Reporting on a Topic Out Loud

1. Read this passage three times: "Owls hunt at night. They can turn their heads almost all the way round. Their soft feathers make their flight silent, so mice do not hear them coming." First version: as fast as you can, no pauses. Second: very slowly, a long gap between every word. Third: at a talking pace, with a short pause at each period.
2. Vote: "Which one could you follow?" Then ask what made the third one work. Fish for: pauses at the periods gave time to picture each fact. Write on the board: "Pause between facts."

1. Show the hedgehog script on chart paper: "Hedgehogs are small mammals covered in about 5,000 spines. They come out at night to eat beetles, worms and slugs. In winter, when food is hard to find, they hibernate in nests of leaves until spring." Read it aloud with your eyes on the paper the whole time.
2. Ask: "What did you notice about me while I read?" Fish for: you never looked at us, and your voice sounded flat, like reading a list.
3. Reduce it in front of the class to three cards of three words each. Card 1: "5,000 spines, mammal." Card 2: "night, eats slugs." Card 3: "winter, leaf nest." Say why those words: each is the word you would forget, not the word you would say anyway. "They," "are" and "the" never go on a card.
4. Give the same report from the cards. It is worse in one way — the sentences are not exactly as written — and better in three: you look up, your voice sounds like talking, and you pause naturally as you turn each card.
5. Say what the cards protect: the order and that nothing is missed, not the exact wording. Point at the order — what it is, what it eats, what it does in winter — and ask why that order works. Fish for: you need to know what a hedgehog is before the rest makes sense.
6. Time yourself. A three-fact report at a talking pace takes about 30 to 45 seconds. Agree the listener signal: a flat hand pressing down slowly means "slow down."

“Three words per card. They remind you what comes next, not what to say. Look at the card, look up, then speak.”

1. Students choose a topic from the board and make three cue cards, three words each. Check five sets as you circulate: any card with a full sentence gets cut down there and then.
2. Before reporting, they lay the cards out and put them in order. Ask one student: "Why is that card first?"
3. In groups of three, each student reports while one listener keeps time and one gives the slow-down signal if needed.
4. Each reports twice, adjusting after the first: slower if the signal came, an added pause if it did not. Listeners say one fact they remember from each report — if they cannot, the pace was too fast or the order was confusing.

“If your listener cannot tell you one of your facts back, your report was too fast. Try again, slower, with a pause at each card.”

1. Students complete the reporting page. It gives facts about a new topic to turn into three cue cards and put in order.
2. The page plans the report; it does not replace it. Students who finish practice their own report quietly to themselves from the cards.

1. One student reports to the whole class from three cards while you run the timer. The class gives the pace a thumbs up or the slow-down signal.