My Top Ten Strategies (6, 7, and 8)

6.  The Anticipation Guide

An Anticipation guide is a list of generalized statements based on the theme of the subject matter text.  After I have read the subject matter text and gotten familiar with it myself, I will write the Anticipation Guide.  I will  list several items for consideration by the students in the Anticipation Guide.  These items will be based on the major themes of the text, and will be designed to encourage lively discussion and debate about the topic.  There will be a place on the guide for students to "Agree" or "Disagree" with the statement before they have read the text.  I will model this strategy by putting the Anticipation Guide up on the overhead and going through it with the class.  After the students have filled out their own copy of the before side of the Anticipation Guide, I will open a class discussion using the students agree/disagree statements as the catalyst for the discussion.  The use of the Anticipation Guide as a pre-reading strategy will activate the student's prior knowledge about the subject matter, get them personally engaged in the reading, help them make a personal connection to the reading and cause them to become an active participant in the reading of the text before any reading has begun.  After the students have actually read the text, I will ask them to go back to the Anticipation Guide and answer the same questions on the after side of the Guide.  We will then engage in a class discussion of their responses, focusing on any change in opinion they experienced and why.  This then makes this a post-reading strategy as well.

This strategy will help struggling readers, students who have problems with comprehension, and ELL students.


7.  QAR: Questioning the Author

As the students read the subject matter text, they will develop questions that they would like to ask the author about the author's intent and what the author was trying to say.  I will model the strategy for them, and encourage them to develop questions like:  "Why are you telling me this?"  "What is your point?"  I will also encourage them to ask questions like:  "Does the author make his point clearly?"  "How could he have said it to make himself more clear on this point?"  The students will write down their questions as they read the subject matter text.  This strategy will help them read with more depth and comprehension.  It will force them to pay attention, to reread, and to analyze.  After all the students have finished the reading  and done their questions during their reading, we will open a class discussion using their own questions to drive the discussion.

This strategy will help struggling readers who haven't fully developed their own strategies for reading with depth and comprehension.  It should also help ELL readers by guiding them to formulate questions about what they are reading so that their questions can be discussed, orally, in the classroom.

8.  Retelling

Retelling is having the student give an oral summary of the text they have read, based on the key elements of the text, such as setting, main characters, major events and major conflicts within the text.  I will model the strategy by using a short passage or short story, reading it before hand, and then retelling it in front of a small group or the whole class.  I will model it as many times and as often as is necessary for all of my students to master this technique.  I will also model a bad retelling so that the student's know what that sounds like.   The student's retelling will be between the individual student and the teacher.  I will not embarrass any student by having them retell the reading in front of some or all of the class unless they have demonstrated mastery of the retelling strategy and want to do it in front of a small group or even the whole class. I will have developed a rubric that outlines exactly what I want to see in a good retelling.  I will put the rubric up on the overhead and discuss it with the class.  I will give them the rubric to refer to during their reading and during their retelling;  I don't want the students to have to guess what I am looking for.   I will also chart each students progress against the rubric, over time, to see if the student is getting better of if there are areas where the student needs more assistance and practice.

This strategy will be of great assistance to the struggling reader in helping them to read closely, to reread when necessary and to mine the text for important points.  It will help students who have difficulty expressing themselves in writing.  I think it will also help the ELL student by being able to orally retell what they have read.