Comprehension Lessons

Dear Teacher Friends,

I am so excited to tell you that Whitney and I have completed the first of many to come Comprehension Strategy Lessons.  They have been written by us with you in mind.  We hope to continue helping you work smarter and not harder and help give you more time as you include effective instruction in your classroom.

We have included with each lesson: explicit instruction about the reading strategy, a filled in graphic organizer with the stopping spots and teacher think-alouds needed, blank graphic organizers for the students to use during reading that match the text, vocabulary cards and notes pages for discussion and writing extensions and more.  The texts we have selected for the lessons could be taught in more than one grade so you can decide if the text is right for your class. Click here to see the lessons we have completed and posted so far.

We hope you will try out the free lesson for the text, One Grain of Rice and tell us what you think.  We want to be able to provide you with helpful and research based effective instruction to get reading improvement in your classroom. Click here for the free lesson. 

Whitney started training her class the procedures of  a comprehension lesson this week using the story, The Invisible Boy. The strategy we chose was evaluate and comment. Here is a sample of one student's comment...

The student's comment says, " I  think its mean to laf at someone because hes difrint." (We aren't done with the lesson - week one takes extra training and procedures!  But that's what's awesome, tomorrow we will pick up right where we left off!)

Tip! Place mini sticky notes on the stopping points we suggest in the teacher copy of the lessons. It will help with lesson pacing and smoothness while allowing you to naturally flow through gradual release instruction.