Predictions and Text Evidence

Before reading books together we always take a "picture walk" where the students view the front cover and all of the pictures to predict what they think will happen in the story. We recently read Lisa's Daddy and Daughter Day by Eloise Greenfield. The students made various predictions based on the pictures which we charted. After reading, we went back through the predictions to confirm correct predictions and correct inaccurate predictions. Next to the predictions, we charted text evidence that supported the correct predictions. The students then wrote at least one correct prediction from the story and the text evidence that supported it.

Story Elements

As a way to help your child with their comprehension, you can use this story elements chart to help them understand the key characteristics of a fiction story: characters, setting, problem, and solution. The students can draw the pictures and/or write notes about each part. As students work on these, encourage your student to look back at the text to find answers. Also encourage them to use specific details such as the proper names of the characters rather than "the boy" or "the girl" and the specific setting such as "a farm in the winter" rather than "outside."

                                         

The Snowman

The last day before break we read The Snowman by Raymond Briggs. This is one of my favorite winter books because it is wordless and the illustrations are beautiful. As a part of the lesson, we connected the story back to our reading strategy of "Look at the Pictures." The students took turns telling the events of the story based on the details in the pictures. After reading, the students created their own snowman.

Reading Strategy: Looking for Chunks!

We have been very fortunate this semester to have two fabulous education students from Dallas Baptist University interning in our class on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Today Ms. Rivera, one of the DBU interns, taught a great reading strategies lesson on "Looking for Chunks" in words. Parents, this is a great strategy you can use at home as you work with your child on reading. With this strategy, students look for sound combinations in words such as "ch", "ing", etc. that they know without having to sound them out. This helps them decode words more quickly and naturally increases their fluency. This strategy is also used to help find word wall words within larger more complex words. For example, students know the word wall word "when" so if they see the word "whenever" they do not have to sound out each individual letter but can say the first part quickly and focus on the unknown part of the word. Eventually, the more sight words they know, the easier it will be coming for them. Reading is like putting together a puzzle. At first it seems very overwhelming with so many pieces, but as you begin to lay the framework it becomes easier to put all the pieces together. At this point, students who are still at the decoding stage should be moving beyond sounding out individual sound pieces and moving it sounding out using chunks of sounds.

Thank you to both of our interns, Ms. Rivera and Ms. Anderson, for all of your hard work this semester! We really enjoyed having you in class!

Reading Strategies

While lesson planning, I found great summaries online of the strategies we use in class to teach reading. Below are some reading strategies that we use in class each day that you can use at home as well:

Use Picture Clues
•Look at the picture.
•Are there people, objects, or actions in the picture that might make sense in the sentence?

Sound Out the Word
•Start with the first letter, and say each letter-sound out loud.
•Blend the sounds together and try to say the word. Does the word make sense in the sentence?

Look for Chunks in the Word
•Look for familiar letter chunks. They may be sound/symbols, prefixes, suffixes, endings, whole words, or base words.
•Read each chunk by itself. Then blend the chunks together and sound out the word. Does that word make sense in the sentence?

Connect to a Word You Know
•Think of a word that looks like the unfamiliar word.
•Compare the familiar word to the unfamiliar word. Decide if the familiar word is a chunk or form of the unfamiliar word.
•Use the known word in the sentence to see if it makes sense. If so, the meanings of the two words are close enough for understanding.

Reread the Sentence
•Read the sentence more than once.
•Think about what word might make sense in the sentence. Try the word and see if the sentence makes sense.

Keep Reading
•Read past the unfamiliar word and look for clues.
•If the word is repeated, compare the second sentence to the first. What word might make sense in both?

Use Prior Knowledge
•Think about what you know about the subject of the book, paragraph, or sentence.
•Do you know anything that might make sense in the sentence? Read the sentence with the word to see if it makes sense.