Reading Strategies

Reading Strategies

If you're an elementary teacher, then you are teaching reading strategies.

It's super important to be explicit and clear.  You have to provide kids with a toolbox of strategies to help them navigate their reading.  Stephanie Harvey is amazing and knows all things literacy.  Her book Strategies that Work has been a cornerstone for me.

We all know Reading is thinking.  Kids need to interact with the text.  The strategies are: Activating and connecting to background knowledge, determining importance, "fix up" strategies, inferring and visualizing meaning, monitoring comprehension, asking questions and synthesizing and summarizing.  

Here is one of the anchor charts I made.  I make posters out of them (there is a lot of text) and I made small versions for the kids to glue in their journals.

Now what?

First, read the book so you have a thorough understanding of all the strategies.  As kids are reading in Reader's Workshop, monitor them.  Confer with them and take notes.  The notes will remind you what you've already covered and where to go from there! 

If you need the anchor charts, they are in my TPT store!  

The direct link is here.  There are three versions; two black and white.  One is more simple and the other has sentence stems for the kids.  There is also a color version with tween readers clip art.  Enjoy reading with your kids!  Give them the tools they need and they will amaze you!