How to Boost Your Students' Understanding of Your Content Area: Be a Reading Teacher!
Gail Lovely

www.GailLovely.com

Gail@GailLovely.com or glovely@aol.com

This handout is from a recent workshop.

Workshop Description:

The pressure is on to improve students' test scores. One way to tackle this challenge is help your students to better understand the curriculum content by reading with better fluency and comprehension. This session will provide tips and strategies that you can immediately employ with your students.

Teach Students the Patterns in Different Kinds of Reading

n http://coe.sdsu.edu/people/jmora/ContentReadMM/sld010.htm

Reading Science

n http://eagle.chimacum.wednet.edu/classpages/reading_strategies.html

Teach Students to Read the Content Differently

n http://www.ops.org/reading/secondarystrat1.htm

n http://www.sarasota.k12.fl.us/MRC/interdiscrdg.htm

n http://www.adams12.org/teacherweb/jacksonliteracy/literacy.htm

n http://www.glencoe.com/sec/teachingtoday/index.phtml

n http://www.angelfire.com/wa2/buildingcathedrals/SecondaryReadingStrategies.html

Read Aloud Strategies

n http://www.readingrockets.org/article.php?ID=431

Increasing Fluency

Fluency is the ability to read accurately and quickly, recognize words, and comprehend what is read, all simultaneously. We often teach fluency by providing models of fluent reading and through repeated reading with guidance.

Online Resources for Fluency
Poetry

n Poetry4Kids

n http://www.poetry4kids.com/

n C.J. Heck’s Poetry for Children

n http://www.barkingspiderspoetry.com/

Readers’ Theater

n The Electronic Classroom’s Readers Theatre

n http://www.readingonline.org/electronic/elec_index.asp?HREF=carrick/index.html

n Aaron Shepard’s Reader’s Theatre

n http://www.aaronshep.com/rt/index.html

Closed Captioning

n Television Programming

n Videos

n Some software

Lyrics and Songs

n KIDiddles Classic Children’s Songs and Folk Songs

http://www.kididdles.com/mouseum/index.html

n Flying Pigs Campfire Songbook, Volume 3

n http://www.flyingpigs.org.uk/song_index.shtml

n National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences: Sing-Along Lyrics

n http://www.niehs.nih.gov/kids/music.htm

Student News

n Student News Net

n http://www.studentnewsnet.com/

n CNN Student News

n http://cnnstudentnews.cnn.com/fyi/

n The New York Times Learning Network

n http://www.nytimes.com/learning/

n Scholastic News for Kids (elementary ages)

n http://teacher.scholastic.com/scholasticnews/

n Time for Kids

n http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/index.html

Audio Books

n Free MP3 Books

n http://www.audiobooksforfree.com/screen_main.asp

n Web-Pop offers online books and audio stories

n http://www.web-pop.com/bookpopchooser.html

n Light Up Your Brain

n http://www.lightupyourbrain.com/stories.html

n Classic Fairy Tales (and some new ones)

n http://www.classicfairytales.com/en/

Vocabulary Development

n Education Place: Fake Out

n http://www.eduplace.com/fakeout/

n Education Place: Wacky Web Tales

n http://www.eduplace.com/tales/index.html

n Kid Crosswords and Other Puzzles

n http://www.kidcrosswords.com

n Scholastic: Annie’s Rhyme Time

n http://teacher.scholastic.com/annie/index.asp

n Merriam Webster’s Word Central (grades4-8 and up)

n http://www.wordcentral.com/

n Vocabulary University

n http://www.vocabulary.com

n Word Play: Fun with Words

n http://www.wolinskyweb.net/word.htm

Comprehension Strategies and Tools

n An example of excellence:

n http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/mythology/mythology.html&edu=elem

Comprehension Strategies

Specific strategies for encouraging and teaching comprehension include using graphic organizers, using questions (both asking/writing questions and answering questions), and summarizing.

Graphic Organizers

n Graphic organizers can help students focus on details, isolate events and sequences, compare and contrast, and more.

Software for Graphic Organizers

n Inspiration/Kidspiration

n Visio

n Writer’s Companion from Visions

Online Graphic Organizers to Print

n In Spanish and English:

n http://www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer/index.html

n http://www.region15.org/curriculum/graphicorg.html

n http://www.eduscapes.com/tap/topic73.htm

Graphic Organizers Online

n http://teachers.teach-nology.com/web_tools/graphic_org/

Strategies

n Think Pair Share

If you found this information interesting or helpful, I would love to come to your school and work with you and your colleagues, contact me!

Gail Lovely

www.GailLovely.com

glovely@aol.com or Gail@GailLovely.com