Picture Writing

Teaching Strategies

I look forward to the many strategies that will be implemented in support of building students' knowledge, including connecting text to students' own previous knowledge and explicitly teaching them how we do this. We will work on observation and interpretation methods with weather images and key vocabulary through hands-on projects. Students will explore imagery and the relation of words and images to help their comprehension with weather activities and experiments. Technology will be infused into our lessons to keep learning up to date and relevant for students.

Prior Knowledge

Using strategies to connect weather images, texts, and experiences allows opportunities for assessments and filling gaps in prior knowledge. Students will be explicitly taught how strategies of connecting text to their own previous knowledge help their comprehension of weather concepts. They will learn how they are building more and more of their own prior-knowledge. An article in Pearson Education, Inc. explains that, "When students learn to make connections from their experience to the text they are currently reading, they have a foundation, or scaffolding, upon which they can place new facts, ideas, and concepts. ¹³ We will move through this process of constructing connections with each prior-knowledge strategy. I will model each type; then we will explore it. For instance, text-to-self is how students think out loud when reading words, so we'll work on making connections between the text and their own experience. Text-to-world is finding out what students know about the world and making personal connections to it. Text-to-text is how a book relates or reminds us of another book. We will be using different big books and trade books about weather for these activities.

Key Vocabulary

Making weather vocabulary connections meaningful requires experiencing an image by thinking about it and verbally expressing what comes to mind in both new descriptions and previous memories recalled by that image. We will use methods of observation to describe what students see in an image, first without interpretation. Students will learn observation skills when looking at an image, then interpretation skills, and, finally exploration skills of key vocabulary words to connect image with text. I will also use this strategy to assess prior knowledge by using observation when showing images without text for key weather vocabulary, for example, sunny, foggy, cloudy, windy, rainy, and stormy. I will closely monitor how students explain their thinking and interpretations during these activities and then teach students key weather vocabulary to connect images with key vocabulary words throughout the unit.

Internal Image

Another strategy involves text only to discover what images students recall or build in their mind. For instance, I will show students cards with key weather vocabulary to see if they recall any prior knowledge or recognize any of the text. Exploration of students' interpretations in activities will help in making connections with vocabulary. Internal imagery can connect key weather images to experiences and therefore help teachers discover how students recall and describe using their senses. Next, I will present students with weather images to connect to key vocabulary. Finally, I will monitor students to coach them in speaking in complete sentences to verbally describe experiences and images they recall. Bazeli and Olle suggest that young students use visual and multimodal texts and multiple modes of representation in their daily literacy activities. ¹⁴ Throughout the unit I will integrate technology to also support making connections with mnemonics and visual literacy activities.

Using Technology

Since many young students have experienced technology in their personal lives, even - five-year olds, I will use this as a strategy and technique to fill the gap in meaningful and relevant ways with weather content. There are many technological products that can be incorporated for individual, small-group, and large-group use. Engaging students with the different and creative video methods such as captioned vocabulary words and pictures or live-action to illustrate vocabulary are fun ways to develop vocabulary and comprehension. Videos created with help from adult volunteers or older-buddies will be used for individual or small group activities. I will use my projector often for small-and large-group activities. Recently, we have begun using iPads at our school for all three kinds of activities, and will continue to do so with this weather unit. The technology we most use involves the iMac computers in the school's computer lab (and sometimes a main classroom computer). There is a wealth of wonderful free academic programs and online options for free access with computers. I've included several websites for these in the Teacher Resources and Student Resources sections of this unit. Bazeli and Olle remind us that, "The process of creating an accompanying visual provides practice with new vocabulary, and promotes encoding of that new vocabulary into long-term memory." ¹⁵ This can be done creatively using technology as a strategy. Technology seems to provide unlimited resources whether to help fill gaps in student learning or to help make assessments more focused and relevant.

Comprehension Assessments

There are various ways, including technological ways, to assess student comprehension of weather concepts in individual and small-group activities. For example, a drawing program supports students in visualizing, verbalizing, and writing when retelling a story. "The visual retelling of a story is a wonderful way to vary the informal assessment of comprehension." ¹⁶ It can also be the retelling of a weather experiment, or a retelling of an imagery experience of weather that is assessed. Of course, physically drawing or creating visual representation to retell a story can be used with different mediums for assessing comprehension of weather concepts. It can simply be using paper and pencil or crayons to create an illustration to assist in students' verbal retell. One assessment I look forward to providing involves paintings and images that I will show on the projector or class computer depicting weather scenes for students to apply observation, verbal, and writing skills expressing their knowledge of weather and its effect on the world and earth's inhabitants.