Whole Class School Journal Resource Year 4 – Spotting Kiwi

Description

• This story integrates English literacy skills by exploring narrative structure and figurative language with the Science of conservation and nocturnal animal behaviours. It also connects to Social Sciences by comparing different lifestyles and the cultural significance of native species within a unique New Zealand setting.

• Simply display the School Journal PDF on your projector or TV screen and distribute copies of the text between 2-3 students. With the slides in Presenter View, you’ll have everything you need for a successful lesson—just click and go!
• The resource divides the text into three manageable chunks to be read over three sessions, allowing plenty of time to dive deep into the vocabulary and content of the article.
• Along with the text, we’ve included a set of discussion prompts to get your students talking and thinking critically about what they’re reading.

• A GIST summarising activity
• A text structure analysis graphic organiser (story plot mountain)
• Critical thinking questions to encourage deeper connections and inferences.

• Focus on monitoring comprehension, summarising, drawing conclusions, and using evidence.
• Comprehension activities that require students to do more than recall specific information.
• Literacy activities that link to key writing skills (sentence structure, punctuation, grammar, descriptive language)
• Explicit vocabulary instruction with definitions, examples, and semantic activities such as synonyms and antonyms.
• A GIST summarising activity, helping students condense the text into a 20-word summary, improving both their understanding and memory.
• A story plot mountain connects the text to the graphic organiser to analyse the structure of this text.
• Activities that tie directly to the New Zealand English Curriculum for Year 4 students, with a focus on comprehension, summarising, and using evidence to make inferences.

• Promotes active learning and student engagement with a combination of reading, discussion, and critical thinking activities.
• Designed to build vocabulary and improve comprehension strategies, making it ideal for a wide range of learners, including low-performing readers.
• Helps students connect the text to their own experiences, deepening their understanding of the material.

• Monitor and confirm comprehension by annotating, rereading, asking, answering questions, and visualising.
• Summarise and draw conclusions, identifying key details supporting the text’s main message.
• Make inferences using stated and implied ideas, drawing from prior knowledge.
• Analyse text structure and the language used for effect with a text
• Think critically about a text by analysing perspectives and making connections.

• Use the PowerPoint in presentation mode for easy, seamless delivery.
• Display the text on the screen and give students a copy to read together in pairs or small groups.
• Follow the suggested activities over three sessions, with additional follow-up activities on days four and five to extend learning.