It’s
a Hunt!
Reading
to Learn
Rationale:
Comprehension
is the key to reading. Young students should be taught at an early age
what it
means to read. It is not just reading words, it’s the concept of what a
story,
newspaper, magazine, or journal is telling about. There are so many fun
and
knowledgeable activities that are used every day to teach young
students how to
comprehend what they are reading about. One of those great activities
that
students can do while reading and/or after they have read silently is
respond
to questions that will help them understand what the story is about
such as
asking what, how, and why. This is what I call going on a hunt.
Students must
know when completing this activity they must hunt for facts that are
most
important from the story. They should learn to skip the extras and get
to the
main idea of the story. It’s like hunting for that big buck (the big
idea).
Materials: From Tadpole to Frog (Lifecycles) by:
David Evelyn Stewart, 1998;
paper; pencils, dry-erase board, dry-erase markers, pictures of a frog
lifecycle: http://www.hometrainingtools.com/misc/FrogLifeCycle.jpg ,
and http://letzhop.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/02920life20cycle20of20a20frog.jpg
Procedure:
1. Today class we are going to learn how to ask questions as we
read. Does
anybody know what it means to ask a question? It means a request for
information. So when we ask questions today during our reading and
after we
will be looking for information from the book to help us learn about
frogs. Ask
something like, “what are frogs called when they are babies?” or “how
does the
lifecycle of a frog work?” Questions will start with “what”, “how”, and
“why.”
I would like for you to start silently reading From
Tadpole to Frog (Lifecycles). As you read ask yourself what is
this story about, how is it going to end, and why are things happening
the way
they are happening. These questions will help you comprehend the story
you are
reading about.
2.
Explain that when you ask questions you want to pick out the facts that
are
important to the text and find the main idea of what you have read. Go
over the
questioning rules:
1. Find the important events in the story and use keywords to help you
remember
them.
2. Get rid of information that is not important such as things that
could be
left out of the story.
3. List events in order of which they took place.
4. Sum up the story in one topic sentence.
Now
that you know some of the questioning rules, we are going to read a
paragraph
together and come up with some questions that will help us to learn
what we
just read.
Now
on your own read silently, come up with questions to summarize your
hunt of
what you read. Remember use your questioning rules.
3.
After students have read go over some things with them on the board and
maybe
show them a picture or two about a frog’s lifecycle that will also help
them to
remember what the story was about. Visualization is also a key to
reading
especially with young children. I would start by looking for the most
important
ideas from the book. Use a sample passage, read it to them, and
summarize it
out loud for them to hear. Then, by using the book as a guide, I would
go back
and write down all of the important ideas that I found.
4.
A very good strategy for helping you to answer questions is using a KWL
chart
that compares what you know, what you want to know, and what you have
learned. Draw a KWL chart on the board and model how, for
example,
complete the first column with students asking them what they already
know
about frogs. Then, complete the second column asking students what they
want to
know about frogs. Finally, complete the last column answering what they
have
learned from reading the book. Then ask them to come up with their own
KWL
chart after they have read another passage. Then, have them write down
a
summary of what they have read.
5.
Assessment: Collect both the KWL charts and the summaries and check to
see that
they have used both the KWL chart and the passage to write their
summary. Also
you can use one of the picture sheets that were used earlier in the
lesson to
show the lifecycle of a frog. You can white out the answers of the
terms used
and test the student’s knowledge of what they read in the book you can
have
them fill in the missing steps to a lifecycle of a frog. I would prefer
the
picture, http://www.hometrainingtools.com/misc/FrogLifeCycle.jpg.
References:
Pressley, M., Johnson, C.J., Symons, S., McGoldrick, J.A., &
Kurity, J.A.
(1989). Strategies that improve childrens memory and comprehension of
text. The
Elementary School Journal, 90, 3-32.
Holt Science. Rinehart and Winston, Inc. 1989.
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