sutton007

According to the National Capital Language Resource Center (NCLRC), " Reading is an activity with a purpose ."  Understanding the author's purpose for writing a selection helps the reader adjust his reading rate to focus on comprehension. To discuss  author's purpose for writing we use PIE (persuade, inform, entertain).  Understanding the purpose seems easy, but when it comes to understanding the main idea it's often a different story. Last year I polled my students to see exactly WHY they read WITHOUT summarizing, which we call, Checking for Understanding....here are the results (in no particular order) 1.   To be the first one done  2.   Forget to do it 3.   It's too much work 4.   Takes too long 5.   Don't feel like it 6.   Don't think it's important 7.   Just want to get the reading done 8.   Story is boring 9.   Don't like to read 10. Just to get it done What to do about it?   Since I compi...

photo © 2008 Chris connelly | more info (via: Wylio )   “It ain’t over til it’s over” was the phrase coined by Yogi Berra .  Spoken like a true sportsman or classroom teacher!   We all know that even when the kids have finished reading a story they’re “ not really done ”.  We read. We discuss. We assess.  There are all kinds of other activities that we can initiate to make sure the students have made connections to their reading.  This is Part 3 in the "Activating Prior Knowledge" series.  In the Before reading post, it was suggested to use an Anticipation Guide .  If used, it would be a great (quick) assessment to see if the kids can answer those questions correctly now .  (They love getting them all right too!!).  Also, in the Before post as an alternative to the KWL chart - a Word Cloud was suggested.  How about make a new word cloud to share what was learned.  (The kids love comparing them!) ...