Learner Profiles

Student One: MEG

Strengths

skill
Reading: Megs
ability to answer
inference
questions
referring to
questions asked
after reading the
text.

Writing:
Meg Used strong
emotive language
to argue her
position in her
pervasive essay.

evidence
Probe student
assessment sheet
The Parrot 10.511.5 (appendices
A)
Meg was able to
answer all 3 out
of 3 inference
questions
confidently and
accurately.
She was able to
look at the text
and make logical
responses such as
why did Larry
think that giving
the parrot birdseed or
breadcrumbs
would work? Meg
answered with an
answer stating
that the bird seed
would encourage
the bird to keep
speaking.
In Megs writing
she uses a strong
voice and
expression in her
persuasive
argument.
Through her use
of emotive
language, For
example For
crying out loud
and even buying
crap although
not formal
language enables
her with a power
of power and are

Link to AusVELS
Level 5 AusVELS:
Understand how
to move beyond
making bare
assertions and
take account of
differing
perspectives and
points of view
(ACELA1502)
(AusVELS, 2014)

Level 5- Writing
Understand the
use of vocabulary
to express greater
precision of
meaning
ACELA1512
(AusVELS, 2014)

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Areas of Need

Reading:
Reorganising a
text to gather
meaning.
Problems with
vocabulary,
trouble with
interpreting
different sections
of the text

Writing:
Punctuation

used in an
emotive manner
to persuade the
reader.
(appendices B)
Concerns
reorganising text
to collect
information in the
answers to her
Probe reading
questions
(Appendix A).
Evidence with
vocabulary and
interpreting of
some information
can be found in
the outcome of
the on demand
test (Qs 24, 25,
19 and 7)
(Appendix C).

When Meg first

completed her
first draft she did
not include
punctuation as
shown in her
opening
paragraphs she
doesnt use a
capital letter in
We, And and
My when she
edited her on her
second draft she
did not edit her
punctuation,
especially her
capital letters. Eg
Well for my
Second Protest
(see appendix D)

Level 5- Reading
and viewing
Understand how
to use banks of
known words.to
learn..new
words
ACELA1513
(AusVELS, 2014)
Reading Level 5:
Recognise that
ideas in literary
texts can be
conveyed from
different
viewpoints, which
can lead to
different kinds of
interpretations
and responses
Level 5- Writing
Reread and edit
student's
own.work
ACELY1705
(AusVELS, 2014)

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Student Two: ELEANOR

Strengths

skill
Reading:
Fluency- Phrasing

Writing: Vocab
used was of a
high standard and
she utilised it to
support her
argument.

evidence
Eleanors reading
of the probe text
was confident and
fluent when
reading and
exhibited a strong
point in her
phrasing while
reading the Beans
text. Eg but were
surprisingly
protective of
what, to the
Europeans
(appendix D)
Looking at
Eleanors vocab
while writing her
perspective
words. She self
corrects herself in
her persuasive
text edit one
(appendices E)
where she
corrects the word
for horrendous
rather than awful,
using a more
explosive word to
give more power
to the text.
Numerous times
the world need
is changed to
want found in
the last
paragraphs the
change of word is
creating a
stronger
connection to the
persuasive text.

Link to AusVELS
Level 6- Literacy
varying
conventions of
spoken
interactions such
as voice volume,
tone, pitch and
pace
(AusVELS, 2014)

Level 6:
Understand how
ideas can be
expanded and
sharpened
through careful
choice of verbs,
elaborated tenses
and a range of
adverb
groups/phrases
(ACELA1523)
Progression point
5.5:
select vocabulary
to express shades
of meaning,
feeling or
opinion
(ACELA1525
Vocabulary)

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Areas of Need

Reading:
evaluation

Writing:
Punctuation

Stating we dont
need these
things, we want
them!
(appendices E)
Eleanor also
changes thought
to think to use
her vocab to bring
the writing piece
to the present,
thus allowing for
a stronger voice
in the sentence.
(appendices E)
This is evident in
Eleanors Probe
comprehension
questions
(Appendix D) as
well as her On
Demand reading
responses
(Appendix F),
particularly
questions 15 and
25
Eleanors use of
punctuation was
weak in both her
first draft and
final copy
(appendix E)
Although she
used explanation
marks correctly,
she has not used
commas
frequently or in
the correct
manner.
Examples of this
are her very long
sentences with no
commas to break
them such as

Analyse how text

structures and
language features
work together to
meet the purpose
of a text
(AusVELS, 2014)

Level 6- Language
Understand the
uses of commas
to separate
clauses
ACELA1521

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Mini-Lessons
Reading
Lesson Focus: This lesson will focus on the Expanding and advancing of
comprehension skills, explicitly the characteristics of evaluation and extracting
numerous fragments of information from a certain piece of writing.
Resources: Students will read an extract titled Preparing for a disaster
(appendices H). Students will need, pens, paper, highlighters and dictionary for
unknown words.
Introduction: Students will be introduced to the topic of disasters and in
particular focusing on how to prepare for them in relation to previous lessons
introducing the different types of natural disasters around the world. As a whole
group with the teacher leading the discussion conservation will be discussed
briefly; this implementation in particular is deliberate to help students source
information in order to answer questions relating to the piece. Students
learning will be assessed by gauging the information given from the students by
the answers they give to each question. The purpose of this activity is to build
upon these developing abilities and to strengthen them with the teacher
available for direction and for students to work as a group to bounce ideas of
each other and allow for different levels on learning to absorb the same context.
Prior learning and knowledge will be drawn upon will be both Meg and Eleanors
abilities to extracting information in front of them.
Elaboration: To begin the activity the students will receive the extract titled
preparing for a disaster the teacher will read the extract to the students thus
allowing the students to listen to the information without yet having to destruct
it for information. The students will then be asked to read the extract, highlight
any words they are not sure of or phrases them believe could be worded
differently. Once the extract has been read, students will have a list of questions
that they will need to be answered only by searching through the extract again
and again to locate the correct responses. This will help the students to develop
their information evaluation skills.

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Practice: After the extract has been read to the whole class, students will work
on their own to answer the questions and then in small groups to discuss the
answers their questions. Students will discuss any words they highlighted that
they were unsure of and how they could find out the answer, this also allows
teachers to look at prior knowledge of individual students and their
understanding of words not yet focused on in the classroom. Students will look
at how they came up with the answers and why is their solution more correct
than another answer, students will then have to show in the text where they got
their answer from. The intention of this is that students will be able to help each
other develop their vocabularies and information evaluation strategies together,
learning from one another. The idea is that students will work out how to find
the meaning of the word from its context before they use a dictionary or the
internet to find out the correct answer.
Review: Students will then come together as a group to discuss the discussions
had in their groups. Students along with the teacher look at words the whole
class struggled to find and look at the passages of information used to find the
correct answer. Future lessons would see students reversing this activity and
writing a piece of information that other students would have to find.
Writing
Lesson Focus: In this lesson Meg and Eleanor will work on activities that focus on
a different aspects of punctuation although will use the same text. Eleanor and
Meg will be learning about the structure of sentences and how punctuation is a
key aspect of this. Meg will be focusing on understanding how adjective
groups/phrases and noun groups/phrases are expanded in a variety of ways to
provide a fuller description of the person, place, thing or idea (AusVELS level
5). Eleanor will be concentrating on her use of commas to separate clauses
(AusVELS level 6).
Resources: A copy or extract of Beowulf by Claire Scott-Mitchell, pens and
paper. (MyRead, 2002)

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Introduction: The teacher will introduce the topic of Vikings and Beowulf legend.
As the class discuss the topics of Vikings and what they believe the story will be
about. This allows the use of the tool predicting and allows the teacher to gauge
an idea of students previous knowledge on the topic. (MyRead 2002)
Elaboration: As used previously in the reading lesson the teacher should model
reading the text aloud so students can enjoy the story and focus on the
narrative. The teacher will then use an extract of the story to model to the
students how sentence structure is used in that sentence, focusing on how if
they changed the structure it can change the story. The teacher focuses on the
concept of who, what, where, when and how. (MyRead, 2002). The teacher
then uses modelled writing to show writing a new text based on the original text
pattern, making sure to think aloud to show how writers make decisions and
draw on precious discussion of how the way a sentence uses punctuation can
change the whole way we read a sentence. The teacher will then use shared
writing and guided writing to promote the students understanding of the
process of creating new texts. (MyRead 2002)
Practice: Meg and Eleanor will work alone at their tables to use a Story Star
(appendices G) both focusing on their punctuation of their stories.
Review: Students will come together to share their stories and show the class
how they changed their sentences with the use of punctuation, looking at ways
we can enhance our writing with sentence structure and punctuation.
Rationale: According to Winch et al (2010) effective teachers plan in detail
what they are going to teach their students and how (p.220). Using the
information provided from Meg and Eleanor their strengths and weaknesses
were determined and a plan for effective learning in areas of need have been
recognized.
The mini-lessons were planned using the explicit teaching model developed by
My Read (2002). My Read argues that literacy needs to be taught explicitly from
kindergarten to year 12. The first lesson integrates the learning objective of
gaining an understanding of reading comprehension in the form of looking at
focusing on the Expanding and advancing of comprehension skills, explicitly the

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characteristics of evaluation and extracting numerous fragments of information

from a certain piece of writing.
The two students worked on the skill of comprehension and although needed to
work of different aspects of comprehension the activity allowed different levels
of skills to come together.
This is constructive, as it needs the girls to attempt to work through any tricky
areas of vocabulary and assessment of information on their own, but gives them
the use of having someone else to turn to discuss ideas with. They also are
required to justify their responses, this helps with their understanding as they
may realise why an answer is or isnt correct when they have to explain it out
loud to someone else. The concept behind highlighting words they are unsure
of, to help students try to determine a meaning if they cannot extract the
meaning from the reading itself.
The second lesson was adapted from the Reading as a writer section of explicit
teaching shown on MyRead (2002). This idea of breaking down the paragraph
into excerpts and viewing them in patterns is great to teach both students how
punctuation and sentence structure can advance their writing abilities.
Through

using Winch et als (2011) writing assessment form Eleanors

persuasive writing again emphasized a weakness in punctuation and

inconsistency with sentence structure. The rationale behind the second mini
lesson was to work on both the girls punctuation using explicit teaching through
a lesson that focused on other skills. The second lesson focusing on writing was
aimed at developing a concept and highlight the skill of sentence structure and
looking at the use of correct punctuation in sentences. Megs re-draft of her
persuasive text presented sentence structure and punctuation mistakes. For
example they get $400 from they fair and go and whast it (see appendix).
Meg is able to get her point across but because of the use of her sentence
structure the sentence doesnt come across well read, and through the change
of certain words could create a stronger sentence. Looking at more work Meg
produced her sentences where often too long and needed to be either
rearranged or broken up with pauses. In Megs first draft (appendices) her last

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paragraph only contains one full stop and doesnt include capital letters or any
commas.
When selecting assessment strategies Winch et al (2010) argues that it is
important to select strategies that will allow you to increase information to
assist in building decisions on what and how to teach (p.144). The two lessons
not only allow the student to gain knowledge in different writing and readings
areas but also allows teachers to assess the students thus working on ways to
improve the skill set of each student.

References
Australian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (ACARA) 2014, AusVELS Level 5
Australian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (ACARA) 2014, AusVELS Level 6
Fountas, I & Pinnell, G, Fluency Rubric, A Scale for Assessing Fluency.

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Pool, B, Parkin., C & Parkin, C 2002, Prose, Reading, Observation, Behaviour and
Education (PROBE).

Read Works.org. 2014. Books and Passages . [ONLINE] Available at:

http://www.readworks.org/passages/preparing-disaster. [Accessed 11 August 14].

Ty Edwards-Groves, C 2002, Connecting students to learning through explicit teaching,

Myread, received 3 August 2014, < http://www.myread.org/explicit.htm >.

Winch, G, Johnston, R, Holliday, M, Ljungdahl, L & March, P 2011, Literacy: Reading,

Writing and Childrens Literature, Oxford Press.

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Appendices
A:

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B:

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C:

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D:

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E:

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F:

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G:

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H:

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