I created this slideshow to accompany my presentation on reading comprehension at Notre Dame AmeriCorp's Mid-Year Conference. Lots of tips for metacognition, activators, and summarizers. Based on the book by Ellin Oliver Keene and Susan Zimmermann.

1. Strategies for Monitoring Meaning &
Creating a Learning Community

2. For your classroom:
experiment with starting your
class with a greeting or full-
scale morning meeting.
Resources: Responsive
Classroom series Morning
Meeting books

4. by Robert Inchausti
1. Morning-Meeting-style greeting
2. Overview
3. Activator
4. Comprehension strategies
5. Teaching and modeling
6. Other tools
7. Q & A
from Spitwad Sutras:
Classroom Teaching as Sublime Vocation

5. An initial word sort can be revisited &
revised throughout the unit.
For your classroom: can be used to
get a feeling for student
understanding before teaching a unit.
Resources: http://tinyurl.com/word-
sort-lesson-ideas

6. For your classroom: give
students time to synthesize
new ideas and improve their
oral language skills.

7. ◦ Time to read
◦ Time to talk
◦ Instruction in strategies
 Metacognition: thinking about thinking
 Teachers modeling how we read
 Showing students how they’ve grown
Students need:

8. Metacognition in math class

9. - Using and creating schema
- Determining important information
- Using sensory and emotional images
- Synthesizing
Printable resources available from:
Anchorage School District and Troup
County School System

10.  The umbrella under which the other
comprehension strategies fall
 Keep track of your understanding as you read
 Know what your purpose is as you read
 Know how to solve problems and change your
thinking when meaning breaks down
 Good readers carry on an inner conversation
with themselves when they read.

11.  Before, during, and after reading:
◦ Clarify meaning
◦ Speculate about the text yet to be read
◦ Determine author’s intent, style, content, or format
◦ Locate a specific answer
 Proficient readers understand that many of
the most exciting questions are left to the
reader’s interpretation.
A
C
T
I
V
E
(Asking)

12.  Right There Questions:
 Think and Search Questions:
 Author and You:
 On My Own:
 Right There Questions: “What color was the dog?”
 Think and Search Questions: “What was the same
about every dog in the story?”
 Author and You: “How did the boy probably feel when
he found the dog?”
 On My Own: “What would you do if you found the dog?”
Question-Answer Relationship (QAR):
Categorizing Post-Reading Questions
A
C
T
I
V
E
(Asking)

13.  If new learning is like a crystal, the schema is the
chandelier on which it can hang and make sense.
 Successful readers need to access their schema.
◦ Teachers can help activate “mental files” before, during, and
after reading.
◦ Kathy Schrock’s Guide is full of activators and summarizers.
 Proficient readers make different kinds of connections:
◦ Text-text
◦ Text-self
◦ Text-worldview
A
C
T
I
V
E
(Connections)

14.  “You expect me to remember all of that?!”
◦ Which ideas are the important ones to remember?
 Highlighting is easy. Determining what to
highlight is hard.
 Nonfiction:
◦ Fonts, signal words, illustrations, graphics, text
organizers, and text structures
A
C
T
I
V
E
(Trackingimportantideas)

15.  Inferences are used to:
◦ determine meanings of unknown words
◦ reason about the theme of a text
◦ make predictions about text that can be confirmed
or contradicted as they read on
 Inferences depend on:
◦ the schema in the reader’s mind
◦ close attention to textual clues
◦ rereading
◦ conversations with others
A
C
T
I
V
E
(Inferring)

16.  Visualizing brings joy to reading!
 We create pictures in our minds that
belong to us and no one else.
 Visualizing is a process of creating
meaning.
A
C
T
I
V
E
(Visualizing)

17.  As we read, we create a blueprint for what we’re
reading and continually revise the plan as we
recall or encounter new information.
 “I have been there, this is what I remember, and
this is what I believe about what I know.”
 Synthesis takes place during and after reading.
A
C
T
I
V
E
(Eureka!)

18. - Using and creating schema
- Determining important information
- Using sensory and emotional images
- Synthesizing
Printable resources available from:
Anchorage School District and Troup
County School System

19. Number your paper 1-5. Write
3 ideas. Talk with at least two
more students to get 2 new
ideas and share two of your
own.
For your classroom: good for
summarizing concepts or
uncovering possibilities.

20.  Model how you use the strategies in texts that
you genuinely love and/or grapple with.
 Provide opportunities for guided and
independent practice.
 Find time to confer with students individually and
track their progress.
 Gradually release responsibility (*.doc file - preview)
for using strategies to the student, moving them
toward independent reading and thinking.

21. - Using and creating schema
- Determining important information
- Using sensory and emotional images
- Synthesizing

22. 30-60 sec for A to talk; 30-60
sec for B to talk.
For your classroom: good for
summarizing between topics.
Resources: www.online-
stopwatch.com

23.  Rubrics work on many levels at once:
◦ Help with grading: clear and consistent standards
◦ Help kids stay on-task and accountable: “How are
you doing on each section of your rubric?”
◦ Act as a teaching tool: “This is what ‘excellent’ work
looks like, as compared to ‘good’ work.”
 Rubrics for comprehension skills – can be used
as conference forms

24.  Mini-Lesson: 15-20 minutes
Read & Confer: 15-20 minutes
Share: 5 minutes
 Mini-Lesson Lesson Plans (Troup County
School System page)

25.  5 min: Settling in, teacher reads along with students
 35 min: All students reading, teacher roves, one-on-
one conferences, observational notes, monitoring notes,
oral reading records. Teacher can systematically meet
with between 3 and 5 students each day in 7-10 minute
meetings.
 5 min: Meeting together – students or teacher sharing,
reflections about strategy use during reading, book
talks or recommendations, self-evaluations, changing
books, record keeping
Source: Caught in the Spell of Writing and Reading

26.  Learn reading and writing in an authentic
environment of practice & peer collaboration
 See Nancie Atwell, In the Middle:
New Understandings about
Writing, Reading, and Learning

27.  Fluency: sample rubric
 Vocabulary Development:
vocab squares examples 1 & 2
 Oral Language: Think-Pair-Share, Quick
Share, other activators & summarizers from
Kathy Schrock
 Phonics Instruction: activity on next slide

28. 1) Timed quick-write.
2) Split into groups of 4-8
students. Compile lists.
3) Face off with a student
from another team and
knock out duplicates.
For your classroom: good for
activating prior knowledge