Book Introductions Powerful Tools for Powerful Thinking Tammy Younts

Book Introductions: Powerful Tools for Powerful Thinking Tammy Younts Teacher Leader Specialist Purdue University Common Questions Why do we do book introductions in the Reading Recovery lesson? Aren’t we giving away too much information so that the students aren’t “really” reading? What happens to children during the testing if they have been given rich book introductions throughout their program? Should book introductions become more “minimal” as the text levels get higher? Book Introductions The teacher’s introduction creates a scaffold within which children can complete a first reading of a whole story. Book Introductions The teacher and children have rehearsed some responses; others are recent and familiar because the teacher modeled them. The children’s own background knowledge has been called to mind, and some new knowledge has been introduced in a measured way. Book Introductions …This is not a case of telling the children what to expect. It is a process of drawing the children into the activity before passing control to the children and pushing them gently towards problemsolving the whole first reading of the story for themselves. Marie Clay, By Different Paths to Common Outcomes, 1998 Questions for today: How do you know what to put in and what to leave out? How can book introductions in a Reading Recovery lesson help RR students begin to use the cognitive strategies that proficient readers use as they read? Book Orientation Read the whole book and determine the gist Watch out for unusual language structures or meanings Plan the introduction to convey the gist of the story Keep it “easy to learn” with rich, meaningful introductions and teacher support Use introduction as one way of modeling higher level cognitive strategies (predicting, inferring, etc.) Keeping the Processing Easy at Higher Levels of Text Reading, P. Kelly and J. Neal By Different Paths to Common Outcomes, Marie Clay “If we fine tune our understanding of what book introductions can achieve, we can become more sensitive to the different needs of individual children” (p. 171). “Introductions are useful when it is important for children to read a new text with a high degree of successful processing” (p. 172). Child’s strategy use What next? Teach-PromptOrchestrate Reflect/revise/pla n Book choice Book Introduction Becoming Literate, p. 335 Texts to which children can bring interpretations, and texts which are close to children’s oral language use, give them power over the learning tasks. Guidebook, p. 36-37 Choose the reading book very carefully. First of all take meaning and language into account. Then from all the possible texts select one that is well within the child’s control, uses words and letters he knows or can get to using his present strategies. Guidebook, p. 36-37 There should be a minimum of new things to learn if the teaching goal is the integration of all these aspects of the task. Known Meaning Twins Hungry animals Children feeding animals Ending Structure -a hungry….. Challenges Introduce Ignore Opportunities for Problem Solving Model Prompt Watch Gist w/known First pagegoing to the store They saw… “Have some bread,” They said Visual They Saw Have Some Where Animal names “Reread and think what would make sense and start like that.” Book Orientation This is a story about twins who went to the store for their mom to get some bread. On the way home, they had a problem. They saw some hungry animals. What do you think might have happened? Page 2-At the beginning, mom told the twins to go and get the bread. Page 4-They got the bread and now they are going to go back home. Page 6-Uh oh! They saw a hungry dog. What do you think is going to happen? Yes, they said “Have some bread,” Locate “Have” Book Orientation Continue to look through pics…On every page they saw more animals and every time they said, “Have some bread.” Go to page 14 What do you think is happening here? Page 16 Oh look! I think dad is going to solve the problem. Where is the rest of the bread? Locate-”Where” Guidebook, p. 36-37 Introduce the book and make the child familiar with the story, the plot, the words, the sentences and the writing style. For example, a teacher might: Draw the child’s attention to the important ideas. Discuss the pictures of the whole book. Guidebook, p. 36-37 Give opportunities for the child to hear and use the new words and structures which he will have to work out from the pictures, the print and the language context. (Sometimes it is necessary for a child to gain control over a particular language structure first, so that he can use it in his reading.) Ask him to find one or two new and important words in the text after he has said what letter he would expect to see at the beginning. Guidebook, p. 36-37 This effort to facilitate responding might be explained in terms like recency and familiarity. Another explanation is that the teacher is ensuring that the child has in his head the ideas and the language he needs to produce when prompted in sequence by print cues. (See Clay, 1991b.) He should know what the story is about before he reads it. Introduction vs. Orientation *Orientation (by the child) means the adjustment or alignment of oneself or one’s ideas to surroundings or circumstances. (Reading Recovery A guidebook for teachers in training, p. 37) Cognitive Strategies Used by Proficient Readers Cognitive Strategies Used by Proficient Readers Activates relevant, prior knowledge before, during and after reading text. Determines the most important ideas and themes in a text. Asks questions of themselves, the authors, and the texts they read. Mosaic of Thought, E. Keene and S. Zimmermann What is this book really about? This is a story about a girl who goes to the zoo. She looks at many animals. Let’s see what she looks at…(page by page, naming animals) This little girl went to the zoo and took pictures of her favorite animals. She wants you to look at her pictures so you can see which ones were her favorites. (Feed of language structure, “Look at the…” at several points) What is this book really about? This is a story about the bear family. They are going to look for blackberries. Let’s see if they find some…(events page by page) In this story, the bears are going out with their baskets to pick blackberries for the winter. Baby bear doesn’t understand that they need to bring the blackberries home. When he disappears, mother bear and father bear go looking for him. Let’s see what kind of surprise they get when they find him. (weave each page back to the gist, talk about ending) What is this book really about? In this story the little boy is putting things into his bag. (picture walk naming the things he puts “into” his bag) When you get ready for school, do you have to put all your things into your bag? This little boy has lots of things he takes to school each day, but on this day he has something special that he puts in just for his teacher. Let’s look and see what he has for her. (Picture walk with some language feed but not page by page labeling, emphasis on ending and what he has brought for his teacher-evaluate her reaction.) Cognitive Strategies Used by Proficient Readers Creates visual and other sensory images from text during and after reading. Draws inferences, conclusions, makes critical judgments, and forms unique interpretations from texts. Mosaic of Thought, E. Keene and S. Zimmermann Cognitive Strategies Used by Proficient Readers Retells or synthesizes what they have read. Utilizes a variety of fix-up strategies to repair comprehension when it breaks down. Mosaic of Thought, E. Keene and S. Zimmermann “The more we give in the way of ‘gifts’ (like meaning and structure during book orientation), the more the child will give us in the way of problem-solving on the run, integrating all cueing sources effectively and efficiently” Keeping the Processing Easy at Higher Levels of Text Reading, P. Kelly and J. Neal