First Language (Dinka) Literacy as a Foundation for English ...

Section 2: Teaching Ideas
Sentence makers for reading
A story about Alek Wek – a Dinka supermodel now living in the US
The learners also used the sentence makers to recreate known texts. They could work
from memory, or they could refer to the written version. This activity was challenging, but
there was a warm, supportive atmosphere during work. It was a low stress, fun activity,
done about once a week. There was only one copy of each text, so in the beginning
everyone worked as a whole group, but by the end of the course learners were working in
pairs or threes on different texts.
The learners said they thought the sentence makers were very useful learning tools. They
said they liked being able to ‘play’ with words by moving them from one place to another,
without the time consuming process of having to write. They also said it helped them to
recognise words.
To make a large sentence maker, you need:
• 1.2 metres fuzzy acrylic wall fabric (not felt)
• A pole or a cardboard tube and some rope to hang it from
• a metre or so of Velcro dots (adhesive back, hook side only – not the fluffy side) – you
can cut the dots in half
• White cardboard (8 cm strips work well)
Some teachers also use magnetic strips to put word cards on a white board. Probably the
only advantage of using fuzzy boards is that you can have as many as you want in a
classroom (this class had 5), whereas white boards are limited. Also, word cards on a
fuzzy board can move but stay on display, whereas words on a whiteboard have to be put
away before you can use the whiteboard in another way.
© Commonwealth of Australia 2009 Dinka-English Literacy Project Page 24