Lesson video

Hello, everyone.

My name's Mrs. Riley, and today we are going to do some reading together.

In our lesson today, we are reading one of my favourite books called "Yoshi the Stonecutter." So before we start our lesson, we need to all make sure we've got the right copy in front of us.

You'll need the 2011 Oxford University Press Edition of "Yoshi the Stonecutter," written by Becca Heddle and Meg Hunt.

Could you pause the video now while you go and get this copy of the book Ready for our lesson? Well done.

So now I know we all have the book in front of us.

We can start our reading lesson.

The outcome of today's lesson is to retrieve answers from the text.

Here are our keywords for our lesson today.

These are really important for our learning.

The first word is.

My turn, your turn.

Proper noun.

A proper noun is a specific name given to a person, place, or thing.

For example, my name Mrs. Riley would be a proper name because it's a specific name for me and it would have a capital M and a capital R for Mrs. Riley.

The next keyword is summarise.

To summarise is to pull out key information and ideas from the text.

If I summarised a story, I wouldn't tell you all the little, tiny details, but I would pull out the key ideas and just tell you those.

Retrieval.

Retrieval is finding key details or information in the text and extracting them.

I like to imagine I'm throwing in a fishing rod and I'm retrieving and I'm pulling out the information that I want.

The next word is scanning.

Scanning is rapidly searching from searching the text for specific information or keywords.

We often use a scanning finger.

Rapidly means quickly.

So quickly looking through to find specific words.

The next word is discussion.

Discussion is the process of talking about something or exchanging ideas.

If we had a discussion about a book, we would both just talk together and exchange our ideas.

So all of these words will be really important for our learning today.

In our lesson today, we have two learning cycles.

In the first learning cycle, we'll revisit the story and in the second learning cycle, we will build comprehension.

So we'll build our understanding.

First though, let's revisit the story, "Yoshi the Stonecutter." So I would like you to pause the video and tell your partner, "What do you know already about the story, 'Yoshi the Stonecutter?'" Well done.

I heard lots of ideas.

You've remembered so many things about this story.

So "Yoshi the Stonecutter" is a traditional tale.

It's been told lots of times and passed on over many years.

The story is fictional, it's made up, it isn't real.

The book has illustrations, which are the pictures.

The main characters in the book are Yoshi and the spirit.

Yoshi wishes to be rich and powerful.

The spirit grants each of his wishes.

Let's recap the story of "Yoshi the Stonecutter." Yoshi is a stonecutter who lives in Japan.

He does not have much money, but he works hard every day.

Yoshi visits a rich person and makes a wish to become like him.

A spirit appears and makes the wish come true for Yoshi.

Before long, Yoshi sees a prince and wishes to become like him.

The wish is granted by the spirit.

Each wish he makes, Yoshi hopes to become more and more powerful.

He becomes the sun, then the cloud, and then a rock.

Yoshi returns to his original life as a stonecutter, as he realises that money and power don't always bring happiness.

So let's check.

You are listening.

Is it true or false? When Yoshi turns into a rock, he is finally the most powerful he has ever been.

Is this true or false? Pause the video now.

Well done.

This is false.

He's not.

He doesn't feel powerful when he's a rock at all.

Now, summarising means pulling out the most important information in from a text.

We just summarised "Yoshi the Stonecutter" by talking about the key moments in the story.

So for example, I told you about the key moment when Yoshi wishes to become a rich man and is his wishes granted.

But I didn't tell you about the little detail that Yoshi had hard hands when he was a stonecutter because you don't need to know that little detail in order to understand the story.

But you did need to know the detail that he wished to be rich to understand the story.

So we have the main ideas and then the little details.

We spoke about the main events and we left out the little smaller details.

Remembering the key moments in the story helps us to focus on the most important details that make the story flow.

Summarising what we have read can help us to remember and understand a story better.

It helps us to think about the story in our own words.

Illustrations, they're the pictures, can help us to summarise the main events.

An illustrator does not always draw everything that happens in a story.

They often draw pictures of the main events.

For example, in the one of the pictures, they draw a picture, the illustrator draws a picture of Yoshi doing his job as a stonecutter.

They don't draw a whole picture just of Yoshi's hard hands because that's a small detail.

Instead they pick the main events and that's what they draw.

Each page containing an illustration is like a little summary, isn't it? It's like a little picture tells us kind of what's happening on the page.

So I would like you to look at page 24 of "Yoshi the Stonecutter." And I would like you to just focus on the illustrations.

So turn to page 24 and look at the illustrations on that page.

Pause the video now.

Well done.

Hopefully, you saw that all of those pictures on page 24 were like little summaries of the main events in the story.

So when we summarise, we choose the hmm from the story.

When we summarise, we choose the smaller details, we choose the key settings or we choose the key moments from the story? Pause the video while you decide your answer.

Well done.

The answer is C.

When we summarise, we choose the key moments from the story.

I would like you for your first task now to retell the story with your partner by summarising the key moments.

Use the illustrations and these sentence starters to help you.

The first sentence starter is, Yoshi is a hmm.

The next one, one day he visits a rich person and.

Then he sees a prince and.

Yoshi feels.

He makes another wish and.

Then he wishes to become.

Then he wishes to become.

Finally, he realises.

So gosh, he makes a lot of wishes, doesn't he, Yoshi? So what I would like you to do is look at the story.

That page you've just looked at page 24 will be really helpful with all the little pictures to summarise the key events and then finish those sentence starters.

To summarise the key moments in the story.

You're working with a partner.

Could you pause the video while you complete this task now? Well done.

Really good work.

And I loved the way I saw you working together.

So here are what you might have said.

You might have said Yoshi is a stonecutter who works hard every day.

One day, he visits a rich person's house and a spirit grants him his wish to become a rich person.

Then he sees a prince and he wishes to become a prince and his wish is granted too.

Yoshi feels hot dressed as a prince.

He makes another wish and becomes the sun because he thinks it's more powerful than a prince.

Then he wishes to become a cloud with more power than the sun.

Then he wishes to become a rock with more power than a cloud.

Finally, he realises that being a stonecutter is more powerful than a rock.

We're now going to look at the second learning cycle, building comprehension.

Now, just before we start this learning cycle, can you have a little wiggle on your seat or on the carpet wherever you're sitting? And maybe roll your shoulders a little bit.

Give your fingers a wiggle and take one deep breath through your nose (inhales deeply) and out.

(exhales sharply) Okay.

Are you ready for learning cycle two? So building comprehension means developing our understanding of a text.

We can do this by retrieving key information by skimming and scanning.

Summarising what we have read.

Discussing what we have read.

Retrieving key information means finding the information in the text.

Remember, I said it's a bit like throwing in our fishing rod and trying to pull out a fish, but the fish is the key information that we're looking for.

Skimming over an extract and scanning for keywords can help us to find the information we're looking for.

Sometimes the answer is in that sentence and sometimes we need to read the sentence before or after to find the answer we're looking for.

Skimming means reading quickly.

Scanning means to search for something specific.

So let's retrieve the key information to answer this question.

How do you think Yoshi feels when he is turned into a prince? How do you think Yoshi feels when he's turned into a prince? That's what we're trying to answer.

So first, you might find the illustration of Yoshi as a prince.

You might sort of skim through the book and try to find that picture because that might help you find the answer.

Then you're going to get your skimming and scanning finger ready.

Can I see them? Your skimming and scanning fingers.

Oh, hang on, someone's not showing me.

Oh, there we go.

We're all got our skimming and scanning fingers.

And you're gonna scan for capital letters because these can help us find proper nouns which can help us answer questions about specific characters.

For example, if it said, "How does Yoshi feels?" We might skim and scan to find the word Yoshi and that might help us.

So for example, you might say, "I found the proper noun and noticed the verb smiled," Yoshi smiled afterwards.

"And this tells me he was happy at first." Or you might say that, "I noticed that Yoshi looked hot in the illustrations on page 10.

I skimmed the text and could see that it said this in the text too." So that's an example of how this skimming and scanning works to help retrieve the key information.

Okay? So that's just an example.

So now, could you answer this question? Complete this sentence.

Scanning for capital letters can help us to find, A, common nouns, B, proper nouns, or C, adjectives.

Pause the video.

Well done.

Scanning for capital letters can help us find proper nouns.

Like Yoshi, which is the name of a specific person.

We can also search for keywords in questions.

What happened to the rivers on page 18? Okay, so this is the key question.

What happened to the rivers on page 18? So first, can you pause the video and go to page 18? Okay, lovely.

We're all on page 18 trying to answer what happened to the rivers.

Now the question asks specifically about rivers.

This is a keyword in the question.

The keyword isn't what, or it isn't happened, or it isn't to.

The keyword is rivers because that is what this question is about.

You're already on page 18.

You're going to get your skimming and scanning finger ready.

Let me see them.

And you're gonna scan for the keyword rivers to help you answer this question.

Pause the video now.

Well done.

Hopefully, you were able to scan to find the word rivers, which helped you find your answer.

So is it true or false? The rivers overflowed.

True or false? Pause the video.

Okay, well done.

The answer is true.

The rivers overflowed.

Hopefully, you were able to find that using your skinning and scamming fingers for the keyword rivers.

As we have discussed, summarising what we've read helps us to understand the story better.

Summarising can help knowledge to stick in our heads.

Can you list the six different things that Yoshi changes into throughout the book? I'd like you to do this with your talk partner.

So pause the video and you can use your books to help you if you want.

Remember that back page, that summary page with the little illustrations will help.

I'd like you to name the six different things that Yoshi changes to in the book.

Pause the video now.

Okay, well done.

So remember, we can always look through the pages to check and looking at the illustrations can be very helpful and a quick way to remember.

So let's imagine that you started off just talking with your partner and you think, "Oh, we don't need to look at the book.

We can just remember them.

Okay, but he was a stonecutter.

Then he becomes a rich man, then he becomes a prince." And then you think, "Oh, I'm a bit stuck now." We could get the book, look through the pages, look at the illustrations.

That's a really quick way 'cause it means we don't have to read all the text.

We can just look at the illustrations and then we might see a picture or an illustration of Yoshi as the sun.

"Oh, that's just help me remember.

That was the other thing that Yoshi became." Okay, let's check your understanding.

So here is a list of the different things Yoshi changes into throughout the story.

Can you fill in the blanks? So first, he was a rich person.

Then what was he next? Then he was a sun, then he was a cloud.

Then what was he after a cloud? And finally number six, he was a stonecutter.

Can you pause the video and see if you can fill in the blanks? Well done.

After becoming a rich person, he became a prince.

And after becoming a cloud, he became a rock.

Now, discussion can help build comprehension.

That was one of our keywords.

When we talk about ideas with others, we hear different perspectives which can help us understand the story better.

This has happened to me so many times.

I've read a story and then I have talked about it with somebody else and they've had a completely different idea and I've said, "Oh, my goodness, I never even thought about that when I read it." So I was really glad that I spoke to that person because they helped me to see the story in a different way that I hadn't thought about.

That's why some people have book clubs where they read a story or a book and then they come together and they discuss the book afterwards.

It's really interesting hearing what other people think and it helps us understand the story better.

So look at this question.

What lesson did Yoshi learn at the end of the story? Now, this is the kind of question that has different answers.

If the question was something like what colour was Yoshi's shoes? There would only be one answer.

But this is the kind of question that has got probably lots of answers because people will have different perspectives.

So they might all think Yoshi learned different things.

For example, one person might say, "Yoshi learned that it's better to be happy with who you are and what you have instead of always wanting to be someone else." But somebody else might say, "Yoshi learned that money and power don't always bring happiness." Neither one of those is wrong.

They're both right, but they're both a little bit different, aren't they? So having discussions and understanding different perspectives can deepen our understanding.

Other ways discussion can help.

It can clear up any misunderstandings.

So you might have misunderstood something and somebody might clear that up for you.

It can make us engage more actively with the text.

It can make us connect the text to different experiences.

All of these things can help to make the story more meaningful and easier for us to understand.

So for your next task, I would like you to use the book to help you answer these questions.

Now, some of these questions, you might be using your skimming and scanning fingers to look for keywords.

You might be using the illustrations to help you and maybe some of these questions, there might just be one answer like question one.

Where is the story of "Yoshi the Stonecutter" set? There's one right answer and hopefully you can all find it with your skimming and scanning fingers.

But other questions you might all have different answers because I'm asking for your perspective.

For example, in question three.

So Let's first of all read question two.

How do you think Yoshi felt when the spirit granted his first wish? Again, sorry, this might also, you might all have different answers because you'll have different perspectives.

How do you think Yoshi felt when the spirit granted his first wish? And the third question, again, will have different answers because you might all think different things.

With a partner, discuss whether you think Yoshi was truly happy at the end of the story.

So remember to help you retrieve, remember with your fishing rods and you're pulling out the key information, use the illustrations to help you get to the right places.

So if you're looking for a question about when Yoshi was the sun, I'm gonna go find the illustration of the sun to help me.

Skim and scan the text for keywords.

Look for keywords.

Look for proper nouns.

That also helps you.

So good luck with this final task in today's lesson.

Use the book to help you and remember that in question three, I want you to have a discussion.

So I want you to be listening to someone else's ideas and sharing your own.

Pause the video now.

Well done.

You worked really hard on that task.

So where is the story of "Yoshi the Stonecutter" set? Hopefully, you found the answer that the story is set in Japan.

Yoshi lives in the mountains.

Perhaps, in that question used that.

You looked for a capital letter which showed you a proper noun because it's the name of a specific place.

Japan is a country, so it has a capital letter.

Maybe that helped you find the answer.

How do you think Yoshi felt when the spirit granted his first wish? You may have had slightly different answers here, but hopefully you said, you think that Yoshi felt excited about all the wishes he could make, now he knew they could come true.

Maybe he also felt a bit surprised because he didn't believe there was really a magical spirit.

And with a partner when you discussed whether Yoshi was truly happy at the end of the story.

Here are some things you might have said.

You might have said that you think Yoshi was happy at the end of the story because he realised that being himself was the best and so appreciated his life as a stonecutter.

Maybe you thought that Yoshi was happy at the end of the story because he learnt that true happiness comes from inside you.

So two different answers because we all have different perspectives for those kinds of questions.

Okay, well done.

Let's summarise what we've learned today.

We've learned that summarising what we have read can help us to remember and understand a story better.

Remember, summarising is when we just say the key points, the key events in the story.

We don't include all the tiny details.

Skimming and scanning using your fingers is a way to retrieve information quickly and accurately from a text.

Searching for capital letters helps us to find proper nouns quickly.

Like when we found the capital letter in Japan and that helped us find out where the story is set.

Searching for keywords can help us to find answers quickly.

Like when we looked for the keyword rivers to answer the question about rivers.

And responding to texts with discussions can help to deepen our understanding.

Well done for working so hard today.

I've really enjoyed reading with you and I hope you've enjoyed the lesson too.

Hopefully, I'll see you again for some more reading another time.