Students read and respond to Wombat Stew by Monica Vaughn as they develop their reading comprehension, decoding and fluency skills. Students also explore multimodal elements, author's purpose and the theme of friendship.
Reading Strategies, Phonics, Phonemic Awareness, Reading Fluency, Vocabulary, Friendship, Visual Mode, Gestural Mode, Language Mode, Australian Fauna.
Learning Intention: To share what you know about Australian animals and the book, Wombat Stew.
1. What do you know about Australian animals?
Using the Timed-Pair-Share strategy, share your experiences of Australian Animals.
2. Who has eaten a stew? What was it like?
3. Who has read Wombat Stew? Share when and where you read this.
Draw a picture of your favourite part.
This Update uses the connecting reading strategy to engage students in Wombat Stew by Marcia Vaughn.
Background Information
Vaughn, M. and Lofts, P (Illustrator). (1987). Wombat Stew. Lisarow, NSW: Scholastic.
In this classic Australian story, a dingo catches a wombat and wants to cook him in a stew. But all the other bush animals have a plan to save him. They trick the dingo into using mud, feathers, flies, bugs and gumnuts in his wombat stew - and the result is...a stew the dingo will never forget!
Reference: Booktopia
Teaching Tip
See Kagan's Timed-Pair-Strategy.
If the majority of students have not read Wombat Stew before, group students who are unfamiliar with the text, use the predicting reading strategy and ask them to predict what the story is about.
More information about the picture book is available at Wombat Stew, a review by Alison Petrusma.
Australian Curriculum
Literature
Responding to literature
Year 1: Discuss characters and events in a range of literary texts and share personal responses to these texts, making connections with students' own experiences (ACELT1582)
Year 2: Compare opinions about characters, events and settings in and between texts (ACELT1589)
Literacy
Interacting with others
Year 1: Engage in conversations and discussions, using active listening behaviours, showing interest, and contributing ideas, information and questions (ACELY1656)
Year 2: Listen for specific purposes and information, including instructions, and extend students’ own and others' ideas in discussions (ACELY1666)
Learning Intention: To read and respond to Wombat Stew.
Read Wombat Stew.
With a partner share your response to the story. It could be to share your favourite part or you could describe what you would do if you were one of the characters.
Draw a picture of your favourite part and describe what is happening.
Invite students to respond with one of the comprehension prompts in their reading response activities booklet . Differentiate by selecting an appropriate activity for each student/small group.
Australian Curriculum
Literature
Responding to literature
Year 1: Discuss characters and events in a range of literary texts and share personal responses to these texts, making connections with students' own experiences (ACELT1582)
Year 2: Compare opinions about characters, events and settings in and between texts (ACELT1589)
Year 2: Identify aspects of different types of literary texts that entertain, and give reasons for personal preferences (ACELT1590)
Literacy
Interpreting, analysing, evaluating
Year 1: Read decodable and predictable texts using developing phrasing, fluency, contextual, semantic, grammatical and phonic knowledge and emerging text processing strategies, for example prediction, monitoring meaning and re-reading (ACELY1659)
Year 1: Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning about key events, ideas and information in texts that they listen to, view and read by drawing on growing knowledge of context, text structures and language features (ACELY1660)
Year 2: Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning and begin to analyse texts by drawing on growing knowledge of context, language and visual features and print and multimodal text structures (ACELY1670)
Learning Intention: To deepen your understanding of Wombat Stew.
1. Reading Strategy
Let's re-read the story up until the sentence: A platypus came ambling slowly up the bank.
I think this means walking slowly, I’ll re-read and see if this makes sense… A platypus came walking slowly up the bank. Yes that makes sense.’ Good readers do this to help them understand the text.
Let's read on and practise this reading strategy on other words.
2. Vocabulary Building
Look through the book and find any interesting words. Write the word on a post-it note. Think about what it means and discuss it with your partner. Then add it our class vocabulary wall chart.Tell the class what you think the word means.
3. Story Structure
You will each be given a literal question card. Literal questions are true questions. The answer is in the text or pictures. Work with a partner and discuss your answer to questions such as:
Here is a "What" Literal Question card
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Literal Questions: TRUE QUESTIONS
|
Then we will re-read the story and as a class define:
4. Characters
Re-read the text and list the animals in the story.
Look at a picture card of an animal found within the story. Form groups by finding other students with the same animal card as you have. In groups, create a word web using describing words about the characteristics of the animal on your cards. For example: sounds like, looks like, how it moves etc.
5. Word building
Re-read the text and find words with the -ill letter pattern. What other words do you know with the same letter pattern? Make a list of these words. Use magnetic letters to make, break and make new words with the -ill letter pattern. Make a chart of these words to share with the class.
Do the same activity with the -ew letter pattern or the -ight letter pattern.
6. Word knowledge (year 2)
Re-read and find the compound words in the text. Write each word on a sticky note then cut it into its two parts. With a partner, talk about what each part means and what the whole word means. Add the words to the Compound Word Chart.
Use the following activities in Guided Reading sessions, and then following up with whole class discussions where relevant. They focus on developing comprehension through identifying reading strategies, developing phonic knowledge, vocabulary, story structure and characterisation.
Reading Strategy
1. Re-read and model Re-reading (First Steps reading strategy p.121) as a meaning-making strategy (see Modelling p.125) e.g. Read until ambling and say ‘I think this means walking slowly, I’ll re-read and see if this makes sense… A platypus came walking slowly up the bank. Yes that makes sense.’ Explain that good readers do this and they can do this when they are reading too.
2. Vocabulary Building
Explore and define new, unusual or rich language, e.g. ambling, snapping, ironbarks, quills, billycan. Build a vocabulary wall chart for the text. Students explain the meaning of a word to the partner/group/class. Then as a whole class, look at the words and ask individual students to explain the meaning of their word to the class. Refine definitions where necessary.
3. Story Structure
Hand a literal question card to students about who/what/when/where.
Literal - The answer is in the text or pictures. Students recall information such as events, characters, main ideas. Teachers follow them up with clarifying questions such as:
Then as a whole class, re-read the story and have students identify and define:
4. Characters
Students use the cards to form expert groups to describe each character in the story using a word web.
Phonics and word knowledge
5. Word building
Examine the -ill letter pattern by identifying words in the story (bill, will). Students then identify other words that use the -ill pattern from their prior knowledge, familiar texts, the class word wall and environmental print. Provide magnetic letters for students to make, break and make new words. Students create a chart for their class spelling wall and share their learning with the class.
This structure can be used to examine other letter patters such as -ew (stew, chew, brew).
Extension: Examine the -ight letter pattern by identifying words in the story (right, bright and righto). Compare with the 'common way' to represent the long vowel pattern (-ite). Continue with the structure described above.
6. Word knowledge (year 2)
Explore compound words by identifying the meaningful parts, for example the spelling and meaning of ‘homemade’ is informed by two smaller words ‘home’ and ‘made’. Students then examine compound words from the text; billycan, ironbarks, gumtree, gumnuts, identify the component parts and what they mean. Students create or add to an existing compound word wall chart. Scaffold this activity with vocabulary building as described in Activity 2 of this section.
Australian Curriculum
Language
Text structure and organisation
Year 1: Understand that the purposes texts serve shape their structure in predictable ways (ACELA1447)
Phonics and word knowledge
Year 1: Manipulate phonemes in spoken words by addition, deletion and substitution of initial, medial and final phonemes to generate new words (ACELA1457)
Year 1: Understand how to spell one and two syllable words with common letter patterns(ACELA1778)
Year 2: Understand how to use knowledge of digraphs, long vowels, blends and silent letters to spell one and two syllable words including some compound words (ACELA1471)
Year 2: Use most letter-sound matches including vowel digraphs, less common long vowel patterns, letter clusters and silent letters when reading and writing words of one or more syllable (ACELA1824)
Literacy
Interacting with others
Year 1: Engage in conversations and discussions, using active listening behaviours, showing interest, and contributing ideas, information and questions (ACELY1656)
Interpreting, analysing, evaluating
Year 1: Read decodable and predictable texts using developing phrasing, fluency, contextual, semantic, grammatical and phonic knowledge and emerging text processing strategies, for example prediction, monitoring meaning and re-reading (ACELY1659)
Year 1: Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning about key events, ideas and information in texts that they listen to, view and read by drawing on growing knowledge of context, text structures and language features (ACELY1660)
Learning Intention: To understand what makes an animal an Australian animal.
Use the picture cards to play "Picture This". When you receive your card, write a description of your animal. Then play a game, matching the descriptions with the pictures of the animals.
Then using Think-Pair-Shares, discuss:
Picture This (First Steps Writing Resource Book, p.69)
Provide assorted pictures of people, places and objects. Have students compose a written description of one of the pictures, then collect the descriptions and pictures and redistribute them at random. Challenge students to find the picture that matches the text and vice versa.
Use the Animal Cards in Update 3.
After the Think-Pair-Shares, list student responses and use this to assess what students understand about Australian fauna.
As students write their descriptions of the animals, encourage them to draw on their developing phonics and word knowledge.
Australian Curriculum
Phonics and word knowledge
Year 1: Manipulate phonemes in spoken words by addition, deletion and substitution of initial, medial and final phonemes to generate new words (ACELA1457)
Year 1: Understand how to spell one and two syllable words with common letter patterns(ACELA1778)
Year 2: Understand how to use knowledge of digraphs, long vowels, blends and silent letters to spell one and two syllable words including some compound words (ACELA1471)
Year 2: Use most letter-sound matches including vowel digraphs, less common long vowel patterns, letter clusters and silent letters when reading and writing words of one or more syllable (ACELA1824)
Literature
Responding to literature
Year 1: Discuss characters and events in a range of literary texts and share personal responses to these texts, making connections with students' own experiences (ACELT1582)
Learning Intention: To think about the word choices of the author and how they add to the book.
Let's re-read the story. You can read along.
1. Language in Wombat Stew
Why is the platypus ambling rather than walking?
Platypus Journey by Max Moller
Find some other interesting words. What pictures do they create in your head?
2. Rhyme and Repetition
Let's make a list of the rhyming words.
The story takes place on a billabong. What words rhyme with billabong?
What words rhyme with wombat?
What words rhyme with stew?
Let's make a list of the words that the author repeats in the story.
How do the repetition and rhyme help us when we read? What pictures do they create in your head?
3. Description and Sentence investigation
Look at how characters and objects are described in Wombat Stew.
Here is one example: ‘a very clever dingo caught a wombat’
Let's analyse it:
| the/a | amount/quantity | opinion | fact | noun | verb | rest of sentence |
| A | very | clever | dingo | caught | a wombat. |
Note that not every box has to be filled for all sentences.
What fact do we know about dingoes? For example, we know what colour dingoes are. Add that word to the description.
’the sleepy-eyed Koala climbed down the scribbly gum tree’
| the/a | amount/quantity | opinion | fact | noun | verb | rest of sentence |
| The | sleepy-eyed | koala | climbed | down the scribbly gum tree. |
What pictures do they create in your head?
What about the scribbly gum tree?
| a/the | amount/quantity | opinion | fact | noun |
| the | scribbly gum | tree |
Let's change the parts of the noun group to create other interesting sentences.
| the/a | amount/quantity | opinion | fact | noun | verb | rest of sentence |
| A | very | silly | long-tailed | dingo | cooked | a stew |
Now create your own sentence about an animal such as wombat or a thing such as a tree or pot in Wombat Stew.
Illustrate your sentences.
4. Now in a Think-Pair-Share, discuss whether you think the author has made good word choices in Wombat Stew. Do they make the story more interesting? Do they make the story more enjoyable to read? Give reasons for your responses.
5. Let's re-read the story together.
How does the use of speech marks and exclamation marks help us as readers?
Let's practise on other sections of the text.
This Update focuses on the author's choice of language and may be covered over a number of lessons.
3. Sentence investigation focuses on using the nominal grouping strategy. Use a joint construction to model the noun groups, allowing students to innovate on sentences in the text or create their own sentences. There are many examples to choose from in the text so adapt as needed to the class group.
5. Re-read the story. Invite students to read along. Stop at the punctuation and examine how the punctuation supports intonation. Practise on other sections of the text. Remind students to do this when they are reading their own books.
Australian Curriculum
Language
Text structure and organisation
Year 1: Understand patterns of repetition and contrast in simple texts (ACELA1448)
Year 1: Recognise that different types of punctuation, including full stops, question marks and exclamation marks, signal sentences that make statements, ask questions, express emotion or give commands (ACELA1449)
Expressing and developing ideas
Year 1: Explore differences in words that represent people, places and things (nouns, including pronouns), happenings and states (verbs), qualities (adjectives) and details such as when, where and how (adverbs) (ACELA1452)
Year 2: Understand that nouns represent people, places, concrete objects and abstract concepts; that there are three types of nouns: common, proper and pronouns; and that noun groups/phrases can be expanded using articles and adjectives (ACELA1468)
Literature
Literature and context
Year 1: Discuss how authors create characters using language and images (ACELT1581)
Literacy
Interpreting, analysing, evaluating
Year 1: Read decodable and predictable texts using developing phrasing, fluency, contextual, semantic, grammatical and phonic knowledge and emerging text processing strategies, for example prediction, monitoring meaning and re-reading (ACELY1659)
Year 1: Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning about key events, ideas and information in texts that they listen to, view and read by drawing on growing knowledge of context, text structures and language features (ACELY1660)
Year 2: Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning and begin to analyse texts by drawing on growing knowledge of context, language and visual features and print and multimodal text structures (ACELY1670)
Learning Intention: To analyse the pictures and the gestures of the characters in Wombat Stew.
Look at the images of the dingo in the story.
With a partner, find an image where the dingo is:
The gestures tell you how dingo is feeling. Gestures include face expressions, and the position of body and hands. With your partner, discuss the gestures that tell you how dingo is feeling.
Look at the pictures of each animal. Now act out how each animal is feeling. Your teacher will call out an animal. Use your facial expressions and your hands and body.
Show images from the book on a screen so students can look at each animal image and then mirror the facial expressions and gestures. Then call out an animal and students act out the feelings of that animal at a particular part of the story.
Australian Curriculum
Language
Language for interaction
Year 1: Understand that language is used in combination with other means of communication, for example facial expressions and gestures to interact with others (ACELA1444)
Year 1: Explore different ways of expressing emotions, including verbal, visual, body language and facial expressions (ACELA1787)
Expressing and developing ideas
Year 1: Compare different kinds of images in narrative and informative texts and discuss how they contribute to meaning (ACELA1453)
Year 2: Identify visual representations of characters’ actions, reactions, speech and thought processes in narratives, and consider how these images add to or contradict or multiply the meaning of accompanying words (ACELA1469)
Literature
Literature and context
Year 1: Discuss how authors create characters using language and images (ACELT1581)
Literacy
Interpreting, analysing, evaluating
Year 1: Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning about key events, ideas and information in texts that they listen to, view and read by drawing on growing knowledge of context, text structures and language features (ACELY1660)
Year 2: Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning and begin to analyse texts by drawing on growing knowledge of context, language and visual features and print and multimodal text structures (ACELY1670)
Learning Intention: To understand the message of Wombat Stew.
Use Timed-Pair-Shares to discuss:
How has the illustrator shown the dingo?
Look at the picture of a real dingo. How is it the same and different to the drawings of the dingo in the story?
Are dingoes stupid? How else might a dingo really look?
What does the author want you to think about the dingo in the story? How do we know this?
What does the author want us to learn from reading this story?
Draw a picture that illustrates the message of the story.
From the review of Wombat Stew by Alison Petrusma
Wombat Stew has a very clear friendship theme. Each of Wombat's friends is prepared to help Wombat and risk their own life by tricking Dingo. The story would not be as successful without all of the characters. If fewer of Wombat's friends had helped out, their trick may not have worked as well, or it may not have worked at all. It was only by all of the animals joining together that Wombat's life was saved. Lofts successfully adds visual humour to Vaughan's story. As each animal adds their own ingredient to the stew, we can see the sly smile that is hidden from Dingo. This enables children to become more engaged in the story as they are included in the joke.
Students can show their understanding of the theme of friendship through their drawings.
Australian Curriculum
Literature
Literature and context
Year 1: Discuss how authors create characters using language and images (ACELT1581)
Literacy
Interpreting, analysing, evaluating
Year 1: Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning about key events, ideas and information in texts that they listen to, view and read by drawing on growing knowledge of context, text structures and language features (ACELY1660)
Year 2: Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning and begin to analyse texts by drawing on growing knowledge of context, language and visual features and print and multimodal text structures (ACELY1670)
Learning Intention: To write about the orientation, complication and resolution of Wombat Stew.
First, let's re-read the story.
Now complete the chart.
|
Orientation who and where |
|
Complication what was the problem |
|
Events what happened - use first, next and then |
|
Resolution how the story ends |
|
Draw a picture from the story - make sure you include the facial expressions and gestures of the animals. |
The structured retell may be completed individually or as a whole class activity. Use the students' drawings in a class display.
Extension: Students may recreate a part of the story, using a digital writing program and inserting an image or scan of a drawing.
Australian Curriculum
Literature
Expressing and developing ideas
Year 1: Compare different kinds of images in narrative and informative texts and discuss how they contribute to meaning (ACELA1453)
Year 2: Identify visual representations of characters’ actions, reactions, speech and thought processes in narratives, and consider how these images add to or contradict or multiply the meaning of accompanying words (ACELA1469)
Creating literature
Year 1: Recreate texts imaginatively using drawing, writing, performance and digital forms of communication (ACELT1586)
Year 2: Create events and characters using different media that develop key events and characters from literary texts (ACELT1593)
Year 1: Innovate on familiar texts by using similar characters, repetitive patterns or vocabulary (ACELA1832)
Year 2: Innovate on familiar texts by experimenting with character, setting or plot (ACELT1833)
Literacy
Interpreting, analysing, evaluating
Year 1: Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning about key events, ideas and information in texts that they listen to, view and read by drawing on growing knowledge of context, text structures and language features (ACELY1660)
Year 2: Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning and begin to analyse texts by drawing on growing knowledge of context, language and visual features and print and multimodal text structures (ACELY1670)
Creating texts
Year 1: Construct texts that incorporate supporting images using software including word processing programs (ACELY1664)
Year 2: Construct texts featuring print, visual and audio elements using software, including wordprocessing programs (ACELY1674)
Learning Intention: To apply our reading skills in a group reading of Wombat Stew.
Let's participate in a choral reading of Wombat Stew.
Here are the roles of the animals:
Also 7 students will be given an ingredient card:
Your job is to place the recipe card into the pot as we read the story together and each ingredient is added.
Choral reading helps build students' fluency, self-confidence, vocabulary knowledge, motivation, and enjoyment of literature.
Teaching Tips
For the choral reading, all students may read the whole text together. Alternatively, assign roles for the animals, and students read their roles individually. To add further interest and engagement, assign students recipe cards. These may be placed in a pot/box as the choral reading progresses. Another student may use a marker or finger to point to the text as students read along.
Australian Curriculum
Literature
Examining literature
Year 1: Listen to, recite and perform poems, chants, rhymes and songs, imitating and inventing sound patterns including alliteration and rhyme (ACELT1585)
Literacy
Interpreting, analysing, evaluating
Year 1: Read decodable and predictable texts using developing phrasing, fluency, contextual, semantic, grammatical and phonic knowledge and emerging text processing strategies, for example prediction, monitoring meaning and re-reading (ACELY1659)
This learning module is based on a literacy placemat developed by David Conley and Rachel Jarrett, Gordon Primary School, ACT, Australia.
Title: (Source); Fig. 1: Cauldron by coffee (Source); Fig. 2: Wombat Stew (Source); Fig. 3: Animal Word Web created by Rita van Haren; Fig. 4: Wombat (Source); Fig. 5: Platypus Journey by Max Moller (Source); Fig. 6: Sleepy koala by PixelAnarchy (Source); Fig. 7: Made by six students for ED3094: Arts Education for Early Childhood for James Cook University (Source); Fig. 8: By Quartl (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons (Source); Fig. 9: "Tachyglossus aculeatus side on" by JJ Harrison (jjharrison89@facebook.com) - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 viaommons (Source); Fig. 10: "Tiliqua scincoides scincoides" by JJ Harrison (jjharrison89@facebook.com) - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons (Source).