Framework

The Take One Book Framework was developed initially from a two-year London Schools Excellence-funded action research project. It was further refined following trialling in schools in different regions. Read an introduction to the framework below.

Before Reading

Hook

Setting up the learning to engage and excite children makes a huge difference in how they approach a new book.  A hook can:

• provide an immersive multisensory experience with artefacts, images, sounds…and even smells
• start with a dramatic scenario to provoke questioning
• kick off with a visit to a place of interest
• present a problem for the children to solve
• be an attractive book display which encourages browsing and roaming around a topic for a period before the book is introduced
• begin with a visit from a writer or an illustrator

Occasionally you might create a ‘bells and whistles’ immersive experience that captures the children’s imaginations by stimulating all the senses.

However, on other occasions, you might prefer a simple, perfectly pitched introductory sentence or two: ‘Imagine that you could wish for anything that you wanted, anything at all. Now, what would you wish for? Do you think that it would be good if all your wishes were fulfilled? That is exactly what happens to the children in the story that we are going to read together. Will it be the dream that they have always hoped for? Let’s find out…’.

Orientation

The orientation considers what needs to be put in place for children to access the text. This could be achieved through:

Activation of prior knowledge

Helping children make connections between their own experiences and a text is a useful way into a new book, particularly if the context is unfamiliar and the connections are not immediately apparent. This part of the process is important for teachers to gauge children’s prior knowledge. It is also an opportunity for children to share different cultural experiences and learn from each other.

Building background knowledge

In some instances, it is beneficial to develop background knowledge before reading. For instance, knowing something about the coal mining industry before reading Town is by the Sea, could enhance understanding and appreciation of the story. Consider the context, the children’s experiences and the assumptions about prior knowledge assumed by the text. It is advisable not to over-explicate; we learn through reading and direct experience. A judgement has to be made about what to teach in advance and what is best left to emerge through reading.

Key vocabulary

Take One Book uses a blended approach to vocabulary teaching woven into the teaching sequences.

Some essential vocabulary may be pre-taught to help children access the text. However, judgements need to be made about what is essential. Too much pre-teaching of vocabulary can disrupt the child’s construction of the text schema. Generally, when readers encounter new words in texts, they can approximate an understanding from the context. This is usually sufficient for understanding the gist. Unless the vocabulary is likely to be a barrier to accessing the text, it may be preferable to leave the focus on word investigation and definition until after a first reading; more precise understandings can be clarified later.

Where pre-teaching is considered necessary, creative ways of introducing new vocabulary are built into the orientation stage. For instance, audiovisual strategies are used to introduce words from a semantic field, essential to visualising the text. Exploring high-concept words before reading is used occasionally to develop an open-mindedness when approaching the text. Contextless teaching of vocabulary is avoided.

During Reading

First Encounters

A principle of the Take One Book approach is that the first encounter with a book should be a wholly pleasurable experience. One of the best reading lessons, which is that reading is rewarding and pleasurable, is taught implicitly through sharing a book. It can be an emotional experience which initiates laughter or tears. It can prompt us to thought and to action. It has a purpose, indeed many purposes, which are greater than the sum of curriculum statements or learning objectives. In our view at the heart of the reading lesson is the reader, which fundamentally drives the teaching and learning. The first encounters are, therefore, crucial for eliciting children’s responses and providing an opportunity to make formative assessments. With this in mind, it is important not to move too quickly into instruction mode or over-analyse a book before the children have had an opportunity to develop a personal response.

It is also essential to take time to find out whether the children understand the text at a literal level. Without a surface understanding, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for them to appreciate deeper layers of meaning in a text.

Some of the approaches used in Take One Book for introducing the text include:

Reading aloud

Reading aloud to your class is important throughout the primary years, beyond the stage at which children can read the words themselves. As children encounter increasingly challenging texts with language that does not replicate the patterns of spoken language, it continues to be important to read aloud, developing their ear for reading an increasingly wide range of texts. Children will internalise the writer’s voice when listening to an experienced reader read with expression, pace and sensitivity to rhythm and cadence. Reading aloud develops ‘the ear for reading’, essential for acquiring reading fluency. Furthermore, uninterrupted reading gives children time to build a mental image of the text. Mental processing will be inhibited if there is too much interrogative questioning mid-flow.

For this reason, children should be allowed to listen to a first reading (stopping occasionally at a natural break to check understanding is appropriate for long chapters or passages). Children can also be encouraged to monitor their comprehension and ask for clarification if they don’t understand. It’s a matter of making a judgement between enabling the children to become immersed in the story and securing literal understanding.

Some predictions may be encouraged but should not be overused to the point that little is left to discover as a story unfolds.

Exploring ideas

First encounters with a new text will include an element of exploration. The children might discuss initial ideas and share their thinking with you. Alternatively, they might explore their ideas in independent reading circles. One of our observations when conducting the 4XR research for the London Schools Excellence Fund was that teachers moved very quickly from reading to direct instruction, with little opportunity for children to explore their understandings meaningfully. Consequently, teaching was often pitched inappropriately. Making the minor change to include an exploratory element in the teaching sequence proved beneficial to the children, who were more lively, engaged and able to make relevant links.  Teachers reported feeling better equipped to move the learning on.

Checking literal understanding, clarifying and explaining

After the first reading, the children’s understanding is monitored by having them explain the text. This might be in response to a simple question, ‘What has happened so far?’. A character-led piece might be explained with a question like, ‘What do we know about Jack?’. These questions require recall but are sufficiently open to allow readers to tell what they know. Another strategy for explaining a text is to ask the learners to annotate the text so you can use the annotated examples to identify priorities for teaching.

Some vocabulary, grammar, and punctuation work might be undertaken at this point, particularly to unravel tricky passages or unfamiliar constructions. Looking at how images are constructed to convey specific meanings or elicit responses is as important as focusing on verbal text.

Expose thinking

One of the outcomes of the first encounter phase is to provide an opportunity for children to demonstrate their thinking. A learning environment where risks are encouraged will allow children to show what they think without fear of their ideas being dismissed.

Tools like graphic organisers and thinking maps can be usefully employed to:

• help children to shape their thinking
• help teachers plan the next steps in the learning journey
• provide a record of the learning.

Writing

Some writing will emerge naturally out of the First Encounters stage. For example, writing and organizing questions, keeping records in vocabulary journals, writing in response to visualisation activities, or producing an ongoing map to show a character’s journey. Sometimes, these activities are embedded within the reading lesson. Longer writing tasks will usually be written as separate lessons.

Digging Deeper

Securing a surface understanding and exploring the children’s initial responses and questions leads to uncovering the multiple layers in the text. The form this takes is dependent on the type of text.  Literary texts offer themselves for interpretation, historical texts may require some thinking about historical literacy, visually rendered texts may require a deeper engagement with the illustration and learning about visual language,

A simple procedural text may not lend itself to much analysis or investigation.

Refining a response

Many aspects of textual analysis can be developed more deeply. For example, you may want to reflect on character and consider decisions made at pivotal moments. Drama conventions are particularly useful for working through these ideas. Visualising helps learners elaborate their understanding, which can support more complex interrogative inferencing.

Expanding thinking

Teacher and pupil questions initiate dialogue, which promotes deeper thinking. Statements are used to develop argumentation and encourage the justification of ideas.
Children are encouraged to look beyond what they already know and consider alternative viewpoints. More experienced readers are challenged to consider how characters are represented and to de-centre and consider how different readers might respond. Graphic organizers can model and support different types of thinking, such as ‘compare and contrast’, ‘ cause and effect’, and ‘identifying the writer’s intention’.

Writing

There are many writing opportunities in our teaching sequences’ Digging Deeper stage. For example, the sequence for The Iron Man includes writing a thank you note to the Iron Man, which requires children to think about events from the point of view of another character in the story. For the sequence for the poetry collection Let’s Chase Stars Together, the children write a shape poem using a model from the text as a source of inspiration and for Malorie Blackman’s verse novel Cloudbusting, the children respond to the visual elements of a poem by writing poetry for the eyes. For Stephen and Lucy Hawking’s Unlocking the Universe, the children apply their new knowledge to the design and production of space travel poster.

After Reading

Review and Reflect

Review

After reading, the focus is on reviewing the text as a whole. In fiction, this might include looking at changes that have occurred during the story. Have any characters grown and developed? Have problems been solved? Themes are identified and discussed. With poetry, children might look for themes through different strands of poems or create a class anthology of favourites.

With fiction and nonfiction, children might summarise a text by distilling key information.  Making evaluative responses requires thinking beyond the book to consider how it measures up against other texts. Is it a good example? What criteria can we use to judge?

Children are given opportunities to discuss the book’s relevance to the wider concerns of the world. These text-to-world discussions are usually engaging and lively. Returning to the text after reading allows the children to make further connections and deepen their knowledge.

Reflect

Reflection is an ongoing process. Each lesson in the framework includes a reflective element. At the end of the reading sequence, children reflect on what they have learned. They are encouraged to evaluate their learning and identify the strategies that were particularly useful so that they can use them in their independent work.

Writing

There will be some writing opportunities in the Review and Reflect stage. Some writing is best done after reading the whole book as it allows for a more reflective stance or seeing the big picture.  For example, after reading the picture book Greenling, the children might write fact files about the endangered Australian animals pictured in the illustrations. After reading the nonfiction book Water, they might use their new knowledge to produce persuasive posters. After reading the novella The Unforgotten Coat, they might write a letter from Julie to Chingis, in which she writes from the benefit of hindsight.