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Who would benefit from reading this book and why?
This book is intended for the reading teacher who wants her students to understand text on a deep level. This book isn't about decoding or using phonetics to read. It's about going beyond the surface, digging deep for meaning. It's about unlocking strategies to understand text, to think critically, to truly read. I've read this book through the lens of an intermediate literacy specialist and can honestly see how anyone in the elementary setting would benefit from reading it. It has lesson examples for kindergarten through sixth grade, even including adult examples. This book is easily digestible, understandable and practical for anyone teaching reading.

What are your big takeaways from this book?
My biggest takeaways from this book is that comprehension strategies unlock the magic of reading, and that teaching strategies is not a "one and done" mentality. It takes practice, practice, and more practice to become well versed in them.

What is your plan to apply what has been learned to your practice?
I've already started using the lessons from this book in my groups! I have checked out books from our library and the public library from the book list, and I've focused on coding and lifting text in nearly all of my groups over the last month. I think this book is just the piece I needed to truly settle into my new position.

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The most complex comprehension strategy to teach, synthesizing information integrates the words and ideas from the text with the thoughts and background information of the reader, creating the best opportunity to achieve new insight.

Depending on the level of the student, different genres should be used for synthesizing. Short texts or articles are best in the beginning, and longer texts can be used as students become well versed in the strategy.

Lesson- Making Synthesizing Concrete Synthesizing is combining all the strategies of reading to come up with new insight. One way to do this is to complete an activity with your class...doing a puzzle, baking a cake, building with Legos, anything that combines parts to make a new whole. Then, you can refer back to the activity when talking about putting it all together during reading.

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Reading a text with the intent of sifting and sorting through information, thus determining what is important to remember and what can be disregarded.

Nonfiction books are essential for practicing this strategy. The list in the back of the book has books selected for teaching content per subject area.

Lesson- Finding Out Important Information Rather than One Main Idea Students are trained early on to find the main idea of a text. This lesson draws attention to the fact that there is often a lot of important information in a text. While reading the same nonfiction book, students are given three sticky notes and draw a big asterisk on each. Then, they read the book on their own, marking three places in the text that they feel is important. Then, coming back together, students discuss where they marked, defending their choices, thus highlighting that there are many important concepts in text.

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Reading between the lines...reading faces, tone, body language, and expressions as well as reading the text.

Dandelion by Eve Bunting

The Rag Coat by Lauren Mills

See the Ocean by Estelle Condra

Lesson- Recognizing Plot and Inferring Themes Themes are the underlying ideas, lessons or morals in a story that give it texture and depth. The themes of a book are not written out, but rather inferred. Teaching students the difference between plot elements and theme is a great way to teach inferring. While doing a read aloud, focus the readers' attention on the bigger ideas in the story by facilitating discussions. Asking probing questions when a student presents an idea (How? Would ___ be a theme?) help to get students to infer themes in their reading.

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Reading books with vivid language in order to create images (or movies) in the mind of the reader.

The Sailor Dog by Margaret Wise Brown

Good Dog Carl by Alexandra Day

A Lucky Thing by Alice Schertle

Lesson- Creating Mental Images that Go Beyond Visualizing When learning to visualize, many students stop at what they can see. But, as adult readers, we know that when we read about pies baking in the oven or steak crackling on the grill, our other senses engage as well. Teaching children to bring these senses into their visualizations bring the movies in their minds into focus in a new way. When doing a reader's response, encouraging kids to respond with "I feel...I see...I smell...I hear...I taste" will enhance their understanding in a whole new way.

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Using our collective and personal experiences to enhance understanding.

Amos and Boris by William Steig

I Hate English by Ellen Levine

The Pain and The Great One by Judy Blume

Lesson- It Reminds Me Of... Making connections comes easily to most readers when reading a memoir. Teaching children to code their connections initially with an "R" for "This reminds me of" is a perfect place to start. Then, encourage the student to focus on how that connection aides in their understanding, because connections are intended to give the reader personal insight into a text that they wouldn't otherwise have, bringing the text to life for the reader. Drawing attention to the three connection types follows shortly after, coding with T/S, T/T and T/W.

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Asking questions and searching for answers means students are monitoring comprehension and interacting with the text to construct meaning.

Charlie Anderson by Barbara Abercrombie

Pink and Say by Patricia Polacco

Storm Boy by Paul Owen Lewis

Something Permanent by Cynthia Rylant

Lesson- Knowing when you know and knowing when you don't know
All readers, adults and children alike, have times of confusion while reading. Teaching children to use the code Huh? helps them monitor their confusion and seek to resolve it. In this lesson, children mark a sticky note with the word "Huh?" at the top. When they find the answer, they reattach their sticky note to that section of the book and draw a lightbulb on it with a brief clarification.

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The meat of this book lies in Part II- Strategy Lessons and More. Each strategy has a section in the book with 6-8 lesson ideas per strategy. The lessons vary from quick hitters to multi-day lessons.

Each strategy follows a specific order. First, the teacher does a think aloud from a book that lends itself to that particular strategy. After introducing the strategy, the teacher does mini-lessons to help the reader lift text, reread, discuss and reason through the text. I like how the book follows the recommended order for introducing strategy instruction, starting with questioning and making connections, moving on to inferring and visualizing, and finally determining importance and synthesizing.

This order makes sense to me because each strategy can't stand alone, and each one gets more complex as the list progresses. Readers tend to naturally connect text to their own experiences, but synthesizing, which is when readers change their thinking and gain new insight, is much more complex.

Below, I've briefly highlighted the main gist of each strategy and provided a few books that lend themselves well to that strategy. I also gave an overview of a lesson that spoke to me for each strategy.

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"No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally (and often more) worth reading at the age of fifty."  -C.S. Lewis

This section of the book spoke to text selection. Stephanie said that her most common questions revolve around what texts to use to teach a certain strategy, so she explains here how she selects books and also includes a book list in the back of the book (super helpful to me, by the way).

The big idea here is to point out to children that there are many different purposes for reading as well as many different ways that people pick books to read. A few of the purposes listed include enjoyment, research, assignments, cooking, and entertainment. Some ways that people pick books are flipping through the pages, reading the back cover or getting recommendations from others.  When we make these things known to children, they realize that they are empowered to choose text to read that is enjoyable to them and that serves it's purpose.

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"When it comes to instruction, it's nearly impossible to be too explicit."

Show, show, show. Model, model, model. Practice, practice, practice. These are the ongoing themes in this book. Stephanie consistently talks about how sometimes the crunch of time makes us as educators rush the modeling section of our lesson. We figure telling the students our expectations is enough and modeling once, if at all, should suffice. What she reminds us, though, is anything done well takes practice to achieve. We don't learn to ski, to cook, to ride a bike, to read, without practicing and watching and observing.

This section of text gives explicit strategies for thinking about reading. From coding text to lifting text, from interactive read alouds to reasoning through text, this section goes in depth about why we need to show kids over and over how we interact with text as adults and to give them plenty of time and opportunity to practice doing the same.

The part that spoke to me in this section of the book is the references to teaching with short text. I've noticed that as kids become more proficient readers, they don't have as much exposure to shorter text. When it comes to reluctant readers, I've noticed that although they don't want to appear different, they are overwhelmed by long texts and can easily lose the "movie in their minds" when trying to tackle it. I think using short, digestible but highly engaging and sophisticated text will help my learners to argue with the author, think critically and go deeper into their reading.

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The beginning section of the book is full of explanations...why do we teach the reading process, why should we focus on content as well as thinking about the reading process, how skilled readers monitor their understanding as they go.

The part that spoke to me in this section was the gradual release of responsibility that needs to happen as students are learning to use a new strategy. First, the teacher needs to show, not tell, how to use a strategy. It's most beneficial to model your thinking as you go, thinking aloud in a genuine way in front of kids. Next, the teacher works alongside the students, supporting, redirecting, answering misconceptions. Next comes independent practice in great volumes...students need many opportunities to practice understanding the reading process on their own before they are able to completely apply the strategy. It doesn't happen overnight, nor does it happen after only modeling the strategy one time. The visual that the book provided was that this gradual release of responsibility is like riding a bike. First, a child needs to watch an adult ride a bike, then they use training wheels, and then they're ready to ride on their own. It's important as an educator that we realize that learning about reading happens slowly, and children need many opportunities to watch, practice and do.

I'm liking reviewing this background knowledge before diving deeper into specific lessons regarding the comprehension strategies highlighted in the book. I know what she's talking about, and I honestly feel like it's the way I teach, but having a fresh look on it through the upper elementary lens is very beneficial for me.

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Why did you pick this book? What are you hoping to gain by reading it? How does it connect to how you want to grow as a professional?

Last year was a big year of growth professionally for me. I left the comfort of what I was good at...teaching our youngest learners to read, write, and think in a whole classroom setting. Now, I was in a new position, working with the older learners, part time, small groups. It couldn't have been more different. I quickly realized that reading is reading, and I could rely on all the experience I had in my back pocket to navigate my new role. But now, as my maternity leave is behind me and the year is new again, I'm ready to expand what I know and what I am going to do with kids. I want to read Stephanie Harvey's book through an intermediate intervention lens. How can I help kids pull information from the text, enhance their comprehension, and carry skills they learn with me over to their classroom performance? How can I make the time spent in my room meaningful and beneficial to the overall student, translating into better scores and more quality work? My goal this year is to continue to grow into my role as an intermediate interventionist, becoming a better, more qualified support for our struggling learners.