Ch. 7/Key #7: Fix-Up Strategies

How do you help kids when they get off-track or lose focus? First, they have to learn to recognize when that happens, which is a pretty heavy case of metacognition (thinking about what you're thinking about). It's going to be hard for kids, especially younger kids. How will they know it? These ideas from page 152 are good ways to tell:

1. The voice in my head changes
2. Te camera in my head shuts off
3. My mind starts to wander toward all different types of things while I'm reading
4. I can't remember or retell what I've just read
5. I'm not asking myself questions
6. I encounter characters and have no memory of them

Teach kids to stop every now and then (end of each chapter, after so many paragraphs, etc.) and ask themselves questions:

• What does that remind me of? What is this like in the 'real world'?
• What words did I read that don't really seem to make sense?
• Where are new words?

These strategies, paraphrased from page 153, will help:

1. Go back and re-read
2. Read ahead to clarify meaning
3. Identify what it is you don't understand: word, sentence, or concept
4. If it's a word, read ahead a bit to see if its meaning is clarified later in context; or look it up
5. If its a sentence, look at the pictures, re-read/read ahead, or talk with someone about it
6. If its a concept, try to summarize the story up to that point, look it up (internet, encyclopedia, etc.) or have a conversation with someone about it

There are great suggestions for how this all plays out in a classroom on pages 162-163, and several suggestions on pages 164-166. As with the other Keys, the Read Aloud/Think Aloud strategy is very helpful in teaching these skills. And guess what - now that you've modelled the strategy to kids, you can ask them to read-aloud/think-aloud bac to you or to classmates so you can monitor and gague the depth of their comprehension!

Chapter 6: What's Important and Why?

This chapter covers TWO "Keys:" Determining Importance and Synthesizing.

Determining importance "has to do with knowing why you're reading and then making decisions" about what you're reading. (p. 124). This skill requres the reader to to utilize the previously discussed keys - using background knowledge, making connections, making predictions, and most importantly, asking questions ("What is most important?")

The FIRST things readers should do is

• decide the purpose for reading
• search for new facts
• read with specific questions in mind
• understand that layout (especially in non-fiction text) gives you clues to what's important (p. 125)

To help students develop their use of this Key, start by teaching your students about the layout of the textbook (or novel, passage, etc.) - do this early in the school year/semester/term, or at least early in the unit/hapter that you're working on with the kids. Help them determine the REASON they are reading this text/selection, and give them - or help them come up with their own - question(s) to answer while they're reading.

The authors suggest reading with a pencil/pen/highlighter in hand, or using sticky-notes or tape flags to indicate important items, questions, connections, etc. Most of the time, we can't do this, right? Can you make copies of the first page or two to model and help kids practice? Run an overhead or scan the document and show it on your projector?

Synthesis: According to the authors (p. 131), "When readers synthesize, they identify the essential story line and ask, What does it all mean to me?"

In my opinion, this is where the science of teaching meets the art of teaching - as well as where the science and art of reading meet. How do you craft those questions that stimulate kids to apply background knowledge? How do you select text that kids will want to read, and how do you get kids to want to read those darned-old textbooks? Pages 132 through 145 give lots of concrete examples to help out.

Chapter 5: Drawing Inferences

Learning to draw inferences and make predictions are very important parts of the reading process. An inference is a logical assumption based on facts from the text. Similarly, a prediction is making an inference about what might happen next in a story or text.

The authors suggest that cartoons, big books, picture book, and other non-traditional sources of visual input are a great way to start with students who struggle with inferences or predictions. Show a cartoon strip that contains little to no text and have students discuss or guess what each character is thinking or feeling, or what might happen in the next frame or on the next page. Then ask students what clues "told" them about their inference or prediction.

As always, the tried-and-true "Read Aloud/Think Aloud" strategy is one of the best ways to modl this skill!

Other suggestions that might help: Fill in the blank activities, 20 questions, guessing games, using sticky notes or highlighters to draw attention to important story elements would all be helpful. Also, dust off the old Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, or Encyclopedia Brown books - they're great for teaching these skills! Nate the Great books are a newer version of the mystery theme. And, though I haven'tread them yet, I would imagine that the new "39 Clues" series of books and its companions websites, trading cards, board games, etc., would probably help as well!

At our last meeting

Didn't cover questioning techniques much - however we spent a lot of time discussing giving feedback using rubrics.

It is easy to confuse checklists with rubrics. Checklists work well for assigning grades - they usually list characteristics that a teachere is looking for and rate student performance on a scale (1-5, 1-10, etc.) . The problem with checklists: What differentiates a 3 from a 4, etc.? Another problem: Why is the highest number usually the best, when most kids want to be "Number 1"? Checklists are faster to create, though, and work well with summative assessment techniques, like one-time projects.

A real rubric is much more text-based. A rubri is a matrix of cells with descriptions of student work within each cell. Teachers still circle to indicate student performance, but this time the item circled gives students feedback on what students did well and what they might do to improve their work in the future. Teachers can still assign point values to each cell if desired. Rubrics are formative (they help inform students about their performance) work well with repeated assessment tasks, like writing samples, reports, essays, etc., and can be used with one-time projects as well.

Both rubrics and checklists should be gone over with students before beginning an assessment task so students understand what they'll need to do and how their performance will be assessed. Also, both can be created with student input. Let kids help you decide what characteristics to grade and how each characteristic should be assessed. Last - and this is hard for first-time teachers - show kids what good work looks like by either creating the project yourself before presenting it or by saving student work from previous terms/years.

For help with creating rubrics, see www.rubistar.4teachers.com/

Next Meeting: Tuesday, March 17

Read Ch. 5

Ch. 4: Questioning

The authors suggest that good readers ask questions frequently during the reading process, and in fact start the reading process with questions in their minds. Teachers and parents should encurage students to ask questions and honor them with answers or acknowledgement when they arise.

Encourage childrent and young adults to ask questions while they read. Try to avoid stifling student questions while being read to out loud. Encourage students to keep a reading log - a notebook or piece of paper on which to write down their questions as they read. Sticky-notes can also help as well.

A number of suggestions to encourage questioning or provide feedback to readers are listed on pages 91-93.

Homework?

Well, sort of... A CHALLENGE!

Between now and our next meeting (Tue., Feb. 17 @ Lincoln) bring or share an idea for a project, activity, or assignment that helps kids make one (or more) of those three main connections text-to-text, text-to-self, and/or text-to-world.

What do you recall from last week?

Key #2: Background Knowledge (Making Connections)

SUMMARY: This chapter builds on the previous (Making Movies in the Mind) to stress the importance of connecting what readers already know to what the are reading. Reading is a synthesis of what has already been experienced wit the new input (from their reading). The authors suggest that good readers tend to make three types of connections: Text-to-Self (What I'm reading is like something I've done or experienced before), Text-to-Text (What I'm reading is like something I've read before), and Text-to-World (What I'm reading is like something that is happening around me now or something historical I know about).

One of the most effective ways to teach this skills to is, once again, the 'Read-Aloud-Think-Aloud' strategy. READ OUT LOUD TO YOUR STUDENTS FREQUENTLY, then stop at appropriate places and say to your students, "When I read this, it reminds me of.." or "When I read this, I think about..." This lets the kids know that it's not about reading the text as quickly as possible. Reading is about creating knowledge with meaning that is personal. In the last chapter we read that each reader mkes a diferent movie in his/her mind. That's largely a result of the different background knowledge that kids connect with the words that they read.

What if kids have no entering knowledge regarding the subject they read? That's where the SCIENCE of teaching mets the ART of teaching. We'll discuss this more when we meet.

Welcome to the Club!

This will give you an opportunity to participate in the District 205 NTLT Spring Book Club, even if you cannot attend the meetings! This space will allow you to post comments based on our readings in 7 Keys... .

I'll post some comments or questions to think about based on the Suggested Reading Schedule (at right). Please feel free to post your ideas or questions here, or coat-tail off others' comments.

After each meeting, I'll post a summary of our discussions here as well.

For Meeting #1: Chapters 1 & 2
As an overview of the book, 7 Keys outlines the things that "good readers" do when they encounter text, and how teachers, parents, and other caregivers can help nurture & develop these skills in children/students.

The first key is "Sensory Images." The authors suggest that good readers immerse themselves in the text as they read, making "movies in their minds." They give some examples, suggest questions to ask readers, and offer tips for teachers & parents to help develop this skill.

Personal Thoughts:
Before I read this book, I honestly thought that I had some sort of reading disorder or attention deficit. When I read as a child, I would enjoy a few paragraphs and then my mind would wander off as I thought of myself interacting with the characters in the story. I used to blame comic books for that. Non-fiction was tougher, and college was almost unbearable for me as a reader.

Teaching helped me love reading again. Following my first year of teaching, stressed out beyond belief, I sat on the the ought-to-be-condemned balcony of my first apartment and read Thoreau's Walden. Nine months with 7th graders will give you new appreciation for an entire chapter entitled "Silence..."