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Home : 2004 : November : 16

HM
By Lynette

This was a big issue with my school too. We visited another school and then adopted their method. We keep the readings short so that we can do a strategy and a skill in one day. Depending on the text and grade it may be
a whole chapter or it may be only a part of the basal text (some of those stories are long!).
BUT we don't do everything at once. Here is our setup: vocabulary pages (before the story in HM), Before Reading: preview and predict, During Reading: read the section once using the strategy (question, summarize, etc). Then complete a short written question (After Reading) (usually: What

is this story mostly about? 1-2 sentences). Then teach the skill and do Before REvisiting, during Revisiting (graphic organizer), AFter Revisiting (questions using the skill).

So we don't do a strategy and a skill altogether, it's too overwhelming. but we do generally break down the text into smaller chunks. Sometimes it is disappointing not to be able to read the entire text at once but the students do need to be taught to use the reading stratgies- these don't come automatically. At this age, the best way to make sure that they are using these strategies is to "track" them with writing. And writing is time consuming so it may difficult to the whole story inone day.

Hope you understand all that and hope I helped!