Reading Strategies Book Study: Goal 1 Reflection

Welcome to The Reading Strategies Book Study hosted by the wonderful Kelly at An Apple for the Teacher. This summer we'll be reading and sharing our reflections on a few of our favorite strategies from the 300 that Jennifer Serravallo writes about in her book. Each week we'll be studying a new goal and three focus strategies that you can use in your reading classroom. I hope you find these strategies useful as you sit, read, and relax this summer.

Let's get started with Goal 1: Supporting Pre-emergent and Emergent Readers

Take a look at the strategies, levels, genres, and skills covered in this section.

This goal focuses on strategies to help any young children who are just beginning to read texts independently, though not yet conventionally. I have chosen to focus on three strategies from this goal which include:

• The WHOLE and Teeny-Tiny Details
• Characters Do, Characters Say
• Connect the Pages

1.2 The WHOLE and Teeny-Tiny Details

I chose to focus on this strategy because I find that my second graders struggle with main idea and details. This strategy would definitely help make this skill more concrete and help them when summarizing what they are reading. I like that students read a page, circle the page with their finger to say what the WHOLE page talked about, then point to certain sections to discuss the details. It is important to use the academic language during this kinesthetic pointing and discussion to internalize the skill. 

Prompts to ask when teaching this skill would be:

• Use your finger. Sweep it across the whole page
• Say, "This WHOLE page is about..."
• Now zoom in on a small part. Say what you're learning.
• Turn the page and try again.

Anchor Chart taken from 1.2 The WHOLE and Teeny-Tiny Details, page 25

1.6 Characters Do, Characters Say

This next strategy focuses on storytelling. As an elementary teacher, this is one of my favorite strategies since students LOVE to come up with stories. This strategy teaches students to try to sound like a storyteller on every page! They can accomplish this by looking carefully at the illustrations and describing what the character is doing and what the character is saying. I think this is excellent practice since students will be analyzing character traits later on! This can be a first step in accomplishing their understanding of characters.

Prompts to ask when teaching this skill would be:

• What do you think he might be saying?
• Look closely at the picture. What's he doing?
• What's the action on this page?

Anchor chart taken from 1.6 Characters Do, Characters Say, page 29

1.19 Connect the Pages

This strategy focuses on reminding the students that ultimately the whole book is about ONE thing. All pages should connect to that ONE thing. I like this particular strategy because I can stop and redirect them back to the main topic and focus of the book. For this strategy you can use transition words to help make the story more memorable and to help in understanding the topic. 

Prompts to ask when teaching this skill would be:

• Think about how these pages connect. 
• Say, "And then..."
• Say, "Another thing..."
• How does what you learn on this page fit with what you learn on that page? *(my favorite)*

Anchor Chart taken from 1.19 Connect the Pages, page 42

That's it for today my lovely readers! Hope you found these strategies as useful as I have and that you're thinking about how to incorporate them in your classroom. If you have any questions or comments, please let me know below and I'll get back to you. Thanks for reading.

Join me as I host Goal 2 (June 30th)