Each classroom brings students of multiple learning styles and backgrounds. It is our job to provide opportunities that reach all of the many different learning styles that come to us. For this reason, it is important that we continually switch up the types of fiction reading response we offer to students. Below are engaging, hands-on, visual ...
Reading
Teaching Reading Comprehension Strategies: Asking Questions & QAR Strategy
Asking questions before, during, and after reading comes very naturally to skilled readers, but for struggling readers, this skill can be just the opposite. Asking questions of varying depths is arguably the most important reading comprehension strategy we should teach and practice often with our students. WHY IS ASKING QUESTIONS AN IMPORTANT ...
Teaching Students to Use Background Knowledge in Reading Classroom
Using background knowledge is reading both fiction and nonfiction texts is essential for reading comprehension. The more knowledge students have on a topic, the easier it will be for them to understand, and make connections to, new texts. Prior knowledge is also part of the building blocks for more difficult reading strategies, such as making ...
5 Ways to Teach Nonfiction Text Structure
Before studying to become a reading specialist, I had never explicitly been taught nonfiction text structures as a student and I also hadn’t been taught the importance of teaching them to our students as an undergrad. They can often be the missing puzzle piece for our growing nonfiction readers. Nonfiction text structures, which are the way the ...
5 Ways to Practice Nonfiction Text Features
As adult readers, we know the importance of using nonfiction text features in order to help us understand the main body of text. Headings help us to make predictions while reading, and then easily find information after reading. Captions explicitly tell us what we are looking at in a photograph or picture that aligns to the text. An index helps ...
5 Steps for Teaching Reading Strategies in an Elementary Classroom
It can be very overwhelming, especially for my struggling readers, to focus on using multiple reading comprehension strategies with a piece of text. For this reason, I always take time in at least the first quarter of the school year to teach and review them individually. This way students have the academic language and practice under their belt ...
New School Year, New Blog!
I have been meaning to start a blog for quite a while (like 2+ years a while!), but life is just so busy! With the new school year rolling around, I decided now is a good time to get a fresh start. I’m really excited to take the plunge into the teacher blogosphere! A little background on me and how I got to this point: I was an ELL Reading ...
Teaching Students to Visualize
Visualizing the text is such an important strategy used for building your students’ reading comprehension. It is very versatile as it can be used in different ways with students of all ages and reading levels. I follow the 7 Keys to Comprehension (Zimmerman and Hutchins, 2003) in my classroom. Of the seven reading strategies (Visualize, Use ...
Supporting Elementary Students with Nonfiction Reading Comprehension
Reading nonfiction texts can be overwhelming for students, especially when it comes to a topic they are unfamiliar with at a reading a level that is even slightly above theirs. With a push to read more and more nonfiction from lower grade levels, it is important that we set our students up for success with nonfiction reading comprehension. ...
Teaching Genres to Elementary Students: From Setting up a Classroom Library to Independent Activities
As adults, we often walk into a bookstore with a certain genre we are ready to peruse the aisles for in order to find our next read. Would your students be able to do the same? Are they able to identify their favorite genre as historical fiction, fantasy, mysteries, etc? Students with strong genre knowledge are able to better comprehend books ...