Foundation Class 

WHY DO WE HAVE A "STORY OF THE WEEK"

In the Prep classroom we always have a ‘Story of the Week”. There are so many benefits and learning opportunities to reading a language rich story for a week. Reading aloud helps develop positive reading habits, exposes the students to advanced vocabulary, demonstrates fluency, models reading with voice and expression, and creates lifelong readers in the students.

 The ‘Story of the Week’ in our classroom incorporates both reading and writing concepts and activities. It allows the Preps to learn new vocabulary that they may not have heard before, gives them the chance to act out the text, allows discussions to write character descriptions and gives the students the opportunity to share and reflect on the story.

Last week, we had an in-depth look at the text “Possum Magic”. We have been focusing on retelling in our reading and using more describing or WOW words in our writing and this book allowed for some great retelling, descriptive language and the practice of recognising and writing statement, question and exclamation sentences. The students loved the characters and the vocabulary in this book.

Being able to retell the story in their own words indicates that the students are understanding what is being read to them. The Prep students were given the opportunity to write what happened at the beginning and in the middle of the story. Having a story book for a week or sometimes two, gives the students multiple exposure of the text and allows them time to have a deeper understanding of the story.

Below are some samples of the fantastic writing the Preps produced for this text.

This week we are going to look at some of the yummy foods that Grandma Poss and Hush ate and have an attempt at cooking one or two of them ourselves.

I am very proud of ALL the Preps and the progress they are making with their writing. You are all superstars!!