This interactive website is helpful in many different aspects. It is a resource that allows students to have passages to read at different levels about many different topics. It also has different versions and can make accommodations like reading aloud to the student. I would use this in the centers, and then students could write about the story they read at the next center. This is instrucitonally valuable because it gives students the independence to read what they want to read but also gives them the responsibility to make sure they understand what they are reading. It also offers students assess to the internet and exposes them to that aspect of multimedia literacy.
This lesson plan (page 53) is very instructionally valuable for a first-grade classroom. It is a lesson plan regarding the literacy text Harriet Hen and the Hawk. It allows students to predict and gives objectives, content, steps, examples, questions, and more. I would use this for a reading group, dependent on what level the students would be who read this. This is instrucitonally valuable as a teacher because it allows me to have a reference that I can refer to when teaching this lesson, and it will give me lots of examples to help guide the lesson.
These skills worksheets for comprehension are very useful in a first-grade classroom. They give a brief paragraph of a story and then multiple questions based on the story. Students will answer the questions that are based on their comprehension of the story they read. I would use these as a center that students would work at and use it to look at where students are at on their comprehension. They are instructionally valuable because it is short enough that it does not feel like a lot of work or like a test to the students, but it also has enough information in them that I can accurately see the student's comprehension level and get an idea of how to help them better. Any of the worksheets provided would be useful in identifying students' comprehension.
The book Developing Reading Comprehension: Effective Instruction for All Students in PreK-2 would be a helpful teacher resource for teaching comprehension. It is a book that gives insight into helpful instructional strategies, scaffolding, and ways to promote engagement, discussion, and other tasks. It also gives specifics on ways to teach ELL students or other diverse students and has links to the Common Core State Standards that can be helpful when planning a lesson. I would use this when preparing a lesson to give me ideas, as well as to help me plan the lesson and different forms of scaffolding or other strategies. This is instructionally valuable because it will help me create a better lesson that will help my students grow.
This link to multiple graphic organizers is extremely useful for reading comprehension. In the link, there are 50+ graphic organizers that are related to reading comprehension; however, I feel that in a first-grade classroom, page 2 would be the most beneficial for students. It is a story map that allows students to write the setting, characters, problem, events, and solution. This allows students to do a five-finger retelling of the story individually. I would use this after a story is read to the entire class, and they could discuss it as a table and then write it down; that way, I know that the students are grasping what the story was about. This could also be used as a pre-writing activity so that students can write down the ideas of their story before writing out the full story. This is an instrucitonally valuable tool because it allows me to understand what the students do or do not comprehend, but also make sure they are fully planning out their own stories in advance. This is a very useful graphic organizer in any way that you would use it.
Each of the songs linked is helpful for students to work on their reading comprehension. Two of the songs linked are a read-aloud that reads a story and then asks comprehension questions about what was read. The other three songs discuss aspects of a story that are important to comprehension. These are the who, what, when, where, why, and how that are important for students to focus on when reading. I would use this before reading a story so that students know what they should listen for before they hear the story. The two that are read aloud with questions could be used as the lesson if need be. This is instrucitonally valuable because it allows students to think before they read and understand what they are looking for.