Rationale: A reader can focus more on reading comprehension and learning once reading fluency has been accomplished.  There are ways that students can learn to improve their comprehension.  The story grammar strategy is going to be used in this lesson to help students learn to improve their reading comprehension.  With this strategy, students make an outline of the main elements of the story, which helps them to remember the story easier.

Materials: pencil, paper, questions (Who are the main characters in the story, What did the main characters do, When did the story take place, Where did the story take place, How did the story end, How did the characters feel), copy of Little Red Riding Hood, a copy of At Her Majesty’s Request by Walter Dean Walters for each student in the class

Procedures:
1. “Ya’ll have done a great job with all the reading lessons that we have learned so far.  You have learned so much about reading.  You have learned how to read fat and smooth by reading books repeatedly.  Now we are going to learn something new.
2. “Now we are going to be learning about a strategy called Story grammar.  This means that we will make an outline of the story.  A few questions have to be asked for this strategy to take place. These questions about the story are who, what, when, where, and how. By using these questions, making a outline makes it a lot easier to remember the story.”
3. “Now we are going to try making an outline of a familiar book that we should all remember.  Let’s use the book of Little Red Riding Hood.  I am going to show all of you how to use this strategy. (I will write a question on the board and answer it by reasoning aloud.  If I had the question who is the main character in the story, I would say:  There are several characters throughout the story, such as grandmother, the wolf, and little red riding hood.  I think that little red riding hood is the main character because she is in the story the whole way through and she is the one that everyone knows.) Now that I have modeled one question, I want us to answer the rest of the questions on the board.
4. After we have discussed the other questions, we are going to do another activity.  I will hand the students copies of At Her Majesty’s Request by Walter Dean Myers.
“I want everyone to write down on a sheet of paper the five questions that are on the board. Leave enough room in between the questions to write down your answers.  I want you to read the book that I have given you silently.  Remember that when reading silently, you can look up words that you are not sure of and reread parts that did not make sense.  After you read this book, I want each of you to write down your answers to the questions on your paper. When you have finished your work, you can finish anything that you have not finished.
5. After everyone is finished, I will have the students write down everything that they remember from the story.  They will be allowed to use some of the information from the questions on the board, but also they will need to come up with some other information.
6. Assessment: I will take up the students work and see if they got the right answers and if they summarized the work correctly.

Reference:
The Genie website: www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/insights.html
Pressely M.,Johnson,C.J. Symons, S., McGoldrick,JA.(1989). Strategies that Improve Children's Memory and Comprehension of Text.The elementary School Jounral, 90,3-32.

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