“When we read, we stretch the limits of the literal text by folding our experience and belief into the literal meaning in the text, creating a new interpretation, an inference.”
Keene and Zimmerman

During the Year 2 reading lessons, the girls are focusing on making connections from their own experiences, to our classroom texts, or real-life situations.

Last week the girls used our School’s celebration of the Lunar New Year to link their experiences to our classroom learning. On Friday 11 February the whole school gathered in the Senior School to watch a Chinese Dragon Dance to mark the Chinese New Year.

Our Year 2 students waited with eager anticipation as the dragon weaved through the audience. They were enthralled by the drumming and lion’s careful movements.

Taking this experience back into the classroom the girls seized on the opportunity to recall and share their reactions and feelings to this celebration, along with those Dragon Dances they have shared in previous years. Some of the inferences that the girls made after the performance included:

“This year I think we saw a Chinese lion because it was shorter.”

“The Lunar New Year is celebrated every year, the loud noises scare away the bad spirits.”

Through a variety of activities such as the shared experience of the Lunar New Year celebrations, our Character Clue Bag and the use of sociograms, the girls are developing their higher level thinking skills through using prior knowledge to infer meaning.