Theory behind writing the answer in full sentences

Kelly has a few words

I generally do not work with children on Fridays, so there is no Alexa Good Morning today, but I thought I might take a moment to discuss the theory and practice of using this and the worksheets.

Recently, one of the aides who has a student I work with gave me a paper that looked like this:

I was really touched that she would use this curriculum and I said, "Well, I am really touched, you did the Alexa off the internet, how great!  But... you didn't make the student answer in full sentences?" 

As this was one of those twenty second conversations that are the glue of our program, I realized that I just didn't have the time to explain all the reasoning that goes into one of my simple looking worksheets.  A little later, when she walked by again, I showed her this from the same student:

 I began to talk about this page.  Imperfect as it was (I forgot to print Alexa Good Morning on the document, so I had to print it along the top of the paper).  I said, "Notice these little stamps on the side of the paper?  These are all the times that the student answered my question using a full sentence (just reading the answer that we had written together ).  Since many of my students have advanced through the typical N+V+N plus, plus and I want them to experience using longer sentence structures. This is a way that they can begin to hear themselves talking in longer and more complex sentences.

This can be pretty hard for some students, and in this case, she was pretty fatigued when we got to the middle, so I wrote every other word and she filled in the rest. 

So, what are students learning when they fill out these simple worksheets?

1.  Getting the main idea from a spoken model:  I generally have the student's back to the white board when Alexa is doing her talk and then I ask, what is her topic today?  If they can't answer, or they answer with the last thing that Alexa said, I have Alexa say it again and stop her at the moment that she states her topic.  At the beginning, I have had to do this three of four times, because many of my students are not used to really listening to anything that someone says that might be somewhat complex. 

I can't stress this main idea thing too much.  It's what they will take into their General Education classes and use when taking notes or listening to instructions.

2.  They are learning to write longer and more complex sentences than they generate spontaneously.  This allows them to use the written word to help them when they are speaking longer sentences.  I have one guy that speaks in short bursts of two to three words and he does not have the breath control for longer utterances.  He is learning to take a breath at the beginning of these longer sentences!

3.  Vocabulary:  One of the things that Alexa (and her programmers) do is cut a wide swatch of popular culture, much wider than most vocabulary resources.  Some of the other teachers in my district use Alexa, good morning personally or with their classes, so this gives my kiddos something that they can talk about to these teachers. 

4.  Answering how/why questions:  I love it when I can ask a good how/why question and our students can get some practice (supported by the choices below the answer line) in answering questions that might be on the cusp of their cognitive level.  Push On!

5.  Another reason for using full sentences:  One of the things that I often did when I was working with middle schoolers on their writing (esp. for reports/essay questions) was to ask them a series of questions, have them answer in full sentences and then take away the questions.  Voila!  A meta-supported way of helping the students write to the full potential of their learning abilities!  So, if we start them learning to write in full sentences in the fourth and fifth grade, they will be ready to use that skill when they are taking essay tests in the sixth and seventh grades.

6.  Teaching a sense of humor:  Often you don't see the jokes that I draw on the back or  the lower part of the worksheet, but these generally involve some type of joke.  These are not the best jokes in the world, these are the jokes that kids get (usually involving two words that sound alike or an unexpected answer).  A typical joke was for the Wall Street Journal day when Alexa spoke about the first page article being about a 2-pound tomato in New Jersey.  I drew two tomatoes running away from another tomato and yelling back to a little tomato, "Catch up" and then wrote "ketchup".  Not exactly rolling in the aisles humor, but at the end, they could tell me that the two words sounded the same.

Ok, these were just a few thoughts about what I am doing with my kiddos and I hope this was helpful for you as well!