"We can meet students where they are and help them engage with and enjoy books, make meaning, acquire vocabulary, use text features to understand, connect the pages, respond to the texts by writing and talking, practice their fluency, and perhaps above all, develop identities as confident, engaged, joyful readers {even without decoding} (p.21)".

• Meet every 2 weeks
• Discuss 1 goal each meeting
• After a goal has been discussed, teacher will try strategies and share with the team at the next meeting.
• I will also share specific strategies at each meeting.

This book is a bit different from a traditional book in that it is set up kind of like a menu. As you discover needs your students have as readers, you find that section in the book and then have a list of strategies broken down step by step to address that need. If you've ever struggled with what to do during a "strategy group" this book has you covered from emergent readers to advanced readers.

Leave sections of it blank so that it could serve as a sample graphic organizer that a student could use for any text. Sometimes students falsely believe that graphic organizers are created for a particular book or lesson and don't transfer their knowledge to other assignments especially independent work.

You can color coordinate the tab to match the ones in the Reading Strategies book, and as you can see, I label it with the corresponding unit and page number.

To get a better sense of the Linger Finger strategy, here are a few ideal prompts found in the book:

• Move your finger across the page. Tell me what you see.
• Not so fast! Stay on the page a moment.
• You went across the whole page and said sentences about what you saw!
• What will you do before you turn the page? (p.26)

Serravallo's teaching tip for this strategy is to model fluent, expressive reading in various parts of a book to show students a myriad of emotions present in a text and to help students tap into their inner actor (p.31).

For the Express the Emotions strategy, Serravallo suggests using prompts such as these:

• How did the character say that? Show me.
• Say it thinking about how the character is feeling.
• I could tell he sounded happy (or mad or sad) because of how you read that.

When students become more mindful of repeated patterns while reading, they'll become more fluent, and we all know fluency aides comprehension. Therefore, being mindful helps them better monitor for meaning.

The prompts found in the book for the Keep in Mind What Repeats strategy are:

• What's the same on this page?
• Say what repeats.
• Check the picture to see what's new.
• How is this page different from the last?
• How is this page similar to the last?

The author notes how research shows that the amount of time students spend actually reading with their eyes on print and on task, will make the biggest difference in their reading. That means it isn't just about what happens at the Guided Reading table. It's about what happens when they are simply engaging and actually reading a text.

When you use one of these, you spend time carefully observing your students. You note what you observe during an entire independent reading period. Your looking for things such as when students react to the text they are reading, when they become disengaged, and if they finish one book before looking for another one.

Allowing your students to have a choice about where they read is critical. Choice is ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS powerful! This strategy suggests that you lead students in a discussion about the BEST reading spot for them (which may be different for different students). Once again, allowing students to take responsibility for their own learning/reading. The anchor chart example provided in the text is perfect to show that reading spots will be different for different students. This particular chart shows with sticky notes the variety of readers in this classroom. It will also be powerful to show that the reason we are "quiet" is because we are showing reader respect to those students who need their reading spot "quiet." This lesson can be done with all readers, and is not limited on grade or particular reading level.

SO IMPORTANT to lasting reading engagement and overall comprehension. Students should have a "reading voice" and a "thinking voice" when they read. When reading we keep our eyes in the book and read each word, but as we read we also want to keep our mind engaged by using our "thinking voice" too.

"Can you picture what's happening?"

1. How do I want to define "attention" and "focus" for my students to easily understand?

2. What text(s) will work best for modeling "backing up and re-reading?"

In order to construct accurate meaning from a text, readers must read the words in the text with accuracy while integrating the three sources of information: meaning, structure (or syntax) and visual (or grapho-phonics).

Serravallo says that "integrating all three sources of information is like being a juggler with three balls in the air. It takes coordination, mental effort, and strategic action." In order for students to understand how to "juggle" all three of these sources, they must be taught how to monitor their own reading. They must monitor when it does not look right, make sense, orsound right.

Regardless of what you use, it's important to look at the assessment given and analyze the pattern of errors and self-corrections to learn about which of the three sources of information the student uses sometimes, consistently, or not at all." (Page 78).

This strategy is an ultimate goal and one that will enable students to become more independent when reading complex text. As a Reading Recovery teacher and Literacy Coach I learned that we need our students to become FLEXIBLE Thinkers. Teach students what to do when they get to a tricky word. You will tell them not to just try one thing because sometimes you will need to try more than one strategy to help you problem solve. We want our students to think: "What will help me read this word?"

1. Build this chart after you have taught your students a variety of strategies.

2. Don't have this chart not be "pre-made" but to build it as you go ... as you teach them! Once you have two or three strategies taught and students are showing evidence of using them, then begin creating this chart and add those two or three strategies only.

3. After that, as you teach a new strategy, you can add it to the chart. Something that I like about this chart is that it shows students that they can not always rely on one source of information ... the chart has decoding (visual) and meaning and structure thinking on it.

This strategy is about teaching students how to use a word they know, or parts of words they know, to help them solve a word they are having trouble reading. They will learn to look for a part of the word that's the same as a part in a word they know. For older students, I like to teach them that this is called using analogies.

• Phrasing or parsing – putting words together into meaningful groups within a sentence.
• Expression or intonation or prosody – reading to match the feeling of the piece, paying attention to ending punctuation and dialogue marks.
• Emphasis – emphasizing words in the sentence to match the author’s meaning. Paying attention to text treatments (bold, italics, all caps).
• Automaticity – reading known words automatically
• Pace – reading at a pace that mirrors how we talk, not racing through words or reading at a labored rate.

Levels A, B, C - don't expect readers at the lowest to read with fluency, as their focus should be on one-to-one matching (reading one word aloud for each word in print) and pointing under the words – reading smoothly and this goal cannot live side-by-side.

By level D we should expect some phrasing, and a by E intonation as well.

By Level J - should expect a level 3/4 on the NAEP

The power of reading and re-reading is real! This strategy helps students understand phrasing. It is critical for young readers to practice phrasing because they have the opportunity to say and hear the words the way they were supposed to be read. I like to have students read choppy “on purpose” and then read smoothly. I give them the visual of a chef chopping a veggie. The chef can chop-chop-chop and then they smoothly swipe the pits into the dish. Readers read-each-word, and then “read each word” in a smooth phrase.

Use an independent level text to ramp up fluency. Transfer the voice from the independent text to an instructional level text. Simple connection for kids: warming up is good for your body before sports and for your brain while reading. This is a clear, concrete example for kids!

Well, it is basically the heart of what makes reading enjoyable. The best reading happens when one is completely immersed in the text, lost in another world, and apart of a story that feels all too real. Naturally, we want all our students to experience this true magic of reading. But in order for this to happen, readers must know what is happening. They need to know the who, the where, and the what to fully understand what they read. Plot and setting are a pretty big deal.

Students who may need additional practice with this skill are your kiddos that retell with WAAAY too much detail, or not enough detail, or jumble up the order of events during a retell. They are the kids that miss the connections between events and don't see how one event leads to another event in the story. Sequential understanding is a key component of understanding plot. I can think of many students who fall into one or more of these categories and I'm sure you can too.

Serravallo breaks down plot and setting into 4 parts and offers twenty-eight (TWENTY-EIGHT!) different strategies to support readers working on this goal.

• problem/conflict and solution/resolution
• retelling/summarizing (must be sequential)
• visualizing setting
• cause and effect (connecting events in the story)

What is it?

This strategy focuses on summarizing what is most important in the story in order in a way that makes sense. It is ideal for levels E-K and fictional texts.

This is basically an introduction to a good fictional summary. I love the language Serravallo uses to explain a summary. She says, "Your summary should include enough information to make sense to someone who hasn't read the story before. That means you need to make it clear in your summary how one event led to another." This idea forces students to think about the most important events that are connected to each other, not simply part of the story.

What is it?

This strategy gives students additional practice finding the most important events in each chapter. At the end of a chapter, students simply stop and jot the most important event. Students can then reread their notes to remind themselves of where they are in the story. This strategy is great for kids reading level L and up.

It is also incredibly versatile. You could easily use post-it notes, bookmark, or notes page to keep track of big ideas in each chapter.

I've used them all, but I like the notes page best for independent reading/conferences and guided reading. I like to have everything all in one place and easily accessible. Kids simply fold the page in half, stick it in their books, and use their notes as their bookmark.

This is a great strategy to use during read alouds. After each chapter, pause and think about the most important event in that chapter. Write 1-2 sentences on a strip of colored paper and add it to a "Story Chain." Tape the new sheet on to the old and keep building on, always switching colors for each chapter.

Talking about the characters in a book is easy and something we naturally do, but how do we move beyond simple recall and challenge our students to really think about the characters?
Serravallo begins the chapter by stating that "Character development is often intertwined with plot development" (pg. 162). We should remember that characters in a story connect the story events together, and paying attention to the details regarding character development can deepen our understanding of a story.

According to the book, this strategy is suitable for levels C-M. In this strategy, we are teachings readers to pause and think, "What's my character thinking here?" or "What might my character be saying here?"

In the book, there is a picture of these think and dialogue bubbles. I think they would be the perfect hands on item to have a student use to remind them of this strategy!

A few prompts from the book include:

"What just happened? So, what might your character be thinking?"
"What words is your character saying in his or her head?"
"Before you turn the page, pause and think about what he or she would be thinking."

I'm sure most of us have had our students compare characters, and I'm including this strategy because I love the speaking prompts Serravallo suggests in the book on page 176. Her prompts help students analyze the traits they have compared and contrasted.

This strategy is highlighted as one for older students. For kindergarten students, I thought about ways to use this strategy with younger readers. One way to make this easier for younger students is to provide the two characters they will compare, whereas older readers should pick the two characters they are comparing. Also, you would do the strategy activity together on chart paper instead of making them write their own comparisons.
For more advanced readers and writers, I made a simple Venn diagram printable and a "Comparing Characters" bookmark that may come in handy.

Character Comparisons

This strategy is best used with levels J and above. This strategy involves a student thinking about two characters, and then comparing them using ideas such as traits, how they handle challenges, likes and dislikes, interests, change, an lessons learned.

When conferencing with students, take something with you to demonstrate what you're looking for or as a teaching reference. One way to make this toolkit easy to carry around is by using index cards on a ring. The example picture below uses sentence stems for non-fiction comparisons, but they could easily be used for this strategy as well.

"Put simply, although thinking deeply about text may be an enjoyable part of reading literature, it's also fair to say that without understanding themes, ideas, symbolism, or social issues that show up in the text, it could be that you misunderstand or at the very least miss a lot of what the story is about."

Well who doesn't like to give advice? I like the idea of telling characters what to do. It turns out so do my students! I recently read Good-Night Owl by Pat Hutchins. We stopped in the middle of the story and gave the owl advice about how he could get a good night's sleep. Here are a couple pieces of sage advice...

Owl, you should get some ear plugs.

Owl, you should find another tree to sleep in.

Owl, why don't you eat those animals so they don't bother you anymore?

Owl, when I can't sleep my mom tells me to count to twenty and then roll over. You could try that.

Not only were the children engaged in the story they were also making connections and drawing inferences.

Jennifer recommends you first discover the pattern and then give advice by starting with, "You should_____."

Everyone makes mistakes. We can all learn from those mistakes too. Noticing mistakes made by book characters help us notice them in ourselves and then also learn from them. Model this for your students by using chart paper to write down mistakes made by characters and then the possible lessons learned. Here are a couple of sentence starters Jennifer shares that can help you use this strategy.

• When you _________, you should or shouldn't learn _________.
• You don't have to _________ to _________________.
• Try to (or not to) ____________when you ___________.

This strategy helps students with inferring and in determining importance.

Jennifer teaches that books up till Fountas and Pinnell Level J (mid second grade), books often don’t have a main idea, but rather a “main topic.” An example of this would be a nonfiction text about dogs. Facts about dogs is the topic. “Golden retrievers are known for their good swimming skills. For younger readers, asking them to identify the main idea of a text may be too challenging. Instead, ask those students to identify what repeats throughout the text.

As you can see, the word that repeats throughout every page is, “Sonoran.” As students are able to determine words that repeat, then they are able to determine important words. The main topic of this book are the different animals that live in the Sonoran desert.

Students used transparent sticky notes to identify the repeated words in their books.

Some prompts for this strategy include:

*As you are reading, pay attention to what repeats on each page.

*Did you notice any words that repeat on every page of the text?

*Tell me the main topic.

*Find examples of what’s the same.

During this strategy, students read a chunk of text together and decide what the main idea of the text is. The trick is to SHRINK everything you just read into one sentence….not a run-on sentence, either! :) Students are encourage to support their ideas with examples from the text.

As you read, model how you could take one passage, chunk of the text, or a paragraph, and “shrink it.” For example, if the text talked about Speedy, Spotted Cats, then an example of “shrinking it” would be, “Cheetahs are the fastest land animal.”

The section is about Australia. The section, in ONE sentence or less, is “how there are many different animals native to Australia.”

Students use a LARGE sticky note for the paragraph and then a SMALL sticky note, to really represent a VISUAL for **SHRINKING** of the text. :)

This strategy works best with NF texts that are a level M or higher.

Some prompts include:

*Read a chunk of the text.

*Determine the main idea.

*Use just one sentence to determine the main idea.

This goal focuses on supporting comprehension in non-fiction, specifically in determining key details. Serravallo points out that "there is a difference between reading for details and reading for key details". That difference being that a student has the ability to determine importance.

"Determining key details is the different between taking a highlighter to every single word in a textbook, and highlighting just those facts that align to your purpose for reading, or that align to what the author is trying to say." (Page 247).

Another awesome point that Serravallo makes is when she says, "Evaluate the quantity of details the student can provide as well as the quality- the student will ideally provide multiple details, from across many sections/portions of the text, that strongly relate to the main idea/topic." (Page 248). This goes along with what I said above, just a little bit deeper. Make sure you are not just checking for how much they noted- but if those notes are valuable and critical to their understanding of they text. If not, you might need to teach them to slim down.

• can support a main idea with just one detail, but need prompting to list more than one.
• can support main idea with just one portion of the fact
• lists random facts to support details

I love the notion that we are always approaching text with the anticipation of learning and being "wow'ed" by something. I think sometimes kids forget that we aren't just giving them nonfiction text to torture them- but really because they can learn- and love to learn- something from it!

This strategy asks the reader to consider whether a statement is an important detail that supports the main idea or just an interesting fact. You would let the student know that in order for a detail to be considered a key detail, it must connect to the main idea that the author is presenting.

This goal is important to young readers because text features are a big part of reading nonfiction text. Text features help students to read, navigate and understand what they are reading. Text features help to support the main idea of the text by including relevant information, adding to the ideas or helping students navigate through the reading. There are numerous types of text features; graphs, illustrations, diagrams, charts, maps, photographs just to name a few. Many teachers already understand the importance of text features but studies show that students need to do more than simply identify the feature. Students need to be taught how to use these features to gain more information. Students should be able to identify the feature but more importantly, be able to understand the purpose and function of the text feature.

Ways to determine if this is the right goal for your students include:

What level are your students reading on?

o Below level N – text features support the main idea

o At level O – text features begin to give additional information

o At level Q – text features become more heavy; they may include their own main ideas and details

o At level U – readers need to be able to explain how the text feature relates to the main text

How to assess?

o Ask questions when conferencing

o Stop and jot

o Respond to questions

o Look at student writing

o Listen to student conversations

Gauge where your students are from your assessment. Think about their reading level and what they can/cannot do. Is the student:

o Ignoring the text features?

o Able to identify the text feature?

o Able to identify and name its purpose?

o Able to explain what the feature is teaching?

o Able to make connections between the meaning of the text feature and the text?

One strategy Serravallo discusses in this chapter is applicable to all levels of readers. Students use a sticky note to cover an image on the page. After reading the text on the page, they think to themselves, “What is this teaching me so far?” After determining their new knowledge, students’ undercover the sticky note and then ask themselves, “What new information am I gaining from this feature?” I like this strategy because it builds upon students’ ability to question and determine importance.

This strategy is meant to use with levels C - J and works on synthesizing.

Students need to do more than just read the label. Teach your students to read the text and look at the picture. Next they should see what the label is labeling and think about how the text, picture and label all fit together.

Study after study has linked a reader's ability to understand vocabulary and language in text to their reading comprehension. Research has shown that in order for students to truly understand what they read, they must be able to understand 95% or more of the words in the text.

Research also suggests that most vocabulary learning occurs unconsciously through normal reading, writing, speaking, and listening activities. The best way for teachers to support vocabulary growth is "by creating a classroom in which children read a lot are encouraged to notice when words are news, learn strategies for figuring out what those words may mean, and are encouraged to use those words when they write and speak.

Sometimes we get confused when teaching students and think we have exhausted all teaching options. Well, if a student speaks a different language, try using their own native language to help. I especially like this strategy because it gives students a chance to feel confident and proud that they are really navigating their own learning and aiding their comprehension.

Serravallo says, "There are two sides to the productive conversation coin. First, students need to have a hearty repertoire of conversational skills. Second, they need good stuff to talk about, meaning that their comprehension of the text and the depth of their thinking can impact the conversation." (Page 324). This. Is. Perfect. Just reread it and think about it. We have to teach them how to talk properly (hence the upcoming strategies), but we also have to give them meaningful things to talk about. We, as the teachers, are not without responsibility in this task.

As much as this goal focuses on getting students talking, we must also be sure they are listening (now and always!). This strategy really helps student be good listeners to their peers and then construct their responses. I also like that this strategy comes with the nice little symbols for each prompt. This way I could nod to students as I am walking around the room and this would act as a reminder

As Serravallo explains, "Power questions are often ones that begin with why and how and won't have a simple yes-or-no answer. Think about what you wonder- about the book or about another person's ideas- and consider sharing your question, not just a statement." (Page 347). I like to think of power questions with the following "mom" scenario. If I just ask my kids, "How was school today?" they can get off easy with a one word answer. But if I make it a power question, maybe something like "Tell me something that made you think at school today." and poof, I'll get a much more magical answer.

"Teaching children to write well about their reading is about teaching them that their thinking about books matters. It matters enough to take the time to write it down."

- Jennifer Serravallo, The Reading Strategies Book

Serravallo points out that many of the strategies she discusses are aimed at readers in upper elementary grades or middle school grades. It's more important for younger readers (namely, in kindergarten and first grade) to read often and practice "print work, fluency, and comprehension" (pg. 351).

This strategy would be perfect for the beginning of the year! With this strategy, students are asked to think about a positive reading memory they have. Then, they will draw a sketch showing details of the memory and tell what made the experience so positive. Finally, they will write a plan for how they can have more positive reading memories.

I love this strategy because it helps students think about reading in a new way. We think about what we read and we do comprehension activities, but how often to we think about how reading makes us feel, or replay a positive reading memory in our minds? I love this strategy so much!

You could have students complete this strategy in a notebook or just on a piece of paper. I also created a free and simple template for using this strategy. I also included a half-sheet template for conferencing. If you use this strategy, you'll want to take time to meet with each of your students so they can share their positive memory and so you can help them make their plan.

As you can see, when the student is reading and they have a thought, they stop and jot it on a post it note. Then they can reflect on those post it notes and think about what to write from there. Using 9.13 strategy comes into play when you don't have to check every single "jot" because some are just interesting and not exactly important. While I don't always recommend combining too many strategies with students (keep it simple!), sometimes when they mesh nicely together it can really help with scaffolding their understanding and help them tremendously!