Literacy Loving Gals: Reading Strategies

Showing posts with label Reading Strategies. Show all posts

A Sneak Peek Inside "The Megabook of Fluency" by Timothy Rasinski & Melissa Cheesman Smith

As many of you know, I'm an addict when it comes to reading professional books. The minute a new title is being discussed on social media that piques my interest and supports my ability to implement next practices in literacy with my students, I must get my hands on it immediately. As a teacher, literacy leader and lifelong learner in the education field, I must take charge of my own professional development. Right?

When The Megabook of Fluency by Timothy Rasinski and Melissa Cheesman Smith arrived on my doorstep, I turned into that heart-eyed smiling emoji. The book is just what it claims to be, MEGA, and it's filled with amazing, hands-on fluency practice for students that can be used straightaway. Just as Jennifer Serravallo gives you hands-on strategies to support students with reading and writing, Rasinski and Smith provide 50+ engaging strategies to nurture students' fluency in The Megabook of Fluency! The book even gives you access to an online site with downloadable resources. Cha-ching!

The Megabook of Fluency is not a front cover to back cover type of read, but a handy guidebook of sorts. The format allows teachers to choose from research-based strategies that will best support their students' fluency needs. Check out the Table of Contents!

Melissa Cheesman Smith's wrote an article, Today, Choose Joy: Joyfulness in Fluent Reading, explaining more about her co-authored book. I added an image taken from the article, but click the link above to read it in full.

Since I'm a huge fan of the book, I've added some quotes and pictures taken from the book, as well as tweets from the authors giving you further insight into The Megabook of Fluency.

A growing number of studies have examined the effects of authentic fluency instruction. By "authentic," we mean real reading of real texts for real purposes, to communicate meaning. We contrast authentic fluency instruction with programs that tend to require readers to increase their reading speed (p.9).

If fluency concerns are not addressed early, during the foundational years, it is likely that those concerns will find their way into the middle school and high school grades (p.10).

Furthermore, because fluency is a foundational competency, difficulties in fluency can also lead to difficulties in content areas that rely heavily on reading (p.10).

...without a solid foundation in reading fluency, other reading competencies, such as comprehension and close reading, cannot develop (p.10).

A more common name often associated with repeated reading is rehearsal. Interestingly, the Common Core State Standards refer to repeated reading as close reading (p.12).

Research has demonstrated that each time students read a text, their reading improves on many fronts: word recognition, accuracy, automaticity, expression, and comprehension... More importantly, when they move on to a brand-new text to read, their gains "stick" (p.12).

Most fluency activities are naturally engaging and even fun (p.13).

It is a good idea to provide students with an audience of even just one person for their reading who can provide positive feedback (p.13).

Despite a growing recognition of the importance of reading fluency in students' reading development, that message is often lost because of how it is typically understood and taught (p17.).

Richard Allington called fluency "the neglected goal of the reading program (p.18)."

...words in print don't just convey meaning; the ways those words are expressed do, too (p.20).

Additionally, when telling stories and reading to children, we should take the time to talk with them about how we use our voice to help convey meaning to develop an awareness of fluent expressive reading (p.21).

Discover any worthwhile insights? I certainly hope so. If you're on Twitter, you can track down some additional content under the hashtag #TheMegaBookOfFluency, as well as follow the authors, @MCheesmanSmith and @TimRasinski1. The book is definitely worth owning, so if you don't already have a copy, hop on over to Scholastic or Amazon ASAP!

Enjoy the rest of your summer,

Colleen

"What's in the Bubble?" Reading Strategy from The Reading Strategies Book

If you have been following my blog, you know how fond I am of Jennifer Serravallo. She started her educational career as a classroom teacher and has become, in my eyes, one of the most genius literacy consultants and authors out there. On the very first page of The Reading Strategies Book, Serravallo states, "The strategies I've crafted in this book stand on the shoulders of decades of research and master teachers from whose work I've been fortunate to learn." Educators can't go wrong with teacher tested and approved strategies that are backed by research!

After spearheading a book study dedicated to The Reading Strategies Book last year, I have since fallen in love with the book over and over again. I routinely review it in search of support strategies for my struggling readers. I am never disappointed and often feel I've hit the jackpot of resources. If you own the book, you know exactly what I mean. My copy (above) is highlighted, dogeared and tabbed all over the place.

Since I'm a Reading Specialist servicing a handful of grade levels, I have invested time in making mini charts for strategies my RtI students often need. Invested time, meaning I've photocopied the images from the book, sized them to fit in my mini tabletop pocket chart, cut them apart and laminated them. When they are in the tabletop chart, I have the ability to swap the strategy visuals out for the different groups. However, I also place large anchor charts of the strategies most of my kiddos need throughout my room.

Let's forge ahead to the strategy called "What's in the Bubble?" found on page 167 in the book. This strategy falls under Goal 6- Supporting Comprehension in Fiction: Thinking About Characters. It is best used with students reading at Levels C through M and is focused on the skill of inferring. If students are to fully comprehend fictional texts, they need to better understand characters by being able to infer character feelings and traits. In Serravallo's words, here is how she explains the strategy to students:

We can pause and think, "What's my character thinking here?" or "What might my character be saying here?" Even when the text doesn't tell us, we can imagine, noticing what's happened so far. Pause on the page and put a thought or speech bubble above the character in the picture, point to the bubble, and say what the character might be thinking.

The student pictured below is in 3rd grade and is reading at a Level I. I service him one on one for various reasons. When asked a question, he often responds by reading the text, which of course isn't a true response because he's just reading words. For instance, if I were to ask, "What do you think is happening here on this page?", he would automatically begin reading the text without even trying to answer the question. Since this is the case, I modified the activity when working with him to better meet his needs.

I first placed sticky notes over the text and had him just look at the pictures. I asked him "What might this character be thinking?" in various spots in the book as we flipped through the pages. We discussed his thoughts orally before I had him write anything down on the thought clouds using some of the suggested prompts below. After just looking through the book, I gave him four thought clouds and explained to him that he may begin reading, but throughout the reading he will need to stop to write down what the character on that page may be thinking.

He did an amazing job with the activity and was able to write character thoughts that went well with the images. He loved the thought clouds and wanted to reread the story. (Yay!) To switch it up a bit, I had him remove the clouds from the correct page and jumble them up. He then reread the book while placing the clouds onto the page that correlated with the image. I was able to use "Yes! That thought matches with what's happened so far." from the suggested prompts below.

Overall, it was a successful strategy for this student. I'm pleased with the results. If you would like to try this strategy with any of your students, but don't own the book (Why don't you own the book?!), you will find the recommended student prompts Serravallo suggests below.

What just happened? So, what might your character be thinking?
What words is your character saying in his or her head?
Before you turn the page, pause and think about what he or she would be thinking.
Put your thought bubble on that page.
That's what's happening. What might she or he be thinking?
Yes! That thought matches with what's happened so far.
Pausing there helps you think about what the character's thinking.

One last tip: For students reading at the lower levels (Level C, for example), Serravallo mentions using thought clouds on tongue depressors. Students may place them on the book pictures to orally tell about the characters' thinking, which can be done independently or with partners. The image below shows the thought clouds I created for my students.

Happy reading!

The Book Study Has Begun! The Reading Strategies Book: Goal 1- Supporting Pre-Emergent and Emergent Readers

Welcome to the book study on Jennifer Serravallo's The Reading Strategies Book: Your Everything Guide to Developing Skilled Readers presented by the #ReadingStrategiesCrew! Since this is not a typical book, think of it more as a *strategy discovery* study. I am joining forces with fabulous teacher bloggers to discuss reading strategies from this amazing professional text. We are thrilled to share our thoughts on this comprehensive and practical book including 300 sensational, easy-to-implement reading strategies for students in grades Kindergarten through 8th Grade.

Each teacher blogger in the #ReadingStrategiesCrew will give you a peek into one of the 13 goals represented in this text. Within each goal are, of course, valuable strategies to support your ability to prompt and guide students to deepen their skills as readers. Because it supports such a wide range of readers, teachers can also guide students to more complex texts throughout the year with these strategies!

The #ReadingStrategiesCrew decided we would each share 2 to 3 strategies within our selected goal, so please keep in mind I'm only highlighting a few strategies my goal has to offer. We're hoping to spark thoughts on a plan of action for the start of your school year.

I'm kicking off the study by saying Jennifer Serravallo is awe-inspiring. She started her educational career as a classroom teacher and has become, in my eyes, one of the most genius literacy consultants and authors out there. She states on the very first page, "The strategies I've crafted in this book stand on the shoulders of decades of research and master teachers from whose work I've been fortunate to learn...I feel grateful to be part of a profession where there is so much sharing and commingling of thinking..."

Let's get started with Goal 1: Supporting Pre-Emergent and Emergent Readers. There are twenty strategies within this goal to support pre-emergent and emergent readers. Below is a snapshot of the strategies reinforcing this goal. The format of Serravallo's *literacy bible* {in my terms} is not necessarily a front cover to back cover type of read, but more of a handy guidebook of sorts. Serravallo compared it to a cookbook of recipes. The format allows teachers to pick and choose from research-based strategies that will best scaffold students, just as a cook would pick and choose recipes from a cookbook.

For each strategy, Serravallo includes a description of the strategy and helpful prompts to use with students. Many of the strategies also provide Teacher Tips and samples of Lesson Language to use when putting the strategy into practice. The strategies can be demonstrated to individuals, small group or whole class. In addition, along the sidebar of each strategy, Serravallo indicates the level (pre-emergent to Levels R and above), genre/text type and skill(s) in which to focus. I find these to be invaluable features of the book because even a novice or experienced classroom teacher without a reading background can fully support and guide their students in reading. This book elicits powerful reading instruction!

The 3 strategies I will be discussing are Linger Finger, Express the Emotions and Keep in Mind What Repeats. It was very difficult to narrow in on only 3 strategies to discuss. Once you own the book, you'll understand why. :) In view of the fact I work with struggling readers and oftentimes encounter students rushing through their books, reading in a monotone voice and taking the time to sound out words that continuously repeat in a text, I chose these particular strategies.

Have you ever heard a student say, "I can't read"? I'm sure you're nodding your head up and down, especially if you work with the younger student population in the pre-emergent and emergent stages of reading. Well, Serravallo has been convinced by various researchers that "We can meet students where they are and help them engage with and enjoy books, make meaning, acquire vocabulary, use text features to understand, connect the pages, respond to the texts by writing and talking, practice their fluency, and perhaps above all, develop identities as confident, engaged, joyful readers {even without decoding} (p.21)". Agree? I bet you're nodding your head up and down again.

Focus Strategy One: Linger Finger

The Linger Finger strategy focuses on noticing details. It encourages students to slow down and deliberately inspect, if you will, all the details a text has to offer. I regularly stimulate conversations with my students discussing how books offer wonderful illustrations, text features and other *goodies* for readers to appreciate, be entertained by and learn from. Too often my youngest readers rush through their books, only to shout, "I'm done!" If you've encountered this same scenario in your classroom, you should consider implementing this strategy with your students. Below is a simple anchor chart found in Serravallo's book to create with your students as a reminder to take it slow, or linger, while reading. This anchor chart along with the catchy title for this strategy are a nice *hook & sinker* for students to remember to take their time while reading.

To get a better sense of the Linger Finger strategy, here are a few ideal prompts found in the book:

Move your finger across the page. Tell me what you see.
Not so fast! Stay on the page a moment.
You went across the whole page and said sentences about what you saw!
What will you do before you turn the page? (p.26)

Focus Strategy Two: Express the Emotions

The Express the Emotions strategy develops fluency and expressive reading. It provokes students to think about how a character in a story may be feeling and then asks students to use a voice to sound like the character. This strategy is very practical and easy to implement. It triggered memories of particular kiddos I've worked with in the past. Most likely, we've all encountered a few students who sound as if they're robots while reading...those who utter words on the page in a tiresome, monotone voice, almost as if they are reading while sleeping. Yes?

Serravallo's teaching tip for this strategy is to model fluent, expressive reading in various parts of a book to show students a myriad of emotions present in a text and to help students tap into their inner actor (p.31). I love that phrase because we know little actors and actresses can develop in all of our readers. :) Serravallo also mentions students who are not yet decoding can still make meaning from illustrations and expressively *read* the pictures. The anchor chart below can be created in the classroom during a mini-lesson and serves as a reminder for students to read with expression.

For the Express the Emotions strategy, Serravallo suggests using prompts such as these:

How did the character say that? Show me.
Say it thinking about how the character is feeling.
I could tell he sounded happy (or mad or sad) because of how you read that.

Focus Strategy Three:

Keep in Mind What Repeats

The Keep in Mind What Repeats strategy fosters students to be text detectives by finding repeated patterns in a text, together with noticing what parts are new on each page. Brown Bear, Brown Bear, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and We're Going on a Bear Hunt were cited as appropriate books to use with this strategy. They each include parts that repeat alongside parts that change on the page. When students become more mindful of repeated patterns while reading, they'll become more fluent, and we all know fluency aides comprehension. Therefore, being mindful helps them better monitor for meaning. Note the anchor chart below as an example of one teachers could create with their students in the classroom.

The prompts found in the book for the Keep in Mind What Repeats strategy are:

What's the same on this page?
Say what repeats.
Check the picture to see what's new.
How is this page different from the last?
How is this page similar to the last?

You may be asking yourself, "What books do I use to support the students working on this goal?" Well, Serravallo contemplated that, too. I'm here to assure you, she thought of EVERYTHING while writing this book. EV-ER-Y-THING! Serravallo's suggested criteria for books helpful in supporting pre-emergent and emergent students are as follows:

texts that are visually engaging
stories that have a strong narrative with recognizable dialogue, and some repetition
informational texts that offer opportunities to learn content from the photographs and other features
list books with clearly supportive pictures
alphabet and number books to help reinforce knowledge of letters and sounds and numerals connected to a number of objects (p.22)

I'm hoping I gave you helpful insight into a few strategies found in Goal 1: Supporting Pre-Emergent and Emergent Readers. After diving into this text and reflecting back on my own teaching instruction, I came to the realization I implement many of the strategies already. I bet you do, too! The strategies I discussed probably sound familiar to ones you've implemented with your students. However, I think having a name/title for each strategy and a goal in which the strategy reinforces will definitely aid me in keeping organized and focused during my lesson planning.

Looking ahead to this school year, I intend to implement oodles of strategies from The Reading Strategies Book. There are 300 strategies to choose from, therefore I need to use this book as "a menu not a meal". I heard that saying many years back at a Reading First conference. It stuck with me as a reminder to choose what works best for my students and me. There is no need to use every single strategy if the situation doesn't call for it. Right?

Serravallo states, "An ideal classroom is one in which every student has a clear goal, based on reliable formative assessment information." Because of this, my course of action is to continue observing and conferring with my students, writing detailed notes and deciding which direction to take my instruction to move them forward as dynamic, independent readers. I'm eager to use Serravallo's book as a GO-TO resource filled with dog-eared, highlighted, tabbed and marked pages to remind myself of these worthwhile strategies. I deem this a mentor text for any teacher involved in teaching reading to students!

Image Source- Lori Squalls created this image and was happy to share.
Thanks, Lori! If you're looking for a good Twitter follow, check her out!

In case you're interested, last year I created the activity below to provide a simple, yet, fun way for my students to practice reading dialogue expressively. It seems to nicely complement the Express the Emotions strategy. Click the image if you would like to view it in my TpT Store.

Before you go, enter the Giveaway for a chance to win a copy of Jennifer Serravallo's The Reading Strategies Book: Your Everything Guide to Developing Skilled Readers! Entries will be taken until the end of the day on August 17th. A winner will be announced on August 19th, so stay tuned!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The #ReadingStrategiesCrew would also love for you to share your thoughts in the comments section or link up your own blog post below. The link up will remain open in case you don't have the book, yet, and want to write a post in the future. :)

Questions to Consider:

As you plan your lessons, what might be some ways you prepare yourself to support pre-emergent and emergent readers in your classroom?
What do you want to be mindful of when working with readers needing support with this goal?
If you do not teach pre-emergent and emergent readers, how can you apply your knowledge of these strategies with your developing readers?

Well, thanks for stopping by Literacy Loving Gals to kick off the book study! As the study continues in the upcoming weeks, the hyperlinks to each teacher blogger's post will be added below to help keep the goals organized in one spot. We hope you continue to follow along with us! :)

Literacy Loving Gals: Goal 1 Supporting Pre-Emergent and Emergent Readers
My First Grade Happy Place: Goal 2 Teaching Reading Engagement
The Literacy Spot: Goal 3 Supporting Print Work
EduKate Dawson: Goal 4 Teaching Fluency
Love to Teach A Latte: Goal 5 Supporting Comprehension in Fiction~ Plot and Setting
An Apple for the Teacher: Goal 6 Supporting Comprehension in Fiction~ Thinking About Characters
Owl Things First: Goal 7 Supporting Comprehension in Fiction~ Understanding Themes and Ideas
Inspire Me ASAP: Goal 8 Supporting Comprehension in Nonfiction~ Determining Main Topic(s) and Idea(s)
Beginnings with Baer: Goal 9 Supporting Comprehension in Nonfiction~ Determining Key Details
Mrs. B's First Grade: Goal 10 Supporting Comprehension in Nonfiction~ Getting the Most from Text Features
I'm Not Just a Teacher: Goal 11 Improving Comprehension in Fiction and Nonfiction~ Understanding Vocabulary and Figurative Language
Digital Divide & Conquer: Goal 12 Supporting Students' Conversations
Where the Magic Happens: Goal 13 Improving Writing About Reading

An InLinkz Link-up

Book Study Schedule Revealed for Serravallo's The Reading Strategies Book!

The book study schedule for Jennifer Serravallo's The Reading Strategies Book: Your Everything Guide to Developing Skilled Readers is ready to be revealed, so mark your calendars! The #ReadingStrategiesCrew is thrilled to get the book study underway. It starts August 3rd right here on Literacy Loving Gals and will continue every Monday and Wednesday through September 14th. Grab your copy of Serravallo's book to follow along with us. If you don't already own a copy, the #ReadingStrategiesCrew will be offering a giveaway for a chance to win a copy of your own! More details revealed on August 3rd, so stay tuned. :)

Announcing a Book Study for Jennifer Serravallo's The Reading Strategies Book!

I am so excited to announce a blogging book study for The Reading Strategies Book: Your Everything Guide to Developing Skilled Readers by Jennifer Serravallo! I am joining forces with 12 fabulous bloggers to discuss reading strategies from this amazing professional text, in hopes to help you get your school year off to a wonderful start. The book study will begin on Monday, August 3rd here at Literacy Loving Gals.

There are 13 goals in Serravallo's book. Twice per week until all of the goals have been covered, bloggers will be discussing highlights, sharing freebies and offering challenges to complete, based on the book's strategies. We hope you will purchase a copy and follow along with us!

Take a peek inside the book via the video below, then stay tuned for more details! :)