Teaching for Independent Strategy
Use in Grades 2-4
Pat Johnson
Calgary Summit
October 22, 2015
patjohnson222@gmail.com
One Child at a Time, Johnson, Stenhouse
Catching Readers Before They Fall, Johnson & Keier, Stenhouse
“People who, for one reason or
another misapprehended the
reading process and have not
put a reading system together
that adds up to meaning; these
are struggling readers.”
Randy Bomer and Katherine Bomer, For a
Better World: Reading and Writing for
Social Action
How do readers process texts?
How do readers solve words and
make meaning of print?
• By using sources of information
• By using their repertoire of in-the-head
strategies
Sources of Information:
woods
forest
Meaning
Word solving
Syntactic
look
looks
book
took
Visual
f in d
find
Adapted from Schulman, Guided Reading in Grades 3-6
Pinnell & Fountas, Guiding Readers & Writers, 3-6
Johnson, One Child at a Time
What do modeled lessons or shared demonstrations
look like when teaching the comprehension
strategies?
I will show lessons useful in grades 2-4:
•
•
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•
Questioning
Visualizing
Inferring
Using Context Clues
One strategy at a time?
Keene & Zimmerman say, “turn up the
volume”
Dorn & Soffos say, “spotlight”
Fountas & Pinnell warn, “heavy- handed”
Remember the goal is to integrate the use
of all the strategies.
Spotlighting
Heavy-handed Teaching
• Begin with meaning
making
• Explain how the
strategy helps you
• Do together
• Discuss how it helps
them (or not)
• Students take over and
self-initiate
• Name and define the
strategy
• Teach the strategy for
strategy sake
• Students practice the
strategy at the request
of the teacher
• No gradual release to
independence
Making your thinking visible:
• “A Bad Road for Cats,” from Cynthia Rylant’s
Every Living Thing
• Poems
• Voices in the Park, A. Browne
• Emma’s Rug by Allen Say
• Faithful Elephants by Y. Tsuchiya
• Chris Van Allsburg’s books
• Non-fiction article
Dreams
by Langston Hughes
Hold fast to dreams For if dreams
die Life is a broken-winged
bird That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams For when
dreams go Life is a barren
field Frozen with snow.
My Paper
by Jane Medina
She held up my paper
and all the noise stopped.
Everything became still.
Everyone turned their heads
to hear the words she read --- my words.
Then their eyes became a bit wider,
and their pencils moved a bit faster,
and
I grew a bit bigger,
when she help up my paper
and all the noise stopped.
Teaching for Visualizing:
• Read a passage on the overhead
• Cover a picture book with brown paper
• Draw beginning, middle, and end of the
story
• Use poetry
For A Bird
by Myra Cohn Livingston
I found him lying near the tree; I folded up his wings.
Oh, little bird,
You never heard
The song the summer sings.
I wrapped him in a shirt I wore in winter; it was blue.
Oh, little bird,
You never heard
The song I sang to you.
Visualizing continued:
• Send students on a search
• Draw the setting using evidence from the text
• With non-fiction – have students draw what they
know before the read aloud book; later have them
draw a second picture with the new information
they’ve gained.
Mother to Son
Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—Bare.
But all the time I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So, boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps.
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now—
For I'se still goin', honey,I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair
by Langston Hughes
When readers infer they “round out and fill in
what the author has written, giving the piece
a personal texture and making it whole from
their own perspectives.”
Owocki, 2003, p. 46
Inferring
What kind of things might readers
have to infer when they read?
Setting, problem, narrator
Predictions
Character’s personality
Feelings or thoughts of the characters
Theme
Subtle humor
Figurative language, sarcasm, irony
The author’s meaning, message, or point of view
A poem’s meaning, metaphors
Meanings of unknown vocabulary words
Students need to learn to infer at:
• The word level
• The text or story level
• Beyond the text level
Books where children need to infer meanings of
words:
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•
•
•
Amazing Bone by William Steig
Nocturne by Jane Yolen
Hello, Harvest Moon by Ralph Fletcher
Rotten Richie and the Ultimate Dare
by Patricia Polacco
• Non-fiction texts with bold print vocabulary
Context Clues lesson:
One Child at a Time: Making the Most of Your
Time with Struggling Readers
Pages 87-92
To find the whole lesson about signal
words:
• www.catchingreaders.com
• Signal words
• Date – Feb. 11, 2013
Predicting at the text level:
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Z was Zapped by Chris Van Allsburg
Stephanie’s Ponytail, by Robert Munsch
Each Kindness, by J. Woodson
A Mama for Owen, M. D. Bauer
Little Beauty, by A. Browne
My Lucky Day, by K. Kasza
Books with surprise endings:
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•
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•
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Any Chris Van Allsburg book
I Want My Hat Back, J. Klassen
Wolves, by Emily Gravett
Wolf’s Coming by Joe Kulka
Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch
Character’s personality:
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•
•
•
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Chester’s Way, by Kevin Henkes
Brave Irene, by William Steig
Every Living Thing, by Cynthia Rylant
Because of Winn Dixie, by Kate DiCamillo
How to Steal a Dog, B. O’Connor
Guess Who My Favorite Person Is,
by Byrd Baylor
• Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters, by J. Steptoe
• The Rough-Face Girl, by Rafe Martin
Subtle Humor:
•
•
•
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Diary of a Worm, by D. Cronin
The Day the Crayons Quit, D. Daywalt
Prudence Wants a Pet, by C. Daly
I Wanna Iguana, by K. K. Orloff
The Table Where Rich People Sit
by Byrd Baylor
• Exclamation Point or Spoon,
by A. K. Rosenthal
Phrases, metaphors, figurative language:
•
•
•
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Turtle reference in Because of Winn Dixie
Courage, by Bernard Waber
Any Amelia Bedelia
A Seed is Sleepy, by Dianna Hutt Aston
An Egg is Quiet, by Dianna Hutt Aston
Big Orange Splot, by Daniel Pinkwater
Change in the character:
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Julius, The Baby of the World, by Kevin Henkes
Enemy Pie, by Derek Munson
Junkyard Wonders, by Patricia Polacco
Love that Dog, by Sharon Creech
The Giver, by Lois Lowry
The Name Jar, by Y. Choi
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, by
Kate DiCamillo
Catching Readers Before They Fall
• Visualizing, Questioning,
comprehension – Chapter 8
• Inferring and summarizing –
Chapter 9
• Teaching for fluency – One Child at
a time, Chapter 4.
Books where readers dig deeper to find a theme:
• Wretched Stone, by Chris Van Allsburg
• Dog Eared: Starring Otis, by Amanda Harvey
• “Slower than the Rest” from
Every Living Thing, by Cynthia Rylant
• Crow Boy, by Taro Yashima
• Wringer, by Jerry Spinelli (chapter)
• The Dot or Ish, by Peter Reynolds
• One, by Kathryn Otoshi
• Spoon, by Amy Kraus Rosenthal
One, by Kathryn Otoshi
Each Kindness, by J. Woodson
• Problem and solution
• What did the characters in the book learn
about life?
• What can we, the readers of the text, learn
about life from this story?
Theme/Message
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•
•
•
Check out the blog “To Make a Prairie”
Vicki Vinton
Look for the post from May 15, 2013
“Thinking about Theme: What About What It’s
About?”
“There is some demand for inference
in every level of text, and we can
intentionally foster growth of this
kind of strategic action in our
teaching.”
Fountas & Pinnell
2006, p. 56
Context Clues Lesson – Begins on page 87 in One
Child at a Time:
What is this object?
In Context
Context – gives us meaning
Context – situation or circumstances
surrounding a thing
Context Clues – the meaningful information all
around a word
Caleb and Kate, by William Steig
odious
crowed
gazoly
slavered
brogans
cronies
cleaved
Make a chart together of what I did in
my modeling:
• Covered over the word
• Read the sentence with a blank
• Thought of another word or phrase that
might make sense in that space
• That usually will get you close to the meaning
of the word
“The goal is not naming a strategy, but
applying it to the reading of text.”
Fountas & Pinnell
Teaching for Comprehending and Fluency, p. 353
Catching Readers Before They Fall, Pat Johnson and Katie
Keier, Stenhouse
One Child at a Time: Making the Most of Your Time
with Struggling Readers, Pat Johnson, Stenhouse
patjohnson222@gmail.com (@PatJ222 on Twitter)
katieannkeier@gmail.com (@bluskyz on Twitter)
www.catchingreaders.com
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