The Reading Strategies Book Online Book Club: Chapter 1

Hello Book Buddies! I am excited about the start of our online book study of Jennifer Serravallo's The Reading Strategies Book. If you haven't checked out the preview/introduction post, you can find it on the Book Buddies facebook page!  And if you haven't purchased the book yet, you can click here for a quick link to Heinemann!






GOAL 1: Supporting Pre-Emergent and Emergent Readers

So, as I began to preview Chapter 1/Goal 1, I immediately felt like this chapter was going to be a chapter of confirmations because after all, most of my professional career has been dedicated to this very goal. But as I began to dig into chapter 1,  I felt like someone was hitting me on the head like in those commercials that say, "You should have had a V8"! I bet you were feeling that way too, especially when Jennifer states, "We can meet students where they are, and help them engage with, and enjoy books, make meaning, acquire vocabulary, use text features to understand, connect the pages, respond to texts by writing and talking, practice their fluency, and perhaps above all, develop identities as confident, engaged, joyful readers even without decoding"(pg 20-21).

 Of course we teach many of these 20 strategies provided,,,yes Jennifer offers 20 different strategies to select from for teaching these beginning readers!!! But remember, one of her colleagues compared these strategies to recipes in a cook book. You don't need to use them all with every student in a particular order. Instead, you select the ones that will work best to meet each student's needs. As for me, I like to compare these strategies to a shoe closet full of awesome choices (heels, flats, wedges, flip flops, sneakers, boots). No one pair of shoes is going to be perfect to wear during all seasons with all wardrobe choices, and for every activity. You have to select what shoes you need for a specific occasion. Get it?


So here is a glance at those 20 strategies provided on pg 23: (photo taken from http://literacylovinggals.blogspot.com/ )

Though I could surely go on and on about all 20 strategies, I am going to pick out three that stood out to me. These may be the same ones you were really drawn to, or maybe a different strategy stuck out based on your own experiences. 

  

1.6 Characters Do, Characters Say

"Strategy-On every page, try to sound like a storyteller. You can look carefully at the picture to say what the character is doing and what the character is saying" (pg 29).  I love how Jennifer even includes the language you can use to introduce this strategy in order to help students not only think about WHAT the character is doing on that page, but also WHAT the character may be saying. This will enable students to become better at storytelling with details but also, it would seem as though it could help later with using appropriate intonation and expression as well as leading up to inferring how a character acts!!! Think about how students are expected to do this skill later down the road. Wouldn't this be a GrEaT start to laying that foundation?!?!

1.16 What I see/What I Think

"Strategy-Reading is Thinking! When you read a page, you can read from the page and say what you see. Then, you can say what's in your mind, or what you think" (pg 39). Ok so how many times have you dipped in to hear a little one reading along and you ask a question or attempt to have a discussion about what was read and the student looks up at you like a deer in headlights? Come on...I know I am not the only one. Well, maybe this strategy is a great "go to" for that. If we can start off with a strategy like this in the emergent stage, think about how beneficial this will be in helping students see that in fact "reading IS thinking" (39). This will pay off in helping students to notice when their reading does not make sense (monitor) as well as learning how to read between the lines (infer).  

1.19 Connect the Pages

Oh holy cow did I need to read this one! So many times I have worked with students who may be thinking about what makes sense ON THAT PAGE, but they do not use this information to help drive the rest of their reading throughout the book. They are not taking the information presented to infer or to synthesize their thinking. I love how Jennifer provides these prompts: 1. "Think about how these pages connect"

                                        2. Say, 'And then...'

                                        3. Say, 'Another thing is...'

                                        4. "How does what you learn on this page fit with what you 

                                             learned on that page?"

                                        5. "How did the character get from here to there?"

And don't forget, this strategy can be used with emergent readers (levels A-C). I am thinking about those first simple texts that we use and getting them to understand how this strategy works early!!!

Jennifer gives us great advice on pg 22 when she states, "It will be helpful for you to watch your students read books that are familiar and unfamiliar, those that are fiction, nonfiction, or others that don't fall into either category, and notice what they (students) do as they read from the pictures across the pages of a book".  We have to take the time on the front end to really observe our students to determine their strengths and needs in order to select the most appropriate strategy and promote effective reading behaviors. We have to foster literacy skills that will enable students to become successful readers and writers! 

Question: Which strategy stands out the most to you for Goal 1 and why? You can post your response in our closed Book Study Group on Facebook (Book Buddies)!