Oxford Level 5 More Stories B

Scarecrows
Teaching Notes Author: Liz Miles
Comprehension strategies Decodable words
• Comprehension strategies are taught barn, boy, Fred, girl, had, old, put, seeds, she, them, they, was,
throughout the Teaching Notes to enable went, with
pupils to understand what they are reading
in books that they can read independently. Tricky words
In these Teaching Notes the following alive, couldn’t, glowed, helped, know, looked, oh, pecked, planted,
strategies are taught: little, there, wanted, waved, weren’t, we’re
Prediction, Questioning, Clarifying,
Summarising, Imagining = Language comprehension

= Word recognition

Group or guided reading

Introducing the book
(Clarifying) Show the cover to the children and ask them what is pictured in the thought bubble.
Read the title to the children and point out how the word ‘scarecrows’ is made up from ‘scare’ and
‘crows’. Ask: Does this help you work out what a scarecrow does?
(Clarifying) Discuss where a scarecrow might be seen and what they are made of.
(Predicting) Ask the children to say what they think will happen in the story.

Strategy check
Remind the children to use their knowledge of phonics to work out new words.

Independent reading
• Ask the children to read the story. Praise and encourage them while they read, and prompt as necessary.
If children struggle to read any new words, ask them to use the initial sounds and the picture clues to
work them out.
On page 11, point out how ‘air’ has the same sound as ‘are’ in ‘scarecrow’ even though the spelling
is different.
(Clarifying) As you listen to individual children, check that they say the spoken words appropriately,
e.g. on page 15, ask: What does the exclamation mark tell us?
On page 24, check the children notice how ‘ere’ sounds different in ‘there’ and ‘were’.
Check that children:
• recognise increasing numbers of high frequency words
• identify the different parts of two-syllable words, e.g. ‘garden’.
Returning to the text
(Clarifying, Questioning) Turn to page 8 and ask: Why is Biff cross? Do you think Chip is right?
Why/why not?
(Clarifying) Ask children to reread page 15. Ask: Why does the scarecrow say ‘You can’t come.’?
Read the sign on the gate together. Turn to page 16 and read the sign on the board. Ask: Do they go?
How do they get in?

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 (Summarising, Clarifying) Ask children to describe what happens at the dance. Ask: What happens
at the dance that makes Biff and Chip decide to make a boy and girl scarecrow when they get
back home?

Group and independent reading activities

Apply phonic knowledge and skills as the prime approach to reading and spelling unfamiliar words
that are not completely decodable. Spell new words using phonics as the prime approach.
Ask the children to make a list of five words from the story that they find difficult.
• Ask them to share their list with a partner and decide how the words can be split into sounds to make
them easier to read.
• Ask them to draw a line in a different colour to show where they suggest splitting the words.
• Compare their lists with other groups. Have they chosen the same words? Have they split the words
into sounds in the same way?
Can the children work out the words by segmenting the sounds into phonemes?
Identify the constituent parts of two-syllable and three-syllable words to support the application of
phonic knowledge and skills.
Read and spell phonically decodable two- and three-syllable words.
Discuss the word ‘scarecrow’ and how it is formed by joining two smaller words.
• Ask the children to suggest other words they know that are formed in this way.
• They could think of words following a theme, e.g. the countryside and look through the story for
ideas and/or you could give them word starters, e.g. ‘hedge…’, ‘farm…’, ‘grass…’.
• What other words can the children think of?
• Collect the children’s findings to make a list of new words.
Do the children recognise common compound words such as ‘classroom’ and ‘football’?
Visualise and comment on events, characters and ideas, making imaginative links to their own
experience.
(Prediction) Look again at the cover and talk about the thought bubble and what information
it gives.
• Ask the children to say what Chip and Biff might be thinking on page 17 of the story, e.g. ‘Will we be
spotted?’, ‘Will they let us in?’, ‘I’m a bit scared’, etc.
• Invite the children to tell you times when they have dressed up for an occasion, e.g. a fancy dress
party, a play, Halloween, etc.
• Talk about how sometimes wearing a costume makes you braver because you can hide behind it and
nobody knows who you are.
• Ask the children to draw Biff and Chip dressed up as scarecrows and write a thought bubble
expressing how they think the characters feel when entering the party or at the party.
Do the children glean from their own experiences to decide what to say in the thought bubbles?

Speaking, listening and drama activities

Explore familiar themes and characters through improvisation and role-play.
• Invite children to take turns to be Fred the scarecrow.
• Encourage the other children to ask Fred his role in the story and whether he liked coming alive and
whether he liked turning back into a normal scarecrow again.
• Tell them to begin their questions with ‘How’, ‘Why’ and ‘Where’.

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 Writing activities
Independently choose what to write about, plan and follow it through. Use key features of narrative
in their own writing.
• Ask the children to write a short story about a scarecrow that comes alive.
• Explain that it can be about a girl or boy scarecrow, or perhaps both.
• Scribe some words on the board to help with their narrative: ‘One day’, ‘then’, ‘next’, ‘at last’.
• Remind the children to plan their story first.
Do the children plan their texts and use the past tense consistently?

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