2. Author Says/I Say
• Reading is like having a conversation with an author
• The Author Says/I Say strategy uses a chart to guide students in
constructing meaning from a written text
3. Author Says/I Say Comprehension
Processes
I wonder… The Author
Says…
I Say… And So…
Questioning Determining
Importance
Making
Connections to
Prior Knowledge
Inferring
Synthesizing
New
Understandings
4. Example (Talking your way through a text):
Author Says/I Say Chart for a Culinary Arts
Article
I wonder… The Author
Says…
I Say… And So…
How widespread
is unsafe food?
Each year, 76
million American
get sick from
food causes,
300,000 are
hospitalized, and
5,000 die
I remember
tainted spinach
killing some
people, and I
also recall pet
food that was
contaminated
It seems like we
are taking food
safety for
granted when we
really shouldn’t
be!
5. Author Argues/I Say Chart for the
Seneca Falls Declaration
The Author Argues I Say… And So…
“The history of mankind
is a history of repeated
injuries and
usurpations on the part
of man toward woman,
having in direct object
the establishment of an
absolute tyranny over
her.”
I hear about women
being treated unfairly
or being victimized
nearly every day.
Women still have very
few rights in many
parts of the world.
I know we’ve made
progress in this
country, but I would
argue that we still don’t
have full equality. And
tyranny is a good word
to describe what a lot
of women have to put
up with in many
contries.
6. Author Says/ I Say Steps
• Introduce the Author Says/I Say Chart
• Model the strategy with a think aloud
• Provide ample opportunities to practice using the strategy
7. Say Something Read-Aloud
• Place students in pairs
• The reader reads a paragraph aloud to his or her partner.
• The listener then makes a commnet about what was read:
• Comment on interesting material
• Make a prediction
• Wonder about something stated
• Identify confusing information
• Relate information in the paragraph to personal background experiences or
knowledge
8. Advantages
• Reminds students that reading involves a mental conversation
between and author and reader.
• Provides students with cues that guide them into accessing implict
layers of meaning that necessitate inferential thinking
• Students verbalize their understandings as they sum up what they
have gained from the reading
9. Ketch (2005)
• Relates to the Say Something Read-Aloud Strategy
• Ketch (2005): “Students actively engaged in the conversation process
can, over time, become reflective, critical thinkers.”
• Student conversations are critical for comprehension
10. Cognitive Strategies
• Readers question while reading. Students should be aware of their
own questioning. These questions guide the reader to search for
additional information.
• Determining Importance is a key strategy for comprehension. Readers
sort through text determining what is important and discarding what is
not. Conversation helps students sort through this information.
• Readers make connections while reading. Readers make connections
to text, to the world, to background information, and to experiences
(schema).
11. Evidence: Student Conversations about
assembly lines
• Ketch observed a 5th grade classroom at a school with a 98% free and
reduced lunch classification.
• The social students teacher directed students to read a passage about
assembly lines.
• A student initially inferred that assembly lines influenced the Industrial
Revolution because workers had to line up to get to work.
• After engaging the students in dialogue the students developed a more
accurate and nuanced understanding.
12. Nokes (2008) The
Observation/Inference Chart
• Similar to the Author/Says I Say Strategy
• Visible reading instruction (provides explicit instruction in making
inferences)
• Better defines inferences and how to use them
• Students make inferences when they read between the lines to sense
the underlying meanings that are conveyed implicitly by a text.
14. Using Inferences
• Students make observations about this nontraditional text.
• Students make inferences about the painting.
• Students use their observations and inferences about the narrative of
the painting to make inferences about the state of race relations in the
time period.
• The students then wrote a paragraph about what lessons this painting
has for us today and how it applies to our lives.
15. Britt and Larson (2002)
• It makes a difference whether a claim or the reasons given to support
the claim are read first.
• Recycling should be federally mandated because recycling saves the
environment vs. Because recycling save the environment recycling
should be federally mandated.
• Psychology undergraduates read a series of arguments phrased with
either the claim or the reason first.
• They then completed surprise cued recall task
16. Britt and Larson (2002)
• Use of connectors such as because
• Recycling should be federally mandated. Recycling saves the
environment. vs. Recycling saves the environment. Recycling should
be federally mandated.
• Quality of a Cue
• The national highway speed limit is 65 miles per hour
• The national highway speed probably is 65 miles per hour
• The national highway speed should be 65 miles per hour
17. Britt and Larson (2002)
• Found that readers read arguments faster and are more likely to
remember the details of arguments when arguments are written in a
claim first order
• Students should complete the “Author Argues…” by finding the claim
first.
• The charts should be filled out from left to right with “Author Argues…”
and they “I Say…” followed by “And So…”
• This method helps activate students’ schemata for argument
processing.
18. Advantages
• Reminds students that reading involves a mental conversation
between and author and reader.
• Provides students with cues that guide them into accessing implict
layers of meaning that necessitate inferential thinking
• Students verbalize their understandings as they sum up what they
have gained from the reading
19. Advantages
• Reminds students that reading involves a mental conversation
between and author and reader.
• Provides students with cues that guide them into accessing implict
layers of meaning that necessitate inferential thinking
• Students verbalize their understandings as they sum up what they
have gained from the reading
20. Advantages
• Reminds students that reading involves a mental conversation
between and author and reader.
• Provides students with cues that guide them into accessing implict
layers of meaning that necessitate inferential thinking
• Students verbalize their understandings as they sum up what they
have gained from the reading
21. Advantages
• Reminds students that reading involves a mental conversation
between and author and reader.
• Provides students with cues that guide them into accessing implict
layers of meaning that necessitate inferential thinking
• Students verbalize their understandings as they sum up what they
have gained from the reading
22. Advantages
• Reminds students that reading involves a mental conversation
between and author and reader.
• Provides students with cues that guide them into accessing implict
layers of meaning that necessitate inferential thinking
• Students verbalize their understandings as they sum up what they
have gained from the reading
23. Advantages
• Reminds students that reading involves a mental conversation
between and author and reader.
• Provides students with cues that guide them into accessing implict
layers of meaning that necessitate inferential thinking
• Students verbalize their understandings as they sum up what they
have gained from the reading
24. Advantages
• Reminds students that reading involves a mental conversation
between and author and reader.
• Provides students with cues that guide them into accessing implict
layers of meaning that necessitate inferential thinking
• Students verbalize their understandings as they sum up what they
have gained from the reading
