Wagon Wheel Comprehension

Question: How help students organize comprehension of an article or chapter?

Answer/Quote: “I took a wagon wheel, wrote a concept in the hub, made 6 spokes, and put who, what, where, when, why, and how on each spoke. Then I drew another circle at the end of each spoke to contain the relevant data. The child would fill out the circles with the information given. What data each could not fill in would be what the child needed to learn.” P.490.

Comment: Try it yourself first. RayS.

Title: “Wagon Wheels and Writing.” C Feddersen. Reading Teacher (January 1988), 490-491.

Writing Process for Young Children

Question: How can teachers help young children experience the writing process?

Answer/Quote: “Tell children that their first writings are drafts or Sloppy Copies. Then you edit the stories for them, or edit the stories with them, or eventually encourage them to edit their own writings so that all is correct and universally understandable.” P. 489.

“The student writers should then re-write the stories into Glory Stories just the way all authors do.” P. 489.

 Title: “Sloppy Copy to Glory Story.” MD Bergenske. Reading Teacher (January 1988), 489.

Jeopardy and Comprehensionh

Question: How can young students improve their comprehension?

Answer: Give students the answer and have them formulate the question.

Title: “What’s the Question to That Answer?” LR Gauthier. Reading Teacher (January 1988), 487-488.

Writing and Show and Tell

Question: How can a teacher add writing to Show-and-Tell?

Answer: “Many kindergarten and primary classrooms include a sharing period during the school day. By adding a written text, teachers can easily use sharing sessions to involve print awareness….” P. 486.

“The only material needs are paper 6” x 9” or larger and a magic marker. After each student shares an experience, discovery or treasure, the teacher writes a sentence or two that summarizes her/his topic.” P. 487.

 “Reread the text as a group and make sure that the student who has shared can read it independently.” P. 487.

Title: “Show and Tell, Write and Read.” BM Britt. Reading Teacher (January 1988), 486-487.

NOTE: Taking a four-day Thanksgiving Holiday. RayS.

Fluency

Question: Want to make fluency training more interesting?

Answer: “We wanted to give our 1^st and 2^nd graders opportunity to practice reading aloud so that they could develop fluency and comprehension, but the usual methods weren’t working too well. Round robin reading, for example, is painfully slow and needlessly stressful. And while repeated readings of the same story are claimed to be effective, when we tried having the children do repeated readings of the basal stories, they showed a distinct lack of motivation.” P. 485.

“Readers’ Theatre whereby a favorite story, like Ira Sleeps Over by Bernard Weber, is turned into a script. Since the children act with just their voices, this seemed a logical way to expand on the excitement of the play format without the hassle of costumes, props and scenery.” P. 485.

“When the children after sufficient practice, presented their Readers’ Theatre to their classmates, they were met with an overwhelming positive response.” P. 485.

Title: “Grades 1 and 2 Love Readers’ Theatre.” S Bennett and K Beatty. Reading Teacher (January 1988), 485.

Reading, Writing and Ideas

Question: What are children doing when they read and write?

Answer/Quote: “One cannot separate learning to read from learning to write. Children must understand that they do not read reading, but that they read ideas. Children should know that writers begin with ideas, express those ideas with language, and share them in print. The reader begins with the print, discovers the writer’s language, and then understands the writer’s ideas through the reader’s background of experience. Children need to understand that because they are writing ideas when they compose, they are also reading ideas when they read.” P. 456.

Comment: I think this passage suggests the true nature of reading and writing and says it eloquently. The source of both reading and writing is ideas. RayS.

Title: “When the Principal Asks: ‘Why Are Your Kids Singing During Reading Time?’ ” Bill Harp. Reading Teacher (January 1988), 454-456.

Reading Pictures

Question: What can young children reveal about their readiness for school from “reading” and interpreting pictures?

Answer/Quote: “Among the various learning skills that first graders bring with them into the classroom, the ability to interpret or ‘read a picture’ has been suggested as an indicator of school readiness. … Indeed, according to Monroe (1951, p. 75) ‘a child’s verbal interpretation of a picture gives the teacher the opportunity to observe several aspects of language in a single, very simple, informal test.’ Additionally, Porter (1968) recommends that teachers provide varied opportunities for reading and interpreting pictures in order to prepare children for the necessary visualizations required in reading.” P. 3.

Comment: Interesting idea. RayS.

Title: “Ability to ‘Read a Picture’ in Disadvantaged First Grade Children.” NC Aliotti. Reading Teacher (October 1970), 3-6.