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Description
- 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.
Advantages
- It assists with comprehension, especially for narrative texts.
- Sequence structures help students of varying abilities organize information and ideas efficiently.
Disadvantages
- Students may have a hard time following a story or understanding the sequence of events through out a book or story.
Ell's
-Model this strategy using a book with very clear components to help students understand each component.
-Differentiate which sequence chart to give to which students. The beginning-middle-end format is the simplest; other more complex maps can be used with more advanced students.

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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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Description
- Similar to teaching beginning readers about rhyme, teaching children about onset and rime helps them recognize common chunks within words. This can help students decode new words when reading and spell words when writing.
Advantages
- They help children learn about word families, which can lay the foundation for future spelling strategies.
-Teaching children to attend to onset and rime will have a positive effect on their literacy skills.
Disadvantages
- Some students might have trouble decoding words.
Ell's
-Use pictures instead of words in activities for younger and lower level readers.

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The "onset" is the initial phonological unit of any word (e.g. c in cat) and the term "rime" refers to the string of letters that follow, usually a vowel and final consonants (e.g. at in cat). Not all words have onsets. Similar to teaching beginning readers about rhyme, teaching children about onset and rime helps them recognize common chunks within words. This can help students decode new words when reading and spell words when writing.

From the Florida Center for Reading Research, download and print these activities:

These articles offer suggestions for how to use simple onset and rime activities to help students develop phonological awareness.

Construct-a-word: "ig" in Pig. The link below outlines a strategy that can be adapted to teach different onset and rime word patterns. This activity helps teachers isolate and teach the rime "ig" using the book If you Give a Pig a Pancake by Laura Numeroff. There is an instructional plan that accompanies the activity and extension ideas included to advance the learning process.
See example >

Download blank templates

See the link below for more help building word families using onset and rimes.

Bear, D., Invernizzi, M., Templeton, S., & Johnston, F. (1996). Words their way: Word study for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Chard, D., & Dickson, S. (1999). Phonological Awareness: Instructional and Assessment Guidelines.

Ellis, E. (1997). How Now Brown Cow: Phoneme Awareness Activities.

Goswami, U., & Mead, F. (1992). Onset and rime awareness and analogies in reading. Reading Research Quarterly, 2, 153-162.

Wise, B. W., Olson, R. K., & Treiman, R. (1990). Subsyllabic units as aids in beginning readers word learning Onset-rime versus post-vowel segmentation. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 4, 1-19.

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The "onset" is the initial phonological unit of any word (e.g. c in cat) and the term "rime" refers to the string of letters that follow, usually a vowel and final consonants (e.g. at in cat). Not all words have onsets.

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Description
- Partner Reading is a cooperative learning strategy in which two students work together to read an assigned text.
Advantages
- It allows students to take turns reading and provide each other with feedback as a way to monitor comprehension.
- It provides a model of fluent reading and helps students learn decoding skills by offering positive feedback.
Disadvantages
- Students can become off task or distracted by their partner.
Ell's
- Story retelling: students work together to retell the story by providing input and correcting mistakes together.

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Partner Reading is a cooperative learning strategy in which two students work together to read an assigned text. This strategy is often used as part of the Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS). PALS is a classwide peer tutoring program in which teachers carefully partner a student with a classmate. The Partner Reading strategy allows students to take turns reading and provide each other with feedback as a way to monitor comprehension.

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Partner Reading is a cooperative learning strategy in which two students work together to read an assigned text. This strategy is often used as part of the Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS). PALS is a classwide peer tutoring program in which teachers carefully partner a student with a classmate.

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Description
-Shared Reading is an interactive reading experience that occurs when students join in or share the reading of a book or other text while guided and supported by a teacher.
Advantages
- It provides struggling readers with necessary support.
- Shared reading of predictable text can build sight word knowledge and reading fluency.
- Allows students to enjoy materials that they may not be able to read on their own.
Disadvantages
- Might be difficult to asses the students learning.
- Can be hard to find a book that interests all students.
Ell's
- Have Spanish copies of the shared reading book.
- Use sentence strips and have students retell or build the story by putting the strips in order.

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Shared reading is an interactive read aloud where the students join in or share the reading of a book while guided by a teacher. The shared reading model often uses oversized books (referred to as big books) with enlarged print and illustrations.

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Description
- Reader's theater is a strategy for developing reading fluency. It involves children in oral reading through reading parts in scripts.
Advantages
- It promotes fluency.
-It helps readers learn to read aloud with expression.
- It helps build reading confidence.
Disadvantages
- Could be time consuming.
- Students who have stage fright can get anxious.
Ells
- Use easier scripts with fewer words for younger or struggling readers.
- Have students read parts together.

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Reader’s theater is a strategy for developing reading fluency. It involves children in oral reading through reading parts in scripts. In using this strategy, students do not need to memorize their part; they need only to reread it several times, thus developing their fluency skills. The best reader’…

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Description
- RAFT is a writing strategy that helps students understand their roles as writers, the audience they will address, the varied formats for writing, and the topic they'll be writing about.
Advantages
- It includes writing from different viewpoints.
- It helps students learn important writing skills such as audience, main idea, and organization.
- It can be used across various content areas.
Disadvantages
- May not allow students to explore other perspectives.
Ell's
- Have the students review the concept and assignment orally first.
- Students can decide on their own topic.
- Teacher can work together with the student to complete the task.

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RAFT | Classroom Strategy | Reading Rockets

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RAFT is a writing strategy that helps students understand their roles as writers, the audience they will address, the varied formats for writing, and the topic they'll be writing about. By using this strategy, teachers encourage students to write creatively, to consider a topic from a different perspective, and to gain practice writing for different audiences.

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Description
- Choral reading is reading aloud in unison with a whole class or group of students.
Advantages
- It helps improve the ability to read sight words.
- It provides a model for fluent reading as students listen.
- It can provide less skilled readers the opportunity to practice and receive support before being required to read on their own.
Disadvantages
- Can leave students behind.
- If students do not do well with reading out loud it can came them nervous.
Ells
- Pair together students with different levels of ability and have them each read a different section.

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Language Arts

This planning checklist for a choral reading lesson uses the poem "One Sister for Sale" by Shel Silverstein. See example ›

This PDF includes dozens of poems for shared, choral, paired, and echo reading. See example ›

The website below offers teachers several poetry options conducive to the Choral Reading strategy along with some interesting tips on reading and language development. See example ›

The example of choral reading found on this site uses the children's book James and the Giant Peach. See example ›

Science

This lesson plan includes examples of choral reading activities that correspond to introductory science concepts. See example ›

Social Studies

This website includes a script for the choral reading of the children's book Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain. See example ›

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Choral reading is reading aloud in unison with a whole class or group of students. Choral reading helps build students' fluency, self-confidence, and motivation. Because students are reading aloud together, students who may ordinarily feel self-conscious or nervous about reading aloud have built-in support.

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Description
- Exit slips are written student responses to questions teachers pose at the end of a class or lesson.
Advantages
- They provide teachers with an informal measure of how well students have understood a topic or lesson.
- They help students reflect on what they have learned.
-They teach students to think critically.
Disadvantages
- At certain times can be an ineffective way to gage students knowledge.
Ell's
- Have a variety of exit slips and differentiate which students get which ones.
- Allow students to work together on exit slips.

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Exit Slips | Classroom Strategy | Reading Rockets

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Exit slips are written student responses to questions teachers pose at the end of a class or lesson. These quick, informal assessments enable teachers to quickly assess students’ understanding of the material.

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Description
- A concept map is a visual organizer that can enrich students' understanding of a new concept.
Advantages
- It helps children organize new information.
- It helps students to make meaningful connections between the main idea and other information.
- They're easy to construct and can be used within any content area.
Disadvantages
- Ineffective at certain learning stages.
- Ineffective for some learning styles.
Ell's
-Have students practice writing skills by asking students to write on their own concept map.
- When appropriate have students draw pictures.

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More comprehension strategies

Why use a concept map?

It helps children organize new information.

It helps students to make meaningful connections between the main idea and other information.

They're easy to construct and can be used within any content area.

How to use a concept map

Note: It is important that teachers spend time introducing younger students to charts and diagrams prior to using this strategy.

There are several ways to construct concept maps. Most include the following steps:

1. Model how to identify the major ideas or concepts presented in a selection of text as you read.

2. Organize the ideas into categories. Remind students that your organization may change as you continue to read and add more information.

3. Use lines or arrows on the map to represent how ideas are connected to one another, a particular category, and/or the main concept. Limit the amount of information on the map to avoid frustration.

4. After students have finished the map, encourage them to share and reflect on how they each made the connections between concepts.

5. Encourage students to use the concept map to summarize what was read.

Download blank templates

Lesson plan

Concept Muraling: Organizing Knowledge Visually to Improve Comprehension

Help students develop a framework for organizing their knowledge of a content area text by providing visuals and key vocabulary words. See the lesson plan from the Balanced Literacy Diet.

See many more related how-to videos with lesson plans in the Reading Comprehension Strategies section.

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Concept Maps | Classroom Strategy | Reading Rockets

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A concept map is a visual organizer that can enrich students' understanding of a new concept. Using a graphic organizer, students think about the concept in several ways. Most concept map organizers engage students in answering questions such as, "What is it? What is it like? What are some examples?"

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Description
- A word wall is a collection of words which are displayed in large visible letters on a wall, bulletin board, or other display surface in a classroom.
Advantages
- They provide a permanent model for high frequency words.
- They help students see patterns and relationship in words, thus building phonics and spelling skills.

Disadvantages
- Student may only know the word and not the meaning.
Ell's
- For these students, supply them with the words written on piece of paper. Tape the word wall paper to their desk for them to refer to.
- Make students a mini word wall with the english word and the Spanish word under it.

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Language Arts

Ask students to hunt for words in their reading and writing that fit the phonic or word study pattern being studied. These words can create a word wall that illustrates examples of the different patterns studied. Students could keep a word study notebook to record the known patterns and their new understanding about words, and can play games and activities that apply their word knowledge.

Math

Word walls in math can provide visual cues and graphic representations of content. Consider using a math word wall that has three parts: key vocabulary, "in your own words" definitions, and a variety of ways to portray a function. For example, multiplication is portrayed by the following symbols: x, *, and ( ).

Number sense, concepts, and operations word wall
The purpose of the mathematics word wall is to identify words and phrases that students need to understand and use so as to make good progress in mathematics. Mathematical language is crucial to children's development of thinking. If students do not have the vocabulary to talk about math concepts and skills, they cannot make progress in understanding these areas of mathematical knowledge. They need to be familiar with mathematical vocabulary and mathematical terms to understand written and spoken instructions. See math word wall resources >

More ideas for word walls in math
Many teachers are familiar with basic word wall strategies including the use of a flashlight (to put the light on words) and a fly swatter (to highlight words). Teachers are also familiar with tested favorites like bingo; I Have, Who Has; and Mind Reader, but they really wanted other ideas. The purpose of this post by Dr. Deborah Wahlstrom is to identify additional ways to use word walls with mathematics content. More math word wall ideas >

Science

Using interactive word walls in science
Science is a vocabulary-intense subject that is dependent on students learning new and often times difficult vocabulary to increase comprehension and help them make connections between and among concepts. When science students are given the opportunity to interact with the vocabulary, they are more likely to remember it.

Ideas for using the words on your wall are only limited by your imagination. Some examples include:

Students categorize and sequence from largest to smallest (cell, bacteria, yeast, tissue, ribosome, organ, organism, organ system, protozoa, virus) Variation: Students are given vocabulary words, and their classmates must arrange them in the correct order and justify the placement.

Students remove words from the wall and make connecting statements about the words. The class can then create a summarizing statement, for example: cells make up tissues, and tissues make up organs.

For more ideas like these, read the full post by Toni Enloe.

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Word Walls | Classroom Strategy | Reading Rockets

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A word wall is a collection of words which are displayed in large visible letters on a wall, bulletin board, or other display surface in a classroom. The word wall is designed to be an interactive tool for students and contains an array of words that can be used during writing and reading.

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Description
- Teaching the understanding that there are systematic and predictable relationships between written letters and spoken sounds.
Advantages
- Letter naming is a strong predictor of reading success.
- Learning letter names helps a child learn letter sounds.
- It helps the students develop their understanding of the alphabetic principal.
Disadvantages
- Spoken languages are always changing.
- Dialect may not be the problem for the spelling improvement.

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Matching upper case and lower case

Teachers can use the following activity to ask students to help the "Mama animals" (uppercase letters) find their "babies" (lowercase letters). This game includes matching the uppercase mothers with their lowercase babies.

This link provides a template for a prinatble "Superhero" upper and lower case letter match game.
See example >
This file includes uppercase and lowercase letters in a matching game that parents can use with their child at home.

This link provides templates for printing cards to use for writing uppercase and lowercase letters.
See example >
Letter formation: using sand, play dough, flour

The link below provides teachers with downloadable mats with the alphabet letters for helping children use play dough for learning letter formation.
See example >
Letter bingo

Bingo is a simple game that children enjoy and can be used to help them learn about the upper and lower-case letters. This link allows teachers to print the letters and board needed to play letter bingo.

Letter stamps

Stamps are an excellent "hands-on" activity for helping students learn about the alphabet. The activity described in the link below provides teachers with some creative ideas for making letter stamps out of sponges. Teachers can use sponges and paint in a variety of ways to help children understand the shape and function of upper and lower-case letters.
See example >
Letter recognition fluency

This online document contains several activities that are helpful for building letter recognition fluency. Teachers can download materials needed and follow the instructions for each activity. There are also some ideas included for extending and adapting each activity to further enhance learning. Some examples are provided below.

Download activities > (2.2MB PDF)*

Speedy Alphabet Arc: Teachers can download and print a copy of the alphabet "arc" and have students use letters to match the ones on the arc. Parents could use this idea at home with magnetic letters by placing the arc on the refrigerator and have the child match the letters. Using a timer and seeing how quickly the child can match the letters is optional.

Glow Go: This activity includes the use of glow in the dark chalk and black construction paper. Students can work together taking turns using a flashlight and naming the letters.

Hungry Letter Mouse: Teachers can utilize this activity for students to work on letter recognition in pairs using an eraser and dry erase marker. One student can use the eraser to be the mouse and the other student names the letter before the "mouse" eats it (i.e., erases it).

Letter books

Teachers can use the downloadable materials form this website to create letter books in which each page contains one letter. The kids draw or cut pictures from magazines that start with the particular letter and glue them into their "book."
See example >
Downloadable letter and alphabet cards

Flash cards

The link listed below provides teachers with downloadable ESL flashcards. These are free and printable for use within the classroom. There are large sets for use with teaching letters and vocabulary, and smaller sets for language learning games.
See example >
This website provides printable color flashcards that are great for teaching upper and lowercase letters. These cards are free and use the Zaner Bloser font which is very simplistic - ideal for teaching young children.

Alphabet cards

The downloadable alphabet cards available from this link have various fonts to choose from, color picture cards to accompany the letters, and creative ideas for activities.
See example >
Race track alphabet

The website below offers teachers the ability to download letters of the alphabet in race-track format. Children can use toy cars to trace around the letters to help learn the formation.
See example >

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Teachers can use the following activity to ask students to help the "Mama animals" (uppercase letters) find their "babies" (lowercase letters). This game includes matching the uppercase mothers with their lowercase babies. This link provides a template for a prinatble "Superhero" upper and lower case letter match game.

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Description
- Teachers verbalize aloud while reading a text. Their verbalizations include describing things they're doing as they read.
Advantages
- Helps studetns learn to monitor their thinking as they read.
- Improves comprehension.
- It slows down the reading process and allows students to monitor their understanding of a text.
Disadvantages
- Hard for fast readers to slow themselves down.
- Some students might have trouble monitoring them selves and reading at the same time.

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Think-alouds have been described as “eavesdropping on someone’s thinking.” With this strategy, teachers verbalize aloud while reading a selection orally. Their verbalizations include describing things they’re doing as they read to monitor their comprehension. The purpose of the think-aloud strategy…

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Description
- Are visual representations of the elements that make up a narrative.
Advantages
- Helps students focus on the important elements.
- Can be used with all grade levels.
- Helps the students understand the whole story.
Disadvantages
- Can be hard to use for students who did not understand the story.
- Thoughts can get messy and hard to read.

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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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Description
- Is a visual display that demonstrates relationships between facts, concepts, or ideas.
Advantages
- Guides the learners thinking.
-Make content easier to understand and learn.
- Help improve focus.
Disadvantages
- Thoughts can get messy.
- Visual learners may only benifit from using it.

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My 10-year-old has several learning and processing disabilities but his greatest learning strength is that he is an incredible visual learner. When my son can see and organize information, his ability to learn and comprehend it increases significantly.

I am sure that you know kids like my son, Colin, and we have all taught students like him. Using many modalities, especially visualization has been linked to greater learning and reading comprehension.

Graphic organizers are important and effective pedagogical tools for organizing content and ideas and facilitating learners' comprehension of newly acquired information. Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences posits that students are better able to learn and internalize information when more than one learning modality is employed in an instructional strategy. Since graphic organizers present material through the visual and spatial modalities (and reinforce what is taught in the classroom), the use of graphic organizers helps students internalize what they are learning.

For today's classroom, nothing is more essential to successful teaching and learning than strategy-based instruction. It is through the use of specific teaching strategies and learning tools that students can be more successful learners. Graphic organizers are teaching and learning tools; when they're integrated into classroom experiences, students are better able to understand new material. Creating a strong visual picture, graphic organizers support students by enabling them to literally see connections and relationships between facts, information, and terms.

Reaching All Learners with Graphic Organizers

By integrating text and visual imagery, the graphic organizers actively engage a wide variety of learners, including students with special needs and English language learners. Graphic organizers can be used for any subject matter and are easily integrated into course curriculum.

We know from learning theory that the human mind naturally organizes and stores information. Our minds create structures to store newly acquired information and connect it to previous knowledge. The graphic organizers are visualizations of these mental storage systems, and serve to support students in remembering and connecting information. When students are able to remember and assimilate information, they can delve into more critical thinking.

Numerous studies have found graphic organizers to be effective for teaching and learning, and many support the effectiveness of graphic organizers for gifted children and students with special needs. Textbook publishers have taken note of the research that supports the importance of graphic organizers for teaching and learning, and regularly feature them in textbooks.

Since graphic organizers are widely successful, these learning tools are used at all grade levels. Commonly used in the k-12 th grades, they are also effective for adult learners. Community colleges and corporate entities use graphic organizers to present information in similar instructive contexts. Often, you will see college level textbooks and corporate instructional materials use graphic organizers. The visually stimulating nature of graphic organizers draws the learner's attention. As learners, we attend to what is novel and visually intriguing because the brain is more equipped to process images rather than text. Since graphic organizers integrate text and visual images, learners are having more whole-brain experiences.

Here are two videos that further discuss the importance of graphic organizers in learning.

You can also check out Dr. Katherine McKnight's books, Teacher's Big Book of Graphic Organizers: 100 Reproducible Organizers that Help Kids with Reading, Writing and the Content Areas (2010, Jossey-Bass).
Share your graphic organizer tips and resources in the comments section!

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Use Graphic Organizers for Effective Learning

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My 10-year-old has several learning and processing disabilities but his greatest learning strength is that he is an incredible visual learner. When my son can see and organize information, his ability to learn and comprehend it increases significantly. I am sure that you know kids like my son, Colin, and we have all taught students like him.

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Description
- Children engage in listening and talking about a text that is read aloud.
Advantages
- Enhances imagination and creativity.
- Grows background knowledge.
- Increases students' listening skills.
- Builds classroom community.
Disadvantages-
- Students can get distracted easily.
- Students might not understand the text when it is being read aloud.

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"The single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children. The benefits are greatest when the child is an active participant." (Anderson, Hiebert, Scott, & Wilkinson)

What is an interactive read-aloud?

An interactive read-aloud is a literacy event whereby children actively engage in listening and talking about the text throughout the duration of the read-aloud. In contrast to the traditional read-aloud where children sit quietly as the teacher reads a text in its entirety prior to discussion (if any), the interactive read-aloud invites conversation from cover to cover. The teacher may read aloud a page, a few pages, or several chapters (depending upon the text and the age of the learner) and stop to discuss key ideas, illustrations, or other text features that enhance comprehension, note interesting details, make connections to other texts, or confirm/disconfirm predictions.

It is okay for children to interrupt the reading to share ideas, particularly when viewing an illustrated text or picture book. While teachers are focused on the print, students' eyes and minds are free to wander as they purposefully attend to both oral language and illustrations. It is not uncommon for children to notice the minute details in pictures or think about an illustration in such a way as to fine tune, enhance, or possibly skew the intended meaning of the text. This, of course, serves to heighten understanding and promote grand conversations! Because children are actively participating in meaning making across the text, the time required for an interactive read-aloud is greater than the time required for a traditional read-aloud...but the additional time on the clock is well worth it!

What should I think about when selecting a text for an interactive read-aloud?

Texts you like (or liked as a child)

Texts that are interesting and appealing to students (award winners included)

Texts slightly more challenging than those children can read independently

Texts that build on a topic currently being addressed in the curriculum

Texts beyond fiction and nonfiction books - poetry and interesting/age-appropriate newspaper and magazine articles make for great read alouds too. Remember, non-fiction texts do not have to be read from cover to cover!

Texts that present a new idea or a unique spin on an old idea

Texts with an embedded second language (e.g., Tomas and the Library Lady by Pat Mora)

Texts that are silly, quirky, or just plain fun to experience as a reader and listener

Texts with no words! Illustrations are text too - in a wordless text, illustrations carry the full meaning.

What are some suggestions for interactive read-aloud titles? (Thanks, Pinterest!)
American Library Association Award Winners
Classic Picture Books
Picture Books to Engage Boys
Picture Books to Engage Girls
Favorite Chapter Books
Chapter Books that Appeal to Boys
Chapter Books that Appeal to Girls
Be sure to also check out Kaplan's selection of read-aloud titles!

What are the (research-based) benefits of an interactive read-aloud?

Gives experiences with language that requires students to make sense of ideas. (Trelease, 2013)

Enhances imagination, creativity, memory, and curiosity. (Bridge, 2009)

Grows background knowledge and understanding of universal concepts. (Dyson, 1994)

Helps students make connections across cultures to real life situations. (Barton, 1990)

Increases students' listening skills and attention spans. (Koralek, 2003)

Supports learning about conventions of texts. (Wiseman, 2010)

Permits students to hear what proficient reading sounds like. (Torgesen, 2004)

Introduces students to the pleasures of reading and texts of all kinds. (Barrentine, 1996)

Builds classroom community. (Mooney, 1990).

Promotes discussions about topics in critical and significant ways. (Wisemen, 2010)

Improves independent reading proficiency. (Neuman, 2000)

Encourages children to focus on important text ideas and reflect on them. (Doiron, 1994)

Increases students' interest in independent reading. (Serafini and Giorgis, 2003)

Putting It All Together: (Interactive) Read-Aloud

R - Read various genres with high interest, rich language, and layers of meaning
E - Engage students purposefully in making powerful schema connections
A - Adequate time needed to conduct interactive read-aloud sessions
D - Demonstrate comprehension strategies and reading processes

A - Anticipate need to activate prior knowledge/build schema for understanding
L - Listen to and affirm student discussion contributions
O - Opportunities should be devised to explore text in personal and exciting ways
U - Use good judgment about amount of ongoing interaction throughout read-aloud
D - Decide how to best phrase questions and predicting invitations ahead of time

"You're never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child." - Dr. Seuss

Guest Post by Debbie Linville
Dr. Linville has been teaching for over 30 years and her passion is enabling educators to promote the proficient, joyful reading and writing lives of children.

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Interactive Read-Alouds in the Classroom

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"The single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children. The benefits are greatest when the child is an active participant." (Anderson, Hiebert, Scott, & Wilkinson) An interactive read-aloud is a literacy event whereby children actively engage in listening and talking about the text throughout the duration of the read-aloud.

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Description
- Children work together to create a book. They each do one page.
Advantages
- Promotes team work.
- Lets the students be creative in their own way.
- Allows students to let their imagination take them wherever they want to go.
Disadvantages
- Students can get off task.
- Students might not agree with their group or partner.

Tompkins, Gail E. (2013) 50 Literacy Strategies, Boston, MA: Pearson.

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Description
-A role playing activity that builds children's comprehension. Children assume the role of a main character while the classmates question them.
Advantages
- Engages the students.
- Gets the students excited.
- Lets the students teach other students.
Disadvantages-
- Being on the spot can make students nervous.
- Students might have trouble answering more in depth questions on the spot.

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Are you looking for interactive learning structures that will help your students gain a deeper understanding of content while also developing and practicing higher level thinking skills? The Hot Seat is a strategy I've used successfully across disciplines with 3rd and 4th grade students. I borrowed it from Jeffrey Wilhelm, a well-known secondary level literacy educator, and modified it for use with elementary students.

The basic idea is that a student plays the role of a character (from a book, from history, or any topic they know well) and takes questions from an audience of classmates. For instance, during a unit in which each student chose an animal to research and study, they took turns on the hot seat "being" their animal and answering questions about their adaptations, survival strategies, and so on. The hot seat technique is great for exploring characters' motivations. For example, when we read Skeleton Man, we put the character "Molly" on the hot seat and asked her "Why did you keep coming back to your so-called-uncle's house when your gut told you he wasn't your uncle?"

I found this structure to be a great way to get students to dig deeper and think about what they were learning. It provided opportunities for students to hone their skill at questioning, making inferences, and supporting opinions with evidence from the text. Plus, it was fun and engaging for the child on the hot seat and for the audience.

However, to use this strategy successfully, you'll need to lay some groundwork first. Here are some things to consider:

1. Students have to know how to ask and answer questions, and they should know the difference between questions that have a single, factual answer and questions that require deeper levels of thinking or analysis. I explicitly taught these skills and others such as turn-taking, listening, and referring to a text for evidence to my students. We practiced them in Morning Meeting and at other times as well. If you'd like a guide to teaching fundamental thinking, listening, and speaking skills, I highly recommend the new Responsive Classroom book, The Language of Learning!

2. Adapt the technique to fit your class and your students. With some classes it makes sense to use the classic "one person in the hot seat, everyone else in the audience" format, but you may want to build up to that by doing it first in small groups. One year I had a class where what worked best were partnerships, with each partner assuming the role of a character and the partners asking each other questions. You may have students who will be more at ease in the hot seat if they are part of a panel instead of being alone in the hot seat. (This format is also great for comparing different points of view on the same question: for instance one year my class interviewed a panel of "founding fathers" when they were researching historical figures such as George Washington, Abigail Adams, and Ben Franklin.)

3. Before you put students in the hot seat, use Interactive Modeling to show them exactly how it works and what you expect them to do. Just as it does with other procedures, Interactive Modeling give students an opportunity to observe the teacher doing what they will be doing, to notice in detail what is expected of them, and to practice. (If you haven't thought about using Interactive Modeling to teach academic procedures, here's an article to check out: "Interactive Modeling for Academic Success.")

I'd love to hear about interactive learning structures you use in your classroom and what makes them work!

Tags: Engaging Academics, Language Arts, Public Speaking

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Are you looking for interactive learning structures that will help your students gain a deeper understanding of content while also developing and practicing higher level thinking skills? The Hot Seat is a strategy I've used successfully across disciplines with 3rd and 4th grade students.

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Description
- A word map is a visual organizer that promotes vocabulary development.
Advantages
- Adaptable for all levels of students.
-Engages the students.
-Can be created easily.
Disadvantages
-Hard to read for some students.
- If used for partner work students can get distracted.

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I would love to use this strategy I my 1st grade class as well. Vocabulary is one area my higher level readers need to be challenged in, especially since we are reading 2nd grade level books. I would complete a word map as a group, then let them work in partners.

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Description
-An Anticipation Guide is a series of statements that require students to use their background
knowledge and make predictions.
Advantages
- Helps students to recall prior knowledge.
- Allows students to explore their own thoughts.
- Enhances the student discussion.
Disadvantages
- Prior knowledge of the topic is needed.
- Can not be used during the reading.

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Definition/Description: An anticipation guide is used before reading to activate students' prior knowledge and get students excited and curious about a new topic. Before reading, students listen to the teacher or another student state key ideas about the concepts in the text. They can also read several statements about the key concepts presented in the text. The statements are usually put in a form where student say they agree or disagree (Reading Rockets, 2015).

Justification: "Teacher's can assist children in developing background knowledge by: Including techniques in lessons such as chapter previews or anticipation guides. As students begin to develop a conceptual framework for their own learning and understanding, they build a repertoire of background experiences from which to draw" (Echevarría, Vogt, and Short, 2013, pg.66). Teachers in the lesson are scaffolding and students are actively involved in discussion about each of the statements in the guide. When a teachers scaffolds for his/her students it provides them with the necessary skills and understanding to correctly complete, read, or do the lesson/activity. In this activity the teacher can model or scaffold the material at first, but remove when students start to understand (Wright, 2015). Piaget's schema theory states activating prior knowledge before reading is essential, because according to his research when we can connect something "old" to something new it helps us better understand the new. As students are reading they are able to access their schema and make understand of the text and use their lived experiences. When students and teachers applied schema theory to reading comprehension readers constantly connect their background knowledge to the new knowledge in a text to help them make sense of the reading (Gunning, 2012). Anticipation guides are used to help students activate their prior knowledge to gain a better understanding of the topic. This strategy helps ELLs because they all have different backgrounds, but all of their experiences can be used to help better understand a new concept. According to our text when teachers assist students in developing their background knowledge and using their experience for learning new information it helps them gain a better understand of the content, because they are able to use what they already know (Echevarría, Vogt, and Short, 2013).​

Differentiation for second language learners:

Anticipation guides can be completed orally.

Can be done in groups, or pairs to help foster learning

The number of statements can be modified

Can write in native language (or use pictures)

Use simple sentences so that the student focuses on the content

Use different leveled passages on same content

Examples of Sentence Starters to provide for ELL students or struggling learning:

I think that...

I would feel _____

If ___ happened to me.

___ is more important/better than ___.

I believe...

Steps:

1. "Construct the anticipation guide. Construction of the anticipation guide should be as simple as possible for younger students. Write four to six statements about key ideas in the text; some true and some false. Include columns following each statement, which can be left blank or can be labeled Yes, or No (Maybe can also be used).
NOTE: Teachers may wish to create an additional column for revisiting the guide after the material has been read.

2. Model the process. Introduce the text or reading material and share the guide with the students. Model the process of responding to the statements and marking the columns.

3. Read each of the statements and ask the students if they agree or disagree with it. Provide the opportunity for discussion. The emphasis is not on right answers but to share what they know and to make predictions.

4. Read the text aloud or have students read the selection individually. If reading aloud, teachers should read slowly and stop at places in the text that correspond to each of the statements.

5. Bring closure to the reading by revisiting each of the statements" (Reading Rockets, 2015).

In this video a middle school science teacher explains how she uses an Anticipation Guide to help her students with vocabulary. This video demonstrates how this strategy can be used in other content areas besides just reading.

A suggestion made for teachers to help their English Language learners is to write the anticipation guide in the student's primary language. "The point is to help students connect to what they will be reading in the target language so that they can better comprehend it, so the anticipation guide can be in any language that is well-comprehended by the student"(Every Language Learner, 2015).

Content Area Examples:
Reading:

For reading teachers choose a topic and content area. Then she/he creates a few statements and students determine if they think the statement is true or false. They then continue reading the text and after they are done they see if their predictions are correct. The topic can be on anything and that is why it can relate to any of the other content areas.

Math:

For math there are different ways a teacher can use an anticipation guide. For example when students are learning about a new concept, ex: geometric figures, the teacher can have a set of statements. These statements can include equations, problems, or vocabulary. A teacher can use an anticipation guide to allow students to learn the vocabulary terms within a chapter. A teacher can also use one for word problems. (Take a look at the link below to see an example)

Science:

For Science there are different ways a teacher can use an anticipation guide. One of the most common is to use them for a new unit in learning definitions, main ideas, concepts, and vocabulary. It can also be used during an experiment. For example It can be I think this will happen or I believe this might happen. It can be statements about the outcome, material, or safety rules.

Social Studies:
For Social Students, just like the example at the top about the dessert, an anticipation guide can be done for any topic. It can be vocabulary terms and the definitions. It can be examples or facts about the topic. The example above has statements about the environment, what might be there, etc. Students can learn more and have an idea about what they will be learning through these guides.

http://www.swimmingintosecond.com/2012/02/anticipation-guides.html References:

Anticipation Guide (2015). Every Language Learner. Retrieved form http://www.everylanguagelearner.com/blogs/teaching-tips/tagged/anticipation-guide

Anticipation Guide (2015). Every Language Learner. [image]. Retrieved form http://www.everylanguagelearner.com/blogs/teaching-tips/tagged/anticipation-guide

Anticipation Guide (2015). Reading Rockets. Retrieved from http://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/anticipation_guide
Anticipation Guides (2012). [image of desert example]. Retrieved form

Anticipation Guide (2012). Reading Rockets. [Web video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQCKXQUquTc

Anticipation Guide (n.d). Teacher Toolkit [Web Video]. Retrieved formhttp://www.theteachertoolkit.com/index.php/tool/anticipation-guide​

Echevarría, J., Vogt, M. E., & Short, D. (2013). Making content comprehensible for Elementary English language learners: The SIOP model. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Gunning, T. G. (2012). Creating literacy instruction for all children in grades pre-K to 4. 2nd Edition. Boston: A and B.

Wright, W. E. (2015). Foundations for teaching English language learners: Research, theory, policy, and practice (2nd ed.). Philadelphia: Caslon Pub.

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Definition/Description: An anticipation guide is used before reading to activate students' prior knowledge and get students excited and curious about a new topic. Before reading, students listen to...

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Description
-Are brief teasers that teachers or students give to introduce books and interest the reader.
Advantages:
-Gets the reader excited to read the book.
-Student centered activity.
Disadvantages:
-Giving away the best parts of the book.