June Preszler
Education Specialist, TIE
August 15, 2007
BEYOND THE BLUR:
EMPOWERING STRUGGLING READERS
THE ENEMY IN FRONT OF US
Not a person
 But a thing
 “The biggest enemy our children have are
those things sitting in front of you and
they’re called books.”—Gerard Baker

THE WARRIOR
“What do you do with your enemies? You
conquer them.”
 “We have to redefine our enemies and
conquer them.”

COUNTING COUP
“We have to count coup on books.”
 Three-Minute Pause (Struggling Readers,
page 21)

THE (BATTLE) PLAN
Identifying the enemy
 Empowering the student
 Becoming a warrior
 Conquering the enemy

POWER OF CHOICE
Choice Theory (Glasser and Erwin)
 All behavior is purposeful
 Five basic needs that drive all
behavior:

 Survival
 Love
and belonging
 Power
 Freedom
 Fun
POWER
Power over
 Power within
 Power with

ACTIVATION THE ABC WAY
Reading Strategies to Guide Learning,
page 7
 Virtual World of Second Life

MAKING CONNECTIONS
Text to self
 Text to text
 Text to world


More Strategies to Guide Learning, pages
5-7
THICK AND THIN QUESTIONS
Thin: How many planes were involved in 911?
 Thick: How did 9-11 change our lives?


More Strategies to Guide Learning, pages
22-24
CUSTODIAN
What is a custodian?
 Read the story. As you read make notes to
yourself. Write any questions you may
have. Jot down any ideas or thoughts that
come to mind.

THREE-MINUTE PAUSE
Discuss with a partner.
 Consider the following questions:
Who is the custodian?
What is the custodian’s motivation?
Why can’t the custodian “do it
anymore…hardly step inside the room”?
Think of one word that best describes
this story. Why is your chosen word apt?

A LITTLE LIE GOES A LONG WAYS
Three Facts and a Fib
 Strategies to Help Struggling Readers,
page 25

THREE FACTS AND A FIB
1.When I took my son to college, I camped out
in the dorm parking lot for the first
night…just in case.
2.I played soccer for a championship youth
team in Brazil in the 1970s.
3.In one month, I traveled over 3000 miles for
education-related business, had one accident
in a BHSSC/TIE vehicle, and received two
undeserved speeding tickets.
4. I began my professional career as a recipe
writer for the Aberdeen American News.
SUMMARIZING



When we summarize, we take larger
selections of text and reduce them to
their bare essentials.
Bare essentials: the gist, the key, the main
points worth remembering.
Bringing Writing in Content Area
Classrooms, pages 16-23
MARZANO:
When working with struggling students,
we need to understand that summarize
academic learning doesn’t come
automatically. In fact, we need to provide
students with a variety of approaches to
use as students attempt to summarize.
STRATEGY EXPLANATION


Summarizing and note taking are identified as
two of the most useful academic skills for all
students.
Summarizing and note taking are grouped
together since both require students to distill
and then synthesize.
RESEARCH ON SUMMARIZING
•
•
•

Students must delete, substitute and keep
information.
Students must analyze information at a deep
level of understanding.
Students must be aware of the information’s
structure in order to effectively summarize.
Marzano, et al: Classroom Instruction that Works, pages 30-32
So,
why is the task of
summarization such a
difficult task for students?
What does the student need
to do in order to be able to
adequately summarize text?
WHAT STUDENTS USUALLY DO
 Write
down everything
 Write down next to nothing
 Write way too much
 Don’t write enough
 Copy word for word
WHAT YOU WANT THEM TO DO
Pull out main ideas
 Focus on key details
 Use key words and phrases
 Break down larger ideas
 Write only enough to convey the gist
 Take succinct but complete notes

TEACHING SUMMARIES
 Keep
in mind—it’s not easy
 Hard to learn/hard to teach
 Model repeatedly
 Give students practice time
It is often said that the heart is the hardest-working muscle of the body.
It has to be. The primary job of the heart is to pump blood throughout
the body, and to do this job, it must beat steadily from long before you
are born until the time you die. The heart may slow down occasionally,
but it never totally rests.
Did you know you have more than 90,000 miles of blood vessels
throughout your body? And your blood must travel this entire 90,000mile course more than one thousand times each day. Each time your
heart beats, it pumps about two ounces of blood through your system.
This adds up to more than a gallon of blood pumped per minute. If you
exercise hard—if you run for instance, or swim or play football—your
heart may work up to twice this hard. By getting into good condition, you
can prepare your heart to pump more blood with less effort.
This has to do with the amount of oxygen your heart uses. A normal
heart uses about three-fourths of all the oxygen your body takes in. Your
other muscles use the rest. But as your heart grows stronger, from
exercise, it requires less oxygen to pump the same amount of blood.
This is why a person who is out of shape gets breathless going up one
flight of stairs, while a person in good shape can run up a big hill and
scarcely breathe hard.
SUMMARIZING ACTIVITIES

Quick Summaries
Don’t Look Back
 1 Sentence Paraphrase
 One-Word Summaries
 Refine and Reduce


Jones, Lawwill, Wormeli
SUM IT UP!




Students imagine they are placing a classified ad
or sending a telegram.
Each word costs 10 cents, and then tell them they
can spend "so much." For instance, if you say they
have $2.00 to spend, then that means they have to
write a summary that has no more than 20 words.
Adjust the amount they have to spend, and
therefore the length of the summary, according to
the text they are summarizing.
Pat Widdowson of Surry County Schools in North Carolina