Author: andrewjhammond

In this second blog in the ‘hacker’ series, I tackle reading comprehension skills.

Answering reading comprehension questions, and especially in an exam situation against the clock, requires a steady and methodological approach.

Just like in the previous blog on ‘How to write an essay’, I offer some actions and chants to help students understand and embed techniques. Getting the body involved can cement ideas that might otherwise be abstract and difficult to grasp. It is sometimes referred to as somatic learning, from the Greek word ‘soma’, meaning body.

For some boys and girls I sell this as a rugby hacker, for others it’s a dance or a set of exercises to keep us fit. Whatever you choose to call it, somatic learning works.

Each action accompanies a statement to be shouted out at the same time. I’ve listed them below, with a short rationale for each one.

How to tackle reading comprehension tests

1. Skim then scan

It’s best to skim through a passage to get the gist, read the questions and then scan for answers.

Action: Pretend to hold a bricklayer’s trowel and imagine you’re skimming a layer of cement on a brick wall that you’re building. Move the trowel from left to right in a flat line.  Then imagine you’re holding a pair of binoculars up to your eyes and scan from left to right.

Say aloud: ‘SKIM THEN SCAN!’

2. Marks and minutes

Look closely at the marks and try to divide up your time so that you don’t spend too long on 1-mark questions. Often the bigger marks come towards the end of the test, so plan enough time for them.  

Action: Raise left arm out front, fist closed (marks). Raise right arm out front, fist closed (minutes).

Say aloud: ‘MARKS AND MINUTES!’

 3. Read between the lines

Some questions ask you to hunt for clues, not in what is actually written in the passage but by what is implied. Reading ‘between the lines’, means inferring extra evidence by thinking around a problem and applying some deductive logic and reasoning.

Action: Place both arms in front of you parallel to each other, laterally, with a gap in between. Pretend to read a line of text in the space between your arms.

Say aloud: ‘READ BETWEEN THE LINES!’

4. Support with quotes

Many questions require you to support your answers with ‘evidence from the text’ or ‘words from the passage’.

Action: There are three words in this chant and three distinct actions:

1. Left hand out in front, index finger extended to show one quotation mark in the air.
2. Right hand out in front, index finger extended to show the other quotation mark in the air.
3. Keeping both hands in position, move your index fingers up and down to ‘animate’ the quotation marks.

Say aloud:  ‘SUPPORT – WITH – QUOTES!’

5. Stay on track

It’s so easy to become distracted and chase tangents when answering questions. Sometimes we do this just to ‘get something down’, but valuable time can be wasted by writing comments that are not relevant to the question. It’s best to stay on track, focused on the question.

 Action: Imagine you’re running a race, arms moving back and forward, running on the spot (picture your own lane on the running track in front of you).

Say aloud:  ‘STAY ON TRACK!’

6. Leave a gap and come back.

You can lose time by spending too long a question that you simply cannot answer. Leave a gap and move on. You can always come back if you have time at the end, and put something – anything – down!

Action: Arms out-stretched, palms on their side, with a gap in between (‘leave a gap’). Then with your right hand, put your thumb up and point back over your shoulder (‘and come back’).

Say aloud: ‘LEAVE A GAP AND COME BACK!’.  

7. Check your answers

Always remember to read through and check your work. You never know when you have accidentally omitted an important key word or repeated other words without realising.  

Action: Draw a giant tick in the air with your index finger (‘check’ is the down stroke and ‘answers’ is the long up stroke).

 Say aloud: ‘CHECK YOUR ANSWERS!’

 Now that you have learned each step, it’s time to put it all together as one dance/rugby hacker…

SKIM THEN SCAN

MARKS AND MINUTES

READ BETWEEN THE LINES

SUPPORT WITH QUOTES

STAY ON TRACK

LEAVE A GAP AND COME BACK

CHECK YOUR ANSWERS

Learning these steps will help students to tackle reading comprehension tests confidently and efficiently, because now they have a structured method – and it’s one they will never forget it.

 

 

 

 

Learning from the neck upwards always has its limitations, I find. Get the body involved and somehow we seem to understand things – and remember them – better.

Getting out of your seat, standing up and performing different actions to explain and embed a variety of writing skills can work wonders, including essay-writing, tackling reading comprehension, mindmapping, story-writing, revising parts of speech and learning how to study and write poems.

In this first in a series of short blogs, I tackle essay-writing. Many children are not short on things to say; what causes them untold problems is how to structure their thoughts – how to begin, where to go to next, how to round it all up and so on. Precious minutes can be lost in English examinations through time spent deliberating how to structure a response to studied literature.

So when it comes to structure, I get the children to ‘dance it out’. For some children I sell it as a rugby hacker, for others it’s a dance or a set of exercises to keep us fit.

Each action accompanies a statement to be shouted out at the same time. I’ve listed them below, with a short rationale for each one.

HOW TO WRITE AN ESSAY

1. Define the terms

Every good essay begins with a definition of terms – an explanation of what the question is asking you to do, in your own words, defining any key words and setting out what your essay is going to address.

Action:

Palms together, out front, in the shape of a book. Open the book (palms out) as if opening a large dictionary.

Shout out: ‘DEFINE THE TERMS!’

 

2. Set the scene

It’s always good to offer a few lines of context here. If writing about a book or a scene, explain the place, time period and so on – any political, social or familial background that is important and any key themes that are relevant to your essay.

Action:

Arms stretched out ahead of you, hands together and then move arms/hands apart as if mimicking a wide, panoramic photograph in front of you.

Say aloud: ‘SET THE SCENE!’

(I always find it’s especially good to emphasise the alliteration here. Set the Scene

 

3. Introduce the characters

Next, say a little about the central characters in the story or scene you are writing about. Introduce the main protagonists, heroes or villains, who are particularly relevant to the central point you have been asked to write about.

Action:

Right arm out stretched, turn to the side, as if introducing an imaginary person you’ve just arrived at a party with.

Say aloud: ‘INTRODUCE THE CHARACTERS!’

 

4. Three main points

It’s the magic three here, like every good essay or speech, try to make three main points. Any less is too few, and any more can be unwieldy and prevent you from exploring each one in any depth (particularly if you’re writing against the clock).

Action:

One fist out, second fist below it, then move the first fist and place it below the second fist – creating the three lights on a traffic light.  

Say aloud: ‘THREE MAIN POINTS!’

(Move each fist as you say each of the three words above).

 

5. Give evidence

Every good essay needs evidence from the text to support your views and observations. To be exact, you really need point/evidence, point/evidence, point/evidence. But performing each action like this (with ‘three main points’ followed by ‘give evidence’ will ensure you remember to include both elements in your essay).

 Action:

You are in a court room, giving evidence under oath. So, right arm extended, palm up.

Say aloud: ‘GIVE EVIDENCE!’

 

6. Round it all up

You need to write a conclusion to your essay, in which you return to the opening question and make sure you answer it directly. Effectively, you need to round it all up for the reader.

Action:

Index finger extended on each hand, arms out and together so fingers meet. Both hands then work down each half of the circle, meeting together again at the bottom.

Say aloud: ‘ROUND IT ALL UP!’

 

Now that you have learned each step, it’s time to put it all together as one dance/rugby hacker…

DEFINE THE TERMS

SET THE SCENE

INTRODUCE THE CHARACTERS

THREE MAIN POINTS

GIVE EVIDENCE

ROUND IT ALL UP

Over the years, I have seen countless children sat at little tables in large examination rooms, silently performing these actions in miniature, in order to remind themselves of the ingredients and structure of a good essay. They won’t get stuck again.

It works. They never forget it. Never.

Next blog – How to tackle reading comprehension.

 

 

 

 

Making time for CPD is difficult. As a full-time teacher myself, now entering my twentieth year in education, I know how many demands there are on one’s time once the children go home at the end of the day. The school submarine is poised to submerge once again, not resurfacing until February half-term. During the voyage, there is little time to reflect and re-energise; no time for oneself and barely any time to connect with colleagues and remind ourselves why we still do this difficult job.

Books don’t mark themselves; no matter how much we all agree that marking should be manageable and efficient, the children’s efforts still deserve our attention at the end of the day. And if our teaching is truly dynamic, then what our pupils have learned today will inform our planning for tomorrow, so there is always preparatory work to do every night.

So cramming in a CPD session after school is not always the most popular move a school leader can make.

But it’s worth it. Good CPD is not only instructive, it’s motivational too, and dare I say, entertaining.

I like delivering WISDOM. That’s not an arrogant claim that I know all there is to know about teaching and learning. By wisdom, I mean ‘What I Shall Do On Monday’.

I’m talking practical, tried-and-tested ideas for use in the classroom on Monday morning. Those little fixes and tips that cheer us up and make teaching more effective, more efficient and, I hope, more enjoyable.

And we’ve all got some of those to share.

Getting a bunch of dedicated adults together in a room, even for just an hour, is always worth it. It’s a lonely job, after all. But as a former headteacher myself, having worked in both state and independent sectors, I know that it depends entirely on the CPD provider you get.

Opening gambits like ‘When I used to teach…’ or ‘When I used to be in the classroom…’ can do little for inspiring trust or confidence. I’m pleased to be back in the classroom again because it gives me an opportunity not only to try out all the strategies and ideas I’ve ‘magpied’ along the way, but also because it reminds me how difficult the job is. As teacher you are: mentor, coach, CBT therapist, model learner, pastor, listener, data-tracker, motivator and the curator of your children’s curiosity. That’s a lot of hats to wear. So a regular boost can be rejuvenating, if delivered in a positive and helpful way.

A good CPD session is authentic, rooted in the realities of classroom teaching and filled with practical solutions and strategies for doing the job better, and getting the most out of the children whom we teach.

I have delivered CPD sessions in over a hundred schools across the UK and abroad, of all shapes and sizes. I’ve met thousands of fellow teachers over the years, and one thing links us all together. We all believe it is about the children. Putting the children first is what motivates us all, but placing the children at the centre of all we do leaves little space for us. If we’re caring for the children, who is caring for us?

The answer, of course, is the school leaders and governors. The best headteachers ‘serve to lead’ in the inverted pyramid of school management. But with so many demands on their time, and so many pressures, it often falls to the visiting CPD trainer to put the staff at the centre of what they do, to put them first and to share ideas that will ease the burden and help them to rediscover the reasons why they went into the profession in the first place.

A good CPD should be an opportunity to recharge the batteries, have a laugh and a joke and share some WISDOM that might, just might, get us excited about Monday morning again.

Let’s get this straight. Children have incalculable potential as thinking machines. Too often we reduce this down to a standardised IQ score. But if scores do motivate you, tell the children this:

They have 100 billion brain cells, or neurons. Each neuron can connect to 10,000 other neurons, which creates about 1000 trillion connections or information signals. We can call these ‘thoughts’. So you might say they have a computational capacity of 1000 trillion. If you wanted to write this number down, you would need a piece of paper that stretches to the moon and back fourteen times.

So let’s get thinking. Here are ten ideas for some early morning thinking, just after registration.

1. Time travel

Tell your students that the stationery cupboard in the corner of the classroom is not a cupboard at all, it is a… time machine.

You have been dabbling with time travel technology over the holidays, and watched Wallace and Gromit’s Grand Day Out. After several failed attempts, now you’ve cracked it. The machinery is a bit clunky and the speed of travel isn’t all that fast, but it is a time machine. Set the dials (the light switch panel on the wall) to a specific date – for a neat experiment, I recommend ‘this time next week’. Tell the children that because the machinery is primitive, it may take a while to get there, probably around seven days’ travel.

‘So, who is coming with me to the future?’

Someone may say, ‘If we wait there with you for seven days and then exit, we will be walking into the present because it’s taken a week to get us to this time next week!’

If so, you can say, ‘Ok, if it took just three minutes to get to this time next week, would it be a time machine then?’

If they say, ‘Yes, of course!’ then you can tell them this:

‘If we wait in there for 3 minutes and come out into this time next week, it will still be our present, because we have experienced the 3 minutes it took to get there. Everyone else we see will be experiencing their own present time – so in what way have we travelled to the future?’

2. The Operating theatre

Tell your students that the stationery cupboard in the corner of the classroom is not a cupboard at all, it is an…. operating theatre.

You have been dabbling with brain surgery over the holidays and learned a lot about the happy and sad chemicals in our brains. You have managed to isolate and remove the capacity for feeling any form of sadness. This means you will only ever feel happy, forever.

The operation is painless, non-intrusive, carried out using laser surgery and only takes about twenty minutes. ‘So, who is up for the operation?’

If the children suggest, ‘But if we never feel sadness we won’t be able to sympathise with our friends, which may mean eventually we will have no friends left,’ you can point out, ‘Yes, and you will be happy about that.’

3. Free will

The concept of ‘free will versus everything is pre-ordained’ is an interesting Pandora’s Box to open with the children, but a tricky concept for some to grasp. So, I boil it down to pudding choices.

Today there will be chocolate pudding or yoghurt at school. I choose chocolate pudding. Was that my free choice or was I always destined to choose that? Was it pre-ordained in the stars that I would choose chocolate pudding that day?

I could try and beat the system, of course. I could queue up, reciting ‘Chocolate pudding, chocolate pudding…’ many times over in my head and then, at the last minute, opt for yoghurt. But was I always destined to make the last-minute change?

4. The great Polo mint debate

What makes a Polo special? Is it its white, crispy mintiness, or is it the hole in the middle? If it is the hole in the centre that makes a Polo unique, what is that hole exactly? Have you paid for that hole? What have you actually paid for? And is it only the hole in the middle that makes the classic Polo shape? If it was, then one Polo mint would cover the entire surface of the planet. Surely it is the space around the ring that makes it a ring too? If so, where does that space stop? And how much of that space have you paid for?

5. Where is the meaning of words actually located?

If I am texting I sometimes shorten words. Take the word ‘people’ for example. I can remove the ‘o’ and it still retains its meaning in a text (peple). I can probably remove the first ‘e’ too (pple) and the reader may still get the meaning, in context. I may even be able to remove the second ‘e’ (ppl) and the reader will get the gist in a sentence. But if I remove the first ‘p’ then the meaning of people has vanished (pl). But surely the meaning of people is not located in the letter ‘p’, is it?

Now let’s take the word ‘teapot’. If I say the word teapot aloud, listeners may immediately conjure up an image of a teapot. The chances are no one will have the same teapot; they will all be slightly different, in colour, shape, design and so on. Lots of different teapots. But I didn’t say ‘teapots’ I only said one. One teapot. So where is the meaning of that word located? In the letters, the sound or the image conjured up? I cannot pour tea from the word teapot. It cannot hold anything, it is just a few letters put together.

Does it work in reverse? If you look at a teapot, do you think of the word teapot?

6. Making metaphors

Many children find it difficult deciphering metaphors in poetry or creating their own fresh metaphors beyond the usual clichés. Here’s a way of making metaphors real.

Invite the children to sit in a circle (well, no, actually to form a circle by sitting in the shape of one together, rather than sitting ‘in one’, to be exact!).

Hold up a pencil and recite the following statement, with your eyes firmly closed:

In my mind, I can see, the object in my hand could be….

Feel the pencil-ness of the pencil, its shape, texture, weight and so on. The attributes of the pencil may mean it could be something else. A telegraph pole for Borrowers? A giant’s toothpick? A piece of driftwood?

Pass the pencil around the circle and invite others to have a go, beginning with the same statement each time (with their eyes closed to what the object actually is). Repeat the game with other objects, e.g.: a football, a piece of cardboard, a piece of tree bark, a pebble.

The potentiality of things is what interests poets and writers. This exercise enables the children to reconnect with their younger selves, back to a time when a stick was a sword and the world was less literal, but full of real and imaginary realms sitting side by side.

7. Confusion is a ball of string

Ontological metaphors use physical objects to articulate abstract concepts or feelings. For example, anger is often represented by liquid in a test-tube:

I am at boiling point; simmer down; I had steam coming out of my ears; I was bubbling with rage!

Other ontological metaphors include:

Confusion is a ball of string:

I’ve lost the thread; I’m in knots over this; we need to untangle this

Love is a fire:

He has the hots for you; we need to cool things; she’s gone cold on me; I had my fingers burnt.

Encourage the children to think of other examples of phrases for which these metaphors ring true. Then invite them to create new objects and new metaphors!

Orientational metaphors take an abstract feeling and place it on an orientation so we can understand it more easily:

Happy is up:

I’m over the moon; I’m having a high time; I feel up today; I’m on cloud nine

Sad is down:

I’m down in the dumps; I feel low today; you look down.

Encourage the children to think of new ways of representing happiness or sadness (e.g. over here / over there; inside / outside) and new metaphors which make sense of them.

8. Odd-one-out

If I choose a strawberry, an orange and a deck-chair, which is the odd-one-out? If the children suggest it is the deck-chair because the other two are fruits, you can suggest it was the orange, because the deck-chair was red.

Encourage the children to think of their own three objects, where the odd-one-out may not be so obvious. Could you then take the same three objects and find a different odd-one-out for a different reason?

9. What colour is Tuesday?

There is no correct answer to this, it depends entirely on what the children think. For the synesthetic students in the room, there will be a quick and easy solution: blue or red etc. For others, it may represent activities they engage in, moods they feel that day or some other external stimulus. If some children choose the same colour, you can investigate to see if their reasons are the same.

What does Sunday sound like?

Again, for some children this may be a quick question. For others, it may again be linked to activities they have that day or other experiences at home.

(You can enjoy similarly delicious questions like this one in Ian Gilbert’s fabulous book, The Little Book of Thunks).  

10. On a blank sheet of paper, type:

The statement on the other side of this page is true.

Now on the reverse side, type:

The statement on the other side of this page is false.

Enjoy the ensuing debate! In the past, I had one child tell me that ‘this paper should spontaneously combust, because it simply cannot exist.’ Fabulous.

(Thank you, Martin Cohen’s 101 Philosophy Problems for this particular one).

Liberating the young thinker

These ideas help us to emphasise to children that there is not always a right or wrong answer and that their job is not always to guess the correct answer in their teacher’s head. This can be very liberating for the young thinker and encourage, rather than prevent, creative thinking!

I will post more teaching ideas, once you have had chance to give your brain a rest now.

Thank you for reading.

AH

 

 

Every day, in every school, there are two curricula being delivered:

– a visible one, shaped by the national curriculum, delivered through a timetable of teaching and learning and measured via academic qualification;

– an invisible one, shaped by the learning environment, delivered through ‘hidden’ attitudes, behaviours and skills and modelled and observed by teachers, via daily conversations and social interactions in school.

Both curricula are of fundamental importance and both influence a child’s development. Both will determine the future life chances of every student who passes through school; they are inextricably linked. One is visible; the other is hidden.

It is common practice in schools for data on pupil attainment and progress to be collated at regular intervals during a school year. This data is then scrutinised and used to form important judgements on the quality of teaching and learning and the resultant success of students.

Attainment and progress data are the results of teaching and learning methods, and they tell us a lot: they show us areas of strength and areas for development. But as soon as we investigate further, we find that learning performance comprises attitudes, behaviours and skills which are hidden deep within the learning habits of students and the way in which they interact with the learning environment around them. Such a dynamic is not articulated by data alone; we need something more. In the worst practice, the results of a learner’s performance over a term is held to be that learner’s performance: ‘Isabelle has performed well in Science this term – she achieved an A grade’.

The A grade is not Isabelle’s actual learning performance; it is the result of her learning performance. Hidden beneath the grade lie the attitudes, behaviours and skills that enabled Isabelle to make progress.

If we want to improve learning performance and enrich the learning environment in a school, attainment and progress data cannot be conflated with performance. We need a way of tracking a learner’s habits so that we can continue to monitor their attitudes, behaviours and skills at the same time as charting their resultant attainment and progress through the academic curriculum. If the latter is the visible aspect of schooling (the work, the exams and the grades), the former is the ‘invisible’ part – the hidden learning. Similarly, if the grades are the quantitative data, a focus on attitudes, behaviours and skills gives us the empirical, qualitative information we need in order to adjust and improve a learner’s performance along the way.

But articulating this using the traditional language of learning is like trying to explain quantum mechanics using the language of classical science. There is so much hidden. Trying to highlight the facets of a learner’s performance through an academic score alone is like trying to light up an auditorium with a torch.

If we were F1 engineers, we would know that the performance of our car cannot be encapsulated in its position on the leaderboard at the end of a race. This is the result of its performance. We know that it has everything to do with the car’s design, its engine, its braking system, tyres, suspension, fuel, oh.. and the driver, his/her attitude, skills, concentration and so on. There are so many factors and facets of good driving performance, and learning is no different.

We need dynamic and continuous diagnostic information on students’ learning performance so that we can do something about it – and not wait for Isabelle’s grades to descend from an A in Science to a C in the next round of summative tests, before we then scratch our heads and consider what’s wrong with her.

That’s why I wrote the Hidden Learning Program