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!