I did some research and realized that I could use strategy groups during the entire year to help boost my students’ reading comprehension.Īfter several years of research and implementation, I think strategy groups are one of the most underutilized (yet most effective) instructional strategies we can use to help students become more confident in their ability to use comprehension strategies in their independent reading. Well over the summer I did some research and realized that strategy groups were an actual thing. This little impromptu group worked out so well that I decided to keep using that format during our test prep season. then my students practiced that skill while they were sitting right in front of me and I could support or answer any questions they had. We had a quick discussion about what thinking questions were, talked about how to identify them, and then talked about how to answer them…. So while these four students came to the carpet. *Side note: We used the term thinking questions to describe any test question that couldn’t be answered by going back to the text… most of them were inferential questions. Each one was reading a different passage, but they all needed help with the same skill – identifying and answering thinking questions. Well, we had some extra time in our reading lesson so I just told my class “If anyone feels like they need help with answering thinking questions, bring your prescription packet with you and come on down to the carpet. So every student has a different set of passages and questions that were specific to the skills they needed to practice. We figured this would prevent students from practicing stuff they already mastered. Basically, we would give students a practice test for the EOY exam and whatever reading comprehension skills they didn’t master on that practice test were the ones they practiced during our test prep season. My school gave students what we referred to as “prescription packets” – maybe you have something similar. We were in the middle of our spiral review and trying to review all the reading skills we had learned during they year. One year while I was teaching fourth grade we were in the middle of test prep which means we were focusing on ALL THINGS reading comprehension. So, like most things in my teacher journey, I started doing strategy groups accidentally.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |