What Good Readers Do

A couple weeks back I posted this question to my fourth grade students as a way to get them thinking about their own reading habits:  “What do good readers do?”  I wrote it on a white board easel and left it up for a week.  Kids covered it with ideas!

“Good readers think about what’s going on in the story or text.”

“Good readers look at the pictures because they sometimes help them figure out what’s going on in the story.”

“Good readers use the five finger rule (to help them pick out a book).”

“Good readers use context clues.”

“They chose an interesting book, not a boring one.”

“Good readers make predictions.”

I was so happy to see how many things they came up with.  (I forgave the spelling, as you may see.)  Their ideas ranged from picking out a book and prereading strategies to comprehension and word attack skills.  It was a great opportunity for me to see that the students really are listening to us teachers!

After the week was up, we took some time to go over all their ideas and discuss them. I was so pleased to have such a lively conversation about reading with my students.  Because their ideas drove the discussion, they were excited to talk about what they had added to the board.  My hope is to revisit this activity again in a month or so and see what other things they can think of.

So what was the moral of the story?  For me, it was a reminder that students need to both show what they know and take ownership of their own learning.  I didn’t give them a list of what good readers do, they came up with it themselves.  That will make a much bigger impression in the long run.

~EMP

Explicit Strategy Instruction: Making Connections

Do you ever look for resources to help you explicitly teach your child comprehension strategies when reading?  Good readers use these strategies without even thinking about it.  It is our job as parents and educators to teach our children how to use these strategies so that they become second nature to them as they read independently.  You can use the book I’ve focused on or any of the books on Big Universe.

Making Connections

Making connections is often the easiest of the common comprehension strategies to model for children as well as for them to learn and use.  There are three types of connections a reader may make when trying to understand a text: Text-to-Self, Text-to-Text, and Text-to-World.

When a reader makes a text-to-self connection, he relates the book back to himself.  When he makes a text-to-text, he relates the book to another book he has read, and when he makes a text-to-world connection he relates the book to something in the world (current events, a movie, etc.)

During the holidays, families often travel to visit grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. The Relatives Came is a perfect book to use to model for your child how to make connections.  In the story, the relatives pile into their station wagon and drive all day and night to visit the family.  Some connections you might make when reading aloud to your child:

• Hmm, this reminds me of the summers/holidays I spent in our family station wagon driving to my grandmother’s house.
• My grandmother and aunts and uncles liked to hug a lot, too.

Use your read aloud time to sneak in some comprehension strategy lessons without missing a beat.  The likelihood is that you will discuss the book anyway, so make your discussion a bit more focused and your child will begin to learn a few strategies as you model them.  As you read aloud other books to your child, note when you make connections and point them out to your child.  If your child makes his/her own connection as you read, explain to him that he made a connection and tell him what type he made.

Dawn Little (aka Links to Literacy) also blogs at www.teachingwithpicturebooks.wordpress.com where she provides educators with picture book lessons based on comprehension strategies and the Six Traits of Writing.  In addition, she blogs at www.literacytoolbox.wordpress.com where she provides educators and parents with tips and tools to enhance the literacy lives of children.  She is the founder and owner of Links to Literacy, a company dedicated to providing interactive literacy experiences for children and families.  Find out more at www.linkstoliteracy.com

The Book that Jack Wrote by Jon Scieszka: It must be lots of fun!!

You may recognize the author, Jon Scieszka, the author of The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, and The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs! (If you don’t know the two books, stop reading right now and go get them. They are funny, engaging and will appeal to the most hesitant of readers.) What I love about Scieszka’s writing is that it is electrifying. Kids just want to read his books again and again. The Book that Jack Wrote will be a springboard for many educationally valuable activities that can be implemented by parents and teachers alike.

1. Memorization has gone out of favor in some educational circles, but remains a valuable skill for children. The Book that Jack Wrote employs a cumulative pattern that will be famliar to the reader, creating a template for memorization with ease.
2. As children are memorizing, they may be motivated to perform their recitation of the book. Public speaking and vocal performance are both wonderful activities for children.
3. The allegorical references in the book may inspire students to make connections in their reading. The adult may set up the challenge: “As you read, you will find references to characters and events from other stories. See if you can find them all.” Then go back to the original source of the characters and events. Making connections is a valuable reading strategy for all readers to learn.
4. Students may want to create their own “cumulative” stories, either using Jack or another initiating character.
5. Everyone will enjoy discussing the genre of “humor”: what makes Jon Scieszka’s writing so wonderful? You will also enjoy studying closely the illustrations by Daniel Adel.