Reading Strategies

Wow! If these past two weeks are any indication, this year is going to fly by.  I walk into the school at a little after 7 in the morning and I don't stop until I walk out of there after 5.  The days have just zoomed by!

This week we worked on reading strategies.  Having two periods for class gives me more opportunities to cover material that I have never had before.  I have always skimmed over the reading strategies without much depth, but this year we spent the entire week working on them.  I found some fantastic resources on Scholastic and Teachers Pay Teachers.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Reading-Comprehension-Strategy-Resource-Binder-113408
http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/lesson-plan/strategies-active-reading

(Hopefully that shows two of the resources that I used)

Here are some photos of one of the activities we did...

After reading the story, Thank You, Mr. Falker, we made text connections.  The kids wrote connections they made-between themselves and the text, the text and the world, and with another text-on sticky notes.  We then posted them on large sheets of paper and discussed the connections.  Once we were finished, they took their sticky notes and placed them into their notebooks next to the foldable on text connections. 

We are quickly adding many pages to our interactive notebooks.  I am already thinking ahead to next year and making notes as to what should be changed.  Hopefully, I will have some time this year to work with my colleagues to see what they are using and how they are putting their notebooks together.  So far, my kids seem to be enjoying the process and are much more engaged.  I had one student say, "This is like art class with a little English thrown in."  To which another replied, "Yeah, too much English."  So, based on those two comments, I think I am on the right track! :)