Fostering Metacognitive Minds:

Exploring Reading Strategiesin Reading Workshop

Kristen Lazuta3rd Grade

Mason City Schools

SchemaInferring

Visualizing

Synthesizing Determining Importance

Questioning Metacognition

“I have so much metacognition that I might need to go off of the page…

Is that okay?” ~ Third grader Winter 2011

Critical Reading Strategies

Metacognition

Schema Questioning

Visualizing Determining Importance

Inferring Synthesizing

“Today there is a wide body of research supporting the effectiveness of explicit comprehension strategy instruction and the need for students to become metacognitive.” ~Ellin Oliver

Keene and Susan Zimmerman

Strategy Immersion Daily whole group strategy lessons/discussions following workshop format…

Student practice in reading workshop blocks - Daily 4: “Read to Self”, “Read to Someone”, “Respond to Reading”, “Read with a Group”

Student-led discussion groups

Post-workshop sharing sessions

At-home practice encouraged on weekly logs

____________________’s Reading Log (Name)

Total minutes will determine weekly reading homework grades. The following grading scale will be used: 101+ minutes = A+ 45-54 minutes = B 75-100 minutes = A 35-44 minutes = B- 65-74 minutes = A- 25-34 minutes = C+ 55-64 minutes = B+ 24 minutes or less = C Plus Club! For the next four weeks, our plus club goal will be to read for 130 minutes. (Review sheet packets 13-16)

Week Of: Day Book Title Minutes Parent

Initials

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday, Saturday, or Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Total minutes for the week:

Dear Families, Recently your child has been learning all about yet another benefi cial reading strategy: “inf erring.” The students have learned that “inferring” means “reading between the lines” by using our background knowledge and clues f rom the story to figure out things that the author may not tell us. We will be learning that inf erring can mean many things, such as using context clues to fi gure out a tricky word, using clues to predict what will happen next, or thinking about “big ideas” in the story. I f you’d like to, take some time this week to chat with your child about inferring. Remember, this is completely optional, and will not aff ect your child’s reading log grade. Here are some guiding questions to use, or f eel f ree to just hold a casual conversation with your child about what they’ve been learning in reading: *Tell me about inferring… *How do you infer the meanings of tricky words in a story? *How do you make inferences about what is happening in the story when the author doesn’t tell you everything? *How does inferring help you to become a better reader? I f you read with your child this week and you fi nd a spot in the text where the author doesn’t give “all of the information,” ask your child to infer what is happening. We talked about some “idea starters” in class that your child can use to f rame his or her thoughts. These are: “My guess is…Maybe…Perhaps…I t could be that…This could mean…I predict…I inf er…” (Comprehension Connections, 97) Thanks so much for your f antastic support, f amilies! Sincerely, Kristen Lazuta Resource: Comprehension Connections by Tanny McGregor

“Metacognition is a mixture of text and thinking which equals real reading. Without either one of them it wouldn’t be real reading…it would be fake reading.”

- Kate

Metacognition

*All student names have been changed.

Animal Migrations

What is it that makes animal migration such a magnificent spectacle for the eye and the mind? Is it the sheer abundance of wildlife in motion? Is it the steep odds to be overcome? Is it the amazing feats of precise navigation? The answer is all of the above. But there’s another reason why the long-distance journeys of wildebeests, sandhill cranes, monarch butterflies, sea turtles, and so many other species inspire our awe. One biologist has noted the “undistractibility” of migrating animals. A nonscientist, risking anthropomorphism, might say: Yes, they have a sense of larger purpose.By David QuammenPhotograph by Joel Sartore

Animal migration is a phenomenon far grander and more patterned than animal movement. It represents collective travel with long-deferred rewards. It suggests premeditation and epic willfulness, codified as inherited instinct.

A biologist named Hugh Dingle, striving to understand the essence, has identified five characteristics that apply, in varying degrees and combinations, to all migrations. They are prolonged movements that carry animals outside familiar habitats; they tend to be linear, not zigzaggy; they involve special behaviors of preparation (such as overfeeding) and arrival; they demand special allocations of energy.

Migrating animals maintain a fervid attentiveness to the greater mission, which keeps them undistracted by temptations and undeterred by challenges that would turn other animals aside.

An arctic tern on its way from Tierra del Fuego to Alaska, for instance, will ignore a nice smelly herring offered from a bird-watcher's boat in Monterey Bay. Local gulls will dive voraciously for such handouts, while the tern flies on. Why? "Animal migrants do not respond to sensory inputs from resources that would readily elicit responses in other circumstances," is the dry, careful way Dingle describes it. Another way, less scientific, would be to say that the arctic tern resists distraction because it is driven at that moment by an instinctive sense of something we humans find admirable: larger purpose.

Quammen, David. “Animal Migrations." National Geographic (2010).

“Real Reading Cereal”- Adding our thinking to the text we read.

(Comprehension Connections, 13)

Charting “How We Know When We Don’t Know”- Determining when meaning has broken down and finding corresponding “fix-up” strategies. (Strategies that Work, 79)

Marking text with questions and “lightning bolts” to illustrate spots of confusion and clarity. (Strategies that Work, 79)

Recording our thinking directly onto text (such as articles or even OAA practice passages!)

Texts and Activities for Introducing Metacognition

Schema“If you learn something it goes into your

spider web of knowledge, and it can help you to understand something new like a book.”

-Joe

Texts and Activities for Introducing Schema

Schema T-chart (Ex. Things we know about Glockenspiels vs. Kings Island)(Comprehension Connections, 33)

Creating a connection web and add sticky notes as we learn about: - Text to self connections - Text to world connections - Text to text connections

Distinguishing between deep and distracting connections. (Strategies that Work, 95)

Discovering how our schema changes with new information. (Strategies that Work, 97)

Visualizing

“I use my schema and think about the book, and I think about smell, sight, touch, taste, and sound and the characters.”

-Jennifer

Texts and Activities for Introducing Visualizing

Sensory explorations-students look, listen, touch, taste (?), and smell different objects, charting descriptive words that come to mind. Learning how our visualizations rely on our schema. (Reading with Meaning, 80)

Conveying our visualizations through sketching and talking (“Sketch to Stretch”- Thoughtful Education, 44).Discussing the connection between author’s word choice and rich visualizations with poetry (“Showing, not Telling” Reading with

Meaning, 83))

“I can hear the wind wooshing…it’s so loud- it sounds like…whooo whooo.”

“I can feel the heat from the fire.”“I can taste the smoke from the fire in my mouth.”“I feel like I’m in the story!”

“Today I read Revolutionary War on Wednesday, and I read about a musket and I used my context clues, and I visualized to picture that it was a gun; plus I have schema for a musket because I’ve seen one on T.V. before.” - Josh

Inferring

“Now I know that inferring means predictions, our schema, and thinking about what the author didn’t tell us.”

-Bryan

Texts and Activities for Introducing Inferring

Inferring role play- students act out situations or emotions for their classmates to infer. (Strategies that Work, 138)

Practicing inferring at the word, then sentence level, using crucial context clues. (The Café Book, 99)

Drawing conclusions based on schema (Ex. “Inferring About a Person” activity) (Comprehension Connections, 53) .

Applying the following equation to reading: Text Clues + Schema= My Inference (Strategies that Work, 142)

Learning the connection between predicting and inferring.

Associating visualizing with inferring.

Determining character traits with inferring.

“I think the boy in the story is really cocky because he’s bragging about being a good sailor.”

“I predict he’s in la-la land, and he’s just dreaming when he tells about the flying boats.”

“I infer this is fantasy fiction.”

“I’m visualizing the boat in the water; the hull is cutting through the water like a knife.”

“OMG…the old man IS actually the boy because look, it says that he’s limping, and that’s from when he broke his leg in the crash!”

Questioning “I didn’t realize that we needed to use inferring to figure out thick questions.”

-Emily   -

Texts and Activities for Introducing Questioning

Piquing curiosity with an interesting object and gathering questions throughout the week. (Comprehension Connections, 65)

Determining the difference between the “thick and thin” questions (Strategies that Work, 116) we ask before, during, and after a piece of text.

Coding the answers we find as “I” (inference) “T” (text) or “OS” (outside source). (Reading with Meaning, 128)

Creating question webs to capture thinking about “thick” questions. (Reading with Meaning, 131)

Preparing to answer different types of questions in testing situations (the reality of our testing rich environment!).

Student-Led Discussion Groups

•Students jot notes on sticky notes or “Thinking Log” during reading to refer to during discussions.

•Strategy-specific “talk starters” provided as well as general starter and response phrases (The Art of Teaching Reading, Comprehension Connections).

•Students use “Talk Tickets” to share ideas. (Jama Overfield, OWP Associate )

Response Phrases I agree with what you’re saying because…

What you said matches what was in my mind because….

Where did you get that idea?

Please say more about that. Could you give me an example?

I hear what you are saying but I see it diff erently...

I ’d like to add on to what I heard you say…

I see a connection between what you said and what we talked about earlier.

So, you are saying….

Starter Phrases…

I noticed…

One thing I pictured in my mind was…

I t reminded me of…

I liked the part when…

I wonder why…

I predict that…

I was surprised when…

My idea changed when…

I t wasn’t f air when…

Determining What’s Importantand

Synthesizing

“I just realized something…it’s like metacognition is the main

idea of what we’re learning, and visualizing and schema and questioning and inferring are all the supporting

details!” - Alex

“Synthesizing requires determining what’s important.” -Chris

Texts and Activities for Introducing Determining What’s

Importantand Synthesizing

Determining what’s important in my purse! (Comprehension Connections, 78)

Distinguishing between a topic and a main idea with a “topic bullseye”.

Finding main ideas in fiction with the “thick question” connection.

Determining themes using knowledge of inferring; supporting themes with details from the story.

Synthesizing through retelling fiction and non-fiction texts- “mining for the gold” and learning to stop and “check for understanding” as

we read to summarize the text along the way. (The Café Book, 183)

Using previously learned strategies to synthesize a text- using our schema, visualizations, and inferences to determine how our thinking changes as we read a selection. (Strategies That Work, 183)

Topic

Main Idea

Theme

Putting it All Together“Metacognition is like using all of the strategies at

once, and we can do it in any book.” -Annie  

Texts and Activities for Using the Strategies Together

Watching student led strategy discussions modeled on www.intothebook.com.

Creating a reading strategy class puzzle. (http://learningpad.net)

Coding strategies for class and small group discussions. (Strategies That Work 113)

Recording metacognition directly onto short passages- articles and OAA passages.

Students adding to running dialogue about a text on the computer.

Students Weigh In…Pre-Instruction Surveys

Post-Instruction Surveys

Pre-Unit Strategy Assessment

Post-Unit Strategy Assessment

0

5

10

15

20

25

Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4

Number of students scoring within each level on the strategy rubric

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4

Metacognitive MindsThe critical reading strategies we explored did more than improve comprehension for my third graders. They inspired a sense of enthusiasm and pride among my students. Every student could use these strategies in some way to strengthen their reading!

Metacognitive Minds

“Can I share my schema about the presidents before we read?”“Michael was being really metacognitive while I was working with

him. Can I move him to rainbow?”“We already know all about inferring because it’s one of our reading

strategies!” (During a May field trip when a student saw the word on the wall.)

“It’s just stuck in my spider web schema...” (When a student was asked how they recalled a concept so quickly during OAA review.)

“We need to believe that students usually have far more thinking to share…if we ask ourselves where comprehension strategies lead a reader,we open up whole new

worlds of insight.”

-Ellin Oliver Keene

Keene, Ellin Oliver. “New Horizons in Comprehension.” Educational Leadership. Mar. 2010:69-73. Print.