Reveal visual triggers for comprehension strategies

South Adams Elementary School teacher Kristi Geimer (Berne, IN) utilized information from previous Smekens' workshops and developed a growing bulletin board to aid her students in reading comprehension strategies she's been targeting...    read more...

Foster opportunities for students to think while reading

One of the strategies readers need to develop is the ability to think while reading. For some this does not come naturally; this needs to be fostered by the teacher. In order to get students to think about their reading, teachers need to build in deliberate opportunities for them to think while they're reading.    read more...

Incorporate “Answer of the Day” in your morning-work routine

One teacher finds that the best way to get students to write great questions is to simply give them the answers!    read more...

Parent involvement for literacy

We would all agree that the more involved a parent is in a child's life, the more likely that child is to succeed in school. But parents don't always know what to do. Many parents struggle with how best to help and would love some simple ways they could come alongside.    read more...

Keeping track of mentor texts for reading comprehension

Using mentor texts to build reading comprehension connects students to literacy as they learn specific skills through practice with brief passages. Picture books or short passages from longer works make perfect companions for this type of practice. But how do you keep track of all the different books and passages you want to use?    read more...

Write strong 20-word summaries

Teachers want students to do more than just memorize facts in science and dates in social studies. They want their students to do more than just remember information in health or processes in FACS classes. What content area teachers really want is for students to see the bigger picture.    read more...

Picture-based note taking helps students’ comprehension

When teaching content area topics, students are often expected to take notes. During this note taking time, it is huge for students to have more than just the names, dates, facts, and details written down. More that just memorizing the information, we want students to understand the significance of the information. We want them to synthesize and see the bigger picture.    read more...

Point of View Letter Writing

After studying a concept or event for several days/weeks, a fun way to assess students' understanding is to have them write letters from a different perspective. West Vigo Middle School teacher Melanie Beaver had great success with this in her language arts classroom. She loved having students write a letter from one recently-studied concept to another.    read more...

Strategies to help kids identify main ideas

When you ask students to tell you what a reading passage was about, it's not uncommon for kids to just start rattling off tiny little details. One way to combat this problem is to introduce the "fist list."    read more...

3-D study guides make note taking fun

No matter what age you are teaching, everyone can find a use for a hands-on graphic organizer. After students have been introduced to a concept, the teacher would facilitate the students' construction and application of this three-dimensional organizer. Students can organize their newly learned information. Not only do these "foldables" provide students a hands-on study guide of their learning, but creating them is fun.    read more...