Are You Creating Wild Readers?

Motivating readers can be a REAL challenge for teachers, so I'd like to chat about Reading in the Wild by Donalyn Miller. Several within our group of bloggers have read her books, and as you can probably guess, we loved them both of the books she's written! I will highlight what I've taken from the book, but by all means, if you haven't read it, please put it on your list of must reads after The Book Whisperer. If you'd like to check out the review of The Book Whisperer, you can access Lauren's blog post from February {here}.  

What does a wild reader look like in the classroom?  

Wild Readers Spend Time Reading

Donalyn introduces the book with discussion about how important it is to give students to time read during the school day.  Many teachers assign 20-30 minutes a day of nightly reading as part of homework, but she contends that we need to find time in the school day to hook the kids and help them recognize times when they can get their books out.  She uses a workshop approach to teaching reading and writing.  She offers mini lessons using mentor texts, anchor charts, graphic organizers, and materials common with most classroom reading instruction, and during the application of comprehension strategies, she pulls in independent reading and discussion.  It is through reader notebooks that her students reflect on their reading and practice using the skills taught.  She advises making use of time "on the fringes"  When might that be?  Here's a short list of times I came up with, and I'm sure you can add to the list.

1. When kids are waiting for Library checkout, PE, or Music.
2. During transition minutes between classes if you're departmentalized.
3. After work is completed.
4. While waiting for the bus at the end of the day 
5. Before, during, and after lunch and recess.
6. As students are arriving to school (This is a great way to de-stress and prepare for the day.)
7. During guided reading rotations

Important point...

You must always be prepared for a reading emergency, and we need to help our students recognize the importance of carrying a book everywhere in order for them to open it and read.  To create wild readers, we each need to look at our day and find places where we can give 5-10 minutes blocks of time toward independent reading.

Wild Reader Self Select Reading Materials

Knowing your students' Lexile or guided reading levels has been ingrained in our heads over the past few years, and Donalyn advises that we not adhere exclusively to this.  Rather, we should consider interest and motivation when recommending books to students.  We need to be familiar with what our students are reading and know books well enough to offer options based on our students' interests. We need to remind our students that it's okay to abandon books when they aren't a good match and let book selection develop naturally.  When students make bad choices, they find the book doesn't hold their interest and eventually they'll abandon the book on their own, but if they are persistent in reading it because they are motivated, we certainly want to encourage them to push on. 

Donalyn urges teachers to read to their students high interest books that may lead to other reading options either by genre, theme, or by the same author.  Important point-To become familiar with what your students may enjoy, use websites such as Goodreads.com, make lists of books recommended by your students, and consult your colleagues and librarian for ideas.

Wild Readers Share Books and Reading with Other Readers

One characteristic of young adult readers is that they enjoy talking about their reading, and through these conversations, comprehension improves.  In Donalyn's classroom, students keep (this star chart) and refer to it when they're giving book commercials or sharing with friends.  She also has her students read from all genre types in the 40 book challenge.  This form from Becca at Simply 2nd Resources would work well for students to track their reading genres. 

Another routine Donalyn has implements in her classroom is conferring with students.  She uses this time to take a running record, discuss the book with the students, assist them in planning for future reading, check reader notebooks, and to assess application of comprehension strategies.  At the reading conference I attended recently, Donalyn shared that she found herself feeling frustrated that she wasn't conferring weekly with her students. She advised starting with the top of your class list and working your way down before starting over.  She has been able to meet with each student three times per grading period this way.  She uses Evernote to keep her conference records which allow audio of the child reading, but I haven't had a chance to check that out yet. She mentioned the usefulness of being able to readily access the information for child study meetings or parent teacher conferences. This form (questions created by Regie Routman) can also be used to guide your conferring sessions as well.

Finally, students need to time to talk about their reading with each other.  This builds excitement and can also be used by the teacher for grading purposes.  Donalyn has time set aside each Friday for reading commercials.  Students are asked to prepare reading commercials at the end of their reading and present them to the class. These are brief talks.  She discourages the use of lengthy book reports that bog students down and may keep them from reading.  One idea that Donalyn shared at the conference was to dedicate a bulletin board space to book recommendations.  In Andrea's post about motivating struggling readers, she shared this form you could use for students to recommend books to each other.  Donalyn used index cards...no frills, but when the same book pops up on the board multiple times, students infer that it's a must read.

Wild Readers Have Reading Plans

As previously mentioned, helping students plan for future reading is an important step in the conferring process.  Students should keep a list of what they've read to feel a sense of accomplishment, but they also need a list of what they plan to read in the future.  This expedites the book selection process at library checkout and helps avoid wandering from shelf to shelf the whole period too.  Students have their lists together and can quickly pull together what they're wanting to read and get on with reading.  These plans develop from conversations between students and from the teacher, and like the students, we need to have our list together too.  Donalyn keeps a list of books her students recommend to her, and she reads them.  In our busy lives, we may not read cover to cover, but it is meaningful to students to see that we listen to them and can talk to them about the books later. 

What about the dormant reader?  You know...the child who abandons book after book and often fake reads?  One way to entice him/her is through the sharing of a new book picked especially for him/her that matches his/her interests. Giving students a survey at the start of the year may help you in knowing your students' interests and reading tastes. Donalyn mentioned that she often uses part of the conferring time to visit her classroom library with the child to find a stack to pick from.  If you haven't done an interest inventory, you could use {Donalyn's}.  There are many inventories available online, or I also like this one from Joanne Miller at Head Over Heels for Teaching.

Finally, since I mentioned the classroom library, I'll take a minute to talk about them.  Even if your school has a well stocked library, it is very important that students have access to an attractive and well organized classroom library.  Even if your classroom is small, dedicating space for a cozy reading nook sends the message to your students that you see this as an important component in your instructional routine.  Make the reading area inviting and organize books in a way that students can see them easily.  If maintaining the library is a challenge, put a responsible student in charge of taking in and putting away the books.  You might put together baskets of your recommendations and put on display seasonal books, books that fit a theme your studying, or books from various genres.  

Wild Readers Show Reading Preferences

As the year progresses, you will see that your students have reading preferences.  Their star charts will contain more books from a certain genre for sure, and reader bonds will form between students who gravitate toward the same reading preferences. This is a sign that you've created wild readers. By showing students various genres, we are taking them to the reading buffet.  They may do a taste test only for some genres, or they may discover they have a new favorite food to devour.  The key is for us to show them the buffet and help them develop their tastes. 

Are You Reading in the Wild?

Finally, I'll end with this question.  Are you reading in the wild? We, as professionals, should keep up with our practice.  We need to read professional books in order to keep ourselves abreast of current research.  We also need to read for pleasure.  We, like our students, need to read on the fringes and keep a book on hand for those reading emergencies.  We need to talk about our reading with colleagues and friends.  Aside from these two books, I'd also recommend a few professional books that I have either read or plan to read. Several of us are participating in a book discussion through our blogs for Teach Like a Pirate this summer, and we'll share more details about that later.  Others I'd recommend...

1. Comprehension Connections and Genre Connections by Tanny McGregor
2. Teach Like a Pirate by David Burgess
3. Falling in Love with Close Reading by Chris Lehman
4. Strategies that Work! by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis
5. Daily Five and The Cafe Book by Gail Boushey and Joan Moser

What professional books have inspired you?  In the comments below, please give your book recommendations. You may share a professional book, favorite novel, or books you enjoy sharing with your students. If you'd like to encourage your students to write their own book reviews or would like to contribute a review of your favorite books, Donalyn has begun The Nerdy Book Club as a place for book recommendations.  You can also read her blog at [this link].

Now...go out and find a great book!

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How to Ensure You've Included Writing Across the Curriculum

Sound effects? Powerful quote? Leading questions?   No matter what hook idea students choose to use as the opener for their papers, students still need to be able to carry out a central idea in well structured paragraphs and this takes practice.  If your days are like mine, we are hard-pressed to find all the time we need to build writing skills to the degree we'd like no matter what grade level you're in.  If that describes your reality, then perhaps today's post will give you a new perspective on how to incorporate writing throughout the day, and therefore build those writing skills.

Earlier this week, Melissa mentioned in her post that the teachers in Virginia were gearing up for the state writing assessment.  In our state, students are assessed for the first time in fifth grade, and as we know, the fifth grade teachers are not miracle workers.  Writing skills build over time, and struggling readers are typically struggling writers, so in order to build strong writers, our writing programs need to include these key components:

• Informal writing opportunities
• Modeling and practice with Process Writing
• and Genre Writing experiences.  

Each type of writing addresses specific skills. Informal writing is intended to build writing fluency while process writing develops writing skills and abilities,  and genre writing teaches organizational patterns of writing.  It is the informal and genre writing that can be incorporated into the content areas offering struggling writers a "double dip" of writing.  By increasing informal writing opportunities and genre writing in the content areas, we improve writing skills, reinforce content learning, and address reading comprehension of the content for deeper understandings.  If we weave writing through all of our subjects, students learn that writing is a tool they can use to learn and express their thoughts about it.

What's considered informal writing?  Informal writing includes using journals of various types for prompted writing and choice writing, responding to literature, and writing to learn.  With these types of experiences, students should be free from grading, but rather assessment is more about encouraging the thinking and effort.  Below are a list of ideas for each writing option:

Informal Writing Opportunities

Journal writing can be used much more than just morning work. I've seen in many classrooms journals are done in the morning with the prompt of the day, but try to expand your use of them. There are far more options than just a daily prompt. Below are a few options you might try. Don't limit to just one classroom journal. Consider including them for each subject you teach. When you think about how you can incorporate additional writing opportunities, you'll find your kids will need more than one.

• Personal Journals-allow freedom of expression about whatever is important to the child.
• Writer's Notebooks-helps students keep track of and add their ideas for writing opportunities they may use later.
• Family Message Books-these journals are used as a way for children to communicate feelings and opinions with their parents and for parents to provide guidance.
• Speedwriting-students are provided an amount of time to just write their ideas on a topic.  This works well as a schema building activity with content areas.
• Sensory Writing-students write what they hear, see, feel, smell, and taste with a certain topic.
• Memory Writing-students write about memories related to a topic...walking in the woods, power outages, beginning school, etc.

Responding to Reading is another great way to weave in additional writing (and check comprehension at the same time). From graphic organizers to interactive notebooks to questions and exit tickets, the options are almost endless. Just make it purposeful and linked to the learning your students have completed with the chosen text in reading.

• Response Journals-These ideas are almost endless...letter to a friend about reading, a play, song, news report, blogging, wanted ad, etc.
• Response charts-Quotes and Connections
• Response questions-Reading to find answers to questions, and learning to respond in complete sentences are helpful to students in building sentence fluency.
• Blogging and Social Media-The internet is here to stay, so it's important that we embrace it and learn how to use it for learning. Edmodo is a great website you might try for monitored class discussions.

Writing to Learn is the third informal writing option. Students use writing when they put together interactive notebooks, lapbooks, and even when they take notes about their content. Again, graphic organizers and exit tickets are used for learning too. 

• Learning Logs and Interactive Notebooks-Students can take photos, graphics from the content area, and foldables, glue them in their notebooks, and go one step further to record their thoughts about them.
• Questioning-Give students key questions to respond to at stopping points within the lesson. Students can use information from their learning and work on writing well thought out responses.
• Exit Cards-These are fairly common, and very quick to include.  [Here's] a great little freebie from Mad Science Lessons on Teachers Pay Teachers
• Various forms of the KWL Chart
• Writing projects-news articles, bumper stickers, letters to people in history, lab reports, epitaphs, memories of learning, boasts or brags about what they've done well, posters, interviews and more.  

Genre Writing Experiences

You might be wondering how genre writing experiences can tie into the content areas. and what genre writing is. We study genres in reading, but what does it have to do with writing? Some genres lead writers to use organizational patterns.  Teaching text structure has become a focus with the Common Core with reading comprehension, but applying that knowledge in writing can reinforce learned concepts. We have three basic patterns; fictional plot structures, exposition which includes description, sequential, and compare/contrast, and persuasion which includes cause/effect and problem/solution. Understanding the organizational patterns applies to writing as well as in topics we read with science, history, and math. Take for example studies of erosion.  Writing a problem and solution essay would help students learn about ways they might prevent erosion, but also how to organize those ideas in their writing too.  Another example would be writing lab reports.  Lab reports are done sequentially (or chronologically), and when writing a lab report, teachers can help students learn to use transition words to help their writing flow sequentially.  

Here are a few ideas you might try.  (For young writers, some of these can be done in a shared writing fashion versus independently.  Scaffold as you need.)

• Personal Experience Stories
• Writing Frames
• Graphic Organizers 
• Me Museums (writings about life...include timeline, pictures/captions, maps)
• Fictional Stories using information learned
• Character Webs
• Plot Cubes
• Compare/Contrast writing (Indian Tribes, Landforms, Electrical Circuits)
• Cause/Effect writing (Effects of Pollution, Results of War, Laws)
• Persuasion (What XXX means to me, School Lunch)

Process Writing

I don't think I need to spend a great bit of writing space to talk about process writing. It is simply work that you take through the full writing process (prewriting, drafting, revising, proofread/editing, publishing). Students should always have at least one piece of work going through the writing process at all times, and from my experience, the greatest need for struggling kids is the revising stage. For many of my kids, their understanding of revising is just recopying it neater. It's taken a long time to correct the misunderstanding, and now, the published work has a much different look from the first draft. For struggling students, I highly recommend bringing in an assistant or parent volunteer who loves working one-on-one as this is the most effective way to help students hear and see errors they've made.

When time is limited, my hope is that writing won't be the activity that gets cut now that you've read this. Instead of cutting, work to weave it in.  Writing should be a common thread throughout all of the core subjects. It improves reading comprehension, reinforces learning, and improves writing fluency and expression.  Plus, writing is just plain fun!

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Lighting up Learning Family Style

School can and should be fun, and it should be a place where everyone is included in the process and welcome regardless of ethnicity, socioeconomic status, or level of education. Our school district's motto speaks to this, "Every Child by Name and by Need to Graduation", and educating our children takes a village.  Here are a few ideas from my fellow contributors that you might consider to help improve the home-school-community connection.

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Lights, Cameras, Action...Engaging Parents with Learning Fun

With the title above, you may feel like you're heading to the movies, and sometimes, choosing something fun and inviting such as a movie night is just the thing to bring ALL of your parents in. We want our parents involved because we know it makes a difference in the learning of the child, right. Read on to learn about why their involvement matters and what you might try to bring them all in.

I am Carla from Comprehension Connection, and many of my teaching years have been spent working as a Title 1 reading specialist. Parental involvement as we know is an important focus of the Title 1 program. So just why do parents need to be involved, what type of programs give students the biggest benefits, and how can we as educators increase parental involvement for our students?  

Before preparing this post, I decided to see what the research says related to parental involvement.  I was curious what evidence is available to support the need for parents getting into the classroom, working with students, and helping with school activities and whether all types of parental involvement results in increased student achievement. In Title 1, the focus is on "capacity building" which means involving parents in the support of learning at school and at home.  It begins with just bringing families in the front door. Keeping things light and family friendly helps form relationships and establishes trust that we are all on the same team working together for the child.  It's so important to begin that in the first week with phone calls home, a welcoming smile and positive comments. Eventually, your staff may consider doing events in the community as well.  After a long day at work, many parents would be happy to attend if the event was right next door as opposed to traveling across town with hungry children in tow. You might consider a neighborhood church or community building as the meeting location.  Food always helps whether you are at your school or off-site.  

Now that your schema about parental involvement is warmed up, how about a little research.  G. Olsen shared this information  in The Benefits of Parental Involvement:  What Research Has to Say on Education.com. I love how the information shows that everyone wins when parents are involved, and I think most readers will find the information helpful.

Henderson and Berla (1994) reviewed and analyzed eighty-five studies that documented the comprehensive benefits of parent involvement in children's education. Here are a few they listed for the children, parents, teachers, and the school. 

Benefits for the Children

• Children tend to achieve more, regardless of ethnic or racial background, socioeconomic status, or parents' education level. 

• Children generally achieve better grades, test scores, and attendance. 

• Children consistently complete their homework. 

• Children have better self-esteem, are more self-disciplined, and show higher aspirations and motivation toward school. 

• Children's positive attitude about school often results in improved behavior in school and less suspension for disciplinary reasons. 

Benefits for Parents

• Parents increase their interaction and discussion with their children and are more responsive and sensitive to their children's social, emotional, and intellectual developmental needs. 

• Parents have a better understanding of the teacher's job and school curriculum. 

• When parents are aware of what their children are learning, they are more likely to help when they are requested by teachers to become more involved in their children's learning activities at home. 

• Parents' perceptions of the school are improved and there are stronger ties and commitment to the school. 

Benefits for Educators

• When schools have a high percentage of involved parents in and out of schools, teachers and principals are more likely to experience higher morale. 

• Teachers and principals often earn greater respect for their profession from the parents. 

• Consistent parent involvement leads to improved communication and relations between parents, teachers, and administrators. 

• Teachers and principals acquire a better understanding of families' cultures and diversity, and they form deeper respect for parents' abilities and time. 

• Teachers and principals report an increase in job satisfaction. 

Benefits for the School

• Schools that actively involve parents and the community tend to establish better reputations in the community. 

• Schools also experience better community support. 

• School programs that encourage and involve parents usually do better and have higher quality programs than programs that do not involve parents.

In my school division last year, our school board and superintendent introduced Give Me Five as a way to address the need for parental involvement, and I love how this became not just parental involvement, but also student and community involvement as well. The graphic to the left is included on the Parent/Student Overview of our website and is advertised through newsletters and morning announcements at our school.  At the same time Give Me Five was rolled out, we also introduced our division motto, "Every Child, by Name and by Need, through Graduation". Together, I believe these symbols send the message that we care about your child, value your family, and want you to be involved.  

As I mentioned, parental involvement has been a focus for me for many years now. Some events have been more effective than other, but I learned long ago that even the events that seem ineffective at the time may work perfectly with a different age group, at a different time of year, or with a little more planning. Here are a few school-wide ideas you might give a try in your school setting.

If you want a high level of engagement, then this activity works beautifully.  It's one of  my all-time favorite events. Night for Family Literacy or NFL night has a football theme with a literacy twist. Yes, the children come dressed in their favorite sports team jersey, and we serve the families tailgating foods. With this event, we typically have a performer who incorporates literacy building ideas...using music to work on fluency, reading how-to literature to learn about magic, highlighting favorite books and characters, or singing about comprehension strategies. We've involved the local football team who share why it's important to be a strong student in order to play, and the evening is entertaining for the whole family.  

Last year, I had a great time planning a book club for our students. We called it The Magic of Reading Book Club. After all, what child isn't fascinated by magic? I loved this event because all levels of students could participate and learn from each other. The students ended up increasing the amount of reading they did during that period of time, and it involved parents in the running of the clubs. This was helpful to the parents as they were able to hear and see the types of questions that work well for discussion. We basically ran the clubs like literature circles. Students read to a predetermined point, discussed sections of the books, created projects related to the book themes, and enjoyed a guest speaker (magician of course!).  I hope to repeat this activity in the future with different themes and book options.

Now for the last event I'd like to share.  Last summer, I was perusing Pinterest (Don't we all??), and I came across this amazing reading fair idea from Read.Write.Mom!, and I instantly thought of parental involvement.  The original idea I saw was this one of Chocolate Fever, a book many of my students love, but you can check out close to 30 more at Read.Write.Mom!. I emailed my principal right away with the pictures and link to see whether she thought it would work.  Well, it was a huge success.  I sent home [this packet of information] for the families to sign up.  Once the students returned their form, we sent home a trifold display board (and they can be reused in the future) and a direction sheet telling what to include on the board.  The projects were brought in and displayed during our book fair week, so the reviews were perfect for little shoppers looking for book ideas.  Each child received a book for participating. In the spring, we plan to do something similar with cereal boxes.  The beauty of this activity is that all ages can be involved to the level that fits them, and parents can participate at home which makes it easier on working parents.  The sharing time was very special though, and the children were very proud.

Now it is time for me to share a few ideas from our readers.  I asked my fans about this topic, and it received quite a few responses.  Here are a few of the ideas that were new to me.

1) Left-Rebecca suggests Family Game Night.  Board games involve many educational skills, and sometimes it's good to try them out with a friend or two.  Her local educational supply store donated games for families to try, and set up to sell them to those who were interested.  Use this as a theme and add your own reading game ideas that parents can make and take home to use.  2) Center-Michelle shared that teachers at her school model with a favorite read aloud skills such as visualizing, cause and effect, and text features and the night ends with milk and cookies to celebrate all of the learning that's gone on. 3) Right-Mary suggests Theme Nights.  This one came complete with Hawaiian fruit rays, beach music, and souvenirs as parents work through themed stations and fill out their punch cards for door prizes.  

For more parental involvement event ideas, check in tomorrow for Five on Friday.  We'll be highlighting other parental involvement events our team has offered to our parents.

As Henderson and Mapp report in A New Wave of Evidence: The Impact of School, Family, and Community Connections on Student Achievement ,

"Regardless of family income or background, students whose parents are involved in their schooling are more likely to have higher grades and test scores, attend school regularly, have better social skills, show improved behavior, and adapt well to school." 

I think these are all wonderful reasons to reach out, get your parents engaged in your classroom activities, grade-level functions, and school-wide events.

If you have had great success with a special reading or math event, please share it in the comments below.  We look forward to the feedback, and so do our fellow readers.

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Comprehension Strategies for Active Learning

It's Monday, and if your Monday's are like mine, you are probably trying to get everything off in the right direction for the week.  You've spent most of yesterday planning and preparing for your students, and tonight, you'll be checking through your plans to make sure each T is crossed and each I is dotted.   This is the typical routine for me and the majority of my teacher friends, and I hope today's post will provide you with a few ideas/freebies you can work into your plans next week.

In this post, we'll be looking at a few of my favorite comprehension strategies. I'll share with you why I enjoy using them and how they help my kiddos. From my experience, how you structure your reading plan makes a difference. Many of our kiddos struggle with comprehension because they focus on figuring out the words instead of meaning. So let's take a look at how these strategies might keep your kiddos engaged and connected to the text.

So, I am Carla from Comprehension Connection,  Over the past few months, several of us have participated in a few of the Facebook Frenzy collaborative events. We've all chatted and I got to thinking that joining together with other literacy coaches and specialists would be a great way to learn and share our experiences with other reading specialists.  I reached out and we formed our group, The Reading Crew.  It has been so wonderful trading ideas and growing professionally together, and as a group, we decided to explore blogging collaboratively and that's how Adventures in Literacy Land got started.

Now for a little background on my experience teaching...  
I am a reading specialist from Virginia in my 23rd year of teaching.  I have worked in grades 1, 4, and 5 (regular classroom), as a technology specialist, and most recently as a reading specialist/literacy coach (since 1998).  When I began as a reading specialist, I decided early on that one of my goals was to reach out to other teachers, encourage and support them in the area of reading like my reading specialist did for me when I first began (and because of her, I returned for a Masters in Reading). I enjoy working to build and organize resources to make planning more efficient and effective, and make my classroom the home for struggling readers. They need nurturing, print-rich environments and yet, they need high expectations.  I still work very hard at this as collaboration makes us all better, and I hope that each of you will not be afraid to ask for help (even if you've taught 35 years). We can all learn new ways to do things.

Today, I thought I'd respond to the need for comprehension strategies.  Comprehension is thinking about reading, correct? Many students do not see this though. They focus heavily on how they sound (fluency), but do not think as they read.  In my experience, word callers develop because during reading strategies are not utilized.  Each book I teach is done in the before, during, after model. Before reading, I build schema, introduce Tier 2 vocabulary, and model the focus skill. (I do).  During reading, students read and record information to practice the focus skill (usually with a graphic organizer, foldable, selective highlighting/notetaking in the margins, or on sticky notes (We do it together with gradual release of responsibility). After reading is independent work time where students complete a written response, summarizer, or respond to questions. (You do)

The first strategy I thought I'd share works well for making predictions and is used before reading and after reading with fiction. Students are actively involved throughout the strategy process and find it "fun". It hits the higher levels of Blooms Taxonomy because students analyze the clues they're given.

1.  To begin, students are given a list of preselected words from the story. Prior to the lesson time, carefully choose key words from the text and list them in the order they occur within the text.  This can be done using [THIS ORGANIZER] but can also be placed on a Smartboard or chalkboard to stimulate group discussion.  

2. Students read the list of words and write a prediction statement using the words in the order presented.  (Again, this can be done individually or collaboratively in pairs or small groups.)  

3.  After the prediction statement is complete, students read the assigned materials, checking their prediction statement as they read. (I have mine cross through incorrect events.)  

4.  After the reading is completed, students write a summary telling what really happened (which can be done in the same manner as you did before reading).

Another strategy I find effective to building schema for both reading and writing lessons are Word Splashes. Students can work individually, in pairs, or small groups to brainstorm words related to the topic to be studied.  Word Splashes work well with nonfiction topics and fictional themes before, during, and after reading as new vocabulary is acquired.  The beauty of the Word Splash is that the word list developed can be utilized with post reading writing assignments.  Students can adjust the size of words to indicate their level of importance to the topic too.  The Word Splash form I am sharing today can be used with any book.  All you have to do is have your students add the topic to the middle of the box. [HERE] is the link to the freebie.

In addition to these two strategies, another favorite of mine is SQ3R.  This one has been around a long time, but I am not sure how many teachers use it.  The process follows the abbreviation, so students can quickly pick up on what to do.  First, the student surveys the text and takes notice of headings and subheadings, pictures and captions, sidebars and diagrams, and any other text features included in the reading material. Next, the student creates questions utilizing the information observed in the survey. It is advised that students turn headings/subheadings into questions for the sections that follow.  The third and fourth steps are to read the material and respond (I have revised the second R to be *respond* instead of what I originally learned *recite*).  If you'd like to give this one a try, [HERE] is an organizer you can use to step your students through the process.

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