Getting Interactive with non-fiction text- Charlottetown P.S. observation session

Visualizing Non-Fiction Text - An observation class at Charlottetown P.S. 

The HSP class at Charlottetown P.S. learned how pictures help their understanding of non-fiction text. Their teacher, Neo Porter, collaborated with Itinerant Resource Teacher in Assistive Technology, Renée Keberer, to co-construct a lesson on the Promethean Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) to demonstrate this concept. 

Text and images from a variety of texts were captured using the ActiView document camera and displayed on the IWB. The types of pictures that were focused on were closeups, diagrams and photographs. Students visualized the image as the teacher read the text while the picture was covered up. The students then did a variety of things. For the closeup picture they sketched the image based on the text (what the nose of a star-nosed mole looked like). For the diagram, they discussed with a partner what the image looked like (what a prairie dog ‘town’ looked like). 

Lastly, for the photograph they discussed the similarities and/or differences between the image they visualized and the actual image (dirty water from a watering hole). The actual images were uncovered after each activity. After completing the lesson the students conveyed how seeing the actual image helped them better understand the descriptions and content of the text. As a follow up activity, the students were given the task of selecting two pictures from books of their choosing and discuss how the picture helped deepen their understanding.

The teachers who were observing this lesson commented on how engaged the students were and how rich the discussions were.

Please see below for some images of the first task.

(left) Description of the star-nosed mole. (right) Actual close-up of the star-nosed mole.

Two examples of student drawings after hearing a description of the mole's nose.