Why teach syllables?

Closed syllables

Vowel-Consonant-e (VCe) syllables

Open syllables

Vowel team syllables

Vowel-r syllables

Consonant-le (C-le) syllables

• recognizing which words in a set of words begin with the same sound ("Bell, bike, and boy all have /b/ at the beginning.")
• isolating and saying the first or last sound in a word ("The beginning sound of dog is /d/." "The ending sound of sit is /t/.")
• blending the separate sounds in a word to say the word ("/m/, /a/, /p/ – map.")
• segmenting a word into its separate sounds ("up – /u/, /p/.")

• Attending to unfamiliar words and comparing them with known words
• Repeating and pronouncing words correctly
• Remembering (encoding) words accurately so that they can be retrieved and used
• Differentiating words that sound similar so their meanings can be contrasted

As a special education teacher, I spend most of my small group reading time doing guided reading. Those students who need comprehension work over phonics, this the best way to get students to read at grade level. It does take planning and thinking about where students are going. One thing that has become a great help in planning is my Fountas & Pinnell Guided Reading Questions and Checklist (click on the picture). It has the reading levels A-Z. I use them when I'm planning groups and looking forward to where they are headed. I use it for daily targets and cross them off when students have mastered a skill. Click on the picture to go to my store.

Guided reading is a procedure that enables the teacher to observe, teach and support a small group of children as they develop an understanding of the reading processes and put into practice their literacy skills. The group reads a book which has been carefully selected based on students' strengths and needs. The teacher facilitates discussion and guides and directs the readers. Groups are formed according to children’s needs and the purpose of the session.

Essential Components of Guided Reading

1. Explicit small group instruction
2. Text matches student’s reading instructional levels and are selected by the teacher
3. Teacher introduces a new book
4. Each child reads the whole text and applies known strategies (the goal is for the student to eventually read the book silently and independently)
5. Teacher assists students in developing self-extending strategies (strategies that the student knows and continues to extend or improve on and apply in different situations)
6. Children are grouped and regrouped based on ongoing assessment of students reading level and strategy growth

Objectives:

• To teach reading strategies while engaging in meaningful reading and writing
• To model strategy use that will facilitate students becoming self-extending readers
• To teach letter/sound relationships within the context of a text as well as with alphabet drill
• To practice fluent reading
• To utilize daily running records as a monitor of student progress, data-driven acceleration within flexible groups, and cue and strategy use
• To scaffold strategy use by readers that allows for “cutting edge” growth
• To provide a supportive, successful reading time that allows students to perceive themselves as readers and writers

Traditional vs. Guided Reading Groups: What’s the Difference?
Traditional Guided Reading

o Groups remain stable in a composition; progress through the same phase at the same rate
o Groups are based on general ability
o One kind of grouping prevails
o Students progress through a fixed sequence of books and skills
o Introduction focuses on new vocabulary
o Selections are usually read once or twice
o Skills practice follows reading
o Focus is on the lesson, not the student
o Teachers follow prepared “script” from a teacher’s guide
o Questions are generally limited to factual recall
o Teacher verifies meaning
o Students take turns reading orally
o Students respond to story in workbooks or on prepared worksheets
o Readers are dependent on teacher direction and support
o Students are tested on skills and literal recall at the end of each story unit
o Evaluation based on progress through a set group of materials and tests
o Groups are dynamic, flexible and change on a regular basis
o Groups are based on strengths in the reading process and the appropriate level of text difficulty
o Groupings for other purposes are used
o Books are chosen at the appropriate level for each group; there is no prescribed sequence and books may overlap but generally are not the same for every group
o Difference in sequence of books is expected
o Introduction focuses on meaning with some attention to new and interesting vocabulary
o Many frequently used words but vocabulary is not artificially controlled
o Selections reread several times for fluency and problem solving
o Skills practice is embedded in shared reading skills; teaching directly related to text
o Questions develop higher order thinking skills and strategic reading
o Teacher and student interact with the text to construct meaning
o Students read entire text silently or with a partner
o Focus is on understanding meaning and the strategies used to construct it
o Students respond to story though personal and authentic activities
o Students read independently and confidently
o Assessment is ongoing and embedded in instruction
o Assessment is based on daily observation and systematic individual assessment

Guided Reading Lessons with Experimental Readers
Experimental Reader

Before Reading

Lesson focus: From ongoing assessment in previous lesson ask:
• What knowledge and understandings do students already have about reading?
• What strategies are students using to read?
• What attitudes do students have about reading?
• What do students need to know next?
• What reading behaviors need to be reinforced?

Select an appropriate book or text to match the purpose of the lesson. The purpose could be to introduce or develop further understanding of a story, a topic, a theme, an author, language patterns, or conventions, or a particular reading strategy.

Introduction

• Set purpose for reading by discussing title and main idea
• Provide any essential knowledge that will assist their understanding of new concept or vocabulary
• Link prior knowledge and experience
• Talk through the story looking at pictures and asking students to make predictions
• Engage students by asking critical thinking questions as they “walk and talk” through the pictures
• Call attention to frequently used words of new vocabulary

During Reading

Read the Text

• Read the text together (e.g. choral, echo, or shadow reading)
• Model, prompt, and reinforce the use of reading strategies
• If appropriate, set a focus question and ask students to whisper read a section of the text (1-2 pages)
• Discuss the story by first answering the focus question
• Elicit further discussion by asking students to ask some of their own questions
• Continue this format to read the remainder of the text
• Revisit the text to confirm or revise predictions
• Talk about strategies used to gain understanding, e.g. how did you work that out?

After Reading

Reflect

• Model and elicit a brief group retell to foster comprehension through prompts, use of text, and illustrations
Respond-- skills & strategy lesson
• Teach skill/ strategy lesson based on assessment and individual observation obtained from reading of text
• Confirm and adjust predictions as a group
• Engage student in self- assessment
• Practice and reinforce high frequency word in second reading
• Reinforce reading strategies
• Reread one or more times to promote fluency

Extend

• Elicit response in a variety of ways: discussion, question and answer, etc.
• Offer opportunities for students to respond through writing, drawing, painting, dramatizing, etc.

Revisit: Encourage students to:

• Reread/practice familiar text
• Reread as a group or independently
• Reread independently at home to a parent

Assessment

• Running records should be done weekly on seen text for which instruction was provided
Guided Reading Lessons with Early Readers and Transitional Readers

Early Readers Transitional Reader

Before Reading

Lesson focus: From ongoing assessment in previous lesson ask:
• What knowledge and understandings do students already have about reading?
• What strategies are students using to read?
• What attitudes do students have about reading?
• What do students need to know next?
• What reading behaviors need to be reinforced?
Select appropriate book or text to match the purpose of the lesson. The purpose could be to introduce or to develop further understanding of a story, a topic, a theme, an author, language patterns, or conventions, or a particular reading strategy.

Introduction:

• Set purpose for reading by having students read the title, author, look at illustrations and predict main idea
• Link prior knowledge and experience
• Provide any essential knowledge that will assist their understanding of new material concepts or vocabulary
• Engage students by asking critical thinking questions and guiding them to pose their own critical questions

During Reading

Read the text:

• set a focus question and ask students to whisper read or read silently a section of the text (gradually increase the length of the portion read)
• Elicit other questions from students
• Expect students to begin using reading strategies with less guidance
• Confirm or revise predictions
• Reread one or more times to promote fluency
• Talk about strategies used to gain understanding, e.g. how did you work that out?
• Encourage students to complete the reading of the text independently

After Reading

Reflect:

• Guide students to retell story including beginning, middle, end, characters, sequence of events, main idea, and supporting details without support of text or pictures
• Model summarization and making inferences using narrative and expository text
• Model summarizations, inference making, compare/contrast, cause effect, problem/solution using narrative and expository text

Respond-Skill/Strategy:

• Teach skill/strategy lesson based on assessment and individual need obtained from ongoing assessment. Check for understanding by asking students to support answers based on text
• Discuss reading strategies
• Engage in discussion and student in self-assessment
• Revisit prediction and critical thinking questions
• Discuss different student interpretations of text

Extend

• Elicit responses in a variety of ways: discussion, journal entry, illustration, diary, story maps, written summaries, plot profiles, literacy letters, reports writing, project work, drama
• Retelling, either from the original text or with variation (e.g., change the point of view, change the form, change a character, or change the ending)
• Lead the students in shared responses. Shared responses provide a real audience for responses and encourage a high standard of presentation.

Revisit

• Provide students with multiple opportunities to read independently in school and or at home
Assessment
• Monitor student comprehension and strategies weekly through miscue analysis, written responses, individual cloze activities, story maps, plot profiles, oral reports or student self-as.

What are letter-sound correspondences?

Letter-sound correspondences involve knowledge of the sounds represented by the letters of the alphabet the letters used to represent the sounds.

Why is knowledge of letter-sound correspondences important?

Knowledge of letter-sound correspondences is essential in reading and writing
In order to read a word:

• the learner must recognize the letters in the word and associate each letter with its sound
• In order to write or type a word:
• the learner must break the word into its component sounds and know the letters that represent these sounds.

Knowledge of letter-sound correspondences and phonological awareness skills are the basic building blocks of literacy learning. These skills are strong predictors of how well students learn to read.


What sequence should be used to teach letter-sound correspondence?
Letter-sound correspondences should be taught one at a time.  As soon as the learner acquires one letter sound correspondence, introduce a new one. I suggest teaching the letters and sounds in this sequence: a, m, t, p, o, n, c, d, u, s, g, h, i, f, b, l, e, r, w, k, x, v, y, z, j, q

This sequence was designed to help learners start reading as soon as possible. Letters that occur frequently in simple words (e.g., a, m, t) are taught first. Letters that look similar and have similar sounds (b and d) are separated in the instructional sequence to avoid confusion. Short vowels are taught before long vowels.

Lower case letters are taught first since these occur more frequently than upper case letters. The sequence is intended as a guideline. Modify the sequence as required to accommodate the learner’s
prior knowledge, interests, hearing.


Is it appropriate to teach letter names as well as letter sounds?
Start by teaching the sounds of the letters, not their names.  Knowing the names of letters is not necessary to read or write.  Knowledge of letter names can interfere with successful decoding.
For example, the learner looks at a word and thinks of the names of the letters instead of the sounds.

Sample goal for instruction in letter-sound correspondences:
The learner will listen to a target sound presented orally identify the letter that represents the sound
select the appropriate letter from a group of letter cards, an alphabet board, or a keyboard with at least 80% accuracy.

Instructional Task:
Here is an example of instruction to teach letter-sound correspondences. The instructor introduces the new letter and its sound shows a card with the letter m and says the sound “mmmm.” After practice with this letter sound, the instructor provides review.

The instructor says a letter sound
The learner listens to the sound, looks at each of the letters provided as response options, selects the correct letter, from a group of letter cards, from an alphabet board, or from a keyboard.


Instructional Procedure:
The instructor teaches letter-sound correspondences using these procedures:
Model
The instructor demonstrates the letter-sound correspondence for the learner.
Guided practice:
The instructor provides scaffolding support or prompting to help the learner match the letter and sound correctly.
The instructor gradually fades this support as the learner develops competence.
Independent practice:
The learner listens to the target sound and selects the letter independently. The instructor monitors the learner’s responses and provides appropriate feedback.

The Alphabetic Principle Plan of Instruction:
Teach letter-sound relationships explicitly and in isolation. Provide opportunities for children to practice letter-sound relationships in daily lessons. Provide practice opportunities that include new sound-letter relationships, as well as cumulatively reviewing previously taught relationships.
Give children opportunities early and often to apply their expanding knowledge of sound-letter relationships to the reading of phonetically spelled words that are familiar in meaning.

Rate and Sequence of Instruction
No set rule governs how fast or how slow to introduce letter-sound relationships. One obvious and important factor to consider in determining the rate of introduction is the performance of the group of students with whom the instruction is to be used. Furthermore, there is no agreed upon order in which to introduce the letter-sound relationships. It is generally agreed, however, that the earliest relationships introduced should be those that enable children to begin reading words as soon as possible. That is, the relationships chosen should have high utility. For example, the spellings m, a, t, s, p, and h are high utility, but the spellings x as in box, gh, as in through, ey as in they, and a as in want are of lower utility.

It is also a good idea to begin instruction in sound-letter relationships by choosing consonants such as f, m, n, r, and s, whose sounds can be pronounced in isolation with the least distortion. Stop sounds at the beginning or middle of words are harder for children to blend than are continuous sounds.
Instruction should also separate the introduction of sounds for letters that are auditorily confusing, such as /b/ and /v/ or /i/ and /e/, or visually confusing, such as b and d or p and g.

Instruction might start by introducing two or more single consonants and one or two short vowel sounds. It can then add more single consonants and more short vowel sounds, with perhaps one long vowel sound. It might next add consonant blends, followed by digraphs (for example, th, sh, ch), which permits children to read common words such as this, she,and chair. Introducing single consonants and consonant blends or clusters should be introduced in separate lessons to avoid confusion.

The point is that the order of introduction should be logical and consistent with the rate at which children can learn. Furthermore, the sound-letter relationships chosen for early introduction should permit children to work with words as soon as possible.

Many teachers use a combination of instructional methods rather than just one. Research suggests that explicit, teacher-directed instruction is more effective in teaching the alphabetic principle than is less-explicit and less-direct instruction.

Guidelines for Rate and Sequence of Instruction

Recognize that children learn sound-letter relationships at different rates. Introduce sound-letter relationships at a reasonable pace, in a range from two to four letter-sound relationships a week.
Teach high-utility letter-sound relationships early. Introduce consonants and vowels in a sequence that permits the children to read words quickly. Avoid the simultaneous introduction of auditorily or visually similar sounds and letters. Introduce single consonant sounds and consonant blends/clusters in separate lessons. Provide blending instruction with words that contain the letter-sound relationships that children have learned.

This month I'm highlighting 3 projects or ideas that I plan to do with my students when they come back. I have talked in the past about how my students need to work on both language skills and build their sight word and word work knowledge.






 Before going to Christmas Break, I took some time and broke about all their running records. I looked at the errors they made as well as looking at the average errors made across all the running records I made for each reading level. So, my student reading at 10s--I looked at his errors, his error average since starting 10s, and an average of how long it took him to read 10s. I then asked myself why he was doing what he was doing. After all that I created a plan and a SMART goal for January. I normally don't plan out what books a student is going to read since with Guided Reading  I let the reader determine the path we take each week. But in this case because I set a SMART goal to more each student a reading level by the end of the month, I'm creating a plan for the month and hoping students blow the goal out of the water.

So what do I put inside of my folders for my students. In this case, I went back to my running records and looked at the errors they were making. Though they are at different reading levels, the error patterns were more or less the same--sight words and vocabulary. Like the one below, I used a circle map and the vocabulary from each book. I created maps specific to the book, so that my students could cut out the pictures and place them on the circle map.

 For sight word practice I created a play on this read, stamp, and write to help students work on sight words instead. We don't use Houghton Mifflin and have a building wide sight word list that they need to master. Each list has been tailored to each student to focus on the ones they need to learn.



A freebie for stopping by:

Working in a small district, my Speech-Language Pathologist is only in the building a couple days a week. Which makes collaboration with her very hard. I have a couple of students who have significant expressive language delays that make learning and making progress in reading very difficult for them.

I have used some of these activities to build both background knowledge and vocabulary to help with their comprehension of what they are reading. I have found that their first reads or cold reads of an instructional level text are at a frustrational read but by the second read its an instructional level. My SLP believes that this is because of their language delays.

I have decided to make a point at the beginning of each book to focus on their expressive language as part of their pre-reading. My hope is that by the end of the month these students have moved up a reading level.

Strategies to Develop Expressive Language Skills in the Classroom

• Opportunities to speak and time to rehearse before speaking
• Visual clues to help children order ideas effectively before expressing them
• Vocabulary lists to help with word finding difficulties. Use appropriate and consistent vocabulary
• Color coding different groups of words/sets of pictures
• Giving correct models of language structures
• Repetition and reinforcement of correct language structures
• Small group work to give children confidence to express themselves
• Appropriate questioning to give children the opportunity to reply
• Self-questioning and the development of learning scripts (e.g. What do I know already? What do I do next?)
• Rhymes
• Word play
• Restrict your language to short unambiguous language
• Story telling – cutting up picture segments and retelling stories
• Try and keep children ‘on topic’. Be specific, remind children e.g. ‘We are talking about…’
• Discussing what they have seen or done with an adult or more verbally able peer
• Puppet play/drama etc.
• Sharing books
• Revise links and associations between ideas and vocabulary – categorization/function/
• context/similarity/association
• As part of the partnership approach, it is important to detail which of these strategies have been most effective.

Barrier games

• This can be used for both talking and listening. The child or children either side of the barrier have identical sets of equipment.
• One child has a picture or constructs an assembly of objects and then gives instructions to the other to enable him/her to duplicate the picture or assembly.

How do I feel?

• In a small group imagine a situation and talk about how you would each feel and what you might say (speech bubbles resource is good here).

Silly Stories

• Collection of objects/pictures, e.g., horse, lady, man, child, dog, ball, pirate, dinosaur.  Adult starts story “Once upon a time there was a dinosaur”. Next child (house) continues the story “He lived in a house made of chocolate”.  Next child (ball) “One day he found a ball under his bed” …..

Narrative

• Color Coding approach.  Children take one color question ‘Who, What, Where, When’ and sequence a story using their own ideas.
• Mind Map Activities: An excellent way for supporting new vocabulary and talking.

Defining and describing

• Have a range of objects in a bag or a range of pictures. One child takes an object or picture and is allowed to give 3 pieces of information to describe their item. The rest guess.

Question Question

• Barrier game. Once child has an object or picture and the rest ask questions to find out what it is. You cannot say the name of the item.
• A good resource is Clowning Around or Guess Who?

What do you know?

• Use a composite picture and take turns in the group (mini circle time). Each child giving a new piece of information about the picture. Extend by talking about a particular object or event in which everyone has been involved.
• Tell me how to do it
• Use a classroom activity or event which has already been experienced and get a child to re-tell the event in his/her own words.
• Allow a child to explain to the others how to play a particular game.

Conversation

• In a small group it is possible to think about how we behave during a conversation and make explicit the skills we need. There are a couple of good resources for this.

Being mid-year, I find that I'm explaining why I'm selecting the text that I am. I walked into out book room and someone asked what I was looking for and I said no more than 2 words on a page with strong (if not in your face) picture support. I have a student that I've been working with on not adding to the text (she loves adding extra words to the story). The teacher in the book room pointed my to the a shelf on Level As. Knowing what text looks like at each level helps me find the right text for each group. I hope this helps you out or something you can share with parents.

Early Emergent Readers (Levels aa-C)

·         increasingly more lines of print per page
·         more complex sentence structure
·         less dependency on repetitive pattern and pictures
·         familiar topics but greater depth
·         beginning to use knowledge of letter sounds to solve unknown words
·         uses language, memory, pictures, and print as major cues to read and understand text
·         is able to predict what comes next

Early Fluent Readers (Levels K-P)

·         More pages
·         Longer sentences
·         More text per page
·         Richer vocabulary
·         Greater variation in sentence pattern
·         Less reliance on pictures
·         More formal and descriptive language
·         Analyzes new words and checks them against what makes sense and sounds right
·         Uses meaning to begin to self-correct
·         Uses known words and word parts to figure out unknown words
·         Begins to retell the major points of the text
·         Decreases the use of finger pointing as fluency and phrasing increase
·         Uses prior knowledge and own experience to make meaning

Fluent Readers (Levels Q-Z)

·         More text
·         Less familiar, more varied topics
·         Challenging vocabulary
·         More complex sentences
·         Varied writing styles
·         More description
·         Reads silently; reads fluently when reading aloud
·         Initiates topics for discussion about books
·         Begins to use comprehension strategies (retelling, monitoring for meaning, making connections, making mental images, making/revising/confirming predictions, questioning, determining importance, inferring, summarizing, synthesizing, critically evaluating) across genre and subjects
·         Consistently develops new strategies and new knowledge of texts as he/she encounters greater
variety of texts
·         Is in a continuous process of building background knowledge and realizes that he/she needs to
bring his/her knowledge to his/her reading
·         Sustains interest and understanding over long texts and reads over extended periods of time
·         Notices and comments on aspects of the writer’s craft

I hope everyone has a great week going into Christmas Break. Have a great holiday break and enjoy the Sight Word freebie below.

What is Guided Reading?

It would come to no surprise to anyone that summarizing becomes more complex as a reader moves from a beginning readers of Level A/1 to those reading at Level 38/P. This makes teaching this reading comprehension skill to a group of readers that span three years-18/J to 28/M to 38/P. (What was I thinking when I agreed to try this?) But this group has made progress than I would have guessed. They have risen to the challenge.

As I started thinking about how I was going to plan the next few weeks with this group, I went back to Fountas and Pinnell's Continuum of Literacy Learning, to see what the summarizing targets looked like. In this case, its the depth that students need to have. (This is a great resource!)

This means my models need to include two different ideas: 1) focusing one beginning, middle, end, with characters, problem, solution, and characters; 2) focusing on summarizing longer texts being more chapter based.

Next, problem what does the summary need to look like and how do I want them to know when they have met the target. But first, I need to find my mentor text to support my modeled lessons. (I could hold story hour for them and they would never mind not working:-))

Knowing I need at least four books covering several different reading levels:


These ones will provide me with different examples for my students.










With models in hand, how do I want students to write their summaries. They will also need the rubric and success criteria. (This is a new push for more. As a building we have just taken on Learning Targets--which   my students have loved. This is a tough challenge.) This is success criteria example of a 4 using the DRA scaffolded summary template.

 I'll share the examples the group puts together. Have a great week.

This week I'm changing one of my guided reading groups to not guided reading but guided reading. Confused yet? I was when I was asked to make this change. I have three readers that are outliers and if I had tons of time to give each one on one guided reading I would.

First off, I had to find a common overarching strategy that they all needed to work on but the text level didn't matter. After looking at their reading data and talking with my coach, synthesis was decided on.

Next, finding text that would fit each and allow me to target synthesis. This took some looking but after some time I found three that would fit the bill. Once, I had the books, I crafted questions that would target the skill. I put the questions on return address labels, so I could put the questions in each students reader's response journal.

Before starting the lesson, I told the group that we were going to do some playing. (As I had never done this before.) Because this was new and I would most likely be making changes as the week went on. They were cool with this and couldn't wait.

I started the lesson by creating an anchor chart. I made the pieces large enough to add specific story element information. We used Tacky the Penguin. I wrapped up the lesson by asking the girls to change the end of the story to where the hunters didn't run away.

Day Two: With the questions matching everyone's own books on stickies, students knew what they were reading for. They also had to complete--a four square. (character, setting, problem/solution) This gave me the time to go around, having each one read to me and a chance to ask specific questions about each book, clear up any confusion, and talk about the questions they had to answer by the end of the book. Just like any other guided group! (I got this!) I closed the lesson, by bringing them back to the anchor chart and talking about what they knew of their characters. They had not finished their books and I was laying the groundwork for the next day.

Some sentence frames I used for synthesizing:
-If _____________________, then then the outcome maybe _______________________.
-What would happen if __________.

Its important to remember that synthesis is taking multiple strategies to construct new insight and meaning as more information and ideas are added to a reader's background knowledge. My group of sixth graders, needed a visual to see what I meant when I explained  synthesis. I gave them a couple of different pictures like making cookies or a pizza. All the ingredients are comprehension strategies and the finished product is synthesis. This group of 5th graders sees synthesis as an banana split.

  This week we are going back and doing prediction. With the overall target being synthesis and the daily target being prediction. I'm hoping that this works as I continue to work out the kinks. I'll let you know. Have a great week.

This week I have a group of students who are going to move into inferring. Last year, this was one of the best units I taught. I loved watching students make connections between their background knowledge and what they could out of the text. This year, I'm looking to expand what I used.

Why do Student's Need Inferring:

All reading is an active, reflective, problem-solving process. We do not simply read words; we read ideas, thoughts that spring from the relationships of various assertions. The notion of inference equations is particularly powerful in this regard. Readers can use the notion of inference equations to test whether or not the ingredients for a given inferences are indeed present. To show lying, for instance, a text must show that someone made a statement that they knew was incorrect and that they made that assertion with the specific purpose of deception. If they did not know it was wrong at the time, it’s an error, not a lie. If they did not make the statement for the specific purpose of deception, we have a misstatement, not lying.

How Can Inferring Help Writing:

The notion of inference equations is equally useful for writing. Writers must assure that the ingredients of the equation are present and clear, and that the desired relationships are signaled in a clear and effective way. As writers, we must be aware that our readers will interpret our thoughts.

We must strive to make our meaning as clear as possible. We must provide sufficient examples to make our ideas clear, as well as to short-circuit undesired interpretations. We must recognize what evidence is necessary and sufficient for our purpose, and assure that it is included.

And we must choose our terms carefully for accuracy and clarity of meaning, and spell out our exact thoughts in as much detail as possible. We must recognize biases our readers might bring to the text and explain and support our evidence as much as our conclusions. The advice: Buy diapers.

I think I'm going to start out with this video. This video is about synthesizing is closely linked to evaluating. This is a great way to show students how thinking should change as we read...often to a deeper understanding. As older students read more complex plots they will learn to expect the unexpected, inferring meanings and pick up on foreshadowing.


This will make a great opening to the week and help them think outside the box.

From the video, what else do I need to do. Well, I want proficient readers. Proficient readers understand that writers often tell more than they actually say with words. They give you hints or clues that allow you to draw conclusions from information that is implied. Using these clues to “read between the lines” and reach a deeper understanding of the message is called inferring.

Students need to learn how to infer so that they can go below the surface details to see what is actually implied (not stated) within the words of the story. Some meanings are meant to be implied – that is not stated clearly but they are hinted at. When meanings are implied, you have to infer them.

Students make inferences every day without even thinking about it. For example, you can ask children to imagine they are sitting at their desk doing their homework when they hear a loud booming sound and hear pattering against the window. They don’t actually see anything, but they can infer there is a thunderstorm outside. All students recognize the sounds of thunder. They know heavy rain makes a pattering sound. And they know that any time the two go together there is almost a thunderstorm going on.
Inferring with context clues

One way students can infer a word meaning is from context clues within the text. Students have to learn how to work out meanings from these clues. There’s several ways to do this.They can simply make an educated guess using the hints given before the unknown word and the sentences that follow the word. Asking questions is one way to unravel these clues.

I have some ideas for guided reading:
These questions will be very helpful while we are reading to work through unknown words and what they mean. During the guided reading session, the teacher should have these question stems available when students find a word they don’t know the meaning of.   The teacher pauses the reading and chooses the appropriate question to ask.
“What do you think the word means considering (a certain action or event) has happened?
“How do you know that the word means (insert definition)?”
“What part of the text helps you make this inference?”
“Where can you find other clues to help you understand?”
“If you substitute what you think is a similar word, would the sentence still make sense?”

My goals for my students include:

• Draw conclusions about their reading by connecting the text with their background knowledge
• Synthesize new ideas and information
• Create unique understandings of the text they are reading
• Make predictions about the text, confirm or disconfirm those predictions based on textual
• information, and text their developing comprehension of the text as they read
• Extend their comprehension beyond literal understandings of the printed page