Self-selected members of the MiddleWeb Discussion List are
joining together to explore the Reading Workshop and other ideas
about supporting young adolescent readers. Juli Kendall, a reading
teacher/coach in Long Beach, California, is helping moderate the
discussion. Juli is also keeping a weekly journal of her own Reading
Workshop initiative. Find out more about our project at our Reading Workshop homepage. You'll find
Juli's background article here. Links
to many of the tools created by Juli and her colleagues are embedded
in these journals. Most often, when you click on them, a PDF file
will begin to download. You'll find a list of the downloads here.
. . . great researchers--like you guys are getting to be--whether they're reading by themselves or listening to someone reading, understand the story better if they think about their own experiences while they read.
Mosaic of Thought, Teaching Comprehension in a Reader's Workshop
Keene and Zimmerman, p. 55
Since we wanted our students to better understand what they read,
we taught them to think about their own experiences while reading.
We wanted them to activate schema by making connections for themselves
(text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world).
During this series of mini-lessons on "Making Connections,"
flash bulbs started to finally go off. But this time it was for
us and not for the students. We discovered that the more connections
kids made to what they were reading the more interested they were
and the more they enjoyed it. It's all got to connect for them
"to see it!" We had been struggling with how to select
books and short text for Read Aloud and mini-lessons, and now
it seems very simple. Use text to which students easily connect.
Here is how it went.
We decided to teach with short text in mini-lessons. Strategies
That Work, Teaching Comprehension to Enhance Understanding
by Harvey and Goudvis explains why.
Short text is, in a word, short! The length of short text makes it more accessible than full-length novels or textbooks. This term, short text, can refer to a picture book. But it can also describe a favorite poem used for teaching inferring, an essay for modeling how to determine an opinion or perspective, or a short story such as Sandra Cisneros's, "Eleven," which brings forth a barrage of students' memories of their own embarrassing moments. Short text in general, gives kids an opportunity to read a piece quickly and to practice comprehension strategies. (p. 43)
We followed the chapter, "Making Connections," from
Strategies That Work
and modeled our own connections during Read Aloud time. Our students
first found places in text that reminded them of something, actually
anything. With fear and trepidation, we handed out 2 post-its
to each student to mark the places in their reading where they
made connections.
We asked them to write an R on the post-it to represent "Remind."
Then we had them share their post-its with each other during Partner
Reading. Wow! Some of the partners actually shared connections
the first time. Our triumph was that we didn't even have one "Kick
me" post-it placed on anyone's back. This was a self-starter!
Then we moved to using a 2-column chart to list the connections
we were making with Read Aloud books in mini-lessons. We titled
the chart "Making Connections." On the top left side
we wrote, "What it is about" and on the top right we
wrote, "What it reminds me of." Then we listed the books
we read during Read Aloud and the connections students made. After
Independent and Partner reading, students copied these charts
into their Reading Notebooks and added stories and connections
of their own. Here is an
example of one of the charts (PDF file).
In order to help our students "see" connections we worked
with related text. We read Amos and Boris by William Steig,
a story about a mouse and a whale who meet in adverse circumstances
and become friends. Then we introduced non-fiction books about
whales in general, articles we downloaded from the Internet about
humpback whales and stories about Humphrey (a real whale).
We located two nonfiction books about Humphrey, Humphrey, the
Wayward Whale and Humphrey, the Lost Whale: A True Story.
We read an easy story called, Dear Mr. Blueberry, about
a little girl who writes letters to her teacher telling him about
the whale she has in her backyard pond. It is very simply written
but is full of great places to make connections.
Along the way there were some pitfalls:
1. We had difficulty catching up students who had missed part
of the instruction on "Making Connections." We may need
to do conferences in small groups or use guided reading time and
strategy groups for this.
2. Because of their limited experience with reading, many of our
students found it difficult to make text-to-text connections.
Most connections were from books they had read this year. The
more books they read the more connections they should be able
to make. So that means lots of reading!
3. Some students made tangential connections. They need more experience
making connections to know which are meaningful.
So we move ahead, continuing to model connections for our students
to help them learn more about activating schema and learning more
about ourselves as teachers as we do.
Understanding how to "Make Connections" while reading
Leti easily makes text-to-self connections while she reads. She
uses post-its to mark places as she is reading so she can share
them with a partner later. She has started to use a 2-column chart
to keep track of the connections the class makes with the Read
Aloud books.
What happened as we went along and what strategies we tried
To help her understand about text-to-text connections, we read
a series of related books about whales. This helped her begin
to see connections between these books, but she doesn't yet make
connections to other books we read before or that she may have
read in previous years.
How we adjusted and retaught and what progress we've seen
Leti needs to read a volume of text but it must be at her "Just
Right" level. During our individual reading conferences with
her, we are going to help her make text-to-text connections with
the leveled books she is reading. Also, we are going to gather
together some of the resources about the California Gold Rush,
which she loves to talk about, and make connections among them.
Now, when she shares her connections with her partner, we notice
that she has more to say than she did initially.
See Juli's November curriculum
map.
Read Juli's next journal entry
Read Juli's previous journal entry
Read Juli's backgrounder about her
work
Back to Juli's journal index
Back to the Reader Workshop Index Page