Helping Students Become Strategic Readers

Well...it is that time of the year again~back to school!! Part of my job at the school that I work at is to assist with Professional Development and this year part of the focus will be on ways to help our students become strategic readers. Teachers that can make abstract thinking visible and concrete will cause the students to understand their thinking and students will think to understand.  The goal of reading is not just to read words correctly, but to glean meaning from text. In the book Comprehension Connections: Bridges to Strategic Reading by Tanny McGregor she lists schema,, asking questions, inferring, visualizing, determining importance and synthesizing information as being essential to a reader.
     As we study Tanny McGregor's book this year I will share through my blog the different strategies she stresses and the activities that we found effective for our students.  I had never pondered the idea the process of thinking as virtually invisible unless the individual explains their thinking .  As teacher it is important that we consistently make our own thinking visible to our students in order for them to begin to recognize their own thinking process.  Throughout the year the students will explore the following strategies deemed by McGregor as merging reading and thinking.
1. Schema- making connections and activating prior knowledge
2. Inferring:  figuring out what an author wants us to think. An inference is mainly based on the references found in the text that leads one to a conclusion.
3. Questioning:  Proficient readers will produce questions before, during, and after reading text.
4.  Determining Importance:  extracting useful and needed information.
5. Visualizing:  creating mental pictures in which a reader uses the 5 senses.
6.  Synthesizing:  the changing of thought as a reader responds to text.
As students begin to make sense of these strategies and understand them in a concrete way they will begin to know when to call on a particular strategy when reading text.  Throughout this year we will discuss in depth the above strategies  and ways to make them visible and concrete to our students.

Do You Know What Your Child's Reading Level Is?

   
 We want our children to read, read, and read...but how do we know if we are selecting books that match our child's reading level?? When our children are reading we want them to be reading at a level that does not cause them to become frustrated, but one in which the right level of challenge and ease exists. The purpose of daily reading is to build confidence and a joy for reading...so the more we understand about our child's reading level the better . Many schools now use Lexile measures to determine an individual's reading level and how well they will comprehend the text. There are two types of Lexile measures: the Lexile reader measure and the Lexile text measure. A Lexile reader measure is a score from a reading test that identifies a student's reading ability. A Lexile text measure refers to the book's reading difficulty (level). The books level is determined by the Lexile Analyzer software.
If you know your child's Lexile level then you can visit the following site to select books that fall in their range:  http://www.lexile.com/findabook/.   Another excellent source to find the Lexile level of books is the The Teacher Book Wizard.  However, if  you are not sure of your child’s Lexile level, you will be able to figure out your child's approximate reading level by visiting Barnes and Noble's Lexile Reading Level Wizard.  The Lexile Wizard from Barnes and Noble will estimate your child's Lexile level and also generate a list of books.
    Dr. James Kim, a Harvard University Professor, conducted more than a decade of research and found that a primary reason that children do not read enough during the summer is the difficulty of finding books at their reading level and of interest to them.  He states that. "Young people have to want to read a book and they have to be able to read it." His research found that a child's reading abilities can actually grow over the summer when they read high-interest books in their Lexile range. If you would like to read more of his research click here. I hope that the tools noted above will assist you in helping your child reading abilities to grow by leaps and bounds. 

The Question is..."Have You Tried Anything New This Summer? The New School Year Is Right Around The Corner

     This week I had to run into our local Walmart seveal times and noticed  my first "back to school" display of the summer being assembled....new crayons and all! After my initial shock of the realization that my summer vacation is half way over I thought to myself.....wait I haven't finished everything on my "summer to do list".   I went home and started reviewing my list of things that I wanted to do this summer.  I did read three books on my list....2 for pleasure and 1 for professional development, but I still have about 5 more that I want to read.  I always have more books to read than time.  I am still trying to figure out how to work my ipad 2 and Adobe Photoshop...but hey I started.  I even have sewn several things for my daughters...not to bad.  So, my question is ..." Have you been able to check off somethings off your list of things you wanted to do this Summer?"  (I am not referring to the clean out my drawers and closets list:)

     So, if you happen to be looking for something new to try before school starts in a couple weeks check out a couple of the new educational tech resources.  When you return to school you will be able to show off and of course share your new resources and skills with your peers.

Google Maps...awesome resource for teachers...especially for Social Studies

Maps are obviously useful for Social Studies teachers, but recently when I attended a Digital Literacy Workshop I was introduced to the idea of using the multimedia maps to create stories. As a teacher you can build background for a story by using Google Maps and Google Earth by plotting points on a map and one could even add notes, pictures, and video clips to each placemark.  After your students have enjoyed you using the multimedia maps to enhance literacy they will be motivated to begin creating stories of their own using these resources.  Check out Google Lit Trips for more information about incorporating Google Maps and Google Earth into your lesson.

     Yummy Math is a site that was created for sharing math problems that could arise from real world situations. The activities found at this site are arranged by mathematics subject areas and chronologically. The following is just one example of a problem one would find at this site:

       The NBA Finals are here again and the Dallas Mavericks will be playing against Miami's Heat. In Brian's latest investigation, he has asked students to study the frequency of teams making the finals with data given as a pie chart and questions of comparisons. He has asked student to produce data given average; create a bar graphs; use data to create a Venn Diagram; and construct percentages and odds of teams being in the finals.

Try these two out and let me know what you think and I would love to hear from you....share some of your favorite sites with us!!