Lesson video

In today's lesson we are going to be answering questions on "The Firework Maker's Daughter" by Phillip Pullman.

We're going to look at both retrieval and inference questions.

Which I'll be explaining in today's lesson.

In today's lesson we're going to start by recapping the text.

If you haven't watched lesson one of five, you should pause this video and you should stop and watch lesson one of five on the "Firework Maker's Daughter" by Phillip Pullman first.

If you have watched that lesson then you can continue with this lesson.

Once we have recapped the text, we're going to check in with the main characters.

We're then going to do a vocabulary check and then we're going to look at some retrieval question and some inference questions.

Now, if you don't know what retrieval and inference mean don't worry because I'm going to go through that today.

In this lesson today you're going to need, an exercise book or paper, pencil or a pen, as well as your brain.

I want you to be thinking throughout this lesson.

So, we're going to start by recapping the text.

So, this is "The Firework Maker's Daughter" by Phillip Pullman.

Remember if you've not read the text yet then you need to pause the video and watch lesson one of five.

If not, just carry on now.

So, I wonder if you can have a go at answering these questions.

Who is the author of "The Firework Maker's Daughter"? Who is the main character? And who is Lila's father? So, I'd like you to pause the video and have a go at answering these questions now.

And then just press play when you're ready.

Well done, I wonder how you got on.

So the author or the "The Firework Maker's Daughter" is Phillip Pullman.

The main character in the story is Lila.

And Lila's father is named Lalchand.

Well done, so now we're going to do our vocabulary check.

We're going to think about a word that I might be unfamiliar with, or a word that you might be unfamiliar with.

Now you might know the word that we're about to look at means.

And if you do that's great, but you should still listen to this because this is something you can do to help yourself later on today if you come across and unfamiliar word.

It also helps you with your reading in general and it's something that I always do whenever I'm reading a book.

So, we're going to look at and try and work out what a word might mean if we weren't sure what it meant.

So, as I'm reading I'm going to think about this word.

So, "Once she was out of her cradle, she toddled around the workshop laughing as the fire flared and sparks danced." The word that I'm unfamiliar with is flared.

So, if I'm unfamiliar I don't know what the word means.

The first thing I'm going to do is try and look at the word class of the word.

Because that might give me a clue as to what it means.

Now I can see that it's got an E D on the end.

Which means it's a past tense verb.

It's also a doing word which tells me it's a verb as well.

So, she's laughing as the fire flared.

The fire is doing something, so this tells me that it is verb.

Now this might help me when I try and replace the word with another word.

Because I know that I'm replacing it with a verb.

So once she was out of her cradle, she toddled around the workshop laughing as the fire hmm and sparks danced.

Now I already know that fire burns, so I might try and do this and replace flared with burns.

As the fire burns and sparks danced.

So now, I know that the flaring is something to do with the fire burning and this is really important to help me work out what it might mean.

The final thing I'm going to do is I'm going to read around the word because this might tell me why the author has chosen to use this word instead of just to tell me that the first was burning.

So, I'm going to see that the fire also had sparks dancing.

So as the fire flared and sparks danced.

Now if sparks are dancing that mean the fire is really energetic, also quite playful.

So I wonder if we know how the fire is moving that perhaps flared is also telling me about the colour of it and perhaps how strong the flame is.

And so this has really helped me to work out what the word might mean.

I might also want to look for a worded within a word, because I know that a flare is bright light.

It's often used by boats when their at trouble at sea and they need to signal to someone that they need help, and that's what we might use a flare for.

And that's correct.

A flare is a sudden brief burst of bright flame of light.

And so that's how I've managed to work out the meaning of that word.

So if you get stuck on a work today, you need to use that strategy to help you to work out what it means.

You shouldn't just skim over it in your reading because then you will never learn what this word mean and this is how we build our vocabulary.

Now, we're going to do some comprehension and we're going to look at a retrieval question.

Retrieval questions are when the answer is in the text, it's in front of you in the text.

All you have to do is find where the answer is in the text.

And in order to do that, to answer these successfully I've got some top tips for you.

The first one is to skim and scan the text for key words.

Now what does skim and scan mean? That means you just take your finger and you run it along the text.

You don't have to read everything word for word, you would have underlined the key information in the text first of all and in your question.

And then you'll be skimming and scanning for those key words.

And I'm going to show you how to do that later today.

And then, once you've done that you're going to double check your answer once you've found the information in the text you're going to underline it.

And then you're going to double check your answer by reading around the key words.

This makes us, helps us to be absolutely sure that the answer we have is accurate.

So, I'm going to show you an example now.

This extract comes from "The Firework Maker's Daughter" by Phillip Pullman.

"The child was a cross little thing, always crying and refusing her food, but Lalchand built a cradle for her in the corner of the workshop, where she could see the sparks play and listen to the fizz and crackle of the gun powered." Where did Lalchand put Lila's cradle? Now the answer is in the text.

The first thing I'm going to do to answer this question is underline the key words in the question.

The key words I thought were important are where and cradle.

Now where is telling me I'm looking for a position or place.

The cradle is a noun that I need to look for, I'm trying to find out where the cradle is.

Now remember a cradle is the baby's cot.

So in the text then, I'm going to skim and scan for the word cradle and I'm going to skim and scan for the position of the cradle, so a place.

And if I was to do that I would be able to find that once I'd found the cradle I was able to find where the answer is, and I am told that the cradle is in the corner of the workshop.

And that's a really important part, that it's in the corner of the workshop.

So she could see the sparks play.

But all I'd need to get the answer correct for this, is to tell, is to say it was in the corner of the workshop.

Okay, lets have a go at another one.

So, Once she was out of her cradle, the she here is lila again, she toddled around the workshop laughing as the fire flared and sparks danced.

Many a time she burnt her little fingers, but Lalchand kissed her better, and soon she was playing again." And we're going to try a true or false.

With true or false questions you have to answer it, true because, false because, and use evidence in the text to tell me why something is true or false.

So true or false? Lila enjoyed watching the fireworks.

So I've underlined enjoyed.

Now in the text the answer will be there, but it might not say as clearly as that Lila enjoyed watching the firework.

It might not tell me that.

So I have to find a reason how I know that she enjoyed the fireworks.

Now if I was to think about what someone does when they enjoy something, they often smile or they often laugh.

So, I'm going to be looking for perhaps some body language or perhaps an emotion that shows that she's enjoying herself.

So, as I skim and scan I'm looking for an emotion or perhaps some body language that shows she's enjoying herself.

And as I was to scan through I would be able to find that it tells me that she was laughing as the fire flared and sparks danced.

Which shows me she is enjoying watching the fireworks.

I just need to check though, because the question says "watching the fire works" and the past detector I've found says "laughing as the fire flared and sparks danced".

But I know and I need to use what I know already about this text, that that is still referring to a firework.

And that's really important.

And so it tells me that, true, she's does enjoy watching the fireworks because in the text it says she was laughing, which shows she enjoyed watching them.

Okay, you're going to have a go at doing this one yourself.

So, "One day she said, 'Father, if I put some flowers of salt in a Java Light instead of cloud-powder, what would happen? 'Try it and see,' he said.

So she did.

Instead of burning with a steady glimmer, it sprayed out wicked little sparks, each of which turned a somersault before going out." How did the Java Light change when lila added 'flowers of salt?'.

So I'd like you to pause the video and press play when you're ready to resume, and have a go at trying to work out using our retrieval skills how you would solve this question.

So pause the video now.

Okay, I wonder how you go on with answering that question.

So how did the Java Light change? I'm going to try and help you now if you found this tricky.

So first of all, I'm looking for a Java Light.

That's the firework I'm interested in.

In the text there's lots of different fireworks, so I'm only interested Java Light.

So I'm going to first of all underline Java Light.

I also need to look for a change in how it changes.

If something changes you'd often know what it was before it changed.

So, I'm going to look for that change in the text.

I'm also looking for the flowers of salt, once they've been added.

So if I was to look back at this text I can see that once she's added the flowers of salt in a Java Light, instead of "burning with a steady glimmer, it sprayed out wicked little sparks, each of which turned a somersault before going out." Now this is telling me how it's changing.

So before it was burning with a steady glimmer and now it sprayed out wicked little sparks.

Now what I think lots of you might have done is telling me that it's changed because it's burning with a steady glimmer.

That's not the case.

That's what it was before she added the flowers of salt.

So in my answer I'm going to show the change, I'm going to say it sprayed out wicked little sparks instead of, which means it no longer does something, burning with a steady glimmer.

And that would help me answer this question in full.

I wonder how you got on with answering that question.

Now I'm going to have a go at answering and inference question.

Now these are questions we have to look for hidden clues in the text, and I'm going to show you how to answer one now.

So just like with a retrieval question you must underline the key words in the question.

This helps you to find in the text where you need to be looking.

Then you skim and scan the text for that key information or those key words.

And once you've done that you have to read around the text to find the hidden clues.

And that's really important.

It's not going to tell you the answer you have to think about the answer and bring what you know about the question to help you to answer it.

I'm going to show you how you do that now.

So I've got two sections of text here and I going to get you to answer the same question.

And the question is this, true or false? Lalchand cares for Lila.

And I want you to use evidence from the text to support your answer.

So I'm going to read you the text now.

"Once she was out of her cradle, the she is Lila, she toddled around the workshop laughing as the fire flared and the sparks danced.

Many a time she burnt her little fingers, but Lalchand kissed her better, and soon she was playing again." Before I can answer this it doesn't tell me anywhere that he cares for her.

So I need to stop here and I need to think.

I need to think about what it looks like if someone cares for you.

And to do this I want you to use your concept map.

So if we want to know how Lalchand cares for Lila, we have to think about what we know about someone caring for someone else.

What does it look like if someone cares for you? Someone who cares for me is someone who looks after me.

They might make my food, they might help me do my washing, or help me do my work.

So they care for me.

What I'd like you to do is pause this video and fill in some other ideas.

How else does someone care for you? What might they do if they care for you? So pause this video and see, and press play when you're ready to resume.

I wonder if you got as many ideas as me.

So I thought that if someone cares for you, they're someone who helps you.

They're someone who cheers you up when you get hurt or when you're upset.

They are someone who encourages you to achieve your goals.

If someone encourages you, they want you to do well at something.

So they're perhaps praise or they help you to do something.

So, no what we're going to do is we're going to think about this word again and we're going to think about our question.

And I've found in the text where I think Lalchand cares for Lila from that same bit of text.

It says in the text that "Lalchand kissed her better, and soon she was playing again".

So when she hurt herself, Lalchand helped her.

And for me that shows that Lalchand does care for Lila.

So I've said it's true, because he kisses her burnt finger, which shows he looks after her.

I would like you now to have a go at answering the same question but for this piece of text.

So I'm going to read the text to you first.

"One day she said, 'Father, if I put some flowers of salt in a Java Light instead of cloud-powered, what would happen?' 'Try it and see,' he said.

So she did.

Instead of burning with a steady glimmer, it sprayed our wicked little sparks, each of which turned a somersault before going out." So id like you to pause the video here and I want you to find in this extract, how Lalchand cares for Lila.

If you need to remember to look back at your concept map to help you.

So pause the video and press play when you're ready to resume.

So I would look back at my mind map, my concept map to help me and I would think ooh can I find any examples of these in the extract that I was looking at? And I wonder if managed to find the same one as me.

I thought that it was true because he encourages her to experiment with new fireworks.

So he tells her, when she asks him if she should put some flowers of salt in a Java Light, he tells her to "try it and see".

If he didn't care for her, he would have not let her experiment.

Because it could be quite dangerous couldn't it if she's making fireworks? But he encourages her because he knows she's being imaginative and he says "try it and see", which shows he does care for her 'cause he wants her to enjoy herself and do her best.

So well done, congratulations, you've finished the lesson for today.

Before you go I would like you to write down or say out loud three things you have learnt from today's lesson.

It could be three things about the characters you've learnt.

It could be three things about answering questions that you've learnt.

And then I hope you enjoy the rest of your lessons today and take care.