Reading for Intermediate and Advanced Learners, Spring, 2011

Emily Rhoney

Strategy: Think Pair Share

Think Pair Share is a reading strategy teachers use to help students critically think about a given topic, build communication skills by sharing ideas with classmates, and helps with comprehension skills. Before the teacher introduces this strategy they need to decide on a text to read to the class and develop questions about the main idea of the text or key concepts of the text. Then the teacher will read the text to the class and ask a specific question or questions to the students that pertain to the text being read. After this the students will think about what they know or have heard about that particular topic. Then, the teacher will group students into small groups or in pairs to discuss their answers. The teacher needs to model this activity before doing it so students will understand how to properly share their ideas with a partner. Then, the teacher has each group share their answers and develops a whole class discussion on the question or questions asked. A teacher may also have students write down their responses and post them on a chart or board for the entire class to see and make comparisons to.

I used this strategy and asked my students these two questions: What makes night and day? If it is day time in North Carolina are we further or closer to the sun and why? My students surprised me with how well they worked together in small groups to form a united answer to these questions. I was impressed with the fact that they were able to provide evidence for their responses. This activity really allowed my students to develop higher order thinking skills and learn how to work together. I will use this strategy again in my classroom.

Strategy: Sequencing

Sequencing is a strategy teacher use to help students gain a better understanding of the components of a story (beginning, middle, and end). Sequencing also helps students retell a story in the order that the events happened. Sequencing helps strengthen students’ writing skills by helping them be more aware of story structure when they write. A teacher can use sequencing across a variety of subject areas (reading, writing, math, science, social studies). For younger students a teacher would need to explain and model sequencing before having them sequence a story. Then the teacher could read a story to the students and then photo copy several pages of the story and have them put the story in order. Or the teacher could read a story and split the class up into three groups and have the first group retell the beginning, the second group retells the middle, and the third group retells the ending. For older students the teacher could have them re-write plays they have been studying in class or record themselves on a tape recorder reciting the events in a story.

I had my students sequence the life cycle of a Wood Frog in several different ways (as a class, individually, through the use of a Wood Frog Wheel, and in groups). My students absolutely loved doing this. They really liked the fact that we were learning about a something real. They also liked using the Wood Frog Wheel to help them learn the life cycle of a Wood Frog. Many of them wanted to keep the wheel in their desk to use as a review of what they had learned. I was so pleased with how well my students responded to this strategy that I will use it again in my classroom.