• Memory games – these help with visual memory and recall. You can use words or letters or any objects! Ask the children to look at a set of objects for a few seconds. When they look away, remove one or two objects. Let them look at the set again and decide which objects are missing.
• Make acronyms for tricky words, e.g. Rhythm Helps Your Two Hips Move or Big Elephants Can Always Upset Small Elephants.
Monitor your class and assess when these games are no longer productive. Fun activities for older
learners can include: • Spelling tag – a learner starts the game by saying a word. The next learner’s word has to start with the last letter of the first learner’s word. This game can be made more challenging by changing the letter that the next word must begin on or by limiting the words to a specific part of speech.
• Balderdash – use a classroom-friendly version of the game where you divide the class into groups. Find an unusual word in the dictionary and give groups three minutes to create a dictionary sounding and viable definition. Read all definitions out to the class along with the actual definition. The group that chooses the correct definition gets 5 points and one point for every group that chooses their definition.
Incorporate Intensive Reading at a word level into
your daily instruction. • Encourage and enforce the use of dictionaries and thesauruses as well as a personal spelling list for the checking of spelling and pronunciation.
• Supply learners with lists of commonly confused words: homophones, homonyms, homographs to learn how they differ and should be used.
• Ask learners to supply and spell synonyms and antonyms for words.
• Groups of words that share the same spelling pattern (-ight, -tion, -ough, etc.) can also be displayed on the wall and made interactive. New words with the same spelling pattern can be added to the list over the year.
16
Weak reading
There are many reasons why a child may struggle with reading. Be aware of the different reading levels in your class. Learners in the Senior Phase who struggle to read need support in a quiet, unobtrusive way in order to avoid embarrassment. Allow them to read to you for assessment away from the class and develop an Extended and Independent Reading programme with them where you encourage them to read books that they enjoy. Practising reading is one of the best ways to improve reading. Introduce paired reading – at home and at school. This is where the reader reads aloud to a partner and the partner assists by following the words with the reader and helping when they get stuck on a particular word or pronounces the word incorrectly. Encourage parents or care-givers to get involved with this. The reader should never feel rushed or pressurised. They should feel relaxed and encouraged. It is important to create a positive atmosphere and attitude towards reading. Many barriers to reading exist because children have developed a sense of “I can’t”.
Weak comprehension
Help learners to engage with a text by showing them how to approach it and look for clues that will help them to read and understand it. This is especially important if they are learning in a second language. Use pictures with the text to help these children grasp concepts and humour in the text. Step 1: Ask questions and make predictions
about the title, the picture and the genre. Step 2: Read through the text and identify
vocabulary, terms and expressions that are not familiar. This is an essential part of comprehending the text. Step 3: Once there is background knowledge, read through the text again.
There are different levels of understanding a text. Barrett’s Taxonomy is a comprehensive guide that unpacks these different levels with examples of appropriate questions. As stated in the CAPS document (page 121), “formal assessment must cater for a range of cognitive levels as shown below. A variety of types of questions such as
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