Reading Comprehension: Thinking Strategies to Build Fluency

Reading Comprehension: Thinking Strategies to Build Fluency is a four-week class that fosters learners’ reading comprehension and teaches learners the self-monitoring strategies that readers use to make sense of a text. Students are engaged in interactive processes that involve thinking, questioning, discussing, clarifying, rereading, summarizing and responding to texts. 

Students will be working with the teacher in a small group, instructional setting. Students will collaborate with the teacher and their classmates to complete learning activities. Students should be directly taught comprehension skills and have the opportunity to apply their skills to an independent reading activity. As a result, a homework assignment will be given each week. Homework is due at the beginning of each class. 

This course is extremely beneficial for learners that read well, but may struggle with comprehension. Do not let your leaner slip under the radar or suffer on standardized state comprehension assessments. Learners who do not get the help they need now, can potentially result into middle and high school students who understand nothing that they have read. I can help learners improve their comprehension skills. Do not delay, sign your learner up now.

Week #1: Students will receive direct instruction, guided practice and independent practice. Students will increase their critical thinking skills by learning how to activate prior knowledge in order to understand new reading material. Students will participate in creating a concept map to solidify learning through constructive activities. Students will respond to an open-ended text based exit question.

Week #2: Predicting involves more than trying to guess what happens next. In this class, learners will find evidence to form predictions. They will also ask questions, recall facts, reread, skim, infer, draw conclusions, and, understand reading material more fully. Students will demonstrate learning by creating an anchor chart of their predictions, questions, and evidence.

Week #3: Students will increase their critical thinking skills by learning how to question the text and think critically. Students will participate in creating annotations as they read an unknown text. Students will fill in a graphic organizer to keep track of questions they develop. Students will participate in an in-class discussion as learners use text-evidence to answer their peers' questions.

Week #4:  Students will increase their comprehension skills by choosing the most important details to include in a written summary. Students will learn/review the elements of plot in this class. Students will participate in completing a graphic organizer to assist them in creating a well-developed summary.

LESSON STRUCTURE
The class will consists of:
1. Pre-assessment/Homework Review: 5 minutes
2. Lesson Introduction: 5 minutes
3. Notes via Video/PowerPoint: 5 minutes
4. Guided Practice: 10 minutes
5. Independent Practice: 15 minutes
6. Exit Activity/Review: 5 minutes

I look forward to having your leaner(s) in class!