PD: Research Strategies 3-5

Post date: Feb 12, 2018 4:08:37 PM

On a recent late arrival Wednesday, district librarian Amy Ryder led a workshop on simple ways to incorporate research strategies with our students, even those who struggle with reading. Here are some of the strategies she shared:

Flood your space: Before beginning a new unit, fill your room with nonfiction books, photos, and media on the new topic. Give the students time to explore and then collect what they learned. Even pre-readers can look at photos in books and use the photos to find basic information.

Anticipation guide: Before reading or watching media where you want students to pay attention to certain facts, ask students questions about what they will learn. For instance, if you are planning to read a book about parrots, you can ask them how long they think parrots live, if all parrots are colorful, or how big or small they think parrots can grow. This can be through a chart, worksheet, or discussion. Then after reading, compare the real information you learned with your guesses.

Trash and Treasure: This activity can be done with students reading the article or with an adult reader. Give students an article and one fact to look for (the "treasure"). They read the article and cross out any section that is trash, meaning this section does not contain the treasure. Once they find the right section, they highlight/underline the treasure as specifically as they can, eliminating unnecessary words.

Simple things to keep doing:

* Tell students the author and illustrator of the books you read to them. This begins to set the stage for citations and academic honesty.

* Practice reading and following directions.

* Read lots and lots of nonfiction.

Want to know more? You can view my full presentation here! Contact me anytime FMI.