Brandi J. Clark

Talking moistly, it happens.

True story.

I was talking to a friend outside, socially distant. I took a slurp of my latte, begin talking, and to my horror, spoke moistly.  I, like most of Canada, had a chuckle when our Prime Minister Trudeau mentioned “speaking moistly”. As we move back into classrooms, speaking moistly, is a real obstacle, and a threat to safety.  In our province, students in Grades 4 to 12 will have masks, the students in grades K to 3 will not.

                Yet, I have a moistly solution!

Pulled from my teacher toolbox, back in the old days.

Ready for it?

                SIGN LANGUAGE

                I took sign language, level 1, right out of university. My friend and I had minored in special education and figured that this skill would be good to have.

                Flash forward, several years later, I was teaching grade 2 and decided that basic signs, legitimate ones and signs co-invented as a class, would help to reduce the amount of unnecessary talking and assist with learning flow. Using signs helped to manage students’ conversations during independent work time, whole group instruction and larger assemblies.

                The first signs, were yes and no. The class also created signs for, fill water bottle (pretending to drink out of hand), bathroom (hand with one finger pointing, straight up)  get a book (both hands moving together and apart, like a book opening and closing), We also had signs for question (a hooked finger) and  a give me five hand open for “answer the question.”

                These signs worked great, and many other signs developed over the year to limit interrupting conversations and increase independent working flow. For example, if we were sitting at the classroom meeting rug and I asked a question. If a student had to use the bathroom and indicated this (1 finger pointing straight up). I could quietly use my hand signals for yes or no. Quick, easy, no interrupted thinking or flow that happens with the usual “Can I go to the bathroom?” At assemblies’ this worked well too, as the students and I could communicate without anyone leaving their spots.

                The privacy that signs lend themselves to, also help with instruction, assessment and feedback. A student can hold their hand close to their chest to sign no or yes and their peers won’t see. For example, “is everyone ready to start writing?” A child can quietly let you know or “Does everyone understand the steps to the math problem, I just showed you?”

                 Now that we are returning to school during Covid, your class might want to come up with their own signs for new safety reminders like, “too close” or “stay on the circle or line”.  I was thinking maybe there will be a need for wellness signs, like “I am feeling stressed” or “I feel sick”.

                Give it a try! Make some fun ones up. Whatever works, just remember, speaking moistly, it can happen to you, it’s the sign of the times. (Do you get what I did there?)

Until Next Time,

Love Coach Clark

What? A Sweet Valley High Vocabulary Attainment Reading Strategy!

WOW!

Right! That’s what I thought!

So, I was researching various things when I came across a research article from 1994!

At that time, which is actually still a concern now is how can you get English Language Learners to read more and acquire more vocabulary.

In particular, the subjects were adult ELLs but let’s extrapolate across all ages of ELLs and non ELLs, shall we?

We shall!

The researchers were particulary testing the effects of free reading, which we now call independent reading. They found there were three reasons ELLs were not free reading.

1. Reading was just successful decoding – learning rules and getting feedback from another person – book choice did not matter.
2. Reading needs to be hard – in order to learn
3. Enjoyable reading texts were tough to find.

The researchers decided to test a theory that if their subjects (four adult women, second language students and recent immigrants to the United States) were given enjoyable texts, they would read more and learn more vocabulary.

The full article is here. But this is what they found….

All four women became enthusiastic readers, vocabulary acquisition improved, and although it was not formally tested, their English speaking had noticeably improved.

This study “…supports the value of “narrow” reading – reading texts in only one genre or by only one author-for promoting literacy development. (Krashen, 1985). Narrow reading allows the reader to take full advantage of the knowledge gained in previously read text.”

The researchers noticed that narrow reading often leads to wide reading – other series and other genres.

So, what can we extrapolate?

We should encourage all students to read a series. The commonalities between books will support comprehension and decoding and vocabulary acquisition.

We all remember powering through a series! It did create momentum, anticipation and lessened the decision making of “what will I read next?”

PLUS! It was fun to share books with friends and discuss the story lines. And yes it does increase vocabulary, even ‘made-up’ vocabulary – like quidditch, muggle and horcrux.

So next time, any kid, any age, is having some resistance to reading or struggling for a next read ask them “have you considered a series?”

I was just thinking, you know what would be a good pairing, no not wine, an alphabox or a personal dictionary to collect new words, character names etc. This is optional! If the reader is particularly resistant I never want writing to interfere with reading. Baby steps!!!

Anyway!
Enjoy!

Until Next Time,

Love Coach Clark