Cll For Low Ability

[Guest]

Please can you help,

 

How do you plan CLL for your less able?

I am really frustrated as every time I come to plan CLL I struggle to think of activities for my Low Ability.

I am concerned because this specific group of children do not recognise any letters and therefore have not began to write.

I usually base my planning around stories and find it easy to plan for the MA/ HA but when it comes to the LA I feel like I'm doing a bad job as I usually plan for them to do speaking and listening exercises, shared writing and CD actiivities. How do i get them to start writing

 

Thank you for your advice

Love a concerned Sarah

[Susan]

Are you teaching them phonics and how to use the sounds they can hear in their mark making?

 

hThey also needs lots of mark making experiences and possibly some structured handwriting to help them.

[Guest]

Are you teaching them phonics and how to use the sounds they can hear in their mark making?

 

hThey also needs lots of mark making experiences and possibly some structured handwriting to help them.

 

 

Yes, we have a letters and sounds session everyday in which we look at blending and segmenting, hearing initial sounds, spelling cvc words etc

Can you give me any fun ideas/ activities for mark making experiences.....do you mean like doing something like pen pals?

 

Thank you for quick response

[Susan]

I would provide lots of sensory and fine motor control activities, shaving foam etc and painting with water outside. You could use the penpals ideas and try write dance if you have it. Streamers and scarves are good too.

Im sure if you do a search you will find lots of ideas.

[Freefaller]

Can you give me any fun ideas/ activities for mark making experiences.....do you mean like doing something like pen pals?

 

Try giving them hands on activities, like fishing for phonemes, finding them in the sand using tweezers, paintbrushes, metal detectors, throwing bean bags onto a given phoneme. All of theis could be done both inside and outside.

Hope that helped.

[Guest]

Alongside all of the fab ideas given so far, which will develop fine motor skills remember to start small in order to build their confidence, once they get going.

 

Focus on creating shorter, simple sentences relating to a very clear picture or illustration - preferably use photos of them doing something - we can run - we can paint - I am in the sand / water etc - they love being part of the work!

 

Make sure they are able to say a clear verbal sentence about the picture before attempting to write. How many words did we say? Lets use a sentence frame so we write the correct amount of words - just draw the number of boxes to accommodate the words you need to write. I sometimes write the words onto sticky labels, which are then stuck on on order - get the children to write the initial letter needed, to help reinforce phoneme retention - also have a bank of tricky words to hand, so the children can try to find the ones they need.

 

Hope this is of use - you can pm me if you need more info or help!

 

 

Jenni

[Guest]

We've had great success in the last couple of weeks with some large whiteboards I got from Staples (they were in the sale!) The children love these, especially the ones who wouldn't normally do mark making. We vary the resources we put with them - foam letters, stencils, etc. to keep it fresh.

 

Also, I was watching this morning as some of the children went into our 'office' (part of our garage role play this week) and did mark making on clipboards and wrote 'letters'.

 

I always think drawing on the floor outside with chalks is great fun for them!

[Guest]

What year are you in and are your phonics sessions differentiated, as in different adults take different phases/ability levels? If not then I highly recommend giving these children either a differentiated phonics session in a small group whilst the main group is going on, or if that's not possible during the literacy lesson or some other time of the day.

 

When you say they don't recognise their letters do they not recognise any? Can they identify initial letters sounds in words (eg. if you said 'what does cat begin with' could they say c?) If they can do the latter alphabet mats with pictures and letters might be useful, but if they find writing difficult please don't make them start writing sentences 'properly' until they're ready. Verbally rehearse sentences and then let them mark make it however they like, checking that they can read back what they've written (are they ascribing meaning to marks?) I do a lot of labelling with my lower ability, such as getting them to draw a picture relevant to the story or whatever we're doing and then encouraging them to sound out in order to label it. I think the first step is to write one word and realise that you're writing one word, then you can move on to writing more words as they get more confident with sounding out. I hate seeing the children in my class having to struggle and agonise over a whole sentence when I know that as yet they can barely verbalise and hold a thought long enough to write the first word.