Comprehension Strategies

Over the past few weeks, we have been working on deepening our understanding of what we read by focusing on several comprehension strategies during reading lessons. Recently, we have discussed making connections, visualizing (mental images), making inferences, and questioning. Through the technology class I'm taking on Monday evenings, I learned about a website called Into the Book (click link to view). We'll be using some of these resources in class soon, but I think it's also a valuable resource for families who wish to learn more about these strategies. 

Another fun and valuable website we've visited is the Inference Riddle Game. This was a fun way to learn about making inferences--sometimes the illustrations and words don't tell the reader everything you need to know. You have to infer some of the details that are not obvious. Riddles are a great way to explain and practice this concept.

Below are a few photos of some of the work we've done with comprehension strategies...

I was having some fun with a new (to me) app called Popplet to showcase a bit of what we did with mental images.

 

Students had fun with Jack Prelutsky's poem, "My Neighbor's Dog is Purple" which is actually about a crocodile that was painted purple!

   

Students met in small groups to practice making inferences about short passages of text. They had some excellent conversation and  were able to back up their thinking with evidence from the text.