Strategies

Reading is not easy for our kids. Because of this, they try and give up on themselves. They stop trying to understand the text.

We don't want that. We have worked on a set of strategies to help the students and ourselves read better. We have seen these strategies work magic on kids whether it be on testing day or even just while we are reading something in the classroom.

In our classes these strategies are not an options. Every single one of our kids can learn to be a better reader and these strategies are the way that we do that.

Blurbing

We take notes out to the sides of our passage. These notes tell us the important information that is shared and needs to be remembered.

Notice & Note

These are rarely new to us, but we LOVE them. There are "signposts" that kids are taught to recognize during their reading. Each of these moments has some importance and the students know that if they see one, they need to write something down.

If you want to know more about Notice & Note click the button -->

Kylene Beers

Highlighting

As we are reading, we highlight the important information in the text. We answer the questions who, what, where, when, why, and how.

PIE

This has them stop and think about author's purpose. What kind of text are we reading? Persuasive, Informative, or entertaining? The type of text tells us the type of information to look for.

Cake

This has us look at two different things. Firstly it asks what point of view is the story being told from 1st or 3rd? Is the narrator inside or outside of the story?

Then it identifies whether is story is fiction (fake) or nonfiction.

Proving your Answers

For our kids, we really need them to stop and think about why they are picking the answers that they are picking. We want them to really dig into each answer choice. So we have them tell us why the answers are wrong or why the answer is correct.

We do not want to see just a paragraph number. That just tells us what part of the story they are asking about. It does not tell us why the students picked what they did.

Dictionary

With the exception of vocabulary tests, students may use a dictionary at any point during our class and our STAAR test.

This is one area where our students struggle. They have a hard time looking up words in the dictionary. We are continuously trying to work on this skill.

As a parent, you can have them practice this skill at home too. Anytime they don't know what a word means, have them look it up in a dictionary at home.

Positivity

We know that each and every one of our students can be successful if they try. We try to focus on improvement. Our goal is to build up the confidence in these students, so that they know what we already do: that they are

Page updated

Report abuse