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I get a great deal of my picture books for class from this site:Trade Books for Free with our Online Book Swap `PaperBackSwap.com 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

Questioning

Simply put: If you don't have any questions...stop reading the book. Questions drive us to read further. They are the engine! As I became more aware of the strategies in my own reading, I was amazed at the type and the amount of questions I had. In class I love to say the words...."Hmm, I wonder" or "My questioning strategy was just ACTIVATED here" while we are reading together. Questions are powerful. They engage us and make us wonder what the answers are. Asking questions is natural for children. The tough part is trying to get them to ask deep questions about the characters they meet in books. Why did the character say that/do that? (characters motivations). I love Charlie Anderson and See the Ocean for a first experience with questioning. Both books have that little twist at the end that makes you think. Christine

Beth Newingham

More about Beth Newingham's website. I loved these theme posters. Throughout the year I would have the children add small copies of the covers of books we had read next to the theme. What is important here is that some books had more than one theme. We would discuss which theme was the strongest or just put the picture in both themes. We added picture books, paperbacks and even stories from our Houghton Mifflin (Trophies) reading series. Be sure to explain that their are MANY themes in stories. These are just some of the most popular ones. Its a great way to look back at all of the reading you did when the year is coming to an end. Christine

favorite websites for teachers

My alltime favorite website for teachers is Beth Newingham's site: http://hill.troy.k12.mi.us/staff/bnewingham/myweb3/index
If you can't get to her site from this then just google her name. She is awesome! Last summer I printed out her templates for organizing books according to theme. I was really happy with the way they worked out. Here are some other websites I like: http://www.hollynowalk.com/, http://www.mrsrenz.net/, http://www.mandygregory.com/ Christine

Visualizing

I read recently that visualizing could be considered the "most important" reading strategy. I've been thinking about how heavily I rely on it as a reader. If you can't visualize, can you really comprehend? I believe that picture painting in your mind is essential for enjoyment of text. Are some people just naturally better able to visualize while reading? I have worked with children who find the concept difficult to grasp and others who take to it like a duck to water. Why? Its an interesting topic to research...... In class I begin visualizing lessons early in the year.(Late Sept, early Oct.) I particularly like Owl Moon by Jane Yolen and The Seashore Book as anchor texts. Most poetry is highly visual. I love the poem: November by John Updike. Its easy to do a compare/contrast lesson involving visualizing with that poem and the picture book In November by Cynthia Rylant. I put a picture under each stanza in the poem, (see photograph) and I like to have the children guess what my picture is. In order to guess you would need to visualize. Simple lesson. Good practice. But you have to wait till November.

Christine