Thoughtful Readers Parent Academy

1. Thoughtful ReadersParent Academy WELCOME

2. Outcomes To develop an understanding of comprehension strategies in order to encourage your child to become a more ‘thoughtful reader’. • Discuss strategies to support comprehension • Discover how to become an effective reading coach

3. Please read the short text and answer the comprehension questions: In “A Quantum Threat to Special Relativity,” David Z Albert and Rivka Galchen question the viability of special relativity because quantum mechanics demonstrates nonlocality, which special relativity does not allow. But the most successful physical theory we have-quantum electrodynamics-is a fully consistent amalgam of both theories that correctly predicts the results of practical experiments. Answer -Explain what you learned from the text. -What did you discover as you were reading this short text?

4. What did you experience:

5. What Does It Mean To Be Literate? “A highly literate person is constructing meaning all the time while anticipating reading, during reading, during pauses from reading, and after reading- sometimes long after. A real reader tends to recall books read many years before and sometimes brings new understanding to those texts in the context of the present. Comprehension is the vital, central core of the broader and more complex ability to reason. Irene C. Fountas & Gay Su Pinnell

6. WHY is comprehension so important? “Comprehension is the process when readers are engaging in complex systems of strategic, in-the-head actions in response to text. We cannot see strategic actions, but we can look for evidence that they are occurring in the reader’s head. We can look at reading behaviors and hypothesize what readers are able to do as they think their way through a text. Instruction (Coaching) supports the actions that happen in the heads of individual readers.” Irene C. Fountas & Gay Su Pinnell

7. Strategies to support comprehension:You can help your child through prompts at home… • Checking your understanding. -Stop: Tell me what you know. • Predictions -Before (develop meaning with pictures and title) -During (modify, confirm, make new predictions) -After (evaluate, confirm) • Retelling -Beginning, Middle, End -Five Finger retelling

8. Strategies to support comprehension: You can “Coach” your child at home… • Developing Inferences -Character motivation and feelings. If feelings or motivations are not stated in the text… why did the character do that? Ex. “Cam Jansen and the Tennis Trophy Mystery” -The author leaves something out in the middle and children don’t understand how to fill in what happened. Children don’t realize what was missing because they are not monitoring their understanding of the story. Ex. “Porkenstein” How do you know?

9. Strategies to support comprehension: You can “Coach” your child at home… • Questioning -children should be developing their own questions at higher levels (quadrant) -children need to recognize when their questions have been answered or not in the text. -children should be able to answer higher level questions. Use this to ‘chew and chat’ at the dinner table.

10. How can I support my child at home when they are reading? Become Your Child’s Reading Coach

11. It’s practice time, coaches! • Look at page 1 of the Cam Jansen story. • What comprehension strategies would you expect your child to be applying if he/she understands this page?

12. Thank you for joining us…. Questions and Reflections • How did this workshop help you? • What did you find to be the most useful information? • What unanswered questions do you still have? • What would you like our next parent academy to address? We hope to see you at our next Parent Academy!!

13. Five Finger Retelling m i d d l e end beginning setting problem solution character Retell the mental images you created in your mind!!