RESOURCES TO HELP TEACHERS HELP STUDENTS

Comprehension Texts

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Contents

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Daily 5

Boushey, G. & Mosher, J. (2006). the daily 5: fostering literacy independence in the elementary grades. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

Although the purpose of Daily 5 is not to help you teach comprehension strategies to your students, it does provide a framework that will allow you to better work with students on comprehension strategies. The best part about Daily 5 is that it allows teachers to support independence with their students. Students are taught to make choices about their education and monitor whether texts are appropriate for them. There is also an emphasis on checking for understanding when independent reading and buddy reading. A great book to use in conjunction with The Café Book when setting up your literacy block.

Café Book

Boushey, G. & Mosher, J. (2009). The café book: engaging all students in daily literacy assessment & instruction. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

Daily 5 provides educators with the big picture of how their literacy blocks could be meaningfully organized. The Café Book provides teachers with the details to make it work. Essentially it is a way of assessing readers. The framework is built on conferencing with individual students. The teacher and student determine if a student’s literacy goal needs to be Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency, or Expanding Vocabulary. Their goal shapes what individual conferencing and small group lessons look like. The teacher also does whole group lessons based on the need. The great thing about this book is that it provides the teacher with a menu of strategies that they can teach for each of these areas, and this menu is placed in the classroom for students to reference. The book includes instructional advice for each strategy, and the value of this book far outweighs its cost of $22.00.

Creating Strategic Readers

Ellery, V. (2009). Creating strategic readers: techniques for developing competency in phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension (2nd ed.). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

This is a broad book that covers five areas that readers need instruction in: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Her section on comprehension has some great strategies. One strategy is called a ripple effect. You start by demonstrating in a children’s pool, a fish tank, or anything else that holds adequate water how throwing pebbles in causes ripples. You talk about how thinking while reading is similar to the ripples in the water. After this, you do a read aloud. While reading, share questions and throw a pebble into the water. Let the question ripple through the classroom as students discuss it.

Guiding Readers and Writers

Fountas, I.C. & Pinell, G.S. (2001). Guiding readers and writers grades 3-6: teaching comprehension, genre, and content literacy. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

This book is the bible of literacy instruction. It contains information about almost every area of literacy (excluding digital literacy) you can think of. It is a treasure trove of resources, and it is an essential read if you are setting up a reading, writing, or word study workshop. It also is a great book to look up information about teaching comprehension or any other questions you might have.

Comprehension & Collaboration

Harvey, S., & Daniels, H. (2009). Comprehension & collaboration: inquiry circles in action. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Warning! If you are super concerned with covering everything on the curriculum map, and you follow a strict timeline so that you can cram all your content in, this book is not for you. However if you are interested in a cross disciplinary approach that allows students to collaborate with each other to develop comprehension skills and a deeper understanding of a portion of your content, Comprehension & Collaboration is a great book for your bookshelf. The book offers teachers lessons on comprehension that will help students deal with information about their topic, hints and lessons on how to set up inquiry groups, and examples of inquiry groups at all levels (K-12). This is a well organized and engaging book that is essential for teachers using inquiry groups.

Strategies that Work

Harvey, S. & Goudvis, A. (2007). Strategies that work: teaching comprehension for understanding and engagement (2nd ed.). Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

A great reference book when planning comprehension mini-lessons. The authors start by discussing the importance of comprehension, strategy instruction and practice, and the benefits of short text. It breaks comprehension up into connections, questioning, visualizing, inferring, determining importance, and synthesizing. Each strategy has several strategy lessons with texts that can be used to accompany the lesson. The authors also offer advice and discuss troubleshooting. The chapter on assessing comprehension is also a beneficial resource when thinking about how to structure your reading time.

Mosaic of Thought

Keene, E.O. & Zimmermann, S. (2001). Mosaic of thought: teaching comprehension s in a reader’s workshop. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

This book is great for teachers who want more than just lessons. Like the title implies, the book is the authors’ thoughts and information about different components of comprehension. It is heavily anecdotal, and you join the authors as they help other teachers support their students. It is a wealth of scholarly information, and this book helps teachers better understand why they are doing what they do.

Seeing the Whole through Social Studies

Lindquist, T. (2002). Seeing the whole through social studies (2nd ed.). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

An inspiring book for helping students better understand social studies. This book focuses on activities that help students get actively involved in social studies, and Lindquist emphasizes making social studies relevant for students. This is a text that is great to revisit when things feel dry because the author’s enthusiasm is contagious. One idea in the book is to have students read a historical fiction novel or biography. The students will write sequential letters about the main character. If they are reading about George Washington, their first letter would be about a character that reflects on George Washington in a historically accurate way (parchment, language, and a quill or fountain pen). The second letter would be from George Washington to another character in the book talking about what he has seen and learned. The third letter would be to George Washington from the student today. The student would share the lessons learned and reactions to his life. To enhance this project, students can create their own stamps, stationary, and artifacts. The activities in this book could easily be adapted to help students better comprehend other texts and subject areas.

Comprehension Connections

McGregor, T. (2007). Comprehension connections. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

This book belongs in the bookshelf of every elementary teacher. McGregor devotes her book to six components of comprehension: metacognition, schema, inferring, questioning, determining importance, visualizing, and synthesizing. She argues that students need concrete lessons that help them connect with more abstract areas of comprehension, and each chapter gives concrete lessons, text suggestions (including song lyrics), quotes to promote discussion, thinking stems, and other great strategies for each component of comprehension. An example of a concrete lesson is having a pot full of spaghetti and water. This represents the text. The teacher pours the contents of the pot (which represents the brain sifting through information), and the unimportant information (the water) is released. The important information (the spaghetti) is kept in the brain, and the students then discuss how good reading is similar to cooking spaghetti. It is surprising how simple lessons like this help students grasp comprehension strategies.

Super 6 Comprehension Strategies

Oczkus, L. (2004). Super 6 comprehension strategies. Norwood, MA: Christopher- Gordon Publisher, Inc.

Although the layout of this book is bland and it has a reliance on worksheet type activities, the Super 6 Comprehension Strategies has a lot to offer teachers. The author focuses on the following comprehension strategies: building background knowledge and making connections, predicting and inferring, questioning, monitoring comprehension, summarizing and synthesizing, and evaluating. Each strategy has classroom vignettes, general information about teaching that strategy, and teaching advice for each strategy. One plus to this book is that it includes evaluating as a comprehension strategy, and this higher level thinking skill gets students thinking about the quality of the text and what it has to offer. This is not featured in many other comprehension books, so it will be helpful for teachers to read this chapter. It also includes assessment resources for these comprehension areas and a disc with reproducibles of the activities.

50 Literacy Strategies

Tompkins, G.E. (2009). 50 literacy strategies: step-by-step (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Like the name implies, this book gives information about literacy strategies that can be used in the classroom. It has 35 strategies that can be specifically used for comprehension, and each strategy may include appropriate grade level, a description of the strategy, why the strategy should be used, how to use it, when to use it, and examples of student work. This is a fantastic book to flip through every once in a while to get ideas for enhancing classroom instruction. One strategy is called “Sketch-to-Stretch.” It is a way for students to respond to longer texts. After reading and discussing the themes of the book, students draw sketches to reflect what the story means to them—focusing on meaning not their favorite part. They then share their sketches with students who try to guess what the artist is trying to say.

Improving Comprehension

Wilhelm, Dr. J. D. (2001). Improving comprehension with think-aloud strategies. New York: Scholastic, Inc.

Wilhelm’s book offers teachers of intermediate, middle school, or high school students more than just lessons on how to think aloud using a few selected texts. He identifies many great strategies for teachers (fishbowl for example) that involve teachers and students thinking aloud while making sense of text. He calls one of his strategies, “Making the teacher sweat.” The students bring in texts that they know the teacher will have a hard time with (rap songs), and he shares his thinking about how he would approach this new text (reactions, sampling). Although this book is somewhat dry, the author does show his readers helpful strategies to model thinking about reading.