THINKING and TALKING about our Reading

This past week we have been focusing on THINKING about our reading. Utilizing lessons from Comprehension Toolkit and other wonderful resources on the internet including amazing notebook inserts from The Pinspired Teacher.
A big thing that the toolkit talks about is listening to your Inner Reader Voice. The kids are really getting good this and we have slowly begun the transition from thinking about our reading mentally to jotting our thinking down so that we can share.

 Students read and jotted down their thinking independently then shared together with the class. This is called READ. WRITE. TALK.

This week, we reviewed our thinking jots and why readers take time to write notes down to themselves. Then, we discussed what Purposeful Talk was. We have already done a few mini-lessons that break down a lot of these things like, SLANT (sit up, lean forward, act interested, nod for understanding, track the speaker), listening with intent, saying something meaningful/keeping the lines of thinking alive, so today was more a combination of all these things. 

I first gave a small description for each article they could choose to read. Then, students read the articles independently, jotting down their reactions, connections, and questions for the READ. THINK. part.

Once we were finished I had the kids reflect on one thing they learned (Content Response) and how talking with their group helped their understanding of the text (Process Response). THIS really helped me see how much they understood about the lesson and how they felt about the activity. Apparently, they got a lot out of it and like it! *happy dance*  

In other news, check out this kiddos killer shirt! If you were looking for Brownie Points buddy - you FOUND  them! ;0)