Once you've learned one of these strategies, take some time to practice applying it to a text you will teach.

1. Choose a strategy What to do Questions I have
Possible Sentences
(Choose 10-14 words/phrases. Do
so by thinking
People/Places/Problems/Outcomes)
Choose your text.
Choose the 10-14
words/phrases you
will use
Practice writing
sentences you
presume the text will
generate
KWL
(After kids consider what they
“know” draw a line under each
thought and ask What do you want
to ask about this?”)
Decide your topic.
Generate the list of
what you think kids
will say they know.
Generate a list of
potential questions
kids might ask.
SWBS
(Somebody Wanted But So)
Choose a text.
Read it.
Select 3 or 4 places
you will ask kids to
stop and write a
SWBS statement.
Write your own for
those sections for 2 or
more characters or
people.
Notice and Note Signposts (See
book)
 Contrasts/Contradictions
 Aha
 Tough Questions
 Again and Again
 Lesson of the Wiser
 Memory Moment
Choose a text.
Look through a few
pages of it.
Identify the signposts
you noticed.
Think about the
answers to the anchor
questions.
Poster
(Put provocative passage in center
of flip chart paper. Put kids in groups
of 4 and have them IN SILENCE
write responses)
Choose a text.
Find a passage in that
text you might want
students to respond
to before they begin
reading.
Or find another
passage (from
Internet) that might
be used to introduce

2. what folks are going
to read.
Think Aloud/Syntax Surgery
 Noun/Pronoun connections
 Noun/Noun substitutions
 Omissions
(Teacher tells students what the
focus on the Transferable Lesson is.
She then reads aloud a short
passage. Students need copy in front
of them with a pencil/pen. Teacher
models the lesson on the text and
then releases it to students for them
to try on their own. When teacher is
doing it, this is a Think-Aloud. When
students do it, they are doing a
Syntax Surgery._
Choose a text.
Look at the three
main think aloud
lessons to practice.
Decide which one you
will use for this text.
Script (write out!) the
lesson you would say
to kids to teach the
generalizable lesson.
With a buddy practice
thinking aloud the
lesson.