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. See photo example.

For each strategy, she identified a kid-friendly explanation and visual icon to help students recall the strategy’s purpose and meaning.

Kristi now plans to add example thinking stems to correspond with each strategy. For example, under Connections, she’ll post sentence starters like, "I’m connecting..." or “This reminds me of…” or “This book is like…” These added thinking stems reveal the types of thoughts readers might be having when they are making connections.

Wow! What a great classroom reminder for comprehension! Thanks, Kristi!