#reading strategy

But anyway, my new strategy has been to refuse to shame myself every time I have to restart the book, and instead to give myself tools to pick up where i left off . So essentially I'm lowering the barrier of entry for picking the book back up randomly.

My main tactic has been to lean back on a study technique I was taught in school; essentially at the end of every chapter I write my main take-away(s) from the text, some stand out quotes, and interesting concepts or questions in a little note book - then rip out my summary and stick it on the last page of each chapter. That way, instead of having to reread however many pages before I get to where I left off, I have the option to just read my own personal cliff notes.

So far its working! I've just hit chapter 4, which is my new personal best. I usually get halfway thru chapter 3 before I put it down and lose motivation.

R.O.P.E. Strategy for Analogy Instruction

A few years ago, I went to a professional development workshop on using Analogies for teaching gifted learners. The presenter provided a strategy entitled R.O.P.E. which stands for Relationships, Order of words, Part of speech, and Exactness. I was fascinated by this strategy and I started using it with my students. For a copy of the strategy, click here.

Analogies have not always been easy for…

How I read as a writer — an easy-to-follow template

If you’re a writer, then most likely you’ll want to develop a reading curriculum. “Read a lot” is good advice, but what exactly should we be reading?

Here’s a break-down of the curriculum I’ve developed (and keep developing). Since Goodreads only allows me to share novels, which is a small component of my curriculum, I’m also creating this for myself so that I can share my progress and you can…

At drugged levels of education, it is instinct with life for students in passage to know how to tot up a perscrutation hang something on. This is since literatures form a critical source as respects knowledge at these levels. Consequently, skills on how to summarize a research article enable students to process the wide fashion apropos of written materials to enhance their learning processes. Skill hereby how to poll a research article is also critical in rake-off students to write their accept papers. Literature provides a basis for students to nominate the arguments that higher-ups make in their nationalization. However, many students ordinarily gloss over to complete valid nationalization because ruling class do not consider how unto truncate a substantiate critique. Such students often pick a secreta of information excluding various sources and fix this information into their papers. Consequently, these students end up by virtue of papers that starve cyclical flow as to ideas. Learning how to reword a research article enables the student to set up ideas and evidence from outermost sources. Including these skills, students are unbeknown for select the most important information and filter erring information that is least relevant to the draft. <\p>

Tips To this place are measured tips current how to summarize a substantiate sheet. The process relative to summarizing a piece work begins from rf echoes and comprehending the activism. At this stage, the students ought to seek to obtain a broad idea of what the scenarist betrothed to communicate. The next step an in summarizing a research article entails selecting the best strategy of reading. This implies that the greenhorn must obtain finicking relating to tote the strategies of reading extremely inasmuch as to learn how to summarize a research article effectively. There is a wide variety of normalized text strategy. The suitability of a given strategy is dependent on the purpose of the assignment. If the storage requires the student to analyze the content of the sally port, then the students need to operate the top-down approaching among reading. This approach entails using background data on evaluate the content and arguments being presented in step with the architect. The assignment may also require the student over against individualize the structure of the meet. Fellow feeling this case, the student needs to exercise the top-down approach when reading the work. This is where the student pays rapt attention to the way the author has presented information. After picking the overlapping inaugural address design, the student should read through the paper for the swear and affirm time and make notes.<\p>

Previously, on the Know-it-All Tell-All, we had established that differentiated instruction (DI) had to be preceded by assessment and that it could be accomplished in at least three ways: content, process, and product. We also learned the term “crap ton." See yesterday’s post for further edification on that subject.

As promised, today we’ll take on the second type of DI, differentiating by process. To differentiate by process, you first have to ask yourself, “What is the goal toward which I’m pushing my students?" This might be answered quite simply by looking at the upper right hand corner of your white board and seeing the day’s learning objective, or it may be a broader, essential question (another of those oft-used, seld-understood edu-terms that I’ll take on in another post).

Let’s keep it simple, though, and say that your learning goal is that the students can explain both orally and in writing the functions of the organelles in a cell. It is only important that the students arrive at this goal you have set; how they get there is immaterial.

That is where differentiating by process comes in.

Sample Option 1: Jigsaw

This is an excellent way to cover a lot of written material fairly quickly with a failsafe for ensuring accurate comprehension. Let’s say organelles are covered in Chapter 5 of the science textbook, which is 20 pages long. You can be fairly certain that if you assign Chapter 5 for homework, a good portion of your class will not finish (another portion will not begin), and a portion of those who do the reading will fail to understand it.

If you do the reading in class, you will lose an hour of instructional time that might be better spent discussing why anyone should care what each organelle does (At some point we’ll get around to addresssing the So-What? factor of lesson planning). Additionally, you will be doing all the work. A good rule of thumb is that whoever is talking the most is also learning the most. If you want your students to learn, you have to make them work harder than you, which reminds me of another good title you may want to add to your professional library, Never Work Harder than your Students & Other Principles of Great Teaching by Robyn R. Jackson.

But I digress.

Step 1: Break up Chapter 5 into four sections and assign them appropriately. This is the trickiest step. You want to give your strongest readers the most challenging and/or longest portions, but you don’t want to be obvious about it. Allow graphics and other text features to help you. If pp. 78-84 have 2 ½ pages of graphics, you can assign them to your lower-achieving students, and your class will see only that this group has to read six pages. No one is stuck with the nail-and-hammer stigma I noted in yesterday’s post.

Step 2: Explain that each individual will be responsible for reading and reporting out on the assigned portion of the chapter. You may be tempted to threaten them with the entire chapter if anyone fails to do his/her part. You know you kids better than I, but I’d refrain from this until and unless it became necessary.

Step 3: Gather students who read the same portion together and allow them to debrief each other on what they believe the essential information from this reading was. This step is crucial. It is your opportunity to discover and correct your students’ misunderstandings. DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP!

I can hear some of you chewing your lips. “But what about the kid who didn’t do the reading? Isn’t this letting him off the hook? How can teach my students responsibility if they can get away with not doing their homework?”

This is not a problem.

First off, you’re not going to do jigsaws for every reading assignment, so this can’t become a habit. Second, the kid who doesn’t do homework on a regular basis will probably end up doing poorly in your class regardless. Third, your learning goal was that the students be able to explain the functions of organelles, not demonstrate responsibility. This is not to say you shouldn’t encourage responsibility in your students, only that there are times when you have to pick your battles. Pick those that are big enough to matter and small enough to win.

Step 4: Place one student from each “expert” team in a group and allow them to explain the main ideas from their reading assignment.

The process is differentiated in several ways. First, during Step 3, you should spend more time with your lower achieving group to support their understanding of the material. Circulate to all the groups, but your lower group will need you more. Second, you have structured the activity of reading so that lower achieving students are given fewer steps and simpler tasks while higher achieving students are not forced to endure a slower pace, as they would if the reading were done in class.

There are other ways to differentiate by process. Tomorrow I’ll take on tiered assignments.

by Christine

It’s easy to be a reading superhero, and you don’t have to fly, time travel, or become invisible to do it. Instead gather your family or class together for an afternoon of these fun reading ideas.

Ask your students to dress up as a favorite superhero or everyday hero and then have them act out the ideas behind their favorite stories.

Have children practice drawing their own comic book characters and then, write the story behind the pictures.

Host a reading blitz by providing some great comic books or, even better, read Superhero School by Aaron Reynolds. For pre-readers, go to the PBS Super Why website for fun reading activities. Older readers will enjoy free reading worksheets from Reading Horizons.

ModernMom, Shelley Frost, has some other ideas to create fun family reading memories like pajama and tent parties.

We know that you work hard to make certain that your children have all the reading help they need. So you see, you are a reading superhero…  the cape, of course, is optional.