Archive for the 'Reading Comprehension Strategies' Category

Weezer Changes the World by David McPhail

Schema: pets
Text-to-Text Connections: The Adventures of Sparrowboy by J. Brian Pinkney
Text-to-Self Connections: Pets chewing on things, lightning strikes during a storm
Words with Multiple meanings: striking
Compare and Contrast how Weezer was before and after the strike with a Venn Diagram http://www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer/pdf/venn.pdf
Synthesis:  What do you synthesize is Weezer’s hope for the world?

Duck Tents by Lynne Berry

Schema: camping, ducks, fall
Text-to-Self Connections: fishing
Cause and Effect: Because one duck slips, the effect is that the other ducks “sprawl.”
Use the Observation graphic  http://www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer/pdf/observe.pdf
to chart the activities that go with the five senses.
Inference: What do you infer that the whooo whooo noise is from?
Drawing Conclusions: What do you conclude about why the ducks are [...]

Have I Got A Book For You! by Melanie Watt

Schema: people who sell things with commercials on TV; a fox is the character telling the story so what is our usual stereotype of a fox in a story-usually a bad guy?  What preconceived ideas do we have about salesmen or telephone marketers who call and try to get us to buy something?
Persuasion: This book [...]

The Three Little Fish and the Big Bad Shark by Ken Geist and The Three Little Rigs by David Gordon

Schema: sharks, The Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf
Compare and Contrast: Use a graphic organizer such as the Venn diagram,
http://www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer,  to compare and contrast with The Three Little Pigs.
Compare and contrast with The Three Little Rigs.
Reader’s Theater: This story would work well with the reader’s theater format.  Students could ad lib after reading [...]

Hansel and Diesel by David Gordon

Schema: diesel trucks, Hansel and Gretel
Compare and Contrast: Use a graphic organizer such as the Venn Diagram,  http://www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer, to compare with the fairytale, Hansel and Gretel,  by James Marshall.
Personification:  The truck rigs are given personalities and speak as human characters.
Reader’s Theater: This story would lend itself well to a reader’s theater presentation.  Students could ad [...]

Mr. George Baker by Amy Hest

Schema: neighbors, being in kindergarten
Text to self connections: learning to read
Characterization: use a graphic organizer to write all of the things we read about Mr. George Baker such as his baggy pants, his suspenders, his sweater, his Hershey’s kisses in his pocket, his lunch, his desire to learn to read, his drum playing, a hundred [...]

Precious and the Boo Hag by Patricia McKissack

Schema: stories that teach a lesson, folktale, stranger danger
The story is written as a modern day folktale featuring the Boo Hag from the Gullah culture of South Carolina.  The Boo Hag is a legendary spirit or shape-shifter that wants to live in another person’s body, or it is also described as  riding a person [...]

Nubs The True Story of a Mutt, a Marine & a Miracle

Schema: Marines, miracles
Author’s purpose: The author is sharing his journey with Nubs because it is a miracle that he was able to get the dog from there back to his home in San Diego.
Because Nubs did not give up on finding Major Dennis, the effect is that Major Dennis did not give up on him.
Characterization: [...]

Stick Man by Julia Donaldson

Schema:  sticks, playing with sticks
Text-to-Text Connections: Over in the Meadow, an old rhyme about the animals in a meadow; the rhyme goes something like, “over in the meadow in the sand and the sun lived an old mother turtle and her little turtle one…”  See the lyrics at:  http://www.songsforteaching.com/folk/overinthemeadowlyrics.htm
Also a connection with the Gingerbread Man [...]

Here Comes Darrell by Leda Schubert

Schema: people you know that are always helping others
Sequencing: the book goes through each season
Setting: Vermont
Characterization: Make a graphic organizer to show Darrell’s characteristics.
With Tommy he takes the time to let him play like he is driving his truck
With The Barretts he gives the firewood to them even though they can not pay him now.
He [...]