Draw. Explain the rules to the students. Cue the students to use the visualization strategy to assist with their illustrations.

Play an open round to ensure the students understand how to play. Play the game. Upon completion of the game discuss the experience with the students. Ask Did you enjoy playing this game? Why/why not? Who found the game easy/hard? Why?

Explain to students that everyones visualizations, although based on the same item, may be different and thats o.k. Everyone visualizes things differently and draws different things to represent their visualization.

Also remind students that the visualization is always based on the information heard. Explain to students that the visualizations can be still and frozen, like in a photograph, or they can be moving and changing, like in a movie. The more information given, the more detailed the visualization will be.

Focused Instruction:

57

Display the 4 Ws Traffic Light Teaching Tool with sticky notes. Invite students to identify each of the 4 Ws concepts as discussed yesterday. Remove the sticky notes as students correctly recall the 4 Ws concepts.

Invite students to explain how using the traffic light can help them improve their visualizations. Accept answers and clarify where necessary.

Remind students that when we make our visualizations, we sometimes need to stop and check if our visualization is correct. Explain that what we hear contains important pieces of information. When the students hear these important pieces of information, they need to stop, think carefully about the information theyve heard and make sure their visualization matches the information they heard. The important information might be a who / what clue, a what doing? clue or even a where clue

Guided Practice:

Briefly revise format of yesterdays lesson teacher gradually introduced the information, students visualized this information and then drew pictures to represent these visualizations. Remind students that yesterday they were presented with the sentence gradually. The students thought about, discussed and drew little parts of the sentence, one piece of information at a time. Today however they are going to be asked to visualize a whole sentence all in one go. Reassure and remind students that they all have the ability to do this, they just need to remember to think about the Traffic Light Teaching Tool and ask themselves the 4 Ws questions, who/what is the sentence about, what is the who/what doing in the sentence and lastly where is the sentence taking place.

Provide students with blank paper and pencils. Place the speech bubble poster first speech bubble on the board The snail crawled along the lettuce leaf. Read it to the students. Explain, This is the sentence that you are going to visualize. Reread the sentence.

Ask students What is the first thing we have to ask ourselves when we visualize? (Who/what is the sentence about). Can anyone tell me what/who the sentence is about? (A snail). Continue by asking students, If the sentence is about a snail, what do I have to imagine in my mind? (A snail). Accept suggestions, clarifying where necessary. Continue, Yes, I must imagine a snail in my mind. Lets all close our eyes now and imagine a snail. Place the red who/what circle on the traffic light teaching tool. Encourage students to discuss and describe their visualizations.

Continue, Now what is the next thing we have to ask ourselves when we visualize? (What is the snail doing in the sentence). Can anyone tell me what the snail is doing in the sentence? (Crawling along the lettuce leaf). Continue by asking students, If the sentence is about a snail crawling what do I have to visualize in my mind? (A snail crawling). Accept suggestions, clarifying where necessary. Continue, Yes, I must imagine a snail crawling in my mind. Place the amber what doing circle on the Traffic Light resource. Encourage students to discuss and describe their visualizations.

Ask students What is the third thing we have to ask ourselves when we visualize? (Where is the sentence taking place). Can anyone tell me where the sentence is taking place? (On a lettuce leaf).

58

Continue by asking students, If the sentence is about a snail crawling along on a lettuce leaf, what do I have to imagine in my mind? (A snail crawling along a lettuce leaf). Accept suggestions, clarifying where necessary. Continue, Yes, I must imagine a snail crawling along a lettuce leaf in my mind. Lets all close our eyes now and imagine a snail crawling along a lettuce leaf. Place the green where circle on the traffic light teaching tool. Encourage students to discuss and describe their visualizations.

Tell students to now draw a picture to represent their visualization. Once complete gather students together and invite them to display their pictures. Ask students to describe their pictures and explain why they drew them. Ask students to retell the sentence based on what theyve drawn on their paper. Provide feedback regarding the accuracy of each representation. Ask, What do you like about your picture? What do you like about another persons picture? Discuss.

Compare similarities and differences between each picture. Discuss these. Encourage students to think deeper about the text by asking them generic questions such as, Why was the snail crawling along the lettuce leaf?

Congratulate and encourage all students, especially those who may found the task difficult.

Independent practice.

Tell students that they will have another chance to practice their visualizing skills, this time independently.

Provide students with blank paper and pencils. Place the speech bubble poster first speech bubble on the board The red ball rolled along the grass beside the swing. Read it to the students. Explain, This is the sentence that you are going to visualize. Reread the sentence.

Reassure and remind students that they all have the ability to visualize the sentence, they just need to remember to think about the Traffic Light Teaching Tool and ask themselves the 4 Ws questions, who/what is the sentence about, what is the who/what doing in the sentence and lastly where is the sentence taking place.

Allow students enough time to draw their visualizations. Once complete gather students together and invite them to display their pictures. Ask students to describe their pictures and explain why they drew them. Ask students to retell the sentence based on what theyve drawn on their paper. Provide feedback regarding the accuracy of each representation.

Help students to understand their picture had to be based on what the teacher said, that being The red ball rolled along the grass beside the swing.

Reflection:

Ask, What do you like about your picture? What do you like about another persons picture? What would you like to change in your picture to make it better Discuss.

Compare similarities and differences between each picture. Discuss these. Congratulate and encourage all students, especially those who may found the task difficult. Tell students they will have more opportunities to practice visualizing during the next lesson.

59

Assessment:

Do students understand the visualization process? Did the students illustrations accurately match the 4 Ws information provided? Were the students able to discuss and describe their visualizations?

60

Lesson: Seven Duration: 45 minutes

Reinforce the purpose for listening Revise the visualization comprehension strategy Improve visualization ability through visual strengthening exercises/games

Prior Understandings:

We use our ears to listen We make a picture in our minds to help us understand what we hear visualization Our visualizations are based on the who or what / what doing / where information we hear Visualizing the information we hear helps us to remember that information better.

Resources:

A collection of 3D objects, e.g. stationery, kitchen utensils, toys, groceries, etc.

Engagement:

Arrange students in a circle. Explain to the students that they will be playing a game of Memory. Place two 3D objects in the middle of the circle. Tell students that they are to concentrate on the objects very carefully and try to remember both of the objects. Explain that you will ask the students to look away as you take one of the objects away. The students will then have to try and remember the objects and suggest the identity of the missing object.

Allow enough time for the students to study the objects. Ask students to look away and cover their eyes. Remove one of the objects and place it out of sight. Invite students to turn around, view the remaining object and identify the missing object. Accept suggestions from a number of students prior to revealing the identity of the missing object. Congratulate the students who responded correctly.

Once the game is complete, discuss the experience with students. Ask Did you enjoy playing the game? Why/why not? Who found the game easy/hard? Why? How did you know which item was missing?

Focused Instruction:

Explain to students that visualizing may help them to remember the items easier. Using the example from the previous game explain how to visualize the objects in order to assist their memory. Discuss each object in detail as well as the position of each object. Encourage students to make a picture of each object in their minds.

Repeat the game, with two new objects, this time cueing students to use the visualization strategy to assist their memory.

Upon completion of the game discuss the experience with the students. Ask Did anyone visualize the objects and where they were positioned. Did this help you to remember them easier?

61

Remind the students that our brain is a very power thing. It is capable of remembering and storing many pieces of information. One way to help our brain remember things is to visualize, make pictures in our minds.

Guided Practice:

Repeat the previous activity, but increase the complexity of the task by gradually adding to the number of objects presented. Arrange the items in a specific order. Allow enough time for the students to study the items.

Upon completion of each game discuss the experience with the students. Invite the students to verbalize the strategies used to remember the objects. Encourage students to visualize both the individual objects as well as their specific position in the group.

Depending on the capabilities of the students the game can be made more challenging by increasing the both the number of items presented and the number of items removed.

Independent Practice:

Display a range of 3D objects to students. Explain to them that they will play the game of Memory with a partner. One student, student A, will be in charge of selecting, arranging and removing the objects for the other student, student B. This student, student B, will then be asked to visualize the objects and identify the missing object. Upon completion of the game they will reverse the roles.

Play an open round to ensure the students understand how to play. Play the game. Teacher to supervise. Upon completion of the game discuss the experience with the students. Ask Did you enjoy playing this game? Why/why not? Who found the game easy/hard? Why?

Reflection:

Gather students together as a whole class. Discuss the experience with the students. Ask Was anyone able to correctly identify the missing objects? How did you do it? Did you visualize the objects in order to help you remember them?

Remind students that visualizing helps them to remember things better.

Assessment:

Were the students able to identify missing objects from a previously seen arrangement of objects? Can the students discuss and describe their visualizations?

62

Lesson: Eight Duration: 45 minutes Lesson Focus:

Reinforce the purpose for listening Revise the visualization comprehension strategy Identify key ideas that help create accurate visualizations who/what? what doing? where? Create and describe visualizations based on a series of sentences with teacher support Provide opportunities to verbally explore and reflect on text

Prior Understandings:

We use our ears to listen We make a picture in our minds to help us understand what we hear visualization Our visualizations are based on the who or what / what doing / where information we hear Visualizing the information we hear helps us to remember that information better.

Resources:

A collection of 3D objects, e.g. stationery, kitchen utensils, toys, groceries, etc Visualization Reference Poster (Appendix 6) 4 Ws Traffic Light Teaching Tool (Appendix 5) Listening Star Reference Poster (Appendix 6) Stimulus Texts Sallys birthday and Poor David (Appendix 5) Blank paper and pencils

Engagement:

Arrange students in a circle. Remind the students that our brain is a very power thing. It is capable of remembering and storing many pieces of information. One way to help our brain remember things is to visualize, make pictures in our minds.

Play a whole class game of Memory using an increasing number of objects. Once the game is complete, discuss the experience with students. Ask Did you enjoy playing the game? Why/why not? Who found the game easy/hard? Why? How did you know which item was missing? Did anyone use visualizing as a way to remember the objects?

Focused Instruction:

Review the content from the lesson six using the 4 Ws Traffic Light Teaching Tool. Tell students that their visualizations should always be based on the information they hear. Remind them that when they make their visualizations, they sometimes need to stop and check if their visualization matches what they heard. Re-explain that what they hear contains important pieces of information, the important information might be a who or what clue, or a what doing? clue or even a where clue.

Revise appropriate listening behaviour using the Listening Star reference poster.

63

Display and read the Sally text to the students. Sally sat on her bed. She could not believe her eyes. She had never seen so many presents!

Use the 4 Ws circles to dissect the Sallys Birthday Text. Place the red Who / What circle the Traffic Light Teaching Tool. Reread the text. Say, When I think about this text, I stop and ask myself who or what is it about? Read the text again. I heard at the start of the text Sally sat on her bed. I think the text is about Sally. Sally is a girls name. So perhaps the text is about a girl called Sally. Im going to imagine a girl called Sally in my mind. Draw a picture of a girl on the whiteboard. Explain to students, This is a picture of my visualization. See Ive drawn a girl. Her name is Sally.

Place the amber What doing? circle on the Traffic Light Resource. Read the text again. Say, When I think about the text, I stop and ask myself what is Sally doing? Read the text again. Say, The text says Sally sat on her bed. She could not believe her eyes. She had never seen so many presents. I wonder if thats what Sally is doing, looking at all of her presents. Im going to visualize a girl, Sally, looking at her presents. Yes, my visualization matches the information my ears heard. Sally is doing, shes sitting on her bed looking at all of her presents. Write the words sitting on her bed, looking at presents under the What doing? label and amend the original Sally picture to include a bed with presents surrounding it. Explain to students, This is a picture of my visualization. See Ive drawn a girl, Sally, looking at all of her presents.

Place the green where? circle on the Traffic Light Teaching Tool. Read the text again. Say, When I think about the text, I stop and ask myself, where is Sally looking at her presents? Reread the text. Say, The text says Sally sat on her bed. She could not believe her eyes. She had never seen so many presents. Im going to visualize Sally sitting on her bed. Now Ive got to think really hard. I know a bed is a piece of furniture found in a bedroom. Perhaps Sally is sitting in her bedroom looking at her presents. Amend the original Sally picture to include a bed, with Sally sitting on her bed.

Finally explain to the students how to retell the story using their own words. Sally was in her bedroom, sitting on her bed, looking at all of her presents.

Encourage students to comment on the final picture. Invite students to dramatize and act out the text.

Independent Practice:

Tell the students that they are going to have a turn visualizing another text. Remind them to listen carefully because they will be asked to draw their visualizations as well as retell the story in their own words. Provide students with paper and pencils.

Display and read Poor David stimulus text to the students. David was very sad. He had accidentally spilt his big bag of lollies. Now his lollies were lying all over the dirty floor.

Ask students to close their eyes and create a mental picture in their minds whilst listening to the text being read to them. Pause frequently to allow students to create their images in their minds.

64

Remind students of the 4 Ws Traffic Light. Remind them to stop and ask themselves who or what is the text about? What are they doing in the text? Where is the text taking place?

Next allow students enough time to draw their visualizations onto paper. Whist students are drawing their visualization, walk around to each student and ask them to retell the story using their own words. Record this for later analysis.

Once everyone has finished, invite students to share their visualizations with the class. Encourage students to identify the words which helped them create their mental image.

Briefly use the 4 Ws labels to dissect the Poor David Text as per the previous example. Collaboratively discuss small sections of the text and determine as a whole class how to best illustrate it.

Encourage students to comment on the final picture. Ask, How is this picture similar/different to your picture? What do you like about your picture? What do you like about this picture? Would you change anything in your picture to improve it?

Invite students to dramatize and act out the text.

Reflection:

Ask students, How does visualizing help you understand what you hear?

Assessment:

Did the students illustrations accurately match the 4 Ws information provided? Were the students able to discuss and describe their visualizations?

65

Lesson: Nine Lesson Focus:

Duration: 45 minutes

Reinforce the purpose for listening Revise the visualization comprehension strategy Identify key ideas that help create accurate visualizations who/what? what doing? where? Independently create and describe visualizations based on a series of sentences Provide opportunities to verbally explore and reflect on text

Prior Understandings:

We use our ears to listen We make a picture in our minds to help us understand what we hear visualization Our visualizations are based on the information we hear Visualizing information helps us to remember that information better

Resources:

4 Ws Traffic Light Teaching Tool Stimulus Text The Bird Family, Part 1, 2 and 3 (Appendix 5) Blank paper and pencils Visualization Assessment Record (Appendix 6) Play dough for whole class

Engagement:

Gather students together. Tell students they will be playing a whole class version of the game of Quick Draw. Explain the rules to the students. Cue the students to use the visualization strategy to assist with their illustrations.

Play an open round to ensure the students understand how to play. Play the game. Upon completion of the game discuss the experience with the students. Ask Did you enjoy playing this game? Why/why not? Who found the game easy/hard? Why?

Explain to students that everyones visualizations, although based on the same item, may be different and thats o.k. Everyone visualizes things differently and draws different things to represent their visualization.

Also remind students that the visualization is always based on the information heard. Explain to students that the visualizations can be still and frozen, like in a photograph, or they can be moving and changing, like in a movie. The more information given, the more detailed the visualization will be.

Focused Instruction:

Review the content from the lesson five using the 4 Ws Traffic Light Teaching Tool. Remind students that their visualizations should always be based on the information they hear. Remind them that when they make their visualizations, they sometimes need to stop and check if their visualization matches what they heard. Re-explain that the information they hear contains important clues to guide their

66

visualizations. The important clues might be some who or what information, or some what doing? information or even some where information.

Explain to students that instead of drawing their visualizations, theyll be representing their visualizations using play dough.

Display and read part 1 of the stimulus text The Bird Family to the students. Mother bird sat happily in her nest. She was very busy keeping her eggs warm. Soon they would be ready to hatch.

Ask students to close their eyes and visualize whilst listening to the text being read to them. Pause frequently to allow students to create the images in their minds.

Use the 4 Ws Traffic Light Teaching Tool to highlight and discuss the who/what? what doing? and where? information with the students. E.g. who/what the mother bird; what doing sitting keeping her eggs warm; where - sitting in her nest.

Tell the student, In my mind I am visualizing the mother bird sitting in her little nest, keeping her eggs warm. I cant see her eggs because she her body is covering them to keep them warm.

Next take a piece of play dough and mould the dough to represent the text. Create a small nest and a bird shape to represent the nest and mother bird respectively. As you are doing this explain to the students that your models are specifically based on the text. Say, The text was about a mother bird Show the students the mother bird model. Continue saying, The text said the mother bird was sitting in a nest keeping her eggs warm. Position the mother bird model in the nest model and display to students.

Retell the text in your own words Here is mother bird sitting on her eggs keeping them warm. The eggs are nearly ready to hatch.

Emphasize to the students that you listened carefully to the text and identified the who/what / what doing / and where information from the text in order to create your visualization. Tell the students, By creating the mental image I was able to enjoy the story more because you I better understood what was happening in the story.

Guided Practice:

Tell the students that they are going to have a turn visualizing and modeling their visualization using play dough. Display and read The Bird Family Part 2 text to the students. Baby bird sat in the nest. She opened her beak. Mother bird fed the baby bird worms. Baby bird was very happy

Ask students to close their eyes and visualize whilst listening to the text being read to them. Pause frequently to allow students to create the images in their minds.

Tell students to sit knee to knee and eye to eye with one partner. Ask students to explain their visualizations to a partner. Encourage students to discuss the similarities and differences between the two visualizations.

Remind students of the 4 Ws Traffic Light. Remind them to stop and ask themselves who or what is the text about baby bird and mother bird; what are they doing in the text mother bird is feeding baby bird worms; where is the text taking place in a nest.

67

Collaboratively discuss small sections of the text and determine as a whole class the best way to represent the information using play dough. Provide students with play dough. Next allow students enough time to work independently and mould their visualizations using the play dough.

Once everyone has finished, ask students to share their play dough creations with the class. Provide opportunities for the students to share their ideas about the text and show their models to each other. Ask students to identify the words which helped them create their mental image. Encourage students to compare their play dough creation to their peers. Ask, How is your play dough model similar/different to your friends? What do you like about your play dough model? What do you like about another persons play dough model? Would you change anything in your play dough model to improve it?

Invite students to retell the text using their own words. Praise all responses and clarify where necessary.

Independent Practice:

Tell the students that they are going to have another turn visualizing a text, this time independently. Remind them to listen carefully because they will be asked to represent their visualizations using play dough. They will also be asked to retell the story in their own words.

Display and read The Bird Family Part 3 text to the students. Baby bird sat at the bottom of the tree. It had fallen out of its nest. Mother bird flew down to the bottom of the tree to be with Baby bird.

Ask students to close their eyes and create a mental picture in their minds whilst listening to the text being read to them. Pause frequently to allow students to create their images in their minds.

Remind students of the 4 Ws Traffic Light Teaching Tool. Remind them to stop and ask themselves who or what is the text about? What are they doing in the text? Where is the text taking place?

Next allow students enough time to mould their visualizations using the play dough. Teacher circulates the room and listens to the retell of each individual student.

Once everyone has finished, ask students to share their visualizations and play dough models with the class. Encourage students to identify the words which helped them create their mental image.

Reflection:

Ask students, How does visualizing help you understand what you hear?

Assessment:

Did the students play dough models accurately match the 4 Ws information provided? Were the students able to discuss and describe their visualizations?

68

Lesson: Ten Lesson Focus:

Duration: 45 minutes

Reinforce the purpose for listening Revise appropriate listening behaviours Revise the visualization comprehension strategy Revise key ideas that help create accurate visualizations who/what? what doing? where? Independently create and describe visualizations based on a series of sentences Provide opportunities to verbally explore and reflect on text

Prior Understandings:

We use our ears to listen We make a picture in our minds to help us understand what we hear visualization Our visualizations are based on the who/what/where information we hear Visualizing information helps us to remember that information better

Resources:

Instructions for I went shopping game (Appendix 4) Ears Teaching Tool (Appendix 5) Listening Star Reference Poster (Appendix 6) Visualization Reference Poster (Appendix 6) 4 Ws Traffic Light Teaching Tool (Appendix 5) Stimulus Texts Kate and the biscuits (Appendix 5) Blank paper and pencils

Engagement:

Arrange students in a circle. Tell students they will be playing a memory game called I went shopping. Explain the rules to the students. Play an open round for a few turns to ensure the students understand how to play.

Play the game. Once the game is complete, discuss the experience with students. Ask Did you enjoy playing the game? Why/why not? Who found the game easy/hard? Why? How did you remember the items each person said the bought?

Explain to students that visualizing may help them to remember the items easier. Using the students suggestions from the actual game explain how to visualize in order to assist their memory. E.g. Susan said she bought a bag of lollies. In my mind I imagined Susan holding her bag of lollies. Jeremy was next. He said he bought a block of chocolate. I then imagined Jeremy eating his block of chocolate, standing next to Susan, who was holding a bag of lollies. Etc.

Repeat the I went shopping game, this time cueing students to use the visualization strategy to assist their memory.

69

Upon completion of the game discuss the experience with the students. Ask Did anyone visualize each person holding their shopping item? Did this help you remember?

Explain to students that our brain is a very power thing. It is capable of remembering and storing many pieces of information. One way to help our brain remember things is to visualize, make pictures in our minds.

Focused Instruction:

Revise with students key concepts covered during the unit. Display Ears teaching tool to students. Use these to review and discuss key concepts from previous lessons. e.g. Can anyone tell me what these are? Where would I find them? Why do we have them? Direct the discussion so students understand that ears are important as we use them to listen to information.

Ask students to suggest how they should behave when they are listening. Display Listening Star Reference Poster and use this to review appropriate listening behaviours. Invite students to identify and demonstrate each of the listening behaviours in order to reinforce their understanding.

Ask students to recall something their brain can do to help them better understand the things they hear, visualization. Acknowledge responses and clarify where necessary. Ensure that all students understand that visualization is when we use brains to help us better understand the things we hear, by making or imagining a picture in our mind.

Display Visualizing Reference poster to students. Ask students to use the poster to explain the process of visualization in order to reinforce their understanding. Emphasize that Mr. Oranges visualizations are directly based on what Mr. Yellow is saying. Clarify and repeat explanation if necessary.

Display the blank 4 Ws Traffic Light Resource to the students. Ask students to explain how the traffic light helps us to make appropriate visualizations. Accept suggestions, praise and clarify where appropriate. Emphasize that what we hear contains important pieces of information. When the students hear these important pieces of information, they need to stop, think carefully about the information theyve heard and make sure their visualization matches the information they heard. The important information might be a who or what clue, or a what doing? clue or even a where clue.

Independent Practice:

Tell the students that they are going to have a turn visualizing another text, this time independently. Remind them to listen carefully because they will be asked to draw their visualizations as well as retell the story in their own words. Provide students with paper and pencils.

Display and read Katie and the biscuits text to the students. Ask students to close their eyes and create a mental picture in their minds whilst listening to the text being read to them. Pause frequently to allow students to create their images in their minds.

Remind students of the 4 Ws Traffic Light Teaching Tool. Remind them to stop and ask themselves who or what is the text about? / what are they doing in the text? / where is the text taking place?

70

Next allow students enough time to draw their visualizations onto paper. Whist students are drawing their visualization, walk around to each student and ask them to retell the story using their own words. Teacher listens and records retell.

Once everyone has finished, invite students to share their visualizations with the class. Encourage students to identify the words which helped them create their mental image.

Dissect the Katie and the biscuits stimulus text using the 4 Ws Traffic Light Resource. Collaboratively discuss small sections of the text and determine as a whole class how to best illustrate it.

Encourage students to comment on the final picture and to compare it with their own illustrations. Ask, How is this picture similar/different to your picture? What do you like about your picture? What do you like about this picture? Would you change anything in your picture to improve it?

Reflection:

Provide students with blank paper and coloured pencils. Ask students to write words and or draw images/pictures/diagrams to show their understandings from this unit. For example, they may want to recreate one of the posters used during the unit, or create their own version. Encourage all students to record their learning in a pictorial format.

Upon completion of their work invite students to share and discuss their work with the rest of the class.

Assessment:

Do students understand the visualization process? Did the students illustrations accurately match the 4 Ws information provided? Were the students able to discuss and describe their visualizations?

71

Instructions for Games

Listen Up A nominated student - the performer - imitates an animal sound for the rest of the class - the audience. The audience listens to the sound, visualizes the animal responsible for making that sound and then suggests the identity of the animal. The audience member who correctly identifies the mystery animal then becomes the performer.

Memory Game: I went to the shop and I bought Students sit in a circle. The first student begins the memory game by saying the opening phase, I went to the shop and I bought and stating a shopping item. For example, I went to the shop and I bought a carrot. The student sitting to the left of the first student continues the game by repeating both the opening phase and the item stated by the previous student and adding a new shopping item to the list. For example, I went to the shop and I bought a carrot and a soft drink. Play continues with each subsequent student repeating both the opening phrase and shopping items stated by the previous students and adding a new shopping item to the list. The game ends when each student in the circle has had a turn saying the list. Mouths and Ears Students sit face to face with a partner. One student is the Mouth and the other student is the Ears. The Mouth slowly reads the items on the list to the Ears. The Ears listens carefully to the Mouth, visualizing each of the items mentioned on the list. The Ears must then recall and retell the list of items to the Mouth. The winner is the student who recalls and retells the greatest number of items.

Quick Draw Teacher instructs a nominated student the artist to draw a pictorial representation of a specific object on the whiteboard, e.g. household item, vegetable, animals, etc. The artist may not speak or give any clues as to the identity of the object, rather they must draw a pictorial representation of the object on the board. The other students the audience - take turns guessing the identity of the object. The audience member who correctly identifies the object becomes the new artist.

72

Ears Teaching Tool Instructions: Print, cut out and laminate

73

Mr. Yellow Teaching Tool Instructions: Print, cut out and laminate

74

Mr. Orange Teaching Tool Instructions: Print, cut out and laminate

75

Mini Mr. Yellow and Mr. Orange Teaching Tool Instructions: Print, cut out and laminate. Attach to string to make a necklace.

76

Stimulus Picture Strips Instructions: Print, cut into strips and laminate.

77

78

79

80

Traffic Light Resource Instructions: Print, cut out and laminate.

WHO / WHAT?

WHAT DOING?

WHERE & WHEN?

81

82

Speech Bubble Posters Lessons Five and Six Instructions: Print, cut out and laminate.

The brown dog

The brown dog chased the cat

The brown dog chased the cat

The old man

The old man put on his hat

The old man put on his hat and went to the

The snail crawled along the lettuce

The red ball rolled along the grass

Stimulus Texts Lessons Eight, Nine and Ten Instructions: Print, cut out and laminate.

Sallys Birthday Text 1

Sally sat on her bed. She could not believe her eyes. She had never seen so many presents. And they were all for her!
Poor David Text 2

David was very sad. He had accidentally spilt his big bag of lollies. Now his lollies were lying all over the dirty floor.
91

The Bird Family Part 1, 2 and 3

Mother bird sat happily in her nest. She was very busy keeping her eggs warm. Soon they would be ready to hatch. Baby bird sat in the nest. She opened her beak. Mother bird fed the baby bird worms. Baby bird was very happy.
92

Baby bird sat at the bottom of the tree. It had fallen out of its nest. Mother bird flew down to the bottom of the tree to be with Baby bird.

93

Katie and her cookies

Kate saw what she was looking for. The cookies were sitting on the top shelf of the cupboard. She pushed a chair to the cupboard and climbed on it so she could reach the bag of cookies. All of a sudden, her cat came running into the room.

94

Listening Star & Visualizing Reference Poster Instructions: Print, cut out and laminate

The Listening Star

Feet quiet

Lips closed

Hands still

Eyes watching

Can you be a star listener?

CAT

96

Thinking Bubble BLM Instructions: Print, cut out and laminate.

97

98