Text type: Book
Title: The Princess who had no Kingdom by Ursula Jones, Sarah Gills
Title: The Princess who had no Kingdom by Ursula Jones, Sarah Gills
Modelled Reading
Present text for task: The princess who had no kingdom.
Ask peers:
• what would be some of the problems that students from a diverse range of back grounds have with texts similar to this?
• Explain: If students such as indigenous learners encounter books like this that can be classified as a “Western fairytale” they may have problems with the concept of things like princesses, princes, kingdoms etc. When reading text types like these we need to explicitly teach students how to decode the vocabulary and grammar.
A lesson around this text type might go something like this:
“SO now that we have discussed what the words princess and kingdom mean let’s start thinking about some other things. Think aloud now I remember not so long ago I read a book that had princesses and princes in it called Cinderella and I can remember a few things about the way the characters looked. The princesses in the other story I read wore very beautiful gowns and ALWAYS wore a crown. The princes were always dressed in very formal clothing and also wore a crown. Now this prince and princess look a little bit different. If we have a look at the girl on the front cover what is she wearing? Why do you this she is wearing this? The prince is also dressed very differently... What can you see that is unusual about him (love heart on chest, frilly collar, long socks, no crown). SO from looking at the front cover we can start to tell a little bit more about the story.
Do you think this story will be like the other fairytales we might have seen?
From using the think aloud strategy it has allowed me to give students some in site as to what ‘regular’ princes and princess’ look like. I’ve used an example of another book that the children may have read and can use as a reference point. By doing an activity like this before reading a text will allow ESL students to have a picture painted for them and any gaps filled in. From here I would ask students to use the title in conjunction with the visual component to make predictions about the text. This could be done as a whole class activity or in the form of a “Think-Pair-Share”. Before reading the text students would be told the purpose for the reading eg: looking at character development in narrative texts, plot development or setting the scene using various adjectives and descriptive language.
During reading:
Whilst reading the text there would be several points that could be stopped upon for discussion. These include page 3 to decipher vocabulary such as (unruly, awkward, murmur and phrases like “wise kind of way.” A range of reading strategies can be used in a whole class situation to decode the vocabulary by having students understand the syntax of the sentence. Other points to discuss would be emotive language used throughout and grammar. A lesson could also be framed on perspectives for example how the village people and other princess’ viewed the main character as poor and unworthy.
Present text for task: The princess who had no kingdom.
Ask peers:
• what would be some of the problems that students from a diverse range of back grounds have with texts similar to this?
• Explain: If students such as indigenous learners encounter books like this that can be classified as a “Western fairytale” they may have problems with the concept of things like princesses, princes, kingdoms etc. When reading text types like these we need to explicitly teach students how to decode the vocabulary and grammar.
A lesson around this text type might go something like this:
“SO now that we have discussed what the words princess and kingdom mean let’s start thinking about some other things. Think aloud now I remember not so long ago I read a book that had princesses and princes in it called Cinderella and I can remember a few things about the way the characters looked. The princesses in the other story I read wore very beautiful gowns and ALWAYS wore a crown. The princes were always dressed in very formal clothing and also wore a crown. Now this prince and princess look a little bit different. If we have a look at the girl on the front cover what is she wearing? Why do you this she is wearing this? The prince is also dressed very differently... What can you see that is unusual about him (love heart on chest, frilly collar, long socks, no crown). SO from looking at the front cover we can start to tell a little bit more about the story.
Do you think this story will be like the other fairytales we might have seen?
From using the think aloud strategy it has allowed me to give students some in site as to what ‘regular’ princes and princess’ look like. I’ve used an example of another book that the children may have read and can use as a reference point. By doing an activity like this before reading a text will allow ESL students to have a picture painted for them and any gaps filled in. From here I would ask students to use the title in conjunction with the visual component to make predictions about the text. This could be done as a whole class activity or in the form of a “Think-Pair-Share”. Before reading the text students would be told the purpose for the reading eg: looking at character development in narrative texts, plot development or setting the scene using various adjectives and descriptive language.
During reading:
Whilst reading the text there would be several points that could be stopped upon for discussion. These include page 3 to decipher vocabulary such as (unruly, awkward, murmur and phrases like “wise kind of way.” A range of reading strategies can be used in a whole class situation to decode the vocabulary by having students understand the syntax of the sentence. Other points to discuss would be emotive language used throughout and grammar. A lesson could also be framed on perspectives for example how the village people and other princess’ viewed the main character as poor and unworthy.
