[MOSAIC] Comprehension Toolkit

[Diane]

I did the first two Comprehension Toolkit lessons (by Stephanie Harvey & 
Anne Goudvis) this week. They went really well. The students were very 
engaged and really enjoyed the lessons. I was surprised at, and very 
impressed by, the level of discussion among my fourth-graders. They made 
the same kinds of comments that were made in the demo lesson provided in 
the toolkit. (I tend to view demo class lessons with a little bit of 
skepticism, wondering how true-to-life they are.)

I am so encouraged by how well the lessons went. I only have 60 minutes 
for the lessons, so I have to move pretty fast. I was able to pack it 
all in during the time period.

Even the "Stealing Beauty" lesson went very well. I only read the first 
few paragraphs of the article as indicated in the demo lesson. (I wonder 
if some who had trouble with this lesson read the entire article.) We 
had great discussions with only the excerpt. These students were not 
taught comprehension strategies in an explicit way in the lower grades, 
so I'm very inspired by their progress. I have been modeling the 
strategies in our read-alouds but haven't done a full-blown lesson on 
them. They must have connected with the modeling much more than I knew.

I have one gifted student (and an excellent reader) who complains about 
the stop and think sessions. She told me that she wants to read the 
whole story THEN discuss it. I told her that I will give her the 
opportunity to read through books will we read together beforehand. The 
drawback is that she isn't able to participate with predictions and some 
inferences because she has/will have already read the books. I am 
certain that her participation would be beneficial to our discussions. 
Suggestions?

Just wanted to share,
Diane/4th

http://www.comprehensiontoolkit.com/