Minutes Meeting 5

Minutes Comenius Meeting 5  Katowice Poland, 2nd June 2008 - Welcome by Helene, headteacher from Poland. - ST introduced programme for meeting. Poland - Showed PowerPoint presentation with methods of reading. - Explained that children learn the letters and sounds in the first year of school. - The teacher chooses the text book that the class will use form a list supplied by the government. - They use different aids to teach reading. - They use stories written by other children to teach reading. - The school library is very important and has books and magazines to cater for both boys and girls. - Older children read to younger children. - They have many competitions which encourage children to read. - The public library plays a part in encouraging reading. - They have been trialling a new method to teach reading called ‘Play in Theatre’ where books are made into plays which are then performed. This has been very successful. Spain - Showed different formats for book reviews. - Teacher decides which book review children will use. - They have a shoe box where children keep their book reviews. - Spain explained a method that they use to get the whole school involved in reading; they take a famous book and the whole school does an activity related to the book. 7/8 year olds look at characters and setting. 8/9 year olds look at the story and change the beginning and the end. 9/10 year olds focus on grammar and change words.  10/11 year olds make poems related to story. 11/12 year olds write newspaper reports. Hungary - Discussed how they teach reading. - They teach the sounds before the children are introduced to the letters. - There are 43 sounds in the Hungarian language. - They connect the sounds to letters using flashcards. - Children have graphemes written up on wall, in print and in handwriting they use. - They begin with easier sounds, and then move on to more complex sounds. Length of the words varies. - They use reading sheets to practice reading skills, with more complex words each time. Children compete to complete them; teacher decides when they can move on. - Hen they are 8 they begin to read short texts chosen by the school. - No significant difference is found in boys and girls motivation for reading when they first learn to read. - When they start reading texts they become less interested. - Hungary has chosen books closer to boys’ interest in order to motivate boys. For example, science books, history books and sports books. Turkey - Discussed with parents, teachers and children how they could motivate boys to read. - Decided that reading doesn’t have to necessarily be reading books. - Seeing parents read encourages children to read. - Giving books as gifts makes them more special - Reading should be a social thing, so they discuss articles in the papers with children. - They discussed the types of texts children like.  England - Showed Wellington square, a scheme of work which is used for children who have fallen behind with their reading, - Explained that it is a collection of books based around a square and that the children get to know the characters as they read the books, it is a bit like a soap opera. - The teacher reads the story to the children first so they get to know it; they then follow through in a photocopy of the books and stick captions on their book. This then belongs to them and they have ownership of it. - There are also many activities,  on paper and on the website, related to the book that help them with their reading End of year report - Need report completed by end of June, each country needs to send off their own. Summary of what we have done completed together at meeting. Next year - By September – Survey about how we differentiate for different special needs to be produced by PW and passed on to schools. Survey results to be analysed and brought to the next meeting. - In Hungary will need to think about what we want as next project. - Travellers tale, bring last tale and first part of next one. - Bring scanned photocopies of last traveller’s tales done to make a book with all the travellers’ tales. - Meeting dates for next year: Nov 6th & 7th 2008 - Hungary April 2nd & 3rd 2009 - Turkey  June 1st & 2nd 2009 - Spain