Texas Librarian

The reason I developed Texas Librarian began as a way for me to organize my read alouds by grade level and to help me in being more meta cognitive while reading aloud in order to find ways to make my thinking visible to students.  I wanted to find ways to show students how to become thinkers while reading. Students who are not read to as small children have not had the opportunity to internalize thinking strategies, and research has shown that modeling these thinking skills helps children to start making connections when they read.

This site is designed to support Pre K-5 librarians, teachers, and parents in planning read alouds which support higher level thinking strategies. For each grade level and each month, Texas Librarian provides a unique list of age-appropriate books and strategies that will help children develop connections and increase comprehension while learning to think when they are reading.

The grade level tabs list books for each month starting with the month of September and going through May with no overlaps, helping the instructor of various grades to read different books to each grade level over the years without worrying if the book was read in a previous grade.  Second grade and up also have a book talk section after the May titles.

In 2005 I read an article in School Library Journal by Sharon Grimes which sparked my interest in making thinking visible or showing young children how good readers think when they read.  She describes how by using strategies from Debbie Miller’s book, Reading With Meaning: Teaching Comprehension in the Primary Grades, Stenhouse, 2002, her school was able to raise reading test scores.  I bought Miller’s book and the next year I attended a workshop presented by Debbie Miller.  I saw these techniques as something I could do in short reading lessons in the library with grades PreK-5.  Using techniques that model thinking skills fills a gap that some children have when it comes to comprehending what they read.  By asking students to share what is in their schema before reading, asking them to make connections to themselves and other texts during reading, and practicing making mental images,  has changed the way students are engaged during the group read aloud time.  Young readers that before I started using these techniques were gazing into space and asking if I was going to read another book before they could get up and check out  books are now actively participating in sharing what they are thinking about what I am reading to them.  Instead of reading with a purpose to entertain, I now read with many pauses to hear my students’ connections for the purpose of showing them how to remember what they read by making these connections.  Making connections to their own lives has made reading much more interactive for them.  I am passionate about teaching children who struggle with comprehension, and by using techniques that make thinking visible, I have seen a positive change in how they view the process.  This passion to make thinking visible is what led to the development of my website: Texas Librarian Facebook page of the same name, and Twitter account, Texas_Librarian where I write reading comprehension strategies that can be taught with specific books.  My hope is that those who want to read aloud with children will start pausing to share their own connections and thoughts as they read in order to show their students how they think in order to make thinking visible.

Making Thinking Visible: The terms I am explaining below work together to create connections that will help young children to increase their reading comprehension.  For years we have taught reading in abstract terms and many children do become great readers by being exposed to books and reading.  Some of us need something more concrete to which we can attach our learning.  The terms mentioned below and in many of my posts give children the vocabulary with which to talk about their reading experiences.  I use these terms when I read aloud to children during their short library times once a week.  I am teaching them to use these terms when they are sharing with me about what we are reading.  I have witnessed students who do not like to sit and listen become engaged as they are allowed to raise their hand and share a connection they have with what I am reading to them.  Passive listeners are now active ones.  By showing kids what I am thinking when I am reading, I am modeling what being a good reader is like.  Good readers think when they are reading.  Good readers make connections.  Good readers make inferences and predictions.  My students have learned to respond when I ask them if anyone wants to make an inference or a prediction with, “I am predicting that…, or I am inferring that.”  By giving students the vocabulary and modeling the strategies for them, I am helping them to make their own thinking visible.

Schema:  Schema is our background knowledge.  I tell my students that schema is everything in our brains that we have learned from the time we were a baby to now.  I have made up some hand movements to go with it to help them to remember.  We point to our brains,  move our arms in an open circle for “everything,”  hold our arms like we are rocking a baby, then point down to mean “now.” Please ask your student what schema is and what they have in their schema about books that you are reading to and with them.  Research is showing that when we make connections with what we are reading to something we already have in our schema, we will be able to better remember it.

At the beginning of many of the posts, I have provided some schema ideas that students may have in order to provide some examples to teachers and librarians.

Text-to-Self Connections: When this type of connection is made a student is able to tell you things they have experienced  themselves that are like what they are reading about in their book.  When I am reading a book about frogs, I might have a text-to-self connection with seeing a frog in my backyard, picking up a frog, or seeing my dog chasing a frog.  By reinforcing these types of thinking activities, you will be helping your student’s comprehension skills.

Text-to-Text Connections: When one book connects in your schema (everything you already know) with another book that you have read, you are making a text-to-text connection.   All new learning must be connected with something we already know  if we are to comprehend and remember it.

Predicting:  When reading with your child, stop and ask them to predict what will happen next in the story.  In the library students are expected to preface their prediction with the words: “I am predicting that….”  By asking your child to predict, you are helping them to make a connection with the text which will help them to comprehend and remember what is being read.  Sometimes our predictions are even better than the the actual outcome of the story!  Predicting engages young readers as you are reading with them.

Comparing and Contrasting: When reading with your student, ask how characters, places, or possible outcomes in the story are alike and different.  Students use graphic organizers to show the similarities and differences by writing them in circles that overlap.  The similarities are in the overlapping parts of the circles, and the differences are in the parts that do not overlap.  Please ask your student to show you how they make thinking visible by using a graphic organizer with them such as a Venn Diagram.

Drawing Conclusions: After reading a book, ask your student what conclusions they can draw.  The conclusion might be a general statement about life such as:  Sometimes we take things for granted and don’t appreciate them until these things have been taken away.  If and we, we get them back, we are more aware of how great our lives were before we lost what we took for granted.  This is a conclusion that I discussed with fifth graders based on the book, Froggy Fable, by John Lechner.  If you can verbalize a conclusion that you have drawn, ask your student to look back in the book, the text, for evidence to support this conclusion.  Other conclusions could be about the way a character has changed, not changed, what their future actions might be, or about what the author’s purpose in writing the book might be.  When a conclusion is drawn, examples from the text should be found to support that conclusion.  As with all of these reading strategies, drawing a conclusion is something good readers do.  It’s helpful to use that phrase, “what good readers do,” when reading with your student in ways such as, “Good readers draw conclusions about what they read.  I wonder what conclusions we can draw from this book.”

Since 1990 I have been an elementary school librarian in  GarlandISD which is located in Garland, Texas.  I have a Bachelor of Science degree in education from the University of North Texas, 1975, and a Master of Library Science from Texas A & M, Commerce, 1984.   I read books and taught reading skills at times, but did not know how exciting read alouds could be until I began this journey to make thinking visible.