ACTIVE

Creating ACTIVE Readers through Responsive Feedback = = IRA 2006  Barry Hoonan  The Odyssey Program  Bainbridge Island School District  bhoonan@bisd303.org  206-855-0435
 * Ideas and strategies for starting the year: **
 * SSR – Sustained Silent Reading: Talk about why we need to read daily. Define what SSR means, what it looks like and sounds like with the learners. Assess whether or not they are doing what they defined. Yes/No.


 * ** How do we choose a book? ** Pose this problem to your class and write down their insights or strategies. Take pictures of students using the strategies and make a ‘How to choose a book strategies’ anchor poster.


 * ** What makes a ‘just right’ book? ** Define with students through demonstrations, discussions, and ‘think alouds’ how to make a decision on whether a book is ‘just right’. Considerations: five finger rule. Book browse and mark. Reading Time Log with self-evaluation.


 * **Think aloud ** – This strategy is as simple as it sounds. Your job as a teacher is to share how you are making sense of a text. You are the model many students will hear and see work out “reader moves”. What questions come to mind when you pick out a book or when you are first reading a text? What do you do when you preview a text? What do you do when you come across words you are not sure of?


 * **Anchor Charts / Anchor Posters ** – This is a great strategy for highlighting an inquiry or a process so the readers in your class can see the construction of meaning making lies in their hands. A few of my favorite anchor charts have been: What do good readers do? What are our best study strategies for remembering what we’ve read? What do we do when we read for information? How do we choose a book? What does silent reading look and sound like? What do we notice about historic fiction books and stories?

What do you do as you read? Here is a tricky text which will demand a lot of you as a reader.
 * What do ACTIVE readers do when they read difficult text? **
 * Pay attention to what you do as a reader to make sense of this text.
 * Read it through by yourself and then read it over again with a partner.
 * Write down the things you noticed you did as a reader to make sense of the passage.
 * Meet in a small group and choose a recorder to list all the moves or reading strategies shared. Record on a post-it.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">A spokesperson shares the group’s strategies out loud and then places post-it on our class chart called ‘What ACTIVE readers do?’


 * __ Making Connections: __**


 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 10pt;">1. Continuum Stance **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 10pt;"> – “Vote with your Feet” Crow and Hawk by Michael RosenThis strategy is wonderful for showing how information influences a reader’s understanding of a story or subject. Readers stand in a line on a continuum of support or disagreement on an issue brought up in a story, a subject area, or a contemporary situation. For instance, in a biology class a group of students were asked to stand on the continuum regarding their opinion of animal rights and experimentation. By encouraging discussion, students made a case for their position. If other students are convinced or persuaded in some way, they can move. This strategy helps readers clarify their views, consider opposing arguments and coupled with a strong text, understand who text provide information in the shaping of opinion. (In this biology class situation, the teacher offered an alternative to dissecting frogs for the students who were against animal testing.)

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 10pt;">(**//Non-fiction Class Opinionaires//**: Drilling in Artic, Importance of Women’s History Month. Child Labor. **//Fiction “Moral Dilemma Continuum”//**: Cages – Peg Kehret. Should Kit keep the secret about her stealing the bracelet from her best friend? Crash – Jerry Spinelli. Should Crash let Penn Web win the race?)


 * __ Making Inferences __**


 * 1) 1. ** Inference making through visual examples ** – It is the transaction between the text and the reader that meaning is made. One of my favorite strategies to help readers comprehend this dynamic meaning-making process is to have them look at political cartoons and covers of magazines and books and infer what they think is going on. It is much like taking a museum walk. The meaning comes from the experience and prior knowledge the individual brings with them applies to the art. Readers quickly learn that multiple interpretations are common.


 * Workshop demonstration: **// New Yorker // magazine

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: center;">BIBLIOGRAPHY:
 * 1) **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 10pt;">Save the Last Word for the Artist **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 10pt;"> – This is a brilliant strategy for helping kids see the power of art and how readers make multiple interpretations of the same text. In this case, the reader is connecting the text to a fellow student’s drawing of the text. I follow my first //sketch to stretch// experience by asking students to form small groups. In groups of four to five, a student volunteers by sliding their drawing to the middle of the table. The artist then allows for every person in the group to offer their own interpretation of the drawing. The artist is last to share what they were thinking. This is perhaps the best strategy I know of showing kids the power of discussion and sharing ones thinking. It can be effectively demonstrated to the whole class by choosing a select group of students to model this process and the other students stand around observing how this strategy works. The whole class then offers insight on the value of “saving the last word for the artist.” **//(Fishbowl w/ class debriefing)//**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 9pt;">Ellin Oliver Keene & Susan Zimmermann, Heinemann, 1997
 * 1) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 9pt;">1. Mosaic of Thought – Teaching Comprehension in a Reader’s Workshop.
 * 1) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 9pt;">2. When Kids Can’t Read, What Teachers Can Do. Kylene Beers, Heinemann, 2002.
 * 2) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 9pt;">3. Creating a Classroom for Authors and Inquirers. Short, Harste, & Burke. Heinemann, 1998.
 * 3) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 9pt;">4. Imagining to Learn. Jeffrey Wilhelm & Brian Edmiston, Heinemann, 1998.
 * 4) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 9pt;">5. What Really Matters for Struggling Readers. Richard Allington, Addison Wesley Longman, 2001
 * 5) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 9pt;">6. Yellow Brick Roads. Janet Allen, Stenhouse, 2000.
 * 6) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 9pt;">7. Teaching Reading in the Middle School. Laura Robb, Scholastic, 2000.
 * 7) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 9pt;">8. Improving Comprehension with Think-Aloud Strategies. Jeffrey Wilhelm, PH.D. Scholastic, 2001.
 * 8) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 9pt;">9. Action Strategies for Deepening Comprehension. Jeffrey Wilhelm, PH.D. Scholastic, 2002.
 * 9) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 9pt;">10. Strategies That Work. Stephanie Harvey & Anne Goudvis. Stenhouse, 2000.
 * 10) 11. // 7 Keys to Comprehension – How to Help Your Kids Read It and Get It! // – Susan Zimmerman & Chryse Hutchins. Three Rivers Press. New York. 2003
 * 11) 12. // Get A.C.T.I.V.E.: Engaging Middle School Readers with Text // – Amy Goodman. Pp 15-23. Voices from the Middle, September 2003, Vol 11, Number 1. NCTE. Urbana, Illinois.
 * 12) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 9pt;">13. Reading With Meaning, Debbie Miller. Stenhouse, 2002.