PHAT
(Practical, Helpful, After School Training)
Monday
Anticipation Guides
 Brief sets of questions or statements
 At least 3-5 items
 Activate prior knowledge
 Make predictions
 Introduce important issues
 Get them thinking before reading
Anticipation Guides
 Students can simply circle their answers
 May talk briefly with a classmate or as a class
 Most powerful AGs are not factual recall
 AGs should invite students to take a stand on a
controversy or big idea in the reading
 Making students think about key concepts before
reading provides real purpose for reading
Sample AG for Fahrenheit 451
Rank each statement 1-4.
1=strongly disagree
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
4=strongly agree
Technology makes life better.
Reading for school should be optional.
Freedom is more important than safety.
The world is changing and we need to change with it
in order to keep up.
Some beliefs are worth dying for.
Written Conversation
Our example: music lyrics/poetry
 Select 3-4 lines from the text
 Group students according to the # of lines
 Each student writes his/her line at the top of a piece of
paper
 For 2 minutes, students respond to their lines
 What does the line make you think about?
 What do you think it means?
Written Conversation cont…
 After 2 minutes, have students rotate papers with
those in their group
 Give them 2 minutes to read what is written and
continue to respond to the line or partner’s comments
 Continue to rotate until original writer receives his/her
paper back
 Advantage: all students are actively engaged rather
than the handful that will volunteer
List-Group-Label
Our example:
 The class or teacher develops a list of 20-25 key
vocabulary words from the reading
 In small groups, arrange words into clusters based on
something words have in common
 Clusters must contain at least 3 words
 Words can be used more than once
 Students should assign labels for each cluster
Article from NYT Upfront
Banned
Illegal
Arrested
Laws
Violated
Freedom
Zac Efron
Distasteful
Sagging
Clothes
Revealing
Underwear
Ordinance
Fashion
Expression
David Beckham
Unconstitutional
Schools
Public
Trend
Mainstream
Obama
Government
Opposition
Probable Passage (Current Events)
 From the categorized list of words, small groups work
together to create a ‘gist’ statement that will
summarize their reading.
 In addition, students create a list of questions about
unknown words or ideas they hope the reading will
answer.
 Note: It is OK if the gist statement doesn’t match the
reading—it does show that their expectations and the
reading differed—which is important to realize.
Think Aloud (Math)
 Before beginning let students know you’ll be stopping
to think aloud as you read.
 Use short passages
 Provide copies for students to follow along
 After modeling, have students try with a partner.
 Tell students what to look for in your thinking aloud:
 Ex: Watch how I stop to decipher which information will
be important in figuring out the solution and which
information may be superfluous.
Think Aloud Example
 Suzy is ten years older than Billy, and six inches taller.
Next year she will be twice as old as Billy, but likely
only four inches taller if Billy continues to grow at the
rate he is currently. How old are they now?