The 1st Class book in the Reading Comprehension and Word Reading series contains:
Strong emphasis placed on:
Firstly, I will say this. If you have a weak First Class, this is not the book for you. It will be a challenge for the brightest First Class child. If you are looking for something to challenge a particular child or indeed a group of them as we come to the end of the year then this book will absolutely do this. I have done a couple of the comprehensions with my 1st Class but when I say done, I mean literally sitting down and going through every step of it together. There were questions in there that threw them completely because they were just that bit different to the questions they were used to seeing (which is no harm to them!) but once we had a chat about them, they suddenly went "oh this is actually so easy!" I did have to work through most of the questions with them but when it got to the end of the page and went through the learning log they were delighted with themselves that they were actually able to do all these things that had seemed so difficult (even if it was with a fair bit of help!). I don't think I could see myself using this book at the beginning of First Class as the standard is just too high but I hope to get a bit more use out of it now as we go through the last term to challenge the children a bit more and get them ready for Second Class. Another option for teachers would be to buy the book a level down so to use the 1st Class book for 2nd Class.
Magic Múinteoir
I used the books with a selection of age groups from 2nd- 6th class in both Resource and mainstream class setting. Teacher Friendly: Each of the stories comes with teacher notes and guidelines. It shows curriculum links and also links to other curriculum areas. The following section divides the text into the introduction, development and also has ideas for differentiated work. It is well laid out and is easy to follow. Lesson Plan: There are three lesson plans linking to each story. The first is based on the text itself, the second is focused on comprehension while the third is focused on word reading. This is very helpful as I find I can sometimes focus on one aspect of a story e.g. comprehension. Levels: I used the 2nd class book with a small group in a mainstream setting. They found the level very difficult and struggled to read the story. We read it as a whole group and then went through the questions which the children then filled in themselves. If I was to use it again I would use the 1st Class book with the children until they got used to the structure and the vocabulary. I did also use the books in a Resource setting, this time I decided to use the book based for the year below the children's current class level. This worked out well and the children were interested in the different topics and found the stories very interesting. Early Finisher: I would definitely use the correct class level if i suited my class. However I think that using a slightly higher level for early finishers would be very useful. It would allow you to differentiate for the children without them knowing what 'class' the book was for. Self Assessment: At the bottom of each page is an area where the children can self-assess. The boys really enjoyed this and felt very important filling it in. I try to do as much self-assessment as possible but having it printed on the page was very useful. Assessment: Each story has a section linking assessment to the curriculum. This is very convenient and would link in well to planning. I think this section would be a great help to all teachers, in particular NQT's or those subbing. Subbing: I think these books would be very useful for those that are subbing, Having something close to hand that you can easily follow, differentiate and assess can be very helpful. The layout of this book is user friendly and would be very useful if you need to have some lessons close to hand. I have only tried the 2nd- 6th class books but I have enjoyed using them. Although like I mentioned before I think the level is a bit too high for most of my students and I would use a mix of class levels.
Mentoring Muinteoir