Tips and Tricks: Reading Questions Card

Some of my students are great at making comments and connections about and to what they are reading, and some students just don't get it at all. The reading question card is a great solution. I have about 8 of these available to kids all the time. That seems to be enough for a class of 24 students. (At the beginning more people want to use them, but after the first week, this is enough!)

On this simple 2 sided laminated card there are lots of the standard reading questions. On one side there are before, during, and after reading questions. On the other side there are questions to link text to self, text to text, and text to the world. (They're the types of question you can find lots of other places online!) I generally believe that this is way more valuable for a life long reader than say, "List the main idea and two supporting details," as our textbook is inclined to do. That is the kind of questions that kids have to be able to answer for high stakes testing, but it's not the kind that's going to make them say, "I felt just like that when my mom moved out." or "This book reminds me of that other book we just read."

My favorite teacher reason for using the Reading Question Card is it eliminates all excuses for why students didn't write something on their school reading log each day. If you can't think of something to write, grab a reading question card!

What tips and tricks do you have for getting reluctant readers and writers moving?

Building Background and Vocabulary

I feel a certain sense of obligation when someone makes a suggestion and it works to pass it on. So get ready, because here's the pass. . .

Most elementary students lack the background knowledge and vocabulary to fully understand what they are reading, even fiction. (This is not surprising to anyone who works with kids.) My literacy coach watched a lesson in my class of a first read where it was so obvious kids didn't get it all. She suggested bringing nonfiction books on those topics.

This is how it worked the first time out--we were reading Grandfather's Journey by Allen Say. I went to the library the weekend before and got books on topics like: California, Japan, Japanese Immigration, Japanese Internment Camps, World War 2, and Song birds. I listed those on the board and asked students to think about how these would relate to our story as they listened. After the first reading by me, I passed out one book to each 2 or 3 students. I gave them about 10 minutes to scan and discuss how it related to the story. Each group reported out in just 1 sentence.

Then the books were in a basket in our class library, and one center was looking through the books and finding 2 interesting facts to display on post-it notes. I was very pleased by the results in background, vocabulary, and research. I plan to use this strategy frequently. Any suggestions? How do you build background knowledge?