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CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.3 With prompting and support, identify characters, settings, and major events in a story.

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CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.3 With prompting and support, identify characters, settings, and major events in a story.

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English Language Arts Standards " Reading: Literature " Kindergarten " 3

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With prompting and support, identify characters, settings, and major events in a story.

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Formative assessment to check for understanding of initial activity.  A graphic organizer can be used and students can write or draw the story elements.  

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Formative assessment to check for understanding of initial activity.  A graphic organizer can be used and students can write or draw the story elements.  

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Whole Group Read aloud of an age appropriate story.  For the purpose of this assignment, I will be using Click, Clack, Moo.  

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Whole Group Read aloud of an age appropriate story.  For the purpose of this assignment, I will be using Click, Clack, Moo.  

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Click Clack Moo: Cows That Type, picture book by Doreen Cronin Video - Teach, Assess, Analyze with the Largest K-12 Resource Catalog

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Video: Click Clack Moo: Cows That Type, picture book by Doreen Cronin by julie katz free

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Following the Read aloud, teacher will go over main characters, setting, and major events. There will be a group discussion and teacher will ask questions to assess for understanding.
We will use a graphic organizer to discuss.

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According to How the ELL Brain Learns, "Nonverbal instructional tools, such as visuals, charts, graphic organizers, hands-on activities, and role play, can help make very complex information comprehensible to ELLs. These supports also help in reducing the language demands of content learning. However, these nonverbal tools should not be used in place of academic language instruction but in addition to it"(Sousa, 2011, p.208)Visuals are important but must also be used in addition to the language.   

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According to How the ELL Brain Learns, "Nonverbal instructional tools, such as visuals, charts, graphic organizers, hands-on activities, and role play, can help make very complex information comprehensible to ELLs. These supports also help in reducing the language demands of content learning. However, these nonverbal tools should not be used in place of academic language instruction but in addition to it"(Sousa, 2011, p.208)Visuals are important but must also be used in addition to the language.   

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While going through the lesson, teacher will include visuals such as puppets or cut outs. This should include photos of setting, like a barn, main characters and images that aid story sequencing.

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Seeing the story retold in a different format could be beneficial.  Student can watch the story and pause as needed.  Student will also be able to go back to the parts that were difficult to understand.

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According to reading Rockets, this method is beneficial because it includes the graphic organizer. This method is beneficial to the ELL student.

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The listen-read-discuss strategy helps students comprehend text. Before reading, students listen to a short lecture delivered by the teacher. The students then read a text selection about the topic. After reading, there is a large group discussion or students engage in small group discussions about the topic. During the discussion, students compare and contrast the information from the lecture with the information they read.

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Listen-Read-Discuss (LRD) | Classroom Strategy | Reading Rockets

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The listen-read-discuss strategy helps students comprehend text. Before reading, students listen to a short lecture delivered by the teacher. The students then read a text selection about the topic. After reading, there is a large group discussion or students engage in small group discussions about the topic.

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Reading rockets emphasizes the importance of sequencing to build comprehension.

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Language Arts

Story maps provide one way to help students organize the events from a story.

Helping students learn transition or signal words that indicate a sequence (first, second, last) will also help them learn about sequence.

Sequence sticks, story chains, story retelling ropes, and story sequence crafts all help students practice ordering events within a story. See these resources for ideas:

Math

Most math curricula include worksheets on ordinal numbers (first, second, third, etc). Patterns are also a form of sequencing my encouraging the use of vocabulary words such as "What bead goes first? Then which bead? Which bead is third?" Encouraging students to write out the steps for solving addition and subtraction problems that include regrouping is an excellent way to have them think through the steps in order. Teachers can use a simple sheet of paper folded into four squares. Ask students to write the steps in order in the squares.

Science

Helping children sequence also develops their scientific inquiry skills. In order to study or observe changes in something, students must follow along and record changes. The changes happen in a particular order, which kids can document by writing or drawing pictures.

Social Studies

Timelines are a great way to teach sequence in social studies. Kids may enjoy making a timeline of their own life, and include important milestones such as when they learned to walk, talk, ride a bike and go to school. Once students understand the process of charting important milestones on a timeline, topics from the social studies curricula can be used.

This simple example of an explorers timeline illustrates how the spacing between dates indicates the passage of time.

Other ideas for sequencing

Arts & crafts activities. It may be desirable to consider quilt-making and/or other arts & crafts activities with children. This and other arts and craft activities may reinforce the idea of sequencing and may introduce math concepts (measurement, addition & subtraction and basic computation, etc). Alex Henderson's Kids Start Quilting with Alex Anderson: 7 Fun & Easy Projects Quilts for Kids by Kids, Tips for Quilting with Children provides easy instructions for adults quilting with children.

Cooking with kids. Cookbooks for children can reinforce stories read, math concepts (measurement, etc), as well as sequencing. The Little House Cookbook: Frontier Foods from Laura Ingalls Wilder's Classic Stories by Barbara Walker (HarperCollins; 0064460908) presents recipes for foods mentioned in the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Wordless books. There are many wordless books that can be used with younger children and with English language learners (or students who may have limited English proficiency). For younger children, Pancakes for Breakfast by Tomie dePaola humorously details a woman making pancakes from scratch or the wordless adventures of Mark Newgarden's a small dog named Bow-Wow (e.g., Bow-Wow Bugs a Bug). For older or more sophisticated readers, books by Barbara Lehmann and David Weisner may be considered.

Everyday activities. Create a sequence page for a simple activity around the house or at school. Use any blank sheet of paper. Fold the paper into squares. Start with 4 large squares, for older students create more squares. Ask kids to draw the steps they know in the order in which the steps occur. For example, draw each step it takes to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or to brush their teeth.

Calendar time. Cut or tear out the pages from an old calendar. Mix up the months and hand out the stack of pages. Ask the kids to order the months from January to December by laying the pages out on the floor. Which month goes first? Then which one? Which month is last?

Download blank templates

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Story Sequence | Classroom Strategy | Reading Rockets

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Sequencing is one of many skills that contributes to students' ability to comprehend what they read. Sequencing refers to the identification of the components of a story - the beginning, middle, and end - and also to the ability to retell the events within a given text in the order in which they occurred.

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Providing extra time to sequence is something to consider.  Some students have processing delays.

Providing different means to demonstrate knowledge such as allowing student to draw characters or orally sequence.

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Sequencing Skills | Teach Special Education

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Aggression Management Anger/Frustration Management Anxiety Management Articulation Skills Attendance Strategies Attention Skills Assistive Technology Skills Blind/Vision Impaired Bullying Management Skills Central Auditory Processing Deafness Depression/Sadness Management Disengagement/Motivation Strategies Eating Disorder Strategies Emotional Regulation English Language Skills Executive Function Fine Motor Skills Gambling Disorder Grief Management Gross Motor Skills Hearing Intellectual

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The story map can be kept with the student for review.  Teacher can go over story map with student.

The sequencing cards can be used to re-tell the story orally and practice order of story. It can help student remember key details, characters and setting.

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Partner Activities & Additional Comprehension

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Partner Activities & Additional Comprehension

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Having students use sequencing cards to tell story to each other can help reinforce comprehension.

Worksheet supplements with visuals can also help with understanding.

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During whole group discussion, allow students to turn to their partner and talk about what they think plot is. Ask them "Turn to your partner and tell them what the setting is?" This strategy can help comprehension. This is also beneficial to both ELL and Special Needs students.

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Think-pair-share (TPS) is a collaborative learning strategy where students work together to solve a problem or answer a question about an assigned reading. This strategy requires students to (1) think individually about a topic or answer to a question; and (2) share ideas with classmates. Discussing with a partner maximizes participation, focuses attention and engages students in comprehending the reading material.

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Think-Pair-Share | Classroom Strategy | Reading Rockets

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Think-pair-share (TPS) is a collaborative learning strategy where students work together to solve a problem or answer a question about an assigned reading. This strategy requires students to (1) think individually about a topic or answer to a question; and (2) share ideas with classmates.

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Students can also chose to retell story verbally, while teacher writes down what students say. Teacher can also prompt by providing questions "Who is the main character?"

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Using this strategy for this common core standard can be benificial. Teacher asks student, "Where does this story take place?"  Student shows teacher in the book where.  Teacher can ask "What happened in the begining of the story?"  Student can find the page and talk about it.

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Question-Answer Relationship (QAR) | Classroom Strategy | Reading Rockets

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The question-answer relationship (QAR) strategy helps students understand the different types of questions. By learning that the answers to some questions are "Right There" in the text, that some answers require a reader to "Think and Search," and that some answers can only be answered "On My Own," students recognize that they must first consider the question before developing an answer.

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Oral Retelling allows for vocabulary building. Scaffolds can be available as well like puppets or visual cards.

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Students at a young age need to begin experiencing retelling stories. Once a story is read to them, they should be encouraged to retell the events that occurred in the story. This activity should start during kindergarten, when students can use predictable text, such as The Three Little Pigs or Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do You See?. Older students can also benefit from retelling stories, using more complex texts such as The Diary of Ann Frank. The importance of retelling stories is that it allows students to learn to organize and describe events, which enhances reading comprehension.

Story retelling provides ELLs an opportunity to analyze stories and build oral language as they acquire related vocabulary (Schienkman, 2004). Using pictures to retell a story can be highly beneficial to second language learners. It provides visual support that scaffolds comprehension as ELLs learn new vocabulary. Retelling stories helps ELLs begin to understand sequence, plot, and characterization as they build vocabulary and comprehension skills. But most important of all, it provides the fundamental skills ELL students need to begin retelling stories on paper.

Classroom application

Justine Brandi-Muller is teacher in New Jersey Berkeley Heights Public Schools. She has been using this best practice in her classroom for the past six years. She begins the activity by creating pictures that depict characters, main idea, plot, setting, and other important components of the book she is going to read. Justine then reads the story for the first time, using pictures and other props when appropriate.

During the first reading, she stops to explain the pictures and deliberately repeats new vocabulary words for the ELL students to have a better understanding. To continue the lesson, she has the students retell the story in small groups in English without pictures (and if a child finds it easier she allows him/her to tell the story in Spanish). During the second reading, Justine has her students use the pictures and new vocabulary words to retell the story in English.

Justine has found that students love to see how much more they remember once they've been provided with a visual clue, such as the pictures. She describes this classroom activity as "a fun, non-threatening way to read in English and have ELLs understand the meaning." She has discovered that her ELL students have become more enthusiastic and willing to take a chance and read aloud; she has also observed that they seem to remember the vocabulary better with this method.
Topics Online Magazine: Folktales
Folktales from around world, including tales from Japan, Korea, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
Scholastic: Myths from Around the World
Stories and myths from around the world, organized by region.
Story Arts: International Folktales
An online library of short international folktales for children to retell.
University of North Carolina: International Children's Stories
Stories, legends, and folktales from around the world. Links to stories from many countries such as India, Greece, China, and Egypt.
Pro Teacher: Storytelling Lesson Plans
Links to storytelling activities and lesson plans for teachers.

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Students at a young age need to begin experiencing retelling stories. Once a story is read to them, they should be encouraged to retell the events that occurred in the story. This activity should start during kindergarten, when students can use predictable text, such as The Three Little Pigs or Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do You See?.

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Providing a scaffold such as cut and pasting the story sequencing and matching can be a way to help student learn sequencing. Instead of having to write out story or orally retell, the student can match "setting" to a photo of a barn, or Main Characters to a photo of characters. Beginning, middle and end sequencing photos can also be cut and pasted.

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This is a great article on ways we can help the Special Needs Learner. This includes singing songs, read aloud, and game playing. In the context of sequencing and story elements, maybe a memory game can be made.

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Learning Disabilities Association of America

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While the majority of a student's program should be as closely aligned with the general education curriculum as possible, some accommodations and modifications may be necessary. Listed below are some suggested ways to aid students with specific learning disabilities (SLD) learn more effectively at home or at school. Selection from these and other possibilities must be based on the individual needs of each child.
Information and ideas from a multidisciplinary team, including the parents and student, are important for developing an Individualized Education Program (IEP) that meets the unique needs of each student with learning disabilities. A carefully developed multidisciplinary approach will make classroom instruction meaningful for students.

1. For some students who read slowly or with difficulty, a "read-along" technique may be used with taped texts and materials to allow learning of printed materials.

2. For students with memory problems or difficulty taking notes, a fellow student might share notes; the student might tape the lesson; or the teacher might provide a copy of the lesson outline.

3. For students who read below expected levels, educational videos and films or talking books can provide the general information that cannot be acquired from the printed page.

4. For students with short term memory problems (e.g., understand math processes, but have short term memory problems that interfere with remembering math facts), a table of facts or a calculator could be provided.

5. For students whose handwriting is slow, illegible or includes many reversed letters, a cassette recorder or a computer with word processing software could be used for written work or tests.

6. For students who have difficulty with spelling, a "misspeller's dictionary" or computerized spell checker can help make written materials readable.

7. For students who have difficulty reading cursive, small, or crowded print, typed handouts, large print, or double spaced materials can help.

8. To develop memory and listening skills, poetry, rhymes, songs, audio-taped materials and mnemonics may improve performance.

9. To teach spelling, the teacher might use a multi-sensory approach that combines saying, spelling aloud, and writing words.

10. Ways to improve vocabulary and comprehension can include a student-developed file of vocabulary words and the use of word webs and visual organizers to relate words and ideas heard or read on paper. A dictionary or thesaurus, suited to the child's learning level, is also an excellent tool for building vocabulary, spelling and reading comprehension.

11. For students who have difficulty organizing time, materials and information, a variety of approaches can be used, including:

a quiet, uncluttered homework space

alarm watch

purchased texts that can be marked with a highlighter

a homework assignment diary coordinated between home and school

study skills instruction

a personally-developed date-book or scheduler

12. For students who copy inaccurately, but need written practice to solidify learning, changes that may help include: leaving a space directly under each word, phrase or sentence, or having handouts on the desk for those who can't copy from the blackboard or take dictation accurately. For left-handed students, place the list of words at the right margin. For students whose writing is large, provide enlarged spaces for "fill in the blank" activities.

13. For students who seem to process auditory information slowly (e.g., not fully understanding questions asked, recalling needed information, or forming an appropriate answer), be patient. Allow sufficient "wait-time for the answer or provide the questions in written form.

14. Oral and written language should be taught together as much as possible. Illustrations in a book being read should be used to generate conversation, vocabulary and concepts that will relate to what is to be read. Material that is read can be translated into a verbal summary, a word web, a visual organizer, or a computer presentation.

15. Students who find reading slow and difficult may benefit from supplementing the subject matter being read with video tapes, DVDs, captioned TV programs, or computer software.

More on Reading

Since reading is central to learning, children who do not learn to read by the second grade are likely to struggle with learning throughout their lives. Reading assessment should include skill levels in decoding, fluency and comprehension.

As children learn to read, they learn how spoken and written language relate to each other. Thus, the components of a reading program must also relate to one another, engage all children and meet their individual needs. Reading activities may include:

Listening to good stories and books, appropriate to the child's age, read aloud daily

Language games that encourage identification of rhyming words and creation of rhymes

Instruction and practice in phonemic awareness, alphabetic knowledge, alphabetic principles, decoding strategies, vocabulary acquisition, fluency and comprehension

Additional reading instruction in a small group or tutoring setting

Before/after school and summer school classes

Teaching Mathematics

Theories on mathematics disabilities view spatial visualization and verbal skills as critical. These two skill areas are important for anyone learning mathematics, but are especially important for students with learning disabilities. These areas should be heavily emphasized in the teaching and remediation of mathematical concepts and skills.

An individualized education program in mathematics would concentrate on developing concepts and skills within such strands as: numeration, geometry, measurement, collection and interpretation of data, estimation/mental computations, patterns and relations and word problems/applications. Concepts are best introduced with "hands-on" concrete materials. Knowing one-digit facts is important, but work with paper and pencil algorithms should not be emphasized, since calculations can be done with calculators if memory or sequencing is a problem.

Estimation strategies are often taught as mental computations skills are developed. Students should be encouraged to draw illustrations and representations whenever possible. They should consistently discuss, read and write as they solve more complex computational and word problems. For students with learning disabilities, confidence in the practical applications of mathematics to everyday life is also very important.

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Accommodations, Techniques and Aids For Learning

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While the majority of a student's program should be as closely aligned with the general education curriculum as possible, some accommodations and modifications may be necessary. Listed below are some suggested ways to aid students with specific learning disabilities (SLD) learn more effectively at home or at school.

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Reading Rockets highlights ways that can aid to teach comprehension.

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General instructional activities

To correspond with a typical reading lesson, comprehension strategy instruction can be organized into a three-part framework, with specific activities used before, during, and after reading.

Providing instruction such as the following example allows students to see, learn, and use a variety of comprehension strategies as they read. Note, however, that the framework is a general one and represents an array of strategies. All of the strategies in this framework do not have to be used with every text or in every reading situation.

Before Reading

Before reading, the teacher may:

Motivate students through activities that may increase their interest (book talks, dramatic readings, or displays of art related to the text), making the text relevant to students in some way.

Activate students' background knowledge important to the content of the text by discussing what students will read and what they already know about its topic and about the text organization.

Students, with some help from the teacher, may:

Establish a purpose for reading.

Identify and discuss difficult words, phrases, and concepts in the text.

Preview the text (by surveying the title, illustrations, and unusual text structures) to make predictions about its content.

Think, talk, and write about the topic of the text.

During Reading

During reading, the teacher may:

Remind students to use comprehension strategies as they read and to monitor their understanding.

Ask questions that keep students on track and focus their attention on main ideas and important points in the text.

Focus attention on parts in a text that require students to make inferences.

Call on students to summarize key sections or events.

Encourage students to return to any predictions they have made before reading to see if they are confirmed by the text.

Students, with some help from the teacher, may:

Determine and summarize important ideas and supportive details.

Make connections between and among important ideas in the text.

Integrate new ideas with existing background knowledge.

Ask themselves questions about the text.

Sequence events and ideas in the text.

Offer interpretations of and responses to the text.

Check understanding by paraphrasing or restating important and/or difficult sentences and paragraphs.

Visualize characters, settings, or events in a text.

After Reading

After reading, the teacher may:

Guide discussion of the reading.

Ask students to recall and tell in their own words important parts of the text.

Offer students opportunities to respond to the reading in various ways, including through writing, dramatic play, music, readers' theatre, videos, debate, or pantomime.

Students, with some help from the teacher, may:

Evaluate and discuss the ideas encountered in the text.

Apply and extend these ideas to other texts and real life situations.

Summarize what was read by retelling the main ideas.

Discuss ideas for further reading.

Activities and procedures for use with narrative texts

The following are some examples of specific procedures that you can use to help students improve their comprehension of narrative texts.

Retelling

Retelling involves having students orally reconstruct a story that they have read.

Retelling requires students to activate their knowledge of how stories work and apply it to the new reading. As part of retelling, students engage in ordering and summarizing information and in making inferences. The teacher can use retelling as a way to assess how well students comprehend a story, then use this information to help students develop a deeper understanding of what they have read.

The teacher uses explicit instruction, explaining why retelling is useful, modeling the procedure, giving students opportunities to practice, and providing feedback. As the following chart shows, students' retellings should become more detailed as they become better readers.

Types of Retelling

Simple retelling
The student can:

identify and retell the beginning, middle, and end of a story in order.

describe the setting.

identify the problem and the resolution of a problem.

More complete retelling
The student can:

identify and retell events and facts in a sequence.

make inferences to fill in missing information.

identify and retell causes of actions or events and their effects.

Most complete retelling
The student can:

identify and retell a sequence of actions or events.

make inferences to account for events or actions.

offer an evaluation of the story.

Story Maps

Story maps are visual representations of the elements that make up a narrative. The purpose of a story map is to help students focus on the important elements of narratives-theme, characters, settings, problems, plot events, and resolution-and on the relationship among those elements.

Story maps to be used with younger students can be very simple-like the one that follows. These maps focus on a single element, such as the sequence of a simple plot.

With older students, the maps can be more complicated, focusing on several elements. As with retellings, the teacher uses explicit instruction to introduce the procedure, explaining why story maps are useful, then modeling the procedure, giving students opportunities to practice, and providing feedback.

Story Frames

Similar to story maps, story frames are visual representations that focus students' attention on the structure of a story and on how the content of the story fits its structure.

Students use story frames as a way to activate their background knowledge of the elements of story structure and thus to organize and learn new information from a story. Simple story frames require students to provide basic information about the sequence of events in a story:

The problem in the story is ______.
This is a problem because ______.
The problem is solved when ______.
In the end ______.

More complex frames might involve having students supply more detailed information by summarizing sequences of actions or events, or providing factual information to explain problems or motivations.

The procedure encourages students to interact with each other, asking questions, seeking clarifications, and sharing evaluations. Again, as with story maps, the procedure can be simplified for use with younger students - it has been used successfully with grade-one students *- or made more sophisticated for use with older students.

And again, as with the other procedures that have been described, the procedure is introduced through explicit instruction, with the teacher first explaining why story frames are useful, then modeling when and where to use them, guiding students through practice opportunities, and providing corrective feedback along the way.

Directed Reading and Thinking Activity (DRTA)

This procedure focuses on reading as a thinking process. Its intent is to teach children to make predictions throughout reading. Before reading, the teacher asks students to form a purpose for reading and to make predictions about the content of the story to be read.

During reading, the teacher stops students at strategic points in the story to ask students to make additional predictions and to verify, reject, or modify their purposes and predictions.

After reading, the teacher asks students to find and read aloud any part of the text that supports their predictions. Students must use the text to explain their reasoning and to prove the accuracy-or inaccuracy-of their predictions.

Often teachers have students use charts such as the following to record their predictions and information from the text that proves the prediction's accuracy:

Activities and procedures for use with expository text

The following are some procedures teachers use to help students improve their comprehension of expository texts.

K-W-L

The purpose of the K-W-L procedures is to help students become good readers by learning to do the things that good readers do. Specifically it helps students learn to activate their background knowledge and to set purposes for reading.

KWL stands for determining What I Know, What I Want to Learn, and reviewing What I Have Learned. The following chart shows the steps in each part of the procedure:

What I Know

What I Want To Learn

What I Learned

Students discuss what they already know about a topic in the text they will be reading. The teacher has students list ideas and concepts related to the topic, then has them organize their ideas into broad categories.

Students discuss what they want to learn from reading the text and write down specific questions that they think may be answered in the text.

After reading the text, students discuss what they learned from it. They next write what they learned and answer s t u d e n t - g e n e r a t e d questions about topics that were addressed in the text.

As they confirm the information in the Know column of the chart, students relate new information gained from their reading to knowledge they already have. As they generate questions for the Want column, they learn to set their own purposes for reading. Further, because they are reading to answer their own questions, students are more likely actively to monitor their comprehension. By putting information in their own words for the Learned column, students better understand what they know and what they do not know. Proceeding through these steps reinforces students' learning from text, involves them in doing what good readers do, and teaches them about their own reading processes.

Questioning the Author

The Questioning the Author procedure involves discussion, strategy instruction, and self-explanation. It encourages students to reflect on what the author of a selection is trying to say so as to build a mental representation from that information. Teacher and students work collaboratively, reading to resolve confusion and to understand the meaning of the text.

Focusing on a segment of text, the students respond to teacher questions such as the following:

What is the author trying to say?

What does the author mean by this?

o Why is the author saying this?

What is the author getting at?

Through modeling, the teacher helps students to understand that some parts of a text can cause confusion and hinder comprehension. The teacher then discusses with students what they can do when comprehension problems occur. Students learn to "grapple" with text by emulating the teacher's questioning techniques.

Reciprocal Teaching

Reciprocal Teaching is the name for a teaching procedure that is best described as a dialogue between the teacher and students. "Reciprocal" means simply that each person involved in the dialogue acts in response to the others. The dialogue focuses on a segment of a text the group is reading and is structured by the use of four comprehension strategies:

asking questions,

clarifying difficult words and ideas,

summarizing what has been read, and

predicting what might come next.

The teacher first models and explains how to apply a comprehension strategy, then gradually turns over the activity to the students. As the students become more competent, the teacher requires their participation at increasingly more challenging levels.

Reciprocal Teaching provides students with opportunities to observe the value of applying strategies in their "real" reading. In addition, it allows the teacher to identify problems individual students might have in using strategies and to provide instruction that is geared to individual needs.

Transactional Strategy Instruction

Transactional Strategy Instruction (TSI) is a procedure that involves teaching students to construct meaning as they read by emulating good readers' use of comprehension strategies.

TSI helps students (1) set goals and plan for reading, (2) use background knowledge and text cues to construct meaning during reading, (3) monitor comprehension, (4) solve problems encountered during reading, and (5) evaluate progress. To accomplish these tasks, students are taught to use a set of reading strategies. The strategies typically include:

predicting based on prior-knowledge activation,

generating and asking questions,

clarifying,

visualizing,

relating background knowledge to text content, and

summarizing.

Instruction occurs in small-group settings, with the strategies used as vehicles to coordinate dialogue about text as students read aloud. In their groups, students are encouraged to relate a text to their background knowledge, to summarize text, to describe any mental images they make during reading, and to predict what might happen next in the text. As students read aloud, they engage in and exchange individual interpretations of and responses to the reading.

The I-Chart Procedure

The I-Chart Procedure is a technique that promotes critical thinking by encouraging students to apply reading strategies to learn from content-area texts.

The procedure is organized into three phases: Planning, Interacting, Integrating and Evaluating. Students begin the Planning phase by using content-area texts to identify a topic of study. They then generate questions they want to answer as they read. Next, they construct a large chart, similar to the following, on which to record information as they gather it. They complete the Planning phase by collecting materials about the topic.

Teacher Questions and Student Questions

In the Interacting phase, students record their background knowledge of the topic, as well as other information they might gather. In addition, the teacher elicits and records relevant student questions. Finally, the students read and discuss, with teacher guidance, the sources of information.

In the final phase, Integrating and Evaluating, students make summaries for each question on the chart, incorporating information they have gathered. Next, they compare their summaries with background knowledge, clarify statements as necessary, and discuss new knowledge they have acquired. Finally, they locate new information to address any unanswered questions and report their findings to the group.

In this procedure, the teacher directs and models the phases of the procedure. Gradually, however, the teacher releases responsibility for managing the procedure to students. The goal is for the reader to satisfactorily apply these comprehension strategies independently.

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To correspond with a typical reading lesson, comprehension strategy instruction can be organized into a three-part framework, with specific activities used before, during, and after reading. Providing instruction such as the following example allows students to see, learn, and use a variety of comprehension strategies as they read.

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Make learning fun and interesting by adding comprehension games to the lesson. This can reinforce story details.

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As educators, we understand the profound impact of effective literacy instruction. That's why we designed the One95 literacy system to empower you with the best resources to develop the strongest readers possible.

It begins with proven literacy instruction products-then the knowledge, resources, and support to make them work.
With One95, you'll find:

Alignment with MTSS/RTI frameworks

Explicit and systematic Tier 1, 2, and 3 instruction

Professional learning and development resources

Extensive science of reading research

Access to literacy experts

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Reading Comprehension Activities | 95 Percent Group

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Learn how our small-group intervention reading comprehension activities help students who have strong decoding skills but who struggle with comprehension.