Any ideas re note making

80s chick · Any ideas re note making

As the title says really. We need to teach our Y3 class how to make notes from information texts and wondered how other people go about it.

Was going to start off with giving the children a copy page from non-fiction text and get them to delete words they don't need.

Then I was going to move on the following day to explaining they can't cross words out in books so get them to practice orally summarising paragraphs/sentences and then model how to write the key points in a list form.

What do people think? Is that the right order? Confused

Thanks

magpie nic

Not non-fiction, but this might help to get the idea across about using notes
http://www.nwlg.org/pages/resources/lox/index.html

smallholder

There are some activities here.
http://www.primaryresources.co.uk/english/englishB14.htm

I find that pupils often have difficulty deciding on what is essential information and what is interesting or true but is not essential

One of the things I do to get this idea across is to work on giving messages to each other and writing down messages from imaginary telephone calls or to shorten a lengthy written message about a cancellation of an event or a change to a planned activity.

Knightrider

I've done it with year 5 where they had to fill out the small ad form from the local paper to sell my car! Again, only a limited number of words are available, so what will they cut out of my verbose description?

dillsage

I do something similar to the first one, but using highlighters to select the key words, starting off by demonstrating how to pick out the key words in the first paragraph or so.

Some children do find it hard to choose which words to highlight (especially with the weaker readers, even with a simplified text), but this is quite effective - and it does focus their attention on the words they want to keep, rather than the ones they don't need.

I used it in history, with two different, but related passages (one easier to read), then got them to use their notes to write and then got the two groups to feed back - so there was a purpose to the note taking, as each group had some information that the other group didn't have. Most children managed quite well (TA support with reading for the weakest) - though one boy did manage to describe Victorian schools rather than the 1950s schools he'd been reading about!

I like smallholders message-shortening activity too - I'll try that one, thanks!

twinkle298

Last year did something very similar to dillsage but using word on the IWB screen. We deleted all the non-essential words and tried to get it down to 5 words out of the sentence(I wrote the sentences so that I knew it was possible). We then tried to describe things in as few words as possible. Practising deleting words on the computer seemed to really work for my children (Year 4).

smallholder

I also think another important concept in note taking is 'what is the gist?' i.e what is the main idea that this paragraph is about.

dillsage

I like the idea of doing it in a word document and deleting - will definitely try that out too. And I agree about the gist. All very useful - thanks 80s chick for raising this one! Lots of practise in yr 3 will really help the 5/6 teachers (when I was in 5/6 the majority really struggled with note taking - it's not easy).

twinkle298

Yes smallholder has just reminded me, another thing we did was take a ready prepared text in word and add sub-headings for the paragraphs. This did help them to summarise what the text was about. They find it really difficult to think of a general heading that applies to all the info in the paragraph rather than picking up on one word or idea and writing a sub-heading based on that. I agree practice is needed from Year 3 although I tend to see it as my job in Year 4 to get them properly started on taking concise useful written notes. In Year 3 lots of oral summarising and cutting down sentences verbally is probably what they need to prepare them - I think expecting actual written notes from Year 3's to be useful is a bit much.

dillsage

I've got mixed 3/4 - a couple of the 3s are much better than most of the 4s! Though really, I agree with twinkle.

twinkle298

Yep dillsage - I think this is an area where some children just 'get it' and could easily do it without being taught but those who don't get it take a long time to develop the skill.

smallholder

I tutored a secondary pupil for a while who was struggling with it, it was really affecting his schooling until he got a better grasp of it.

80s chick

Thanks one and all. Some great ideas there that I will give a try.

Very Happy