[MOSAIC] Mosaic Digest, Vol 7, Issue 3

[May Dartez]

I am so glad you brought this up, Lori. I had the same concern. One 
thing I did last year was to use
short pieces of nonfiction (from magazines, newspapers, etc.....the 
Comprehension Toolkit is a
WONDERFUL resouce, if you can get your hands on it, though expensive. 
Time for Kids has many great
articles. You would most likely want to spend at least two weeks on 
each strategy....enough time to do modeled
reading (where you model your own use of the strategy aloud), shared 
reading (where you guide the class in
using the strategy together) and then collaborative and finally 
independent use of the strategy.

After extensive practice of each strategy in this manner, your students 
would be ready to apply them independently
to a novel. My seventh graders last year made a portfolio sharing 
examples of several uses of each strategy. This
was successful but needed a lot of preparatory work beforehand to get 
them to this level of independence.

Another thing you could do is to focus on just one to two (MAYBE three) 
strategies with the novel.....start with monitoring comprehension and 
then move on to also doing connections once you feel they have 
internalized the strategy of
comprehension monitoring. If they really do well, maybe you could begin 
questioning toward the end of the book, but I'm guessing
that fourth graders would need extended practice with each strategy, 
which would take several chapters.

Also, I know that many national reading experts recommend that novels 
are NOT the best resource to teach the strategies. The problem with 
novels is that they present additional reading challenges.....plot, 
theme, character analysis, climax, etc. Shorter nonfiction is most 
often recommended for strategy instruction, partly because you can 
carefully choose articles or picture books that very specifically lend 
themselves to a particular strategy and partly because, since they are 
shorter, students can easily experience success with them.

This is my understanding of comprehension instruction, but it is 
supported by Strategies That Work, etc. The last school that I taught 
in only permitted us to teach novels, which was one of the reasons I 
ended up leaving. Though all students do need to be exposed to full 
novels,  I did not agree that only reading fiction novels was 
appropriate instruction for strugging readers.

May/6th/GA




Lori: My own sense is that unless your readers have been well and 
deeply exposed
> to the strategies, this will be pretty superficial level exposure to 
> them.
>
> Lori



> Patti:
>>   My plan is to use a
>> different chapter for each strategy, i.e., Chapter 1 - Making 
>> Connections,
>> etc.  I would love to read any suggestions.
>>
>> Thank you.