I love using short films to teach language and reading comprehension skills, and my students love them too!
Why Use Short Films
Show a short film and students are engaged! Visual learners and students who typically struggle with reading comprehension, including English language learners (ELLs), have greater success practicing comprehension skills with short films. Most shorts do not have dialogue, they’re all action. Regardless of my students’ level of language proficiency, they “get” the lesson more easily because the short films are all visual.
Where to Find Short Films
My go to place to find great shorts is YouTube. Be careful to always view films before showing them in class. You don’t want any unexpected surprises! Also, sometimes there’s an advertisement to get through at the beginning, so I always set it up beforehand, that way it’s ready to go for the lesson.
How to Use Short Films
Just about ANY reading skill can be taught with shorts: making connections, asking questions, sequencing, predictions, drawing conclusions, plot, character development, theme, and this list goes on and on!
Learning what the skill looks like visually, and practicing with a media kids are already familiar with, is an effective first step in students applying the skill to their reading.
One of my absolute favorite lessons to teach is “theme.” Last year, my fifth graders were having trouble grasping the concept, so I searched for a good short film to visually “show” them theme, and I found the perfect one!
I describe theme as the heart of the story. I then share common themes found in stories, such as, perseverance, family, friendship, hope, honesty, self determination, courage, etc. For this lesson, my students watched the film twice.
The first time was simply to enjoy the story. After the first viewing I asked, “what did you notice?” Then, “what do you think the message, or big idea, is in this film?” They shared lots of thoughts, and I noted the common ideas the group came up, which were love and hope.
Then I showed the film again. This time I set the purpose to look for symbols of love, and evidence of hope. After the second viewing they shared examples of symbols of love, and noticed the song lyrics sang about hope. Discussions got deep, which made my teacher heart happy;)
To support my beginning ELLs, I printed pictures of the different scenes that symbolized love (couples- turtles, birds, whales, clouds).
By the end of the lesson my students had a good understanding of theme and were ready to practice looking for it in their own reading. We continued practicing this skill during small group instruction, and spiraled back to theme as we read throughout the year.
Other Favorite Short Films:
Piper: Character Development
For the Birds: Infer, Predictions or Cause and Effect
Home Sweet Home: Asking Questions This short is a bit long (10 minutes).
Kiwi!: Drawing Conclusions (Warning- this one is sad.)
Dustin: Inferring, Conflict, Conflict Resolution (Compare with “Joy and Heron”)
Joy and Heron: Problem/Solution, Story Elements, Lesson/Message (Compare with “Dustin”)
Take Me Home: Inferring
Jinxy Jenkins and Lucky Lou: Compare and Contrast
Soar: Predictions, Plot, Story Elements
Sweet Cocoon: Story Elements, Drawing Conclusions
Changing Batteries: Drawing Conclusions, Inferring (This one is sad too.)
A Fox and a Mouse: Plot, Character Development, Setting, Conflict
Snack Attack: Flashback
Dia De Los Muertos: Character Development, Symbolism (blue flower)
One Small Step: Plot, Theme, Character Development
The Box: Making Inferences, Making Prediction, Character Development, Story Elements
Spring: Making Inferences, Plot, Mood
The comprehension skills listed above are simply suggestions; there are many more skills that could be taught with each of the films listed.
