More on The Stranger

My original post from 2010: My two favorite Van Allburg books are The Stranger and The Sweetest Fig. The Stranger is a great book to use when teaching inferring. You can see from my poster that I start with: I think the stranger is.... and Here are the clues (details) that helped me:  I put a sticky over the answer. As we read the book I had the children make their thinking visible on post it notes and then stick them to the page.We developed the list on the anchor chart together. Many children are able to understand that something unusual or magical is happening but they don't have the background knowledge to come up with the name Jack Frost.
            This year as I was reading The Stranger to my class I started thinking how much our questions  lead us to understanding who the stranger really is. I produced this new anchor chart with the 4th graders.  I combined parts of the text with the post it notes where the children made their thinking visible. Here are some pictures:

     

Studying Helen Keller

We've been reading Scholastic chapter book biographies for homework (Rosa Parks and Neil Armstrong) but in class we are enjoying Helen Keller by Margaret Davidson

 I have a class set so every child has a copy. The text is easy reading (third grade level) but my focus has been inferring both Annie and Helen's personality traits through actions, dialogue or monologue. To introduce the skill I refer to them as thoughts, actions, or words.This is the first time I have done this with my fourth graders and I thought they got the hang of it pretty quickly. We listed the trait, how it was revealed to us in the story, and the text based evidence with pg. number.

                      This is the anchor chart we developed for Annie, or Teacher, as she was fondly known

Several of my 4th graders have really become interested in learning more about Helen Keller. The following website for kids gives lots of info and pictures of Helen throughout her life:
http://www.afb.org/braillebug/hkgallery.asp?tpid=1
Its great for showing on the Smartboard. Christine

Inferring character's feelings

I love stories which have the character's feelings change over time. I got this idea from Emily Kissner's blog http://emilykissner.blogspot.com/ She used Shortcut by Donald Crews as the mentor text to help children infer the character's feelings throughout the story. I used her lesson on my Smartboard.

The children all had a copy of the story map as well.

We also discussed the narrative elements for this simple story using Beth Newingham's Story Mountain

http://blogs.scholastic.com/top_teaching/2011/02/my-february-top-ten-list-resources-and-lessons-for-reading-fiction.html

The kids LOVED that you could move the yellow star on the Smartboard to show the rising action, climax and falling action of the story. Great lesson, thanks Emily. Christine

inferring with poetry

This is a great poem for inferencing written by Gary Soto. Its a poem from his book: Fearless Fernie. It was used on the 5th grade MCAS test a few years back. You can see that I typed it for display on my Smartboard. You can easily infer the speaker's feelings:

• His hair jumped from his head..infer: excited
• It was his lucky day!...infer: happy
• He dug till his fingers were bleeding...infer: he is working hard!

I love that the poem ends with this message: When you leave something sweet behind, others come and get it. Try to get the children to explain what Fernie learned and apply it to other situations.Christine



Haiku

Jack Prelutsky wrote this wonderful picture book filed with who am I? haikus. I read it to the children without sharing the illustrations. Here is my favorite haiku in the book:

If not for the cat,

and the scarcity of cheese

I would be content.

Who am I? a mouse, of course. After reading together and inferring who the animals are we begin to write our own who am I? haikus. I have a great collection of class sets of National Geographic For Kids magazines which we use to gather facts about our chosen animal. Using nonfiction to create poetry riddles is fun! Christine

See The Ocean

http://www.dayofreading.org/DOR09HO/Teaching%20the%20Skill%20of%20Inference.pdf I love the story See The Ocean by Estelle Condra. I found a great link to the whole story in a power point presentation on inferencing by Rebecca Binks. I like to use See The Ocean to teach questioning but you could certainly argue that it is a good book to use for teaching inferencing as well. The story starts on page 33 (it takes a minute  or two to download)of the power point, but you may be interested in looking at the whole slide show. Christine

Tight Times inferencing lesson

http://www.ride.ri.gov/instruction/curriculum/rhodeisland/RhodeIslandProject/lessonplanvideos/LessonPlanVideo.aspx?LessonPlanID=31&VideoID=59
Here is a video of an inference lesson on the book Tight Times by Barbara Shook Hazen

This RI site has lots of videos of educators teaching inferencing skills to elementary age students:
http://www.ride.ri.gov/instruction/curriculum/rhodeisland/RhodeIslandProject/(rnukco454nhhejnqts3vaizm)/LessonPlanStart.aspx?LessonPlanID=31&Grade=3
Christine

Tight Times inferencing lesson

Here is a picture of my poster on the story Tight Times by Barbara Shook Hazen. This is a really good story for teaching inferencing. You can infer characters motivations and the characters feelings in this book. You can also predict easily what will happen next. I have copies of the book for each child. We read the story together and they make their thinking visible by writing inferences on post it notes. Later we go back and find the text based evidence or picture clue that helped us infer. Christine

inferring with pronouns

I got this lesson out of Kylene Beer's book When Kids Can't Read:

He put down $10. at the window. The woman behind the window gave him $4. The person next to him gave him $3. but he gave it back to her. So, when they went inside she bought him popcorn. This paragraph is so loaded with pronouns its very easy to get lost in the text. As an adult reader you can figure out rather quickly what is going on. Two people on a first date at the movies??? Kids don't have that kind of background knowledge. They might miss the clues which help you to infer (woman at a window, popcorn, he gave her the money back). I pass out a copy of this paragraph and have the children read it three times with a pencil in hand to write notes, and circle important details. Then I bring out the poster and dissect the paragraph with them. Its a quick easy inference lesson. Christine

inferring with poetry

Eraser and the School Clock is a poem by Gary Soto. It was on the 5th grade MCAS reading comprehension test a few years ago. The poem is about a child struggling through a math test. During the test he/she starts daydreaming about time stopping. Teachers are frozen in time, but not him. He dreams of going out to the schoolyard to hit homeruns. Children need to have strong inferencing skills to tackle this poem. As you can see from the poster I wrote key phrases from the poem in which the student would have to infer.Student responses could be put on the right side.Christine

revisiting a mentor text

I do an author study on Eve Bunting with my fifth graders. I like to introduce Eve Bunting in November of the fourth grade with this Thanksgiving story, How Many Days To America? I have a class set so this makes it easy. Many times I use the mats and the stickies to help the children make their thinking visible. Its a good book for using all of the reading strategies. It also makes that Thanksgiving connection and expands their thinking about immigration. Recently I got a new idea for this old mentor text from Emily Kissner's blog (its on my blog roll: In My Classroom: The Forest and the Trees). She uses this book for inferring characters feelings. I love the idea of revisiting or working with a book they have already read. This is a great book for inferring the different characters emotions, but I never thought of it that way before I read her post. She starts off the lesson by giving the children examples: How would you feel if you dropped your ice cream cone? How would a dad feel if his daughter crashed the car? ( this brings up the concept of mixed emotions). Then she has the kids work on a linear array for the word angry (upset, frustrated, livid and so on) This is a good vocabulary building exercise. Next, she reads the first page or two of How Many Days To America? and begins a divided page. On the left is the inferred feeling and on the right is the text based evidence. After modeling she has the children work in pairs to come up with some examples on their own. I did this lesson and the kids seemed to really enjoy it. I'd like to come up with some more ways to revisit/reread those really great stories and look at them through another lense.Christine

character traits

What kind of a person is_____________? Use evidence from the text to support your answer. This is a typical open response question on the MCAS for grades 3-5. I use this laminated poster to teach character traits throughout the year. This story, In The Days of King Adobe, is in our 4th grade Trophies anthology. The words thrifty and rascally are actually vocabulary words for the story. I have a character traits poster hung up in the room for reference. It is also a great vocabulary builder because some of the words on it  are challenging like mischievous or timid. Christine

Titanicat

The Titanic story fascinates me. This book is interesting because it gives us a different perspective of the story...The point of view of a cat and a poor immigrant boy named Jim who works on this grand ship.

Questions abound as we read the story. We have to infer to understand what is really going on. I put three questions on the board to help us gather information. 1. What do we learn about Jim? 2. What do we learn about the cat? 3. What do we learn about ships and cats?As we read the story I keep adding to the chart. After awhile we review the information and make some inferences and predictions for what will come next. For some children this story sparks and interest in reading further about the Titanic. I have a collection of books on the subject that I leave out. Look at my post on inferring vocabulary words in context to see another lesson I did with Titanicat.Christine

Inference lesson/poetry

This poem, Buying a Puppy, was in the 4th grade state standardized test (MCAS) one year. The open response question asked "What feelings does the speaker have throughout the poem?" In order to thoroughly answer that, the student would need to have the ability to infer characters feelings by identifying clues in the text .The poet does not come right out and tell us how the speaker feels. You are expected to infer.The students would also have to use their background knowledge about what it would be like to get a puppy. As you can see from the poster, I had the students locate the text based evidence. For example, the speaker (child in the poem) doesn't know why Pa wants a scrap of meat and an old towel. The leap is that the student has to understand that the poet is showing us the speaker (child in poem) is confused. Many fourth graders have a difficult time understanding that being confused is a feeling. Text based evidence for other feelings like feeling loved, happy or excited are also in the poem. This poem has many good example of show don't tell, a technique I try to get my students to use in their writing (personal narratives). Christine

make your thinking visible poster

Here is a picture of the poster I use with the lesson in the previous post. After the children have listened to the story and made their thinking visible on the mat, they come up to the poster with their favorite question or inference and add it to the correct column. Christine

Make your thinking visible

After I have taught the following reading strategies: background knowledge, visualizing, inferring, and questioning I start using these mats. I tell the children to "make their thinking visible" by writing down on stickies what is going on in their brains while I read a story aloud. Excellent readers use all of the strategies simultaneously, therefore I have them practice in a way that allows me to assess their ability to read critically. We are now fully into the apply stage. Next, I might ask them to tell me what they visualized or questioned and go up to place their stickies on a poster for the whole class. I use these posters/mats all year (probably once or twice a month)for whole group instruction. I have even given them a worksheet that looks like the mat for homework to use with their nightly reading (instead of summarizing the chapter). Christine

Inference lesson

Sarah, Plain and Tall was never a favorite children's book of mine until I really started applying the reading strategies while reading it with kids. Our grade 4 Trophies (Houghton Mifflin) Anthology has an exerpt, but I would rather read the whole book. The poster shows the lesson "read between the lines" from the first letter Sarah writes to Papa to introduce herself. To grasp what Sarah is really saying you need to have some pretty solid inferencing skills. We as adults clearly pick up on some of Sarah's character traits, but children do not. They have no background knowledge about what it is to be a mail order bride. Words like spinster and old maid may be foreign to them. After this lesson, the children are better equipped to continue with the story. I sometimes have them finish the story and summarize a few chapters a night for homework. If you are interested in building background knowledge about the prairie or pioneers before reading, I would recommend Dandelions by Eve Bunting or Dakota Dugout . Christine

More on inferring

I just love this poster...It is such a great visual for teaching inferencing. Put your background knowledge and the clues from the text together...and BAM! You have an inference.

Inferring

After I have taught all of my making connections, visualizing, and questioning lessons using the anchor texts I described in earlier posts, I am ready for the really hard work: teaching children about inferring. Inferring is truly about thinking while reading. Taking the clues from the text and combining them with your background knowledge is a leap many children struggle with. Direct, explicit instruction is necessary. Two of my favorite inference lessons are Tight Times by Barbara Shook Hazen and Fireflies! by Julie Brinkloe. You can see from the poster how I set up the Fireflies! lesson. (excuse my foot!!)I read the story as the students follow along (I have a class set of these books). The children write their inferences (and questions, what they visualized, and their connections) on stickies which they stick right on the page in the book. As we discuss the inferences in the story, I post the stickies on the poster next to the page from the text. Once I've taught inferencing, I expect application to start to occur. By now (we are in October) the children have had explicit instruction in 4 reading strategies. They should be using the vocabulary and applying these strategies every day...to EVERYTHING they read. Christine