Love me some tactile reading lessons

     I am absolutely, positively, head over HEELS in love with Tanny McGregor's book Comprehension Connections. After stalking Mrs. B over at Life in 4B I broke down and bought a couple of the resources she recommended and uses for reading. If you have not visited her blog you MUST! She is an absolutely FANTASTIC teacher ... you will be inspired. I promise.
So anyway, she recommended a couple of books - I bought two of them. Comprehension Connections and Strategies that Work by Stephanie Harvey. These books are an absolute godsend to someone who is wanting to do more creative, tactile, workshop related lessons.

I just love how practical and hands on these women make each reading concept and strategy.

Example: 
These lesson ideas originally came from Life in 4B who told me it was from Comprehension Connections. In this activity you show the students the concept of determining importance by going through your purse and decided which things are important, not important, sort of important if you were going to go to the gym.
The other idea taken from Comprehension Connections {originally found on Life in 4B's blog again} involved the students using noodles, water and a strainer to understand how we determine importance of readers. We talked about Noodles {facts} all alone are hard, crunchy and not something we really want to sit down and eat. What writers do is add the water {interesting details} to make the noodles {facts} interesting to us as the reader. Then you show the students the container full of noodles and water explaining that this is like a book on the shelf. As you read the book, it is your job as the reader to use your brain {strainer} to sort out the noodles {important information} from the water {interesting details}.
These sorts of tactile, hands on, visual examples really help establish the concepts in the kids heads. While doing our biography reports for the Wax Museum today, I heard the students telling each other to take out the "water" in their speeches and leave the "noodles" because the waters is only adding length to their paper and isn't really needed. {heart happy!}

Please do yourself a favor and snag these books. I got Strategies that Work off Amazon used for $.01 {plus shipping and handling} and it was in great shape! I would highly recommend these books!