Teaching children to think while they listen/read is key to building comprehension proficiency. There are many components to comprehension, but skipping this important step in teaching comprehension can make all other attempts futile. Over the past 26 years as an educator, I have searched for the answer to help young readers understand the art of comprehension. A couple of years ago I stumbled upon a children's book that changed the way I introduce and teach thinking while reading.
I was asked to be a guest reader in a first grade classroom and was browsing new titles in an attempt to share something new and fun. I found a book written by David Ezra Stein called
Interrupting Chicken. What caught me was the cover with its speech bubbles and fantastic illustrations, but little did I know that this book would revolutionize the way I teach my young readers to "understand" what they read. (
At the end of this post I will include some links to some freebies I created for text interaction.)
Day 1: Below is the introduction lesson,
please excuse the poor filming, showing how I use the book to teach students to THINK while listening. Not only does the story model thinking aloud through its storyline, but it lends itself beautifully to personal reactions and helps readers to naturally interact with text. I use manipulatives to help students show their understanding.
Note: These are my 3rd grade Title I students.
Day 2: Our first read aloud book for 3rd grade is called Gloria Rising by Ann Cameron. I chose this book because the readability level is perfect for my particular students and the author does a great job of developing characters that students can relate to. We do quite a bit with characterization in 3rd grade and this book is a great start to that concept.
On this second day of teaching text interaction we reviewed how Little Chicken taught us that in order to interact with text, the reader/listener has to do many things. He has to recall, listen, create, and know when interaction is important to the development of the story.
We started by previewing the text...a must. We looked at the cover and began jotting down our thoughts. We then read the back cover...another must, and jotted down more thoughts. This allows readers to start the process of building background knowledge for the text at hand. Their minds begin to understand and wonder what the book could be about. It's the HOOK that helps reluctant readers WANT to read/listen on. It gives them a purpose for reading.
Just look at all the thoughts they had before even cracking it open!
Day 3: The next day we read chapter 1 together. Before reading we reviewed our thoughts in order to recall our previous thoughts about the book and allow us to possibly find some answers to our questions/thoughts. I used a different color for each student in order to keep track of each of his/her thoughts. My thoughts were modeled in blue. If you notice there were only two other colors used, showing that one student was struggling with the concept. I continued to talk through each student's thoughts asking them to share how they came to that thought.
Day 4: On this day we read chapter 2 together. We reviewed our thoughts from day 3 revisiting the idea that many of our questions were answered within the same chapter. Also that having these questions/thoughts motivates us to want to find out the answers by reading on. As you can see student #3 (green) had a great day! He was now able to participate by sharing some great thoughts about the title of the chapter, The New Pet. He also was able to create a thought about why the main character might not want her onion used, since a famous astronaut touched it making it valuable to her. Yes!
Days 5-8: We used this day to continue reading the story aloud and charting our thoughts together. This lesson's focus was to help deepen our understanding of thinking while listening. Once I felt they were understanding the concept, we moved from writing their thoughts on a chart together to writing down our own thoughts independently in their thinking journals. This type of slow progression from modeled/together type activities to more independent activities helps to scaffold students to become confident with the task which leads to more success overall.
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| I use this version when reading a short story and a blank version when reading a chapter book. Both found below for FREE:) |
Days 9-end of book: These lessons bridged students from reading, sharing, and discussing the story together to allowing students to perform all of these tasks independently. Students spent the next few days reading and writing their thoughts (text interactions) independently. At the end of each day, we came together to share our thoughts and discuss our findings.
Here's Day 1 of Interacting On Our Own!
(Pink Student)
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This student wondered who Gloria had to write to. She is unfamiliar with the idea of having to do "writes". She also is wondering why the teacher is staying after school. While reading she found her answer and noted it. Her teacher had to stay because she had to paint a project.
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(Purple Student)
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| The last thoughts were from this lesson. She wondered if the character was going to stay in her class or go to another one. She also wondered if her new teacher was going to like her. (This will give her something to focus on when reading the next time.) |
(Green Student)
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| This student was the one who was struggling to produce thoughts about the story in the beginning. He is still struggling with his understanding since his thought from reading alone says, Why is she growling at them? This didn't happen, so he is most likely not understanding what his is reading. I will meet with him to have him explain his thinking and review that portion of the story with him to see where the "breakdown" occurred. |
All of them were SO excited to "show off" their new skill! They did a great job! Two
of them came up with quality thoughts about what they read! The best part is that they felt like experienced and confident readers! That is why I firmly believe in scaffolding the process of introducing new comprehension concepts/strategies! So excited for them to utilize this skill with books of their choice!
Exciting News: I learned a nifty new trick while visiting my local Staples! You can use pdf files to create posters! I know...creating posters is not a new idea, but usually they are SO expensive
(not an option for most
teachers on a budget). But the lovely lady in the photo department helped me to create this 24x36 poster for only $6!!! It is an engineering print and believe it or not the quality is unbelievable! I'M HOOKED! Just think how cheap they will be when they run a sale!! I'm stocking up my images for that glorious day.
Next time we work on this skill we will narrow our focus from any thoughts to more specific thoughts such as:
predicting-questioning-inferring-connecting-etc.
Now that they are understanding how to get involved in the listening/reading process, we have opened the door to multiple ways to improve our comprehension skills.
Here's the freebie I promised.
Below is a link to the blank pdf for making recording sheets or that AWESOME poster at Staples!
Until the next strategy...
Jenny :)
