Next week I plan to test out the potential of a new plan to have kids counting each PQA target in the Circling with Balls cards (“Larry is a mechanic”) in the same way that kids count structures in PQA sessions building up to stories. I may even have a kid time me and point at me only when I have circled “Larry is a mechanic” for a minimum of two minutes. Kids love to time things anyway, right?
So, to restate this (I don’t know if will work, but I will try it), I have a kid count how many reps I get on what is on each kid’s Circling with Balls card, and then another kid then counts how long I circle it and points at me when I have done at least two minutes of circling (using the question words combined with the OWI prompts as described at https://benslavic.com/blog/wp-admin/post.php?post=11796&action=edit). If I am on a roll with Larry and his car, I stay there.
This is Dr. Krashen’s Net Hypothesis in action, by the way. Just do it. Make a net of language around Larry and his great car!
Why focus all that repetitive PQA on only Larry? Why stay with him so long? It’s because I refuse to blow what I learned in St. Louis from going to four of Linda Li and Bryce Hedstrom’s five sessions at NTPRS last month. If Linda can circle and personalize the simple fact of someone drinking coffee (Krashen was drinking coffee that morning) for her entire session, then I can at least try that.
One last time to repeat: whether you combine Circling with Balls with OWI or not, do not be in a hurry to leave a kid’s card. The extended PQA you do with a kid is like planting seeds in fertile ground – you will reap the rewards all year when those plants, the information you got from each kid during these first few weeks of the year, grow into mature plants. Just keep on circling the same thing (“drinks coffee”) over and over and over and over. That’s what Linda Li does, and I remember thinking to myself – as per Gnarls Barkley – during her sessions, “I want to be like this”.