Dialogue and Breaking the Fourth Wall

If you're looking for a way to teach punctuating dialogue, it's hard to beat Lee's "Teaching Direct Speech Punctuation using the iPhone text messaging!", which he published nearly five (FIVE) years ago.

Recently, I've been reading books in the following series to both my own children and my class. As someone reading a book out loud, the thing I like it is the way the books talk to their audience and invite them into the narrative.

The reason they're appearing in this post is that they're written as direct speech, with the speech in speech bubbles.

Ideas:

- children look at page or pages in a book and convert the speech bubble(s) into written, punctuated dialogue.

- children create a dialogue between themselves and the book. The books get the reader to think or intimate a response. These could be written down.

- children could write the narrative of the story. Still writing dialogue, but adding actions and descriptions too.

Just a few ideas to get you started...

Lunchtime Story Club

Michael Morpurgo recently spoke of the virtues of teachers reading to children in class. Of course, we agree, we've written about it on this very blog.

At school, our librarian shared the article. Some replies of, "Already do". Others of, "That'd be good". But, many of, "When? I'm too tight on time already!"

However, our quick thinking librarian was straight on to it and thus Storytime Club was born. There's a sign up sheet for teachers. One slot per day (12:15, start of lunch). A notice for children, informing them of the teacher reading that day and the book's title. At the start of lunch, the teacher sits in the library (I sat on beanbags) and reads to whoever turns up (I had 3 children) - not many, but a nice small group to read and discuss a book with. 10 minutes later, picture book read and all off to lunch.

Looking for time to read to children? Set up a Storytime Club they can attend. There may only be three turn up, there may be more, but three, remember, is more than none and they benefit from the story.

Next steps are we hope all members of the school staff and some senior students will join in with reading. 

Picture Books and Some Ideas For Classroom Uses

We've written a few posts recently about picture books. Here's another. We've started a Pinterest Board of books we've read to our own children (you know, the ones we live with) and how these books could possibly be used in the classroom...

Reading to The Class (Picture Books)

I've never been much of a reader. Don't know why. Just the way I am I suppose. However, I do enjoy being read to (bloomin' love being read to) and enjoy reading a book out loud for others to share in the enjoyment of. This is another post where my classroom practice has been altered by by daughter. My daughter is now just over a year old and, in the past year, I've rediscovered the library and picture books. She quite enjoys books and I enjoy reading to her at bedtime. There are some beautiful, interesting and amusing picture books. 

In the past, we've written about picture books being a useful tool in Key Stage Two. What I've done so far in the spring term is change my approach to reading to my class. In the past, I read 'longer' books: Tove Jansson, Dhal, Blyton etc... These have mostly been successful, but often, I'd start a book and not manage to get it finished or we'd lose track of events. I've taken into school some of the books I read my daughter, I've chosen picture books from the school library and even had one brought in by the children. The result has been that we've started and finished a story in two or three days. 

What do I want to get out of a story? Children enjoying it. Learning about plot. Seeing vocabulary and punctuation choices. Getting ideas for their own writing. We've got all of these so far!

Notable stand outs so far...

Mr. Wuffles! - David Wiesner

Horton Hears a Who - Dr. Seuss

This Moose Belongs to Me - Oliver Jeffers

I'll still read some longer books too (that's important), and Five on a Treasure Island will be one of them, but I'll get in lots of picture books in between.