TC Saturday Institute –March 19, 2011
Lea Mercantini - COMPREHENSION TOOLKITS help make our teaching stick: Reading
Skills, Strategies, and Visual Tools to Leave Behind
Used for teaching reading skills/strategies and then leaving things (artifacts/reminders)
behind to encourage the kids to stick with it
Making our teaching stick is crucial. How can we make sure that the time and energy
we spend is used well, so that, next time, when we say, how’s it going, we’ve come
back and they begin to talk with us about how they’ve been doing what we taught last
time.
Malcolm Gladwell – in his book The Tipping Point analyzed the peculiar and problematic
ways our brains process information
Shanna Schwartz – wrote the Heinemann Quick Guide to Making Your Teaching Stick –
it outlined 4 principles for this. How can a comp toolkit encompass all of these four?
1) Staying in the Child’s “Zone of Proximal Development”
2) Repetition
3) Active Engagement
4) Physical Representations
1) ZPD – use precision – what exactly does a reader need in order to get better – we
learn best what we’re ready to learn. What is the child trying to do, that we know if
we teach a bit more, the skill can be better? Teach the child where he’s at – Marie
Clay – don’t teach into deficits, teach into what they’re beginning to be able to do
 They recommend choosing one skill (eg prediction), and working with it for a
bit, in order of increasing difficulty – giving just one strategy for predicting at a
time – until the child has a repertoire of strategies for one skill – now the child
can predict like it’s a habit
2) Repetition – our teaching must be focused – stay on topic - children learn thru and
love repetition – helps them build a repertoire – if we can focus our teaching (3-5
weeks) on same skill – each time offering a different strategy for that skill – stick with
a repertoire of strategies over time. Really, all reading skills are connected and help
each other – eg if you get good at retell in a lot of different ways – think, now how
will they be better able to infer, too – “this has happened, and all of this is making
me think…”
 It’s not our intention to have a child “only” retell what she reads – since,
anytime anyone reads, many things happening at the same time – but, right
now, our teaching is focusing on one thing, asking her to be doing all she
already knows – but the teacher will be just be zeroing in on this one thing –
students need to build a repertoire of strategies that become what “they just
do”
1

Studying yourself as a teacher of reading, working with students and
colleagues helps us make lists of strategies – great resource - Susan
Zimmermann – 7 Keys for Comprehension Skills
3) Active Engagement – keep their interest - help the child see that they’re successful
with something – success makes them inclined to try again and keep going – eg turn
and talk – show your partner how you’re getting good at (something) as a reader
4) Physical/Visual Representations – make our teaching more visible – eg gestures or
acting it out, role playing, notetaking – all of these can give you something to do to
stay engaged – make doo-dads: “this is your special tool to remember what you’re
working on”



Charts in your classroom – not wallpaper charts, but ones the kids access
frequently. Let your kids take a tour of the room (charts they use vs. the ones
they didn’t realize were there. Some charts live in classroom but don’t live
with/go home with student – personal tools that are in the kids’ possession
can be more effective than our charts – sometimes our charts are too wordy,
could use some more picture representations; kids can create personal charts
One part of a kids’ readers notebooks could be their own personal charts –
use a particular chart when the book calls you to do those things
Comic Lite – make cartoons to help with this
**************************************************
Typical teacher challenge - I know what skill this kid needs to learn, but I don’t know
what strategy to teach to accomplish this.
We need to have on our hands – a type of mechanic’s work bench – a teacher’s toolkit,
to take out when the need arises in each child – based in our knowledge of what
different readers need to learn, and ideas for how to teach them that can change with
the child
Start Simple – grow your Toolkit over time; Create a Skill-based toolkit – based on
different skills – start with a few skills I am comfortable with and I know will work for my
kids and my units of study
eg: Monitoring for Sense (what’s going on), Envisionment (live inside the story as you
read), Prediction, Inference
Then, hunt for strategies to share with kids:
1) Spy on yourself as you read – study what you do to make meaning while I read –
what strategy am I activiating to access that skill – to qualify, a strategy must
work across many books, not just one particular book
2) Study Your Readers – what skills do you feel like you’re trying to get better at? –
sometimes they can name the strategy, sometimes not – you should name what
you see them doing so they can apply it to other books
2
3) Work with Your Colleagues – what skills are we activating, what strategies are
we using (come up with a solid 3-6 strategies) – read the same kinds of books
the kids are reading to notice yourself – put post its where stuff happened.
Helpful to show the kid during a conference the books they know well to spotlight
the strategies
Make a Strategy Hierarchy for Each Skill – easiest  hardest
eg Retell:
1) think about telling a retell across your fingers – first, next, then, after that, finally
2) retell in a way that takes big steps across your story
3) start with where you are in the book – to get here, first this happened, then this
happened, next, NOW this is happening
Then, think, “What are some visual representations I could leave with a child?” eg:
 leave a model of the hand with the cues across the pictures on the fingers or
 leave a picture of sneaker to remind them of taking big steps, when they retell the
beginning, middle, end, or
 retell by --------------------------------- (draw on a timeline)
 first then next NOW (arrow pointing backwards)
Toolkits for the teacher must be manageable and portable, for example:
1) Sketchbook: teacher carries around her toolkit, eg ideas written on pages in the
sketchbook, card pockets with cards for kids attached to pages
Section on Envisioning - using prior knowledge and clues from the text to formulate a
picture of a scene in one’s mind – put all of your best strategies for this on cards, and
these can be handed out to kids as needed
2) Binder: holds demonstration texts in sleeves for various strategies, also a
Strategy Page for each:
Visual Too/Strategy Card
Picture of Strategy Card
Strategy(what to do)
Teaching Point (has
steps for child)
3) Accordion File – drop pages for synthesis, prior knowledge into pockets - strategy
pages with visual tools
Ways for kids to organize their strategy cards:
1) On a ring – hole punch and put new cards on ring (main idea ring, etc.)
2) Decks of cards (bookmarks?) - using cardstock hot dog style – add a label under
a heading every time they teach a strategy that goes with that skill (eg
interpretation) – this is kept in the front pocket of the reading folder
3) Sheets in sheet protector pages – check in with this page til it becomes a habit
 Strategies - > Habits title at top of page
 Reading Habits and behaviors in a library pocket card – in a different place
3
Walls of Accomplishment – put cards into a pocket on the wall chart to show who is
working on (has already worked with) which strategy – kids can go to a particular child
for help in Envisionment if that’s in his chart as something he’s accomplished
Example of Cue Card/Sheet:
For Being Good, short story by Cynthia Rylant – what skill did I just use, and
what strategy did I use to do it
Try on Envision, Predict, Infer
I just _____(skill). One way that I_____ is by________ (thing that could relate to
any book).
Way to infer: Think - the character does this. Then, think of an idea. Ask why (ask a
question) and find the answer, using the text.
Graphic:
? -- lightbulb over head – come up with some own answers – help you to grow ideas
4