Reading to Learn: Nonfiction Book Clubs Within a Content Area
Shared Reading Instruction
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- Shared Reading Lesson A
- Shared Reading Lesson B
- Shared Reading Lesson C
- Shared Reading Lesson D
Shared Reading InstructionAccording to Richard L. Allington, “Summarizing involved two key strategies: selecting important ideas and deleting trivial, redundant, and unrelated ideas.” (Allington, 2006) This description of the task of summarizing clarifies what we, as teachers, need to make sure young readers can do in order to summarize well. That being said, sometimes teachers believe that students will naturally come to these strategies without any guidance or support from teachers. While there may be students for whom the following shared reading is unnecessary, students who need guided practice with a teacher and peers will benefit from the following shared reading lessons. Please use these lessons if and when you see fit, based on your observations and assessments of your students. Lessons A and B are designed to work hand in hand as a sequence. Lucy Calkins states that as they are reading, readers should be asking themselves, “What are the big ideas the author seems to be highlighting and how do other less important ideas fit under these big ideas?” (Calkins, 2001) It is this sort of thinking that Lessons A and B will work to develop in young readers. Lessons C and D, while working within the construct of a shared reading lessons, bring the readers’ focus to nonfiction text features. These lessons are designed to work in isolation so that teachers can pull in students for whom the shared reading will be most useful. Lesson C focuses specifically on embedded pronunciations in texts. Lesson D focuses on using the glossary to support reading of a text.
Materials: Enlarged copy, or overhead transparency of Hh page from A is for Africa (Onyefulu, 1993) Readers, remember this book we read during our read aloud? I was thinking some more about this book this morning and I thought- wow! This book is teaching me so many things about Africa that I’m not sure which parts are important and which parts aren’t really important. I’ll bet that sometimes happens to you in your own reading. Sometimes it can be hard to tell what is important in a book and what is not important. Let’s think a little bit about this as we go back to read a little bit from A is for Africa. I often reread a part of a book if I’m not sure I really got it the first time. Take a look at this part from the book. (Show enlarged page from the text). Let’s read this page again to remind ourselves how it goes (teacher reads aloud, encouraging students to join in if they so choose. This should be brief, since the goal of this lesson is not choral reading). Hmmmm… so I’m thinking about what we just read and I want us to do what all nonfiction readers do when they read a section of a text. I want us to figure out what the big idea might be here. What is the big thing the author wants us to learn about on this page? I’m looking at the picture and also at the first sentence or two because I know authors often give us the big idea there. I hear them talking about a hot climate- maybe that’s the big idea. Let me look some more and see if that fits. What are you thinking? Turn and talk with your partner: what do you think the big idea of this page is, and why? Readers recognize important information by looking for the big idea of the page/section and that’s exactly what I just saw so many of you doing. (Make specific mention of a group that did smart thinking for finding the big idea). I saw everyone doing two smart things when they were looking for the big idea: First, readers read the first few sentences and asked themselves, “Is this what the whole section is about?” Second, readers checked their big idea by looking at the picture and seeing if it would fit with what they were thinking. (This would be a great chart to hang up in the classroom during this unit). Let’s keep this chart right up here so that all the readers in this classroom can use it because readers recognize important information by looking for the big idea of the section. So readers, if you are ever reading and feeling like you aren’t sure what is important and what isn’t, one thing you can do to help yourself is look for the big idea of the section you are reading. This chart will be here to help everyone know what to do because readers recognize important information by looking for the big idea of the section. You already do so many brilliant things when you are reading, and I want you to add this strategy to those other brilliant things. Shared Reading Lesson BReaders recognize important information by looking for things that connect to the big idea of the section. (NOTE: This would be a good lesson to use as an informal assessment for determining importance within text, as students will be putting their thinking on paper.) Materials: Enlarged copy, or overhead transparency of Hh page from A is for Africa. (Onyefulu, 1993), individual copies of the page (1 per partnership), highlighters (1 per partnership) So readers, remember when we were looking at this text from A is for Africa and trying to figure out what the big idea was for this section? We made this chart to help us remember what to do anytime we’re doing this sort of thinking in our reading. I’ve seen several of you doing this kind of thinking in your own reading. Give me a quiet thumb up if you have tried looking for the big idea in a section of your own reading. Fantastic! So readers, now that you know how to get the big idea of a section, I want to show you one way readers recognize important information in their reading. Readers recognize important information by looking for things that connect to the big idea of the section. Let’s take ourselves back to this page (show Hh page). When we looked at this last time, readers were saying that this big idea, the part the author is trying to teach us about here, is mud houses. Now I can see that the writers says a lot of different things on this page, and when I read it the first time it was a little tough to decide what was really important and what wasn’t. Now I’m going to use that big idea we came up with- mud houses- to help me decide what’s important. Readers recognize important information by looking for things that connect to the big idea of the section. Watch how I read the first few lines and look for connections to the big idea of mud houses. I’m going to use my marker to mark the parts that seem important. “Hh is for mud houses, Hmmm… is this important to know about mud houses? Does the letter H really connect to knowing more about mud houses? I don’t think so. I am not going to mark this line. Wait- it does say “mud houses” here… let me look one more time, because I know this page is teaching about mud houses. Hh is for mud houses- nope, that still doesn’t seem to be important to my big idea. “…just right for a hot climate.” Hmmm… is that important to know about mud houses? Let me think. Does that connect with knowing more about mud houses? Readers- what do you think? Do you think that part connects with our big idea- mud houses? Is it teaching something about mud houses? Should we mark it? Turn and talk with your partner- what would you do? So readers- I heard f=some of you really looking with your partner to see if there was a connection to that big idea. Remember that readers recognize important information by looking for things that connect to the big idea of the section. I heard many people saying that this part did tell them something about mud houses- they are just right for a hot climate. That told where mud houses would be. We don’t see too many mud houses around here where we live- now I know why! This information DOES connect to that big idea! Let’s mark it up here on our paper. (Teacher highlights the important information, adding his or her thinking in the margin to remind her why it’s important- “they are good in hot places like Africa!”) Hey- readers! You did such a great job there figuring out if the information was important and connecting back to the big idea of the section. Now I’m going to give you a chance to try a little of this work with your partner. I’m going to give you your own copy of this part of the text and a marker of your own so that you can mark off information you think is important. Remember that readers recognize important information by looking for things that connect to the big idea of the page/section. We said the big idea on this page was teaching us about mud houses, so look for things that connect to that big idea. I’ll be around to see how it’s going. Go ahead and think carefully! (Teacher pops in with a group or two during this time, particularly supporting any partnership that may have difficulty with this). Readers- you did such smart thinking about this text today. Readers recognize important information by looking for things that connect to the big idea of the section. You already do so many brilliant things when you are reading, and I want you to add this strategy to those other brilliant things. (NOTE: If you are planning to use this as informal assessment, you will likely want to collect this paper as evidence. A brief rubric is included below to assist you in thinking about where your readers are in terms of determining the importance of information in nonfiction reading.) Rubric for assessment and intervention: Secure: The student’s work (written or conveyed in conversation) clearly delineates between important information and unimportant information. The student’s work takes into account both the written text and the picture/illustration. With this particular text, students who have picked out the important information may be inferring that mud houses are really useful in keeping the people who live in the house comfortable all day. They may recognize that the second sentence, “Most places in Africa are hot during the day and cool at night,” relates indirectly to the topic of mud houses because it helps readers to understand why mud houses are in a book about Africa. Developing: The student’s work (written or conveyed in conversation) delineates between important and unimportant information, but the student does not have a clear rationale for their thinking. The work may or may not include both text and picture. In order to lift the level for students, strategy group work or conferences would be useful supports as students are able to approximate this work in their own reading. Beginning: The student has likely selected everything to be important, and is unable to explain his or her thinking beyond generalizations such as, “Well, the author wrote it so it’s important.” The work may or may not involve both the text and the picture. The student may or may not be able to independently identify the main idea of a section. Appropriate intervention would include work done during shared reading, interactive read aloud, guided reading and individual conferences. If there are many students working at this level, a strategy group could be formed as well. Knowing that it is crucial for nonfiction readers to determine importance as they read, teachers should create an intervention plan for any student who is unable to do this reading work. Shared Reading Lesson CFocus: Reading word pronunciations within texts Materials: Enlarged copies, or overhead transparencies of p. 9 and p. 20 (Fowler, 2001) I walk a lot. And sometimes I am walking down the sidewalk, just like I always do, and things are going along just fine and then suddenly there’s this big scaffold in my way and I’m thinking, “What is THIS doing here?” It’s sort of like a little stumbling block to my walk, and I have to figure out a way to get around it so I can keep going. I’ll bet that has happened to many of you too! Well, readers, sometimes that happens in our reading too. Sometimes I’m reading along and sort of hearing the words in my head as I go and things are going along so smoothly and then- WHAM! There’s a word I’ve never seen and I don’t know how to read it and it’s just like that stumbling block on my walking path. I have to figure out a way to get around it so I can keep going. You know what is so cool? Sometimes authors help us out with these stumbling blocks. It’s just like when the scaffold has arrows telling us how to get around it safely! Here- let me show you… (display p. 9) Readers, let’s read this through once in our heads and while we’re reading on our own, let’s see if you can find that cool thing the author did to help us out for those stumbling block words. (read through the text in your own head as students do the same) Did anyone see anything that might be there to help us out as we read this page? Come show us. (select a student to point out the pronunciation) Hmm… let’s see what that one near the top says- right here in parentheses it looks like two words. Yoor. Up. That doesn’t make much sense, does it? Maybe I should read the whole paragraph and see how it fits in. “The equator goes through the middle of Africa. Africa is just below the continent of Europe (Yoor. Up).” Oh! Readers, did you hear that? I read that last part and it said Europe/Yoor up! That part in parentheses is there to tell me how to say the word right before it. So that IS something the author did to help my reading. When I’m reading along smoothly and see a tricky word, I can look right behind it to see if the author gave me any ways to help me read it smoothly too. There’s another one down here- let’s read on. “The-“ WHOA- big word, but I see it shows hwo to say it- let’s try it together part by part. (Point to each part as you read it, greatly exaggerating the space between each part). “Med-ih-tuh-ray-ne-uhn.” Hmmm… that didn’t even sound like a word. Let’s try it a little faster. Ready? Mediterranean. Ooh! Nice job! Mediterranean. Let’s go back and read the sentence with that word in it. And now that we already read how to say it the right way, we don’t need to read that part again so we’re going to skip over it as we read. Watch what I mean. (Point to the words as you read the second paragraph of the text). Readers, that’s kind of fun isn’t it? It’s neat how authors help us out with how to say new words. It helps us keep our reading smooth. Let’s try one more with the person sitting next to you. (Show p. 20) Take a moment to read this page in your head and then I want you to turn to your partner and take turns reading the parts of the word. You can start by reading them slowly just like we did before, but remember you want to work up to reading them together quickly to figure out the word. Go ahead! Let’s all read this paragraph together, but since we already figured out how to say that word we’re not going to read the word AND how to say the word. We’ll just do the word now that we know it to keep it sounding smooth. (Teacher points as class reads) So readers, anytime you are reading and come across a pronunciation inyour book, will you remember what it’s there for and use it to help you be a smooth reader? You already do so many brilliant things when you are reading, and I want you to add this strategy to those other brilliant things.
Materials: Enlargement or overhead transparency of p. 14, 25, 31 (Parker V., 2005) (display p. 25) Readers, have you ever noticed that sometimes when you are reading nonfiction text, they make the words in bold like this? I know when I was a little girl, I got confused about this because I know in stories when writers make their words bold, they are usually yelling, but that doesn’t work for nonfiction books. Can you imagine if I read it like that? Let m read the first sentence- listen and see if it makes sense to read the bold words like yelling. “Hamida’s family are BEDOUINS.” What do you think? Weird, right? I know. But when I was little I used to do that because I didn’t know why a nonfiction author would make their words bold. Now that I’ve read a lot of nonfiction, I’ve figured out that it’s almost like a code. Bold words are often the ones that are in the glossary at the back, where they tell you what words mean. So now as a reader, I use that. When I read a bold word that I don’t know, usually the text doesn’t make any sense so I go back to the glossary to figure out what the word means and try to make sense of what the author is saying. Let me show you what I do as a reader. “Hamida’s family are Bedouins.” OK- you know what? I have no idea what a Bedouin is. I’m going to read on one more sentence to see if it says, but I may need to go check that glossary because I don’t understand what they are talking about here. “Bedouin people traditionally live in tents.” OK, so something about living in tents. You know what? I think I’d better look and see. The glossary is at the back of the book- (display p. 31 next to p.25) Ahh- here we go. Hamida’s family are Bedouins. “Bedouin- an old tribe (group of people) who live in tents in the desert. They often move around rather than living in one place.” Wow- that tells me a lot about Hamida and her family. Readers, did you see what I did as a reader? I read like I always do, trying to make sure it makes sense, but when I read that bold word, it didn’t really so I went to the glossary to figure out what it meant. I found it in the glossary, and then I went back to my page and plugged it in to help it make sense. That sounds like a lot of work, but it can be pretty quick work and VERY helpful to making nonfiction make sense. Let me show you how quick it can go. “Bedouin people traditionally live in tents.” I’m noticigin it isn’t making sense so I’m going to check that bold word in the glossary, there it is- “tradition- something that has been going for a very long time without changing”, better go back and plug that in. Bedouin people traditionally live in tents. They’ve lived in tents for a very long time and they haven’t changed their minds about living in tents. Did you see what I did? I checked if I it made sense to me, looked up the word because it didn’t make sense until I knew that word, and then went back to the page to plug it in with my reading. I’m going to give you a chance to do that same thing on a different page from this text. (remove p. 25, replaces with p. 14). Let’s read to the bold word together. “Ebtesam Is six years old. She comes from Baharef. Baharef is a village in southern Egypt where people farm dates.” Does that make sense? Farming dates? Like dates on a calendar, Or dates like boyfriends and girlfriends? I’m thinking we might be glad that word is bold. Go ahead and do what readers do- look it up and plug it in with your partner. See if you can make sense of that sentence by plugging in what you learn from the glossary. (Teacher can confer in with a group or two) Boy! I was on the wrong track, but (name a team) set me straight. Listen to what they said there. Baharef is a village in southern Egypt where people farm dates, which are a fruit that grows on palm trees. Wow- I was way off with my thinking. It’s a good thing we had that word in bold so we knew we could look it up in the glossary and bring it back to plug into the page. So readers, anytime you are reading and come across a bold word in your book, will you remember that it might be there so that you can use the glossary to help you make sense of your reading by plugging the meaning back into the page? You already do so many brilliant things when you are reading and I want you to add this strategy to all those other brilliant things. Directory: file -> view view -> Western Europe after wwii view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Chinese Wind Energy Disad Download 248.47 Kb. Share with your friends:
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