Pre Reading

Transformations

Transformations is a term coined by Max Kemp (1987) for an activity that is is invaluable for teaching early literacy skills.

You use transformations with very beginning readers when they need to know any of the following:

that language can be written down in words, to make a unit of meaning (a sentence)
how to point to, and match words with voice (1:1 correspondence) while reading
how to memorise, recall and read a sentence
how to use meaning based strategies to determine words on a sentence
how to recall words in sequence to rebuild a sentence
how to use a variety of strategies to identify words in a sentence
how to build a sight vocabulary
how to transform one sentence into another by rearranging, removing, and adding words

Transformations is a language experience method which teaches these early reading skills. I will describe a few transformation activities which I find useful with very beginning readers:


1	Begin by extracting a sentence from the child during a discussion of their interests or activities. As an example I will use the sentence, 'I went fishing with my dad'
2	Write the sentence on a card.
I went fishing with my Dad
3	Read the sentence together, while running your finger under each word.
4	Read it together, encouraging the child to copy you, moving their finger from left to right, keeping pace with their voice, and touching each word	Here you can check if the child is aware of the directionality and flow of print, or can match word and voice
5	Rehearse it a few times and add or change words if necessary
I went fishing with my Dad			and uncle Bill
6	Help the child identify sections of the sentence that stand alone, such as the bit which tells what you did, or who you went with, and cut these out.	Reach agreement with the child about where to cut these, and allow the child to do it.

I went fishing

with my Dad

and uncle Bill

7	Shuffle these pieces around and practice putting them in order and reading them	If the child has difficulty with this show them how to identify key words by their initial letters.
8	Have the child cut out the rest of the words, keeping in mind that you don't want to overload him by having too many pieces to juggle.	For instance you might keep 'and uncle Bill' intact
9	Shuffle the words around and have the child put them into their original order and read the sentence back, touching each word in turn.	This is an opportunity to really see what the child knows about print. Demonstrate how to do it if needed. Demonstrate how to identify words by initial letters, and how to sort out similar words such as 'went' and 'with' by looking at other letters beyond the initial letter.

went

fishing

with

Dad

and

uncle

Bill

Next, play a game of 'Bionic Eyes' where the child has to guess what a word is by its position.
With the child looking away, turn over a word so that it can't be seen. "Can you use your 'bionic eyes' to tell me what that word is?" Naturally the child will read the sentence up to the word and then recall it, using the sentence meaning.
Repeat this activity as many times as you wish to highlight the discrimination of words.

The procedure here is to ask how will you know if you are right? "You say its 'fishing'? but how will you be able to tell?"
The answer you are looking for is, "Because it starts with f."
Get the child to turn over the word and check it. "Are you right?"
"Yes! It does!"

Change roles and have some fun!

This activity is to make new sentences by rearranging the words.

Try several different ways to rearrange the sentence including those which aren't grammatically correct. Have fun with these and read them out, then get the child to make them 'sound sensible', in this case by making a new card with 'me' on it.

Dad

and

uncle

Bill

went

fishing

with

With more experienced readers you can extend this activity to include new words, or words learned previously.

Keep in mind that these words need to be learned so don't overload the child.

I	went	fishing	with	uncle	Bill	and	my	Dad
and	we	caught	lots	of	fish

Last of all, place the cards in an envelope to be used later. Keep the sentences and practice restructuring them and re-reading them for revision.

The common words, or sight words that appear in these sentences should be learned separately.
eg. I, went, with, and, my, me

Click here to go to the Concentration activity which is an excellent game for learning new words.