75+Strategies+for+Reading

__75+ Reading Strategies__ Boost Achievement and Build a Life-Long Love of Reading By Danny Brassell ENVIRONMENT: 5. Find a Place to Read! - Comfort is King! Danny makes me laugh when he suggests putting a “no deposit” toilet in your room as one of the “places to read.” Fill a wading pool with magazines to read in the pool. TALK: CLASS SYSTEMS:
 * 1) Environmental Print: cereal boxes, soup cans, billboards, candy wrappers, milk cartons, shoe boxes etc.
 * 2) Make Time to Read
 * 3) in class every day – silent, sustained reading – we can’t control the home environment, but we can control (some what) the class environment.
 * 4) Read after recess to calm everyone down.
 * 5) Play music softly while they read. Introduce a different type of music each month…jazz, classical, nature music etc.
 * 6) Snacks while reading? I like to eat while a read. Try it. Fish crackers etc.
 * 7) Research shows the importance of HOW MUCH you read, not WHAT YOU READ.
 * 8) Create an Awesome Classroom Library – You need to make it more appealing than Disney World.
 * 9) If you teach the young children, walk around the classroom on your knees to see what they will see. Organize your books at their level.
 * 10) Tents etc. for special places to read.
 * 11) Let your room smell nice. Fresheners etc. (If you don’t have kids with asthma problems, then fresheners are nice to make your room tolerable of “those smells.”)
 * 12) Get Cool Things to Read – NASCAR, bios of STARS that they admire, SPORTS HEROS etc.
 * 13) different types of reading – newspapers – Danny Brassell has a book entitled, __News Flash! Newspaper Activities to Meet Language –Arts Standards and Differentiate Instruction.__ Comic books – they attract the reluctant reader.
 * 14) Reference Books – dictionaries – lots of them! Encyclopedia!
 * 1) Read While Students Read – no brainer. I read Danny’s book during silent reading in my own classroom.
 * 2) Word Wheels – 37 high frequency phonograms (word families)
 * 3) Feelies and Knickknacks – for the kinesthetic learners – put them in a basket – inexpensive items from the dollar store – squeeze and hold on to while they read.
 * 4) Make letters – have pipe cleaners, legos, wikki stix, paper clips to make letters or words. Let them “Feel” what they read.
 * 5) Student Created Labels – don’t spend your $$ at the Teacher Supply Store – let the kids do it. I had my kids make our alphabet above the chalkboard. It wasn’t as beautiful, but it was much more meaningful. It stayed up all year long!
 * 6) Place book baskets on the center of pods for kids to read a book from the basket after they finish their work.
 * 7) Rain – Gutter Bookshelves – I look this idea. My room is so cluttered when I place books leaning up against the walls all around the room. Plus, dust collects and the janitor can’t sweep well around them.
 * 8) Use youtube – inspirational stories to encourage kids to be determined etc. Plus, use [|www.teachertube.com] as a resource for sample lessons, different classrooms etc.
 * 9) Virtual field trips on the internet – what an awesome way to bring your class to an “unreachable place”.
 * 10) [|www.artsedge.kennedy-center.org]
 * 11) [|www.metmuseum.org]
 * 12) [|www.playmusic.org]
 * 13) Word Walls – 300 words make up 65% of all written material contained in newspaper articles, magazines, textbooks, children’s stories and novels. If you use word walls – use them, but don’t leave them half empty. They are meaningless if they are left “half used”.
 * 14) Show me! Make dioramas from Shoe Boxes.
 * 1) Read aloud with your kids every day.
 * 2) Book Talks – each student in fourth grade presented a one page book talk. The computer teacher helped them type them. At the end of the year, each child had over 100 book talks to take home in a book from their classmates. Hopefully, the book of book talks will encourage each child to read a few recommended books by his/her peers.
 * 3) Morning Meetings:
 * 4) Be kind, safe and responsible. Give examples of each.
 * 5) Song
 * 6) Book talk
 * 7) Letter of the Day – put it in a paper bag – have a student feel the letter to guess it.
 * 8) Daily Weather – [|www.wfmj.com]
 * 9) Word of the Day for the Word Wall
 * 10) Schedule at board
 * 11) Joke or Riddle of the Day
 * 12) Poem of the Day
 * 13) People’s Court : place a problem of the day in a brief case to be solved. Make it look like an attorney at law.
 * 14) Book Buddies/Reading Volunteers, Guest Readers, Partner Reading, Choral Reading – do it all. Don’t do the same type every day. Spice it up.
 * 1) Line Reading – take a book to the café to read while waiting in line. Encourage kids to have books in the car to read while parents drive. Take a book to the restaurant while waiting for food. Take a book to the doctors to read while waiting for the doctor.
 * 2) Readers’ Theater! Love it! Movie trailers, commercials, poetry reading, speeches, dialogues.
 * 3) Guided Reading: after modeling it, my kids can do it without me. One person in each group is in charge of talking the “picture walk”, “previewing the book”, reading the questions before reading and calling on volunteers to read aloud. They also are in charge of awarding one person in his/her group with a pencil for best participant. The best participant does not need to be the best reader. He/she needs to be the person who is on target, volunteers, pays attention etc.
 * 4) Get Your Kids on a free mailing list. Attached is a list of National Parks and their addresses. Each of my students sent a letter for information from a park to be sent to him/her at school for a presentation that he/she would be making. They loved getting mail at school.
 * 5) Context Clues: The average student learns 3,000 to 4,000 words a year. That adds up to 36,000 for even the modest of learners. This list could not have all been obtained through vocabulary testing. For example, if you had a 20 word vocabulary test each week, every year of your public education, you would only learn 10,000 words.
 * 26. Jigsaws and Component Parts - If your class is set up in pods, this is an easy exercise. First, make a spinner with 6 divisions - if you have six kids in a pod, like I do. One division can be "Point of View", "Genre", "Climax", "Problem", "Resolution", and "Characters/Qualities" - Some of the parts are more difficult than others, so this way the groups can be mixed up with high achievers and more reluctant readers. In each pod, one person gets one division of the wheel to discuss with their small group. **
 * 27. Recipes/Cookbooks - make your own cookbook. **
 * 28. Poetry - all types - read poetry while wearing berets and turtlenecks. **
 * 29. Change The Elements - Goldie Locks and the Three Bears - to Samantha and her Three Big Brothers. Instead of porridge, try all different types of cereal - one is too sweet, one is too branny. **
 * 30. Hangman during inside recess. **
 * 31. Bring back board games for inside recess. **
 * 32. Draw Idioms - It's Raining Cats and Dogs, the test was a piece of cake. **
 * 33. Bingo - call out "BOOKS!" instead...same amount of letters. Have the boxes state "simile", "metaphor" etc. **
 * 34. Have one kid each day be in charge of making a spelling paper for the day - use www.puzzlemaker.com or have kids make their own "word scramble" page - make copies and have the rest of the kids complete it. **
 * 35. Use websites!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! **