Visualising

We are concentrating on the strategy of visualising this week. 

Visualisation is a strategy that good readers use to help them understand what they read.  As we read we create images in our mind. We all create different images in our mind as our ability to visualise is linked to our prior knowledge and experiences.

We can use all the senses as we visualise; sight, taste, smell, sound and touch.

'Don't Stop' music

We have learned this song called 'Don't Stop'. It is originally by a band called Fleetwood Mac. We have been singing along to this version by Niamh Farrell who is from a band called Ham Sandwich (we always have a little laugh at the name of that band!) and the choir from Colmcilles. She has released the song to raise money for a charity called Haven who build communities for the people in Haiti.

We think its a feel good song and we enjoy it. We have put it up here after some requests to sing along at home! Enjoy!

Prediction

A strategy is a plan. When footballers are playing a match they have a strategy in place, they have a plan of action. Good readers have a plan when they read as well.

The strategy we are learning about this week is predicting. Predicting is when we think about what might happen next in a story. We use the title, pictures, our prior knowledge and the information the author gives us as clues to make a good guess about what the story might be about or what might happen next. We can make predictions before reading, during our reading and after reading.

If we make predictions about the story we want to find out what is going to happen and check if our predictions were right. We know that our predictions will not always be right and that is okay.

This is our hand signal that we are going to use in school when we have a prediction to make. We can use it at home too when we are reading. We make the letter P with our hands.

The Titanic

We did a lot of work on the Titanic in November.

We did a KWL chart and wrote down what we already knew about the Titanic and what we would like to find out. In small groups we researched the information ourselves using books we got from the library. With our groups we did a project to show what we learned and displayed the information on a chart.