Medium Strategies

As defined by Ausubel (1960), advance organizers are introductory materials that help students approach, make connections to, and master new content. They support students’ metacognitive growth by providing a frame to use when encountering new concepts or ideas. 

Advance organizers reflect Ausubel’s theory that we organize information in an orderly fashion, placing new ideas into larger categories of knowledge that allow us to make sense of what we are learning (Ivie, 1998, p. 37). Advance organizers do this by encouraging students to recall relevant prior knowledge they might have, calling students’ attention to what will be important in an upcoming lesson or unit, and highlighting relationships between ideas that will be presented (Woolfolk, 2003, p. 282). 

There are two common types of advance organizers: 

• Expository organizers are used when material is completely unfamiliar to students. They provide new, often contextual information that will help students understand what they are about to learn. When students receive biographical information about the author of a text they are about to read, they are receiving an expository advance organizer. • Comparative organizers are used when material is somewhat unfamiliar. They highlight ways in which the material to be learned can be compared to what has already been learned. A comparison/contrast exercise that helps students draw connections between what they have learned in a previous unit and what they will learn in the next is a comparative advance organizer. 

Mayer (1979) has constructed a checklist that can be used to determine whether an advance organizer supports student learning. His checklist includes the following questions: 

• Does the advance organizer allow students to make connections or draw relationships between concepts to be learned? 

• Does the organizer support students as they make connections between what they already know and what they will learn? 

• Is the organizer “learnable,” or is it easy for students to use? 

• Does the organizer provide students a way to relate to new material that they would not already have or think to use? (p. 382) 

Because advance organizers are a strategy for learning new content, they should be used at the beginning of a lesson or unit. 

Annotation is a way for students to “enter into a conversation with the text they are reading” (Brown, 2007, p. 73). It can include brief comments on a sticky note or in the margin of a book as well as symbols that denote agreed-upon meanings. 

Teachers often annotate students’ writing, but students also gain by annotating their own work. Teaching students how to annotate as they read helps them become active readers because they learn to read more carefully and to see reading as a process. Most importantly, teaching annotation improves students’ reading comprehension (Porter-O’Donnell, 2004). 

Brown (2007) introduces his students to annotation with the following series of conversations: 

• In small groups, students review a text that has been annotated. They take notes on the annotations, paying special attention to the types of information the annotations provide. 

• As a class, students discuss what good annotations can do for the reader. Their suggestions might include defining unfamiliar words, providing background information, pointing out connections to other texts, and helping to explain what is going on in the text. 

• Students discuss ways that a reader can connect to a text. They might suggest ideas that remind the reader of a childhood experience, provide a different perspective on a common experience, or teach the reader something new. 

From these conversations, students are ready to create their own annotations. Working independently with a short passage, they note their own annotations. To guide their work, Brown provides the following guidelines: 

• Look at vocabulary words. Define them and think about how the author uses them. 

• Try to connect what you are reading to what you have already read. Instructional Strategies 11

• Think about connections you can make to other media such as movies or websites. Think about photos that come to mind. 

• If you are struggling with a difficult part of the text, try to rewrite or summarize it in your own words. 

• Think of and list connections between the text and your own life. 

• List background knowledge, such as historical context, that helps to clarify what is happening in the text. 

• After reading, analyze the text, such as by restating its thesis and examining how the author uses evidence to substantiate his or her point.

 When students begin annotating, it may help to use commonly generated and agreed-upon symbols, such as the following two-mark system: 

• Question marks represent text the student does not understand or has questions about. 

• Stars represent text the student is confident about. 

After students complete an annotation, they should be given time to compare their interpretations with a partner and to reflect on their work. This can help them think about and improve upon their annotations. 

Brainstorming is a strategy aimed at generating the maximum number of creative ideas possible in a given period of time. Brainstorming is important because generating ideas is a critical first step in many inquiry activities. 

First outlined by Osborn (1953), an advertising executive who wanted to formalize a way for his colleagues to share ideas, the original brainstorming method included four guidelines: 

• Criticism of others’ ideas is not allowed. 

• All ideas are welcome. 

• The more ideas generated, the better. 

• Combining and improving upon ideas is encouraged.

 Brainstorming as it was presented in the 1950s has come under fire from researchers who recognize that the strategy invites problems of social loafing, pressures to conform, and production blocking, which occurs when participants must wait to share their ideas (Isaksen, 1998). Attempts to overcome these challenges have resulted in the following suggestions by Isaksen and Gaulin (2005): 

• Provide students with reflection time before and after a brainstorming session. This can help to ensure that brainstorming supplements rather than replaces individual thinking. Instructional Strategies 13 

• Appoint a student in each group to serve as a facilitator. The facilitator can help to promote a continuous flow of ideas, encourage everyone to participate, and ensure all ideas are heard and recorded. 

• Avoid relying on the strategy too heavily. Brainstorming is one of many different and effective ways to generate ideas. 

After a brainstorming session, students can also be stymied by the question of what to do with so many new ideas. To help them overcome this problem, consider showing them how to construct an affinity diagram or other visual representation for organizing ideas. To create an affinity diagram, students should first write each idea on an index card or sticky note. Second, they should spread the ideas out so everyone can see them. Third, they should sort the ideas into like groups. Students should label each group according to the larger issue or topic that emerges, and they should discuss the completed diagram to reach a final consensus. This should help students understand their ideas enough to act upon them. 

When used correctly, brainstorming can be a powerful tool for generating creative ideas. Although students may not have experience sharing their ideas in such a freewheeling manner, it should take no more than a class period for them to gain a sense of what a brainstorming session should entail. However, students who serve as facilitators may need 

Brainwriting is an alternative to brainstorming that involves having group members interact via reading and writing rather than speaking and listening (Brown & Paulus, 2002). Brainwriting typically includes the following steps: 

1. Identify a topic or subject that students will be studying. 

2. Assign students to groups of no more than four students each. 

3. Have students record what they know or think they know about the topic or subject for a given period of time. 

4. When time is up, have students pass their writing to another group member. 

5. Assign a period of time for students to review each other’s writing, adding more and/or asking questions, in writing. 

6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 until all students in a group have reviewed each other’s writing. Each group should then review all the ideas generated through the process. 

Brainwriting can be particularly effective with students who are not used to working with one another or contributing ideas verbally. In fact, a study by Paulus and Yang (2000) found that participants who wrote down and shared their ideas using a process similar to brainwriting generated more ideas than groups who used traditional brainstorming 

First developed by Kagan (1994), carousel brainstorming is a group strategy that engages every student in generating new ideas. A variation of traditional brainstorming, this strategy involves small groups who begin their work at assigned stations (home stations). For a set period of time, students brainstorm ideas about a given topic or question, recording their ideas on a large piece of paper or whiteboard. When time elapses, groups rotate among the stations. At each new station, students read the new question and the previous group’s responses, and then they add their ideas to the list generated by the previous group(s). The activity ends when groups arrive at their home stations and review and comment on what other groups have written. 

Nessel and Graham (2007) elaborate on the process of carousel brainstorming. They recommend the following guidelines: 

• Keep groups small and focused. Carousel brainstorming works best when groups comprise no more than four students. 

• Assign a responsibility to each student in a group. One student might serve as a timekeeper, another might be the writer, and another might speak for the group when it is time to share thoughts with the whole class. 

• Choose a thought-provoking topic or subject for the brainstorming session. This might serve as a review of what students have already learned, or it might prepare students to learn new material.

 • Equip each group with a marker of a unique color. The marker color will distinguish one group’s comments from another’s. 

• Give groups at least five minutes to generate and record their responses to the topic or subject at hand. Ideas should be recorded as fully as possible to ensure they are well represented. 

• After a home group has reviewed and commented upon the other groups’ additions, invite a representative of the group to share with the class what the group found to be most interesting. Group members should also ask questions generated from the review. 

• Give students time for reflection at the conclusion of the activity. Groups should reflect on the process as a whole, and individuals should reflect on what they contributed to the group’s efforts. (pp. 28–30) Because carousel brainstorming involves coordinated movement and timed responses, it may take students a few sessions before they participate in the strategy effectively. 

Carousel brainstorming is worth the time investment, however, because of the many skills it requires of students, including reading, generating ideas, asking questions, and sharing ideas with the entire class. 

Circle of interviews is a strategy for cooperative learning that promotes team building in groups of four students each. It creates a structured medium for students to introduce themselves and encourages students to rely upon each other to complete a task successfully.

Jacobs, Power, and Loh (2002) recommend the following steps for conducting a circle of interviews: 

1. Assign a topic or task for discussion. The teacher may construct the topic or task prior to the beginning of class. 

2. Student A interviews student B. At the same time, student C interviews student D. 

3. Reverse the roles: student B interviews student A, and student D interviews student C. 

4. In turn, each student reports to the other group members what he or she learned (e.g., “Let me tell you what Marcos said about his summer job at the convenience store”). 

5. If time permits, group members ask each other follow-up questions.

 In addition to being a good icebreaker, circle of interviews can serve as a tool for previewing or discussing learning. For example, students might use circle of interviews prior to instruction to share prior knowledge about the day’s topic. Similarly, they might use the strategy at the end of the class period to review what they have learned and clarify points of confusion. Circle of interviews works best when students explore open-ended questions that can be answered in multiple ways 

Commit and toss (Keeley, 2008) is a peer evaluation and writing strategy structured to discourage students from evaluating each other and encourage them to evaluate each other’s effort. In a commit and toss, students first respond in writing to a question or prompt. Second, they wad up the paper and toss it across the room. Each student then collects a nearby paper wad to read aloud in a guided class discussion. The discussion, led by the teacher, promotes an environment in which all students participate in evaluating and revising the writing to make it better. Because commit and toss involves the entire class, it lends itself to brief writing exercises. For that reason, the strategy can be especially effective when students are learning to ask questions or write thesis statements and hypotheses. 

The Cornell Note-Taking System is a strategy for organizing notes. For this system, students should create note-taking pages with wide left and bottom margins. Pauk and Owens (2005) outline the following steps for preparing and taking Cornell Notes: 

• Students should draw a vertical line down the left side of the paper, two-and-one-half inches from the edge. This wide left margin is the cue column. 

• Students should then draw a line two inches from the bottom of the paper. This space is the summary area. 

• The space to the right of the cue column and above the summary area is space for taking notes. Because classes have different lecture formats and because students have individual note-taking styles, the form the notes take does not matter. Students should write legibly and try to express their thoughts as clearly as possible. (This will make working with the notes easier.) 

• When students review their notes, they should use the cue column to clarify meanings and show connections between concepts. They should also write statements that prompt them to remember important information. 

• Students should use the summary area to write a one- to two-sentence overview of the notes on the page. (pp. 207–208) 

Cornell Note-Taking can also be used for Pauk and Owens’s Q System, which encourages students to target the key ideas in their notes. As they review their notes, instead of writing cues, students should write questions that require important information to answer. 

Students’ learning may be assessed by asking them to design exam questions (Tweed, 2009). To use this strategy, ask students to craft a predetermined number of exam questions—two should suffice. After writing their questions, students should also write explanations of the correct and at least one incorrect answer. (In mathematics, writing an explanation should include showing all work.) Finally, students should submit their questions and answers to the teacher for review. 

The exam questions students design are good representations of students’ understanding at any given time. After all, designing the questions requires that students have a solid grasp of the materials that have been presented—put simply, students must know what to ask a question about. Requiring students to explore their own understanding by answering and explaining their answers takes students’ learning one step further. Finally, asking students to provide and explain an incorrect answer can reveal possible misconceptions that students may have.

The exam questions students design can help them assess their own learning. The questions can also serve as a jumping-off point for further class discussion. Finally, a teacher might want to use the questions in a specially crafted exam at the end of a unit. 

An empty outline is best used when a great deal of structured content must be presented, such as in a lecture (Angelo & Cross, 1993). It can help students develop skills of listening, note taking, and, with clear and supportive feedback, organization. 

Beginning with a detailed outline of a lecture, decide whether students should pay most attention to its topics, subtopics, or supporting details. Then, prepare a partial outline, omitting the topics, subtopics, or supporting details from it. After the lecture, ask students to fill in the blanks in the partial outline. Completing the outline demonstrates students’ mastery of the material and shows students how topics, subtopics, or supporting details relate to one another. 

It is important to be judicious when choosing what to omit. Angelo and Cross (1993) recommend limiting the empty outline to at most half of the lecture. 

One way to make teaching flexible and responsive is to practice exposition and questioning (ACT & The Education Trust, 2005). During a lecture or an extended explanation, a teacher engages in reciprocal questioning by asking questions to check for student understanding and answering student questions as they arise. Cues and questions (Marzano, Norford, Paynter, Pickering, & Gaddy, 2001), in which a teacher uses cues to prompt students’ engagement with important information, is a similar strategy.

 In practice, the questions a teacher asks range from simple questions meant to clarify information to complex questions aimed at identifying perspectives and exploring the implications and consequences of student responses. In addition, students are encouraged to take notes during class. Teachers review these to help ensure understanding. This ongoing communication between teacher and student allows the teacher to continually monitor student progress and adjust his or her teaching to meet students’ needs. 

Fist-to-five is a strategy that students can use to build consensus as they work together in small groups (Fletcher, 2002). By encouraging students to express varying levels of support for a given idea, the strategy teaches them that not every decision involves a simple yes or no decision. Through fist-to-five, students learn to compromise, which is a key to making progress in a group setting.

In practice, fist-to-five is a set of hand signals that indicate a level of agreement with a decision. After a group member states a possible group decision, the remaining students in the group respond with one of the following signals: 

• Fist: “No, I do not support this choice.” If there are mostly fists in the group, it is time to suggest an alternative decision.

• One finger: “I want to discuss big issues and suggest changes.” 

• Two fingers: “I am fairly comfortable with this decision, although there are still a few significant issues I think we should discuss.” 

• Three fingers: “While I might still disagree on a few small points, I am comfortable enough to support the decision.” 

• Four fingers: “I think this is a good decision, and I think it will benefit our group.” 

• Five fingers: “This idea is great! I want to lead the group as we move forward!” 

The group may move forward on a decision once all members are showing at least three fingers. Optimally, most will show four or five fingers. 

A Frayer model is a strategy for learning a new concept, such as a vocabulary word, relationally. The strategy has been adapted substantially since it was first proposed by Frayer, Fredrick, and Klausmeier (1969), settling into the form of a graphic organizer (Billmeyer & Barton, 1998; Buehl, 2008). (See Fig. 4.) There are two common versions: 

• Students write a term in a center oval, then in the surrounding boxes they write a definition of the term and list characteristics, examples, and non-examples of it (Barton & Jordan, 2001).

 • Students write a term in a center oval, then in the surrounding boxes list essential characteristics, nonessential characteristics, examples, and non-examples of it (Barton & Jordan, 2001; Buehl, 2008). 

The purpose of listing examples and non-examples and essential and nonessential characteristics is to help students construct categorical knowledge about the concept they are learning. After all, explain Billmeyer and Barton (1998), “in order to understand completely what a concept is, one must also know what it isn’t” (p. 74). 

Frayer models can be especially useful when conducting direct, in-class vocabulary instruction (Rekrut, 1996). In addition, given sufficient introduction, individual students can also use Frayer models for taking notes and monitoring their own learning about the concepts covered. 

In a gallery walk, students visit a collection of displays connected to the day’s activities or the unit’s goals. A gallery walk can have many purposes, such as to promote evaluative discussion, preview students’ learning, develop students’ analytic skills, and reveal diverse perspectives about the unit’s subject (Francek, 2006). A gallery walk is a good way to assess what students know about a topic before it is taught. Similarly, the displays in a gallery walk can be anything relevant to the unit’s or day’s objectives, such as open-ended questions about the subject at hand, artwork suggesting themes or central ideas, photographs depicting historical figures, structures illustrating geometric concepts, or demonstrations modeling scientific processes. 

A gallery walk can be conducted in class with students participating in groups. In a given amount of time, each group visits each display. As students read, observe, and interact with the display, they take notes on what they discover. When time is up, students spend time reflecting on what they discovered. The teacher, too, may take anecdotal notes as students progress through the displays.

 A gallery walk can promote even more meaningful assessment when students post their notes around the displays. Over the course of the gallery walk, students can then respond both to the displays and their peer’s posted notes. The strategy thus invites student-to-student feedback about the ideas being presented. 

A memory matrix (Angelo & Cross, 1993) is a basic table that uses rows and columns to organize key concepts and illustrate their relationship. A matrix is a quick way to assess students’ ability to recall important facts in courses with high informational content. It also provides insight into how well students organize what they learn. A memory matrix can be used as an individual or group assessment.

 To introduce a memory matrix, first prepare a matrix by drawing a table and determining column and row headings that categorize important lesson content. After filling in the table cells with appropriate facts and fine-tuning any headings that are unclear or ambiguous, create a second matrix with only column and row headings. Students should complete the second memory matrix. The places where the teacher’s and the students’ matrices differ represent points for reteaching. 

A mind map is a weblike visual representation of what a student knows. At its center is an image of a focal concept; from this center stem branches that represent connected ideas. A mind map thus provides its creator with a picture of how ideas relate to one another and encourages a clearer, in-depth understanding of the focal concept. When students create a mind map, they gain conscious awareness of how they organize what they know (Brinkmann, 2003).

Mind mapping has many classroom applications. Students can use it to summarize information at the end of a unit. They can also use it to connect new information to prior knowledge. Essential to successful mind mapping are imagination, which makes the mind map visually appealing and easy to remember, and association, which allows the creator to Instructional Strategies 33 make connections that trigger the memory (Buzan & Abbott, 2005). To create effective mind maps, the Buzan Organisation (2009) recommends that students 

• begin with a piece of paper in a landscape orientation. This allows the creator more freedom to spread ideas in each direction.

• create an image to represent the central concept. This helps focus the creator and spurs imaginative thinking. 

• use colors. This stimulates brain activity. 

• connect main branches to the central concept and second- and third-level branches to the main branches. This represents the associative nature of thinking.

• make curvy instead of straight branches. This adds visual interest. 

• limit the number of words used to one per branch. This gives the mind map power and flexibility. 

• use images throughout. This ensures the mind map maintains its visual nature. 

Pass the whiteboard is a cooperative whiteboarding activity adapted from McJimsey and Sabatier (2009). It can be used for solving problems as well as generating and evaluating ideas. Pass the whiteboard begins when each group is given a whiteboard. Then, in response to a problem, question, or prompt, students follow these steps: 

1. The student who begins with the whiteboard solves part of the problem or writes a response to the question or prompt. Then, at a signal, the student passes the whiteboard to the right.

 2. The next student reviews the first student’s work, if necessary corrects it, and then adds his or her own work to the board. This process continues until all group members have added their responses. 

3. The group, as a whole, reviews the whiteboard to discover which parts need revision. If time permits, students make necessary revisions. 

4. The group presents its work to the class. 

Plus/delta, which Helminski and Koberna (1995) call a “tool of continuous improvement” (p. 318), is a feedback strategy used by teachers and students to reflect on and improve the quality of teaching and learning. The strategy encourages teachers to share control of the classroom with students and prompts students to assume more responsibility for their own learning. 

To conduct a plus/delta review, first choose a specific topic or activity to address and discuss. (Plus/delta is particularly useful in a review of in-class performance, such as a discussion of a class’s work in a science lab.) Second, create a table by drawing a vertical line down the center of the board or a sheet of chart paper. Label one side of the line with a plus sign and the other side with the Greek letter delta (Δ), which represents change. In the plus column, note things that went well with whatever is being reviewed. In the delta column, identify things that need improvement. The ideas contributed by both teacher and students should yield differing perspectives and prompt further conversations about what to keep and what to change. 

Rally coach (Kagan & Kagan, 2000) is a cooperative learning strategy that ensures students work together to further each other’s learning. It promotes student motivation and prepares students to work together in larger groups. 

When enacting rally coach, students work in pairs with a single sheet of paper and a pen or pencil. To begin, Partner A works on solving a problem while Partner B coaches by providing feedback when Partner A struggles or praise when Partner A does something well. When Partner A arrives at a solution, Partner B checks its accuracy. If it is incorrect, Partner B continues coaching Partner A to correct any mistakes. If it is correct, the partners switch roles and repeat the process 

Reader’s theater is a strategy of reading aloud that relies upon the expressiveness of drama to give students practice reading. According to Prescott and Lewis (2003), reader’s theater can 

• improve listening and speaking skills as well as reading skills and reading fluency, 

• enhance reading confidence,

 • turn reluctant readers into reading enthusiasts, 

• encourage students to interpret dialogue and communicate meaning, and 

• create opportunities for collaboration. 

Conducting a reader’s theater requires little more than a common text and willing students. However, Prescott and Lewis note that students learn more with greater preparation. For example, when students are first learning reader’s theater, an instructor-written script is especially effective, as is explicit modeling of a dramatic reading. 

While the primary goal of reader’s theater is to model and encourage expressive reading, it can also give students important practice working together on a common task. 

Palincsar and Brown (1984) found that reciprocal teaching has significant benefits in reading comprehension. The goal of the strategy is to teach the following four skills, which are central to reading: 

• Summarizing: This is the skill of identifying and articulating important information from a passage. 

• Questioning: With this skill, students write a question relevant to the main idea of a passage. A common prompt during questioning is “What kind of question might a teacher ask about this text?” 

• Clarifying: This is the process of resolving problematic passages. Clarifying is especially important for students who are struggling with comprehension. 

• Predicting: This is the ability to hypothesize what turn the argument or plot will take next. 

When beginning reciprocal teaching, a teacher models each skill. Depending upon students’ abilities as readers, the modeling might be very explicit, with teachers prompting students with paraphrases and questions to copy. Over time, as teacher and students take turns summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting, students develop greater and greater skill, not only with these four skills, but with reading in general. 

Round-robin brainstorming is a variant of brainstorming that can be used when participation in a class or small group is dominated by a few students (Tague, 2005). It proceeds like a standard brainstorming session until students begin to volunteer their ideas. Rather than have students speak up at their leisure, round-robin brainstorming invites them to speak in turn until everyone in the class or small group has spoken. However, Tague cautions against using the strategy indiscriminately: in a class or group that usually participates well, the strategy can backfire, undermining instead of promoting creativity. 

Say something is a reading strategy that Beers (2003) describes as particularly helpful for struggling or dependent readers who have trouble focusing. Working in pairs, students read a short passage aloud, trading turns every paragraph or so. After each student completes his or her part of the reading, the partner is given an opportunity to say something. The partner might • ask a question, • identify confusing passages,

 • predict what will happen next, 

• describe how he or she imagines a particularly vivid description or scene, or

 • connect what has been read to something he or she knows. 

If the partner has nothing to say, the reader should reread the passage and give his or her partner a second opportunity to say something (Gregory & Nikas, 2005). As pairs work, the teacher should observe their progress, noting any difficulties students might have. Because students may need practice using this strategy, students should be given repeated opportunities to try it. 

Survey, Question, Read, Recite, and Review (SQ3R) (Robinson, 1941) is designed to enhance reading comprehension of informative text. Each step in SQ3R represents a discrete reading activity. The steps are: 

1. Survey is a prereading strategy. When readers survey a text, they pay attention to structural features such as headings and to graphic features such as charts and illustrations. 

2. Question means that readers ask questions about what they discovered in the first step. They should be questions that are likely to be answered by reading the text. 

3. Read is reading the text. Readers take notes and seek out answers to the questions raised in the second step.

4. Recite is best understood as reflect (Huber, 2004). Readers take time to answer any remaining questions, write journal entries about the text, and/or discuss the text with someone else (Burke, 2000). 

5. Review is a postreading step in which readers summarize what they have learned, take any remaining notes, review the questions they asked, and ask new questions about the text. 

For SQ3R to be widely effective, studies suggest that each step and the skill it encompasses be modeled at length (Huber, 2004). 

Team-pair-solo (Kagan, 1994) is designed to help students learn problem-solving skills. Working first in teams, students solve one or more problems, discussing work and solution strategies and helping each other when they struggle. Then, working in pairs, students solve a similar set of problems, continuing the pattern of discussion and mutual assistance. Finally, applying the understanding and self-confidence acquired from the first two steps, each student works alone to solve a final set of problems. Students are able to assess for themselves how well they have mastered the new skill or concept. 

A think-aloud (Davey, 1983) is a strategy to model reading. It targets five skills that struggling readers may find most difficult: forming hypotheses, creating mental images, drawing upon prior knowledge to make connections, monitoring comprehension, and knowing how to approach a difficult passage. 

To prepare for a think-aloud, Davey suggests selecting a passage that includes a number of difficulties, contradictions, unfamiliar vocabulary, or ambiguities. (Constructing an original reading to meet all these criteria is also possible.) 

Once the reading has been chosen, practice reading it aloud. Mark up the text, flagging passages to comment upon, noting questions to ask while reading, and noting words that might cause students trouble. Once preparations are complete, read the passage aloud to students. When reading, read from the marked-up copy. Distribute the unmarked text to students so they can follow along silently as it is read aloud. 

To help struggling readers, Davey recommends taking the following actions during a think-aloud: 

• Make predictions as you read. For example, “From the title, I bet we’ll be reading about fighting wildfires” or “I think we’ll learn the solution to the mystery in the next section.” This models hypothesis development. 

• Describe the picture that forms in your head as you read the information. For example, “I have a picture in my mind of a leaf-covered trail lined with tall oak trees.” This demonstrates image formation. • Use an analogy. For example, “Reading that adventure book was almost as exciting as the time we went to that baseball game and I caught a foul ball!” This is an example of using prior knowledge to make connections. 

• Note a confusing point. For example, “This example doesn’t make sense” or “I don’t think I know what this word means.” This models comprehension monitoring. 

• Use a fix-up strategy to help with a confusing point. For example, “Let me read this part again” and “Can context clues help me figure out this word, or do I need to go get a dictionary?”

 This demonstrates how to approach difficult texts. Primarily modeling only one of the above reading strategies during any given think-aloud is also a possibility as long as all of the strategies are eventually modeled (Tovani, 2000). Because students may require practice to develop good reading strategies, consider conducting think-alouds periodically throughout a unit or a school year. 

The three-stage scaffolding process (O’Connell & Croskey, 2008) is a set of activities for teaching writing. It begins by modeling writing and ends with students writing independently.

 • In a write-aloud stage, the teacher models how to write the solution to a problem or a response to a prompt. Whether the writing is done on chart paper, on a transparency, on the board, or on a computer connected to a digital projector does not matter, as long as the writing is done publicly. As the teacher writes, he or she should describe the decisions made along the way, such as what work to show or how to organize an explanation. The experience can be made interactive by asking students to offer their own ideas and assist in the decision-making process. 

• A write-along stage is supported student writing. As students write with partners or in small groups, the teacher guides them with questions, suggestions, and encouragement. Writing together helps students work out and explain their ideas. It also develops their understanding of vocabulary and skill at writing. 

• A write-alone stage has students write without support from a teacher or peers. 

Visualization is described by Beers (2003) as a reading strategy that develops students’ grasp of descriptive and figurative language. Wilhelm (1997) adds that visualization helps students access and apply prior learning; improves reading comprehension as well as prediction, inference, and memory skills; and develops students’ ability to monitor comprehension. The ability to visualize while reading, Wilhelm concludes, is an important mark of a good reader.

To teach visualization, encourage students to explore language imaginatively. First, model it. Begin by reading a passage aloud. For example, Richard Connell’s short story “The Most Dangerous Game” is set on “Ship-Trap Island.” After reading the story to the third paragraph (which names the island), describe how you imagine such an island might appear. Describe its steep, craggy bluffs dropping into wild waves and the broken masts of broken ships jutting from the rocks. Then, continue reading. Invite students to listen for words and phrases that help them further visualize the setting as well as the plot’s action. Students should write down the words and phrases so they can later describe how their own imaginations were affected.

 For students to learn visualization well, it should be modeled and practiced with increasingly complex texts several times over the course of the year. 

Whiteboard presentations are structured, impromptu presentations that use handheld dry-erase boards as the media for representing a group’s consensus ideas. In science classrooms, they are often used when designing investigations, analyzing data, and drawing conclusions (Keeley, 2008). Because the collaborative use of whiteboards promotes an environment of student-generated ideas (Henry, Henry, & Riddoch, 2006), the presentations can be just as valuable in other disciplines. 

When introducing whiteboard presentations, Henry, Henry, and Riddoch (2006) recommend methodically modeling the group interactions expected. It may also be helpful to set the following criteria: 

• The whiteboard should be easily read by everyone in the room. 

• The whiteboard should clearly identify the problem or question being addressed. 

• All group members should help develop the presentation. 

• The speaker(s) should elaborate upon and explain the group’s thinking about what is written on the whiteboard. 

• Graphs should be labeled with appropriate units. 

During the whiteboard presentation, the rest of the class should participate by listening attentively and asking clarifying questions.