Exploring ways in which data handling can help answer real-life questions.
Comparing the lengths of words in two different types of reading material.
Representing the data using mode and range
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Resources |
Vocabulary |
Comparing Texts 1 and 2 – one of each per pair
Copy of the children’s picture book, Starting School by Janet and Allan Alhberg
Copy of the children’s chapter book, Charlie and the chocolate Factor by Roald Dahl
Plain A4 paper
Robots
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mode, range, curve, distribution, sample, tally, chart, graph |
Organisation |
Small toy people for the Left/Right Robots
Near ability pairs on mixed ability tables
Tally chart written up on the flipchart, use different coloured chalk or pens to record tally
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Whole class Preparation: (about 5-10 mins) |
Show the children the two books and ask them which age group they think the two books are aimed at and why. Record suggestions on the board.
Do you think there will be a difference between the two texts? What do you think the difference will be? Record the suggestions on the board.
Focus on the suggestion that the harder book has longer words.
You could spend a few minutes discussing some short words and some long words, recording children’s suggestions on the board.
Ask the children which book they think has the longest words and record this on the board. Explain that they will test this by comparing the lengths of words in samples taken from each of the two texts.
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Paired work: (about 10 mins) |
Give out Comparing texts 1 and 2.
With your partner, count the lengths of each of the first twenty words in Starting School and record the lengths above each word.
They should then do the same for the first twenty words of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
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Class sharing: (about 10-15 mins) |
Ask one pair to share their results for Starting School. Record them in one colour as a tally chart on the flipchart.
What does this distribution tell us about the book? Write this on the flipchart.
Ask the pairs to discuss for a minute with their partner, record the ideas on paper and then discuss the statements as a group.
Introduce the term mode and range, if no one knows them.
What will the tally chart show for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Why?
Ask another pair to report back on the first twenty words from the other story.
Does this show what we originally thought? Why? Get the children to talk in pairs and record their ideas, then share the ideas with their table, then the whole class. Hopefully, someone will suggest that you need to count some more
If we count more, what do you think we will find? How many more words should we count? Why? Give children some time to debate this on their table.
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Paired Work: (about 10 mins) |
Share out the task of counting the next 80 words in each text, by giving different pairs different starting points.
When they have counted the number of letters in each word, they should record the findings as a tally.
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Class sharing : (about 10-15 mins)
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Ask the pairs of children to report their findings and record them on the tally chart on the flipchart, using a different colour.
What does the distribution tell us now? Are there any differences or similarities between this and the first smaller sample? Why? This could be written on the board.
Get the children to discuss the answers in pairs, record their ideas and then share them with the others on the table before sharing with the whole class.
Why is the mode the same? Which words can you think of that are that length?
Put up the two new distributions from the middle of each book (see teacher’s notesheet) and ask them which book they think is the harder and why.
Do you think that reading difficulty is related to word length? What might be a better way of working out reading difficulty? Record their ideas.
Tell me what you did to answer the original question.
How did you work it out for 15 feet? For 40 feet?
How could we describe the ©relationship going across? The ground to upper slope is 1.25 times the height of ground to lower slope.
If you had to extend the scaffolding to include an upright at 40 feet, what would be the
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