Teaching Strategies
Fluency Protocol
To better navigate the reading of Front Desk, students will follow a fluency routine that they can expect to use each day that the text is read. Prior to beginning the selection, there will be a class discussion to activate prior knowledge of what happened in the previous section. Then, students will have a reading responsibility assigned to them as I read aloud. For example, whisper reading or drop-in/drop-out with finger tracking. A discussion will follow the selection to address a specific skill or standard related to comprehension. Finally, students will partner-read a few pages to improve their fluency as they now have a basal understanding of what has happened.
Somebody-Wanted-But-So-Then Framework
This framework is a tool to help students summarize what they have read. The ‘Somebody’ is the main character of the selection. The signal words ‘Wanted’ and ‘But’ allow the students to easily identify the conflict. ‘So’ and ‘Then’ will prompt the students to recognize the resolution. These elements will then be used to write a summary of the selection in a complete sentence. These summary sentences are a chance for the students to synthesize what they have read and use writing to check their comprehension.
Explicit Vocabulary Instruction
Each class, one-to-two words will be predetermined to teach before the reading of a selection where those words appear. For the phonetic piece, students will repeat the word twice and count the syllables. The definition of the word will then be explicitly taught with visual aids and synonyms and antonyms, if applicable. Example sentences with the word used correctly will be used next. Once students are comfortable with the meaning, students will practice applying it in different situations with non-examples to determine if the context is correct. Finally, students will be provided with a sentence frame that requires them to come up with their own sentence using the word to orally share with a partner. This strategy will also help with the teaching of character traits because of the added bonus of context from the story to help solidify the meanings.
Turn-and-Talk
In order for students to have time to form their own thoughts and opinions about the book, turn-and-talks will be used. This strategy begins with the teacher posing a question to the class, and then students turn and talk to their partner to answer the question. Before the process, it is imperative for the teacher to make sure the pairs are established in a way to promote the best communication. Partners must also be monitored during the conversations to ensure that both students have a chance to speak. To ensure participation, it is helpful to have a few students share their answers out loud.
Hands-On Activities
To further deepen instruction, hands-on activities will be utilized to make sure students are engaged and working with the content material in more than one way. When students are able to activate different parts of their brains and bodies, the content is able to permeate deeper. An example of one of these activities will be using physical pieces of paper or manipulatives to model sequencing. Additionally, reader’s theater will not only help them internalize the text to bolster comprehension, but also improve their prosody to increase fluency.
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