Early Literacy Series #7: Teaching Comprehension & Fluency

This is the seventh of seven posts about early literacy.



One of the challenges in helping children learn how to read is providing a variety of daily experiences that develop fluency and comprehension. In this last post of the series, I outline few instructional practices teachers can use during interactive and shared reading and interactive writing.

Fluency Chart

Fluency

1. Model oral reading with expression in patterned and familiar storybooks during shared reading.
2. Create opportunities for student to read chorally with you as you read familiar refrains. This works well when the text can be seen by the students through the use of big books, charts, and projected text.
3. Choose patterned text, including familiar nursery rhymes and poems, to have students practice reading with phrasing and expression. Again it is important that students see the text. 
4. Consistently uses one-to-one matching with new text (reads almost exclusively word-by-word, usually pointing with finger).
5. Model pointing as needed in shared reading and interactive writing.
6. Encourage beginning readers to point to each word as he or she reads.
7. Encourage peer to peer talk.

Comprehension

Retelling Anchor Chart

1. When reading aloud (interactive and shared reading) encourage students to elaborate on details from the story by providing prompts like, then what happened?
2. Select meaningful texts for reading aloud and as guided reading materials. Consider text quality and context.
3. Ask students to tell how details in pictures relate to the story. 
4. Encourage students to point to the pictures as they talk about details in the story.
5. Encourage student to look back at text and pictures as you discuss the text after reading.
6. Create opportunities for discussion of read-aloud and shared reading text.
7. Pose a question for student about text and as he formulates answers ask, "What in the picture tells you that? What in the text tells you that?"
8. Create an anchor chart where you record the information from pictures and text.
9. Create anchor charts as you work together to identify story elements.
10. Model talking about parts of text in sequence during shared reading. Teach students about the prompts as well (i.e. Tell me more, what makes you think that? etc.). 
11. During guided reading prompt students to talk about parts in sequence.
12. Give student multiple opportunities to identify and discuss the story elements as you work together in texts.
13. Thoughtfully chunk text (create stopping points) as you plan for guided reading, shared reading and interactive read aloud opportunities.
14. At chosen stopping points ask student, What do you think will happen next? to encourage careful predictions.
15. Give student multiple opportunities to discuss predictions with peers and/or teacher.
16. Confirm or change predictions as you continue reading text together. 
17. During interactive read-alouds model making predictions based on illustrations or parts of stories. 
18. Teach students what it means to make predictions. 
19. Create an anchor chart about making predictions to refer to during later teaching about predictions.
20. Teach students to monitor predictions during interactive read aloud.
21. Pose questions that invite children to infer at spots in the text and across the text.



A student's questions recorded during a read aloud.

22. Teach students how to pose their own questions and privilege this work.

Students' Inferring Chart Kept During Guided Reading

Students' Inferring Chart Kept During Guided Reading

Early Literacy Series #1: Shared Reading & Writing and CAP
Early Literacy Series #2: Shared Reading Resources for Preschool and Kindergarten
Early Literacy Series #3: Teaching Rhyming and Initial Sound Instruction
Early Literacy Series #4: Teaching Sound and Letter Identification in Kindergarten
Early Literacy Series #5: Teaching Blending & Segmenting through Books and Poetry
Books to Teach the 37 Most Common Rimes: The Rime Poetry Book. 

Early Literacy Series #6: Teaching Word Solving through Shared & Guided Reading

Forget the Stop Watch and Tune into Literature: Recommended Global Multicultural Texts for Developing Fluency (and a Love for Reading)

There are lots of commercial kits available that a teacher could purchase with the eye of helping students improve their reading fluency.  Yet, nothing will do that quite as well as authentically as children's literature, especially global, multicultural texts.  In this post, I highlight some texts to be uses with intermediate and early middle school grade students. I especially want to acknowledge two friends who infleunced this post: Jane M. Gangi, a professor and the coauthor of our book, Deepening Literacy Learning: Art & Literature Engagements, who inspired me (and so many others) to deepen my knowldge of children's literature and Sam Caponera who wrote of being issued a stopwatch as part of a school reform travesty.

In Deepening Literacy Learning  (available as an e-book now through Google Books) there are several chapters that demonstrate how to use the following techniques: Reader's Theatre, Narrative Pantomime, Storytelling, and Choral Reading with students in grades 2 through 8.  These chapters include:

"Living in a Dream of Music": Fluency through Choral Reading and Narrative Pantomime (Chapter 3 by Jane M. Gangi),
"Having More to Say: Developing Writing Fluency through Collage (Chapter 4 by Mary Ann Reilly),
Recasting Text Through Reader's Theater and Story Dramatization (Chapter 5 by Jane M. Gangi),
Deepening Comprehension through Storytelling (Chapter 6 by Jane M. Gangi), and
Studying Writer's Craft in Three Middle School Classrooms (Chapter 7 by Mary Ann Reilly).

 

Books to be Adapted for Reader’s Theater
Bruchac, Joseph (Abenaki). 1999. Between Earth & Sky: Legends of Native American Sacred Places. Illustrated by Thomas Locker. San Diego: Voyager.
Frame, Jeron Ashford. 2003. Yesterday I Had the Blues. Illustrated by R. Gregory Christie. Berkeley, CA: Tricycle.
Jiménez, Francisco. 1998. La mariposa. Illustrated by Simón Silva. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Johnson, Angela. 2007. Wind Flyers. Illustrated by Loren Long. New York: Simon & Schuster.

2-Page Spread from Ziba Came on a Boat.

Lofthouse, Liz. 2007.  Ziba Came on a Boat. Illustrated by Robert Ingpen. La Jolla, CA: Kane Miller.
Myers, Tim. 2004. Basho and the Fox. Illustrated by Oki S. Han. Tarrytown, NY: Marshall Cavendish.
Rappaport, Doreen. 2005. The School Is Not White! A True Story of the Civil Rights Movement. Illustrated by Curtis James. NY: Jump at the Sun.
Rumford, James. 2004. Sequoyah: The Cherokee Man Who Gave His People Writing. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Wiesner, David. 2001. The Three Pigs. NY: Clarion.

Narrative Pantomime

Ata, Te. 2006. Baby Rattlesnake. Adapted by Lynn Moroney. Illustrated by Mira Reisberg. San Francisco: Children's Book Press.
Bruchac, Joseph (Abenaki). 1994. The Great Ball Game: The Muskogee Story. Illustrated by Susan L. Roth. NY: Dial.
Forest, Heather. 1998. Stone Soup. Illustrated by Susan Gaber. Little Rock: August House.
Garland, Sherry. 2001. Children of the Dragon: Selected Tales from Vietnam. Illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman. San Diego: Harcourt.
Hayes, Joe. 2006. The Gum-Chewing Rattler. Illustrated by Antonio Castro L. El Paso, TX: Cinco Puntos Press. Herrera, Juan Felipe. 2003. Super Cilantro Girl/ La superniña del cilantro. Illustrated by Honorio Robleda Tapia. San Francisco: Children's Book Press. Kreipe de Montaño, Marty. (Prairie Band Potawatomi). 1998. Coyote In Love With a Star: Tales of the People. Illustrated by Tom Coffin (Prairie Band Potawatomi/Creek). NY: Abbeville.
Johnson, D.B. 2004. Henry Works. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Lyons, Mary E. 2005. Roy Makes a Car. Illustrated by Terry Widener. NY: Atheneum.

From Dona Flor: A Tall Tale about a Giant Woman with a Great Big Hear

Mora, Pat. 2005. Dona Flor: A Tall Tale About a Giant Woman with a Great Big Heart. Illustrated by Raul Colon. NY: Knopf Books.
Mora, Pat. 2000. The Night the Moon Fell: A Maya Myth. Illustrated by Domi. Toronto: Ground- wood Books.
Nolen, Jerdine. 2003. Thunder Rose. Illustrated by Kadir Nelson. San Diego: Harcourt.
Schotter, Roni. 1999. Nothing Ever Happens on 90th Street. Illustrated by Krysten Brooker. New York: Scholastic.
Sierra, Judy. 2002. Can You Guess My Name?: Traditional Tales Around the World. Illustrated by Stefano Vitale. NY: Clarion.
Williams, Maria (Tlingit). 2001. How Raven Stole the Sun. Illustrated by Felix Vigil (Jicarilla Apache and Jemez Pueblo). NY: Abbeville Press.

Full Length Texts For Choral Reading

Buchanan, Ken & Debby. 1994. It Rained on the Desert Today. Illustrated by Libby Tracy. Flagstaff, AZ: Northland.
Gerstein, Mordicai. 2002. What Charlie Heard. New York: Farrar, Straus Giroux.
Hesse, Karen. 1999. Come On, Rain! Illustrated by Jon Muth. NY: Scholastic
Lyons, George Ella. 1996. Who Came Down that Road? Illustrated by Peter Catalanotto. New York: Orchard Books.
Raschka, Chris. 2007. Yo! Yes? NY: Scholastic.
Raschka, Chris. 2004. Charlie Parker Played Be Bop. NY: Orchard.
Shange, Ntozake. 2004. Ellington Was Not a Street. Illustrated by Kadir Nelson. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Poetry Books for Choral Reading
Adedjouma, Davida, (Ed.). 1996. The Palm of My Heart: Poetry by African American Children. Illustrated by Gregory Christie. New York: Lee & Low.
Alarcón, Francisco X. 2005. Laughing Tomatoes: And Other Spring Poems/Jitomates risuenos: y otros poemas de primavera. Illustrated by Maya Christina Gonzalez. San Francisco: Children's Book Press.
Argueta, Jorge. 2006. Talking with Mother Earth/ Hablando con Madre Tierra: Poems/poemas. Illustrated by Lucia Angela Perez. Toronto: Groundwood.
Argueta, Jorge. 2001. A Movie in My Pillow/Una película en mi almohada. Illustrated by Elizabeth Gómez. San Francisco: Children’s Book Press.
Brenner, Barbara. 1994. The Earth is Painted Green: A Garden of Poems About Our Planet. Illus- trated by S.D. Schindler. New York: Scholas- tic.
Brooks, Gwendolyn. 2007. Bronzeville Boys and Girls. Illustrated by Faith Ringgold. NY: Amistad.
Bruchac, Joseph (Abenaki). 1998. The Earth Under Sky Bear’s Feet. Illustrated by Thomas Locker. NY: Putnam Juvenile.
Cole, William. 1981. Poem Stew. Illustrated by Karen Ann Weinhaus. NY: HarperTrophy.
Florian, Doug. 2007. Comet, Stars, the Moon, and Mars: Space Poems and Paintings. San Diego, CA: Harcourt.
Forman, Ruth. 2007. Young Cornrows Callin Out the Moon. Illustrated by Cbabi Bayoc. San Francisco, CA: Children’s Book Press
Greenfield, Eloise. 2006. When The Horses Ride By: Children in the Time of War. Illustrated by Jan Gilchrist. NY: Lee & Low.
Gimes, Nikki. 2001. Danitra Brown Leaves Town. Illustrated by Floyd Cooper. NY:
Amistad.
Gunning, Monica. 1999. Not a Copper Penny in Me House: Poems from the Caribbean. Illustrated by Frane Lessac. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mills Press.
High, Linda Oatman. 2001. A Humble Life: Plain Poems. Illustrated by Bill Farnsworth. NY:
Candlewick. Ho, Minfong.1996. Maples in the Mist: Children’s Poems from the Tang Dynasty. Illustrated by Jean & Mou-sien Tseng. NY: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard.
Jones, Lessie Little. 2000. Children of Long Ago. Illustrations by Jan Spivey Gilchrist. NY: Lee & Low.

Mak, Kim. 2001. My Chinatown: One Year in Poems. NY: Harper’s.
Mora, Pat. 2004. Love to Mama:A Tribute to Mothers. Illustrated by Paula S. Barragan. NY: Lee & Low.
Mora, Pat. 2001. Listen to the Desert/Oye al desierto. Illustrated by Francisco X. Mora. New York: Clarion.
Nye, Naomi Shihab. 2000. Come with Me: Poems for a Journey. Illustrated by Dan Yaccarino. New York: Greenwillow.
Sidman, Joyce. 2006. Butterfly Eyes and Other Se-crets of the Meadow. Illustrated by Beth Krommes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Sidman, Joyce. 2005. Song of the Waterboatman and Other Pond Poems. Illustrated by Beckie Prange. San Diego, CA: Houghton Mifflin.
Siebert, Diane. 2006. Tour America: Through Poems and Art. Illustrated by Stephen T. Johnson. Gosau, Switzerland: Seastar.

Tadjo, Veronique, (ed.). 2004. Talking Drums: A Selection of Poems from Africa south of the Sahara. NY: Bloomsbury.
Weatherford, Carole Boston. 2001. Sidewalk Chalk: Poems of the City. Illustrated by Dimitrea Tokumbo. Honesdale, PA: Boyds MIlls Press.
Wong, Janet, S. 2000. Night Garden: Poems from the World of Dreams. Illustrated by Julie Paschkis. NY: Margaret E. McElkderry Books.
Yolen, J. (ed.). 1997. Once Upon Ice and Other Frozen Poems. Photographs by Jason Stemple. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mills Press.

Storytelling
Cummings, Pat. 2002. Ananse and the Lizard: A West African Tale. NY: Henry Holt.
DeSpain, Pleasant. 2001. Sweet Land of Story. Little Rock: August House.
Fang, Linda. 1995. The Ch'i-lin Purse: A Collection of Ancient Chinese Stories. Illustrated by Jeanne M. Lee. NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
Forest, Heather. 1996. Wisdom Tales from Around the World. Little Rock: August House.
Hamilton, Martha. 2000. Noodlehead Stories. Little Rock: August House.
Hamilton, Virginia. 2000. The People Could Fly: American Black Folk-tales. Illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon and James Earl Jones. NY: Knopf.
Hamilton, Virginia. 1997. A Ring of Tricksters : Animal Tales from America, the West Indies, And Africa. Illustrated by Barry Moser. NY: Blue Sky Press.
Keding, Dan. 2004. Stories of Hope and Spirit: Folk-tales from Eastern Europe. Little Rock: August House.
Lester, Julius. 1987. The Tales of Uncle Remus: The Adventures of Brer Rabbit. NY: Dial.
Loya. Olga. 1997. Momentos Magicos/Magic Moments. Little Rock: August House.
MacDonald Amy. 2002. Please, Malese! A Trickster Tale from Haiti. Illustrated by Emily Lisker. NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
MacDonald. Margaret. 2005. Peace Tales. Little Rock: August House.
Wolkstein, Diane. 1997. The Magic Orange Tree and Other Haitian Folktales. New York: Schocken. Yeats, William Butler. 1957. Irish Folk Stories and Fairy Tales. NY: Grosset and Dunlap.
Yolen, Jane. 2003. Mightier than the Sword: World Folktales for Strong Boys. Illustrated by Raul
Colon. San Diego: Silver Whistle.
Yolen, Jane. 2000. Not One Damsel in Distress: World Folktales for Strong Girls. Illustrated by Susan Guevara. San Diego: Silver Whistle.
Zwerger, Lisbeth. 2006. Aesop’s Fables. Boston: North South Books.