For the past few weeks, at our school, we have been talking about comprehension strategies and thinking about what we do and what we can continue to do to strengthen our kids comprehension throughout all of the grade levels. Our reading coach had a great visual (that I fixed up a little…) that we can use with students throughout the grades as we are teaching comprehension whole group and in small groups.
I found it really helpful, so I wanted to share!
It also had me thinking of what I am already doing in my classroom that supports these comprehension strategies and what else I could be doing to strengthen the instruction that I already have in place.
First off, the “Helping Hand” is what we use for “Fix-Up Strategies”. I have done a few posts on “The Helping Hand” where you can read how I use it and download your own. Each student gets their own “hand” and I print it out on card stock and laminate it for them.
Here are some things that I feel like I’m doing well at with the strategies.
Students are making connections all of the time. This is one of my favorite ones from this year so far.
We continue to write and make connections to stories throughout the year.
By the end of the year, I want kids to be able to write more than just their connection. I start to add in more story elements to get them writing about the story more.
The list of things that I don’t feel like I do such a great job are synthesizing and asking questions. Part of it is because I just don’t make time to do it and I know that I need to be better about it! I think that I model these strategies but I don’t give kids enough time to practice it for themselves so I am going to print this poster out and have it on hand to help remind me to use those strategies more with my kids.
I’d love to hear your ideas and different strategies that you use with your kids to strengthen their comprehension!
