The child reassembles his or her own
sentence in this new puzzle medium. COT, 29
Adjunct Professor, National Louis University
Reading Recovery Teacher Leader, Pekin, IL
› Provide practical suggestions that you can implement
on Monday.
› Share resources and page numbers where
information can be found.
– Clay
› LLDFI1 & LLDFI2
› Change Over Time
– Gentile
› Oral Langue Acquisition Inventory
› Share advice/procedures suggested by other
professionals.
› Constantly ask yourself if the suggestions offered align
with your theories of literacy.
– Please don’t leave here and say, “Todd said…”
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›
›
›
›
Instead, “Dr. Clay wrote on page…”
Instead, “Dr. Gentile wrote on page…”
Instead, “My current understanding is…”
Instead, “I’m thinking…”
Instead, “I believe it to be true that…”
› Ask questions/converse.
› Once upon a time in a land called Illinois, a RR
teacher (let’s call him Todd) ‘cut’ (deleted) the cutup when time was tight.
› On another occasion I observed a lesson in which the
child didn’t even know what the cut-up was!
-These teachers did not know the power of the cut-up.
› It is there for serious reasons; it allows the teacher to
observe many important aspects of the writing task in
more controlled ways.
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Attending
Monitoring
Self-correcting
Shifting attention
New learning
Assembling messages
Giving letters minimal attention (29)
› The cut-up story reveals what the learner is working on
(that is, aware of, or attending to) in text as he or she:
– Assembles sentences
– Consolidates one-to-one correspondence of words spoken
and words written
– Co-ordinates directional behaviours
– Practices checking behaviours and monitoring behaviours
– Breaks oral language into various segments
– Gives attention to a word among other words in a way that
no activity for studying words in isolation can ever teach.
(30)
› Reading log
– Communication between teacher and parent
› Familiar books
– 3 to 5
› Cut-up journal
– Crayons
– Glue stick
› Allows child to keep a journal of his stories.
› Allows child to continue making pictures after RAK.
– Before or after
› “From time to time the teacher could invite the child
to reread one or more of his previous written
messages. This will be familiar text and written in
‘correct form.’ It indicates the value placed on
writing and the messages in writing.” (LLDFI2, 56)
– My penmanship is a bit easier for the child to read than his
own penmanship in his writing journal.
› Speech/Language Pathologist
– 45+ years
› RR/DLL Teacher Leader
– 16 years
› The Oral Language Acquisition Inventory (OLAI)
– Research
› Classroom students
› Reading Recovery students
– 5 most common sentence structures & transformations
› 1. Simple sentence
– I went home.
– My dad is working.
– I love my mommy.
› 2. Expanded statements containing prepositions
– I like to play with my cat.
– I like to color at my school.
– His brother was dancing with his girlfriend.
› 3. Two phrases, clauses or statements linked by a
conjunction
– I went to the mall and got lots of candy.
– My arm was hurting me, so I went to the doctor’s office.
– His pet ate ten things, but it was still hungry.
› 4. Two phrases or clause statements linked by a
relative pronoun
– He is the one who hit me.
– She found what she needed.
– You know who is coming to my house.
› 5. Two phrases or clause statements linked by an
adverb
– She went when lunch was over.
– She showed me where it happened.
– He knows how to play that game.
› Negatives: I can’t find my backpack.
› Questions: Do you want the yellow one?
› Commands: Mom said, “Don’t wake up the baby.”
› Exclamations: I love my new puppy!
› It is about shifting from simple sentences at first to
complex sentences later, and about using a variety of
ways to structure sentences, and packing more
interest into the message. (LLDFI2, 50)
› Procedures for eliciting a story (LLDFI2, 55)
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–
–
–
Start up a conversation
Should not be an interrogation
Give some thought prior to the lesson
XX “What do you want to write about today?” XX
› As you respond to his effort stay with his message, but
encourage him to expand on his statement, say a
little more or tell what happened then. (LLDFI2, 55)
– But what if he doesn’t?
– OR what if he does, but he doesn’t write it?
› One alteration from the teacher may be enough to
throw the child so that he cannot recall what he
composed. The process of composing is at a delicate
stage of formation and is thrown by interference of
this kind. Alter the sentence he gives you as little as
possible. (LLDFI2, 56)
– So what do I do to get the sentences this child needs to
write?
› You heard the child say…
– …I went to the park yesterday…
› The child wrote…
– I went to the park.
› If the child can not handle an alteration to his story
during the composition stage, alterations occur after
the cut-up and with the cut-up.
› “When the child finishes [the cut-up reconstruction],
work to expand the sentence using a structure word,
i.e. preposition, conjunction, relative pronoun or
adverb. (Gentile, OLAI, 50)
– “And what happened?”
– “When did you go to the park?”
– “Why did you go to the park?”
› Write the structure word in a different color on a
separate sentence frame.
› Give the child identity (Johnston, Choice Words) and
show him what he could have written.
› Use a different color marker.
› Write what he said but didn’t write.
› Place it and read it.
› Ask the child to read it.
› Send it home.
› Give the child the choice.
› I went to the park yesterday.
› You heard the child say
– …I was a ghost on Halloween…
› Child wrote
– I was a ghost.
› I was a ghost on Halloween.
– Do NOT cut the phrase. Leave it as a whole phrase – one piece.
› You heard the child say
– When I was at my Grandma’s house, we picked apples.
› The child wrote
– We picked apples.
› When I was at my Grandma’s house, we picked apples.
– Do NOT cut the clause. Leave it as a whole clause– one piece.
› Insist that the child pause appropriately, especially at
the end of a sentence, and at speech marks.
– Make your voice go down at the end of a sentence.
– Change your voice when you see these marks on the page.
– Notice when you can pause or stop. (LLDFI2, 153)
› “The sentence may also be transformed into a
negative, a question, a command or an exclamation
(Clay, 1971) (Gentile, OLAI, 50)
– May change punctuation mark.
– May ask to change the story.
› “How could we turn your story into a question?”
› “If you were not able to go to the park, what would you say?”
› I like chocolate ice cream.
– I like chocolate ice cream!
– I like chocolate ice cream?
– “exaggerated expression” (LLDFI2,153)
› I like chocolate ice cream.
– Negative
› I don’t like chocolate ice cream.
– Question
› Do I like chocolate ice cream?
– Exclamation
› I do like chocolate ice cream!
› Todd, I’ve changed the punctuation, but my student
has some confusion about when/where to change his
voice. Can the cut-up help with this?
› I want to be a war pilot when I grow up.
› Whom are you going to tell?
› Grandpa, I want to be a war pilot when I grow up.
› “To refine the story ask the child what other word we
could use instead of going?” (Gentile, OLAI 50)
– If the child is unable to identify a synonym, provide one.
› Acquiring a wide range of vocabulary, i.e. important words, difficult
words and colorful or colloquial words is the basis for children’s being
able to read and write at higher levels (National Reading Panel
Report, 2000).
› We are going to Grandma’s house.
going
› We are driving to Grandma’s house.
› “Time to get up,” said my mom.
said
› “Time to get up,” whispered my mom.
› This is not a time to correct grammar. Use the correct
grammar in your conversation to provide the
appropriate model for him to hear. If you alter the
child’s sentence he is very likely to become confused
and may not remember the alteration. Note down
whatever bothers you so that you remember to work
the alternative phrase into your conversation now
and again. Be brief and clear and try not to confuse
the young composer at this time. (LLDFI2, 56)
– What do I say when parents ask me about the poor
grammar?
› The tooth fairy gived me a dollar.
› Can I tell you something, Mr. Author? Books never say
gived. They say gave.
gived
› The tooth fairy gave me a dollar.
› How do we prepare students for the structures of
these books?
– Page layout
› For the child who is well into his lesson series and
whose fluent reading is being encouraged, take his
assembled cut-up story and, in an accepting way,
rearrange it into the phrases you think he could use to
achieve fluent reading and have him reread it in
phrases. (LLDFI2, 153)
› II. Is able to pull words into phrases and may even put
a phrase in a new position. (LLDFI1, 51)
“I noticed that the author of this book wrote one sentence,
and he put it on three lines. Since you are an author, I want
you to put your sentence in three lines.”
› My aunt and uncle got a new puppy at their house.
› My aunt and uncle got a new puppy at their house.
My aunt and uncle
Who
got a new puppy
What
at their house.
Where
› For the child who internally understands, say nothing.
› For the child who does not understand phrasing…
– Wh- cards
– Using the Wh- cards during composition
› The teacher could use larger segments for the poorest
readers for a brief period before forcing a word-byword reconstruction.
– Two or three phrases
– Whole words
– And to emphasize a particular segment of a word
› Echo of work
– (LLDFI2, 82)
› How are we writing on our envelopes?
› Guide the child to predict what structures come next
in the longer sentences in his text reading. Have him
flexibly alter the arrangements of phrases in his cut-up
story. (LLDFI1, 54)
› By about halfway through the lesson series the child
will be paying attention to alternative ways of
phrasing or arranging word order or line breaks.
(LLDFI2, 85)
› III. Shows faster perception, problem-solving, and
flexibility in sentence and story construction, and
phrasing. (LLDFI1, 51)
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I played with Sean and Nick at recess.
I get to see my dad this weekend.
I ran down the hallway.
I’ll get money from the tooth fairy if I pull my tooth.
A butterfly landed on my arm today. I didn’t touch
the wings.
› I got ten dollars because I got my spelling words right.
› “Give me a hug goodbye,” said Mom.
› I found a dollar on my way home after school.
› Students will start telling you what authors
could’ve/should’ve written. 
› Don’t forget about CAP.
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Scoop the longest word.
Scoop the word with five letters.
Scoop the word that starts with a /p/.
Scoop the word that ends with a /g/.
Close your eyes…
› Visual scanning
› What do I record?
– Observe child instead of writing on envelope
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