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Teaching a story. Any ideas?

 
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JLDodsworth



Joined: 24 May 2003
Location: Daegu, Korea

PostPosted: Sat Jul 26, 2003 12:37 am    Post subject: Teaching a story. Any ideas? Reply with quote

Hi, I am working at a summer camp for 4 weeks, and two of my classes involve teaching a simple story to elementary students. Hansel & Gretel and A Monkeys Tale.

They want the children to memorize the story so they can to tell it to their parents etc...

I have 13 lessons for this, 13 chapters. Each class is 50 minutes long. The chapters are very short though. Also I haven't started yet so I am unsure what level of English the students have.

I haven't thought of too many ideas yet. I though about cutting the story up and having the students re-assemble it. Acting some of it out. Drawing pictures.

But I think that I need a lot more ideas.

Has anyone done this before? If so what worked and what didn't?

thanks for any help,
-JL Dodsworth
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anae



Joined: 13 May 2003
Location: cowtown

PostPosted: Sat Jul 26, 2003 4:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Your ideas so far sound good.

You may consider getting a series of pictures that tell the story. You can cut them up and have students put them in order as they tell the story. It might be nice for each student to have their own copy to practice with and also to help their memories as they retell the story to their parents. Younger kids like story boards with felt or velcro characters that they can move around and take on and off as the story progresses.

The drama idea sounds good. You might have the kids first make up their own script in their own words and then act it out. I did that with Cinderella and the kids loved it.

A similar idea would be to have kids make up their own books of the story or to do it as one big class book that everybody helps right and illustrate.

If the kids are having problems with parts of the story, play some games. For example, take all of the verbs out of the story and write them in a random order on the board and have students work in teams to put them in order. You could have a quiz show type game - maybe the kids could help to make up the questions.

I hope that helps.
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schwa



Joined: 18 Jan 2003
Location: Yap

PostPosted: Sun Jul 27, 2003 12:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dont underestimate the power of repetition. Go over previous chapters relentlessly. Keep starting again from the beginning. Depending on age, the kids likely wont get bored (you might!) & they take real pride in mastering the material. Vary your approach to readings. One day individual students take roles or turns, another day do choral stuff. Focus on common pronunciation problems & drill. Do boys vs girls readings (if applicable) or small groups -- make it competitive. Have them read it backwards. Photocopy a page of it, white-out key words, & make worksheet copies from that. Go to puzzlemaker.com & turn key vocabulary into crosswords & wordsearches. Challenge kids to summarize chapters in their own words. Film it -- if your boss can come up with a camcorder the kids will really get into all the activities around making a film (you be the camera-person if theyre too young, but chances are they can handle that too). Have a contest at the end -- recite a page from memory, tell the story in your own words, have them create a next chapter after the story ends, whatever -- give assorted small prizes to everyone. Maybe one or 2 of those ideas will resonate with your teaching style. Good luck.
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BTM



Joined: 20 Jan 2003
Location: Back in the saddle.

PostPosted: Sun Jul 27, 2003 2:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Them be Idea some good ideas!
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Clutch Cargo



Joined: 28 Feb 2003
Location: Sim City 2005

PostPosted: Sun Jul 27, 2003 5:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I did the story of Little Red Riding Hood last week with my older kinder kids. After reading the story to the class I explained what a map is, modelled one of my own on the whiteboard, then asked the kids to draw a map in birdseye view showing the route LRRH took from her place to grandma's, via the deep, dark woods, labeling the key features on the map as they went. They did some really nice work and included extras such as ghosts in the woods and ponds, lakes and other stuff. There was plenty of English involved in the whole process.
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viva



Joined: 29 Jan 2003
Location: Jeju Island

PostPosted: Sun Jul 27, 2003 10:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I always have my students read out the entire story first. Then, we read it together a second time, but this time we stop at every paragraph and talk about what happend in that paragraph. We sometimes draw each paragraph on the board.

I also have had the kids each draw a certain part of the story and put it all together. I've even tried having them take different roles and act out the story. This idea worked well with the older kids, but totally flopped with the younger ones. I've also tried putting actions to the stories and that seemed to work as well.
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kylehawkins2000



Joined: 08 Apr 2003

PostPosted: Mon Jul 28, 2003 8:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

if you have access to a computer and a printer check out the Vocabulary Worksheet Factory software from SchoolHouse Technologies. I've found this to be an indispensible tool for a wide variety of purposes.

There is a shareware version available and it is very user friendly. If you want any pointers PM me.

www.vocabularyworksheetfactory.com

Good Luck,

Kyle
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bucheon bum



Joined: 16 Jan 2003

PostPosted: Tue Jul 29, 2003 9:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

All good ideas. My whole curriculum is based on story books (yikes!) so I've had to come up with a fair amount. I haven't really done the drawing thing, but after hearing that idea, I might have to do that one next month.

Anyway, here are some other ideas:

The reading itself:

1. Divide the class into two teams. Have one member of each team do rock-paper-scissors. Loser's team has to read the page. If it is evenly split between boys and girls, this really works great.

2. Have one student read one word, then have the next student read the next word, etc. This only works with a group of 5 or less though. More than that and the students don't pay much attention.

3. Someone else said this one: reading backwards. Its a good way to help pronounciation. They read very slowly usually, so you can make sure they're saying things right.

Activities:

1. Pictionary, using vocab from the book
2. Word-on-board, using vocab from book. Have one student stand in front of the blackboard, write a word on the board. His teammates have to get him to say the word. They can't speak Korean, only English or gestures.
3. Make a worksheet asking questions using vocab from the book. For example: are you a monkey? That's a pretty simple question, but you get the idea. Questions like this also amuse the students.
4. tic-tac-toe. Ask a member of the team a question about the book. Gets it right, gets to put up an "x" or "o". gets it wrong, tough luck. This works better with younger kids, not really with the older bunch.

That's all that I can come up with off the top of my head. Everyone else has given other good suggestions.
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Squaffy



Joined: 25 Feb 2003
Location: All over the place

PostPosted: Wed Jul 30, 2003 6:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hit the net and print out lots of pics. As you progress through the story, hand out the pics for each stage of the story. Use them as rewards for being attentive and all the kids will catch on and be good as gold.

It'll be a fun experience for you and you can't prepare too much - go mad on the pic front and hand them out all over the place - the kids will be great and want to obtain the complete set of pics to relate the story to their parents after the camp.

Good luck.
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waterbaby



Joined: 01 Feb 2003
Location: Baking Gord a Cheescake pie

PostPosted: Wed Jul 30, 2003 10:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I often use a dice ... roll 6 and the sixth person has to read... then they get to roll the dice (I use a big, fluffy toy one) which they adore and of course the students pretend to hate it when it's their turn to read... But I use this with 6 and above (western) years.

With younger kids that don't actually have reading skills, I print out large flashcards of lines of text from the story and ask them to match it on a board with the corresponding picture. I usually turn this into a game with a child from each team having to match a line of written text to the appropriate picture. They can't read, but they quickly learn the "shape" of the statement Very Happy
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