Kids Need to Talk in Order to Learn Kids like to talk. No, kids LOVE to talk. I know I’m not telling you anything new. Managing talkative students can be one of our most challenging classroom management issues. But did you know that kids NEED to talk in order to learn? In fact, whoever is …
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Comprehension
Thinking about Theme Pays Off
Last week I started thinking more about theme after spending time in a 2nd grade reading workshop. In my previous post I shared a helpful video clip that helped me think about teaching this abstract concept to young readers. Well, that thinking paid off yesterday when I was hanging out in a 6th grade writing …
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Thinking about Theme
This past week I spent a morning in a second-grade reading workshop. These second graders had been working on taking their comprehension of text to deeper levels. On this day they were learning more about theme. Earlier in the morning the teacher had read Eve Bunting’s Fly Away Home, so during the lesson they worked …
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How Do We Teach Close Reading?
I’m reading a book that is changing the way I read and the way I talk to kids about their reading. This happened to me once before–back in 1997 when I first read Mosaic of Thought by Zimmerman and Keene. If you have read this book, you know what I mean. In Mosaic of Thought …
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FREE Downloadable Reciprocal Teaching Resources
Below are links to free downloadable reproducibles and resources that will help you implement reciprocal teaching in your classroom: Reciprocal Teaching Worksheet Question Prompts Predict-Confirm-Adjust Chart Spin a Question Board: Copy onto cardstock and attach a spinner. Reciprocal Teaching Prompt Cards: Reproduce, cut, and place cards on a looseleaf ring. Provide one set for each …
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Reciprocal Teaching Assessment and Intervention Tips
Prediction 1. Observe students’ use of strategies. Do they: Preview the cover, illustrations, table of contents, headings before reading? Stop to predict during reading? Base their predictions on background knowledge and/or clues from the text and illustrations? Make logical predictions? Use the language of predictions? (See sentence stems under prediction activities) 2. Watch for students …
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Summarizing Mini-Lessons and Practice Activities
Summarizing is a complex strategy that requires students to construct concise descriptions of the main points or events of a text. It is helpful to teach summarizing after questioning because they are closely related skills. When summarizing narrative text, students should use story structure (characters, setting, problem, events, resolution) to help recount the story in …
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Clarifying Mini-Lessons and Practice Activities
During the clarifying step of reciprocal teaching, students are asked to monitor their own comprehension of a passage, identify and explain difficult words and ideas, and use a variety of strategies to clear up confusion. Most students find it easier to identify words that they cannot decode or do not understand than to identify unclear …
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