Lesson video

Hi, everyone.

My name is Ms. Voil, and I am really excited to be teaching you your reading lesson today, where we are going to be building our comprehension of "The Moon Dragons" through rich discussions.

For this lesson, you need a copy of the 2015 Andersen Press limited edition of "The Moon Dragons", written by Dyan Sheldon and illustrated by Gary Blythe.

Pause the video and get your copy of the book now.

Great.

Now I know you have the book with you.

During this lesson, you'll need to be listening and looking carefully and there will also be tasks where you need somebody to talk to.

I hope you are feeling excited and ready to learn.

Let's get started.

The learning outcome for today's lesson is, I can infer meaning from "The Moon Dragons".

Here are the key words for today's lesson.

Let's practise saying them.

My turn, your turn.

Inference.

Discussion.

Retrieve.

Great job.

Let's take a look at their definitions.

Using inference means to draw conclusions from clues within the text.

Having a discussion is the process of talking about something to exchange ideas.

In reading, retrieve means to find information within the text.

There are two parts to today's lesson.

In the first part, we will be revisiting the story and asking questions about it, and in the second part, we will be having rich discussions to infer meaning.

So let's begin with revisiting the story and asking questions.

What do we know about "The Moon Dragons"? "The Moon Dragons" is a fantasy story written by Dyan Sheldon and illustrated by Gary Blythe.

The plot is based around the search for mythical creatures called "Moon Dragons".

The illustrations are vivid and a key element in the storytelling.

The main characters are the King and a young girl named Alina.

What happens in "The Moon Dragons"? Let's summarise.

The King received that in the mountains there were ancient moon dragons who could sing and who silver scale shone.

The King instructed his huntsmen to retrieve a moon dragon, but they were not successful and they returned with a goat instead.

The King offered a reward of a room filled with gold to anyone who could find the moon dragons.

Many men tried and failed.

Alina said she would embark on the quest.

The villagers mocked her, but she was confident and she found the moon dragons.

Alina pretended she'd failed the quest because she wanted to protect the dragons.

She felt they were worth more than gold.

Let's check your understanding.

True or false? Alina's motivations for going in search of the moon dragons were different to everyone else's.

Pause the video and select your answer.

That is true.

Well done.

Now it's time to justify your answer.

A, Alina wasn't motivated by the reward of gold and valued the moon dragons more.

Or B, Alina wanted the moon dragons to teach her how to fly.

Pause the video and select the correct justification.

The answer is A, well done.

Alina was not motivated by the reward of gold and she valued the lives of the moon dragons more.

Inference means to use clues from within the text to draw conclusions.

It is like being a detective and figuring out something that isn't directly said in a story by using clues and what you already know.

Inferring meaning can help us to build our understanding of the story.

It can help us discover the hidden messages that the author has planted and answer our own questions we have about the text.

We can look for clues: in the text and in the illustrations.

That is really important in a story that has vivid illustrations because sometimes these illustrations communicate messages that the words don't.

Let's check your understanding.

What is inference? A, searching for clues within the text and the illustrations to draw conclusions.

B, understanding exactly what the author is saying without having to think about it.

C, guessing what might happen next in the story.

Pause the video and select your answer now.

The answer is A, well done.

Inference involves searching for clues within the text and the illustrations to draw your own conclusions.

True or false? Inference skills can help me answer my own questions about a text.

Pause the video and select your answer now.

That is true.

Well done.

Now it's time to justify.

A, I will always find the answer to my questions in the text.

Or B, I can use clues in the text and the illustrations to make inferences that answer my questions.

Pause the video and select the correct justification now.

The answer is B.

Well done.

You will not always directly find the answer to your questions in the text, but using the clues to draw your own inferences can help you answer your own questions.

It's now time for a task, and it's a talk task.

What questions do you have about "The Moon Dragons"? You might want to know: why a character said or did something, how a specific character was feeling at a certain moment in the story, why the author used certain words or illustrations.

Here are some examples of questions you could ask about "The Moon Dragons".

"What did the King want to do with the moon dragons?" This is a good question because the story doesn't explicitly state why he wants them, but we might be able to figure out what he wanted to do with them by searching for clues.

Another good example would be, "Why did Alina have a desire to find the moon dragons herself?" Pause the video now and discuss with your partner whether you have any questions you would like to discover the answer to.

Welcome back.

I loved listening to your discussions and hearing the different questions you have about the story.

Let's look at some examples.

"Why was Alina successful in finding the moon dragons when more experienced explorers weren't?" That's a really great question.

"Why did Alina think that the dragons were more valuable than gold?" Another good question.

Using your inference skills can help you to answer lots of questions you may have.

So hopefully we can use these inference skills to uncover some of the answers to these questions next.

It's now time for the second part of our lesson, rich discussions to infer meaning.

Building comprehension means developing our understanding of a text.

We can answer questions we have about a text and uncover deeper meaning by doing the following things: having rich discussion, making inferences from the text, retrieving key information.

Having rich discussion about a text is beneficial in many ways for building comprehension.

It helps us clarify and understand things, and it also offers opportunities for hearing different perspectives and analysing the text in greater depth.

Using inference skills can help us to draw greater conclusions about a text, building our understanding of it.

Inferences are not explicitly written as part of the story.

They are the meaning that we draw from words in the story.

We do this by: searching for clues within the text, and asking ourselves, "What does this clue tell me?" How do we retrieve key information from the text? Skimming over an extract and scanning for keywords can help us find information we are looking for.

Sometimes the answer is in that sentence and sometimes we need to read the sentence before or after.

Skimming means to read quickly.

Scanning means to search for something specific.

The information that we retrieve from the text can used as evidence to support our inferences.

Let's check your understanding.

Match the strategy to how we use the strategy.

Our comprehension strategies are: rich discussion, inference, and retrieval of key information.

For how we use the strategy, we have: using clues from the text to draw further conclusions, skimming and scanning to find information from the text, and talking to others about the meaning of what we have read.

Pause the video and match these now.

Let's take a look at the answers.

Rich discussion involves talking to others about the meaning of what we have read.

Inference, means using clues from the text to draw further conclusions, and the retrieval of key information involves skimming and scanning to find information from the text.

Well done for showing a great understanding of these different comprehension strategies.

We can use inference and rich discussion to discover: a character's feelings or emotions, and a character's intentions or motives, which means why they do something.

We can search for the following clues in the text and the illustrations: a character's actions, a character's experiences, and a character's words.

Read page 7 of "The Moon Dragons" and consider the illustration on page 8.

And let's consider the following question: What clues are there that the King may not have good intentions regarding the moon dragons? Pause the video now to read page 7 and consider the illustration on page 8 and come back and press play when you are ready.

Well done for examining those pages.

Let's look at the question we want to consider again.

What clues are there that the King may not have good intentions regarding the moon dragons? You may have picked out some of the following: He has clenched fists and looks angry in the illustration.

He treats and speaks to people unkindly.

He says he is entitled to anything that he wants.

We can infer negative character traits from these clues, which could imply that the King does not have good intentions regarding the moon dragons.

Let's check your understanding.

True or false? Clues in the text suggest that the King was a gentle man who would treat the moon dragons kindly.

Pause the video and select your answer now.

That is false.

Well done.

Now it's time to justify.

A, he demonstrates negative character traits such as greed and unkindness.

Or B, he says that he plans on treating the moon dragons unkindly.

Pause the video and select the correct justification.

The answer is A, well done.

The King demonstrates negative character traits such as greed and unkindness, which are clues that he might not have good intentions regarding the moon dragons.

It's now time for a task.

Discuss the following questions with your partner to infer deeper meaning and retrieve evidence from the text to support your answers.

One, why do you think Alina was the only person able to find the dragons? Two, what do you think Alina meant by the moon dragons being more valuable than gold? Your sentence starter is, "I think, Alina.

because.

." Because is the key subordinating conjunction you need to use to justify your answer with evidence from the text.

Remember, we can search for the following clues in the text and the illustrations: a character's actions, experiences, and words.

Pause the video and discuss with your partner now.

Welcome back.

It was so interesting listening to your discussions.

You examined the text so well and really tried to use those clues as evidence to support your inferences.

Let's take a look at what I heard.

For the first question, why do you think Alina was the only person able to find the dragons? One answer was, "I think Alina had a strong connection to the moon dragons because it says that her grandmother told her tales about them and they even appeared in her dreams." This was a wonderful answer.

That picked up on clues from earlier on in the story when it talks about Alina's relationship with her grandmother and what she already knew about the dragons.

A slightly different answer I heard was, "I think the moon dragons felt safe revealing themselves to Alina because she sang like them and her rhythm was in sync with theirs." I loved this inference because it used the clues within the text to infer that it wasn't that Alina looked in a different place for the dragons or was more talented than the other people who had tried, but that the dragons sensed that they were safe revealing themselves to her, but they weren't safe revealing themselves to others.

For the second question, what do you think Alina meant by the moon dragons being more valuable than gold? I heard, "I think she meant that the beauty of the moon dragons and their scales were more valuable than gold because in the illustrations, she stares at them with such wonder." This was a great answer because it inferred meaning from the illustrations, it picked up on how Alina was looking at the dragon scales.

Another answer was, "I think that Alina feels very connected to nature and living things, so she believes that the moon dragons lives are more valuable than gold and wants to protect them." This was also a wonderful answer because it picked up on clues throughout the story about how Alina was connected to lots of different natural elements in the world.

Well done for your rich discussion and inferring deeper meaning behind the story.

We've now come to the end of our lesson, so let's go over a summary together.

Alina's motivations for finding the moon dragons was different to everyone else's and she valued them more than gold.

Asking questions and having rich discussions builds our understanding and allows us to hear different perspectives.

Searching for clues within a text can help us infer greater meaning.

We can retrieve evidence from the text to help us justify our inferences.

And a character's actions, experiences, and words can be analysed to infer greater meaning.

Well done again for all of your hard work in this lesson.

I have really enjoyed teaching you.