Our current KGCS Comprehension Focus is Author's Purpose.  Student success with Author's Purpose is built on the understanding that a piece of text is created by an actual person for a reason.  This awareness can begin in the earliest grades by talking about the author's choices during picture book read-aloud lessons.  All students can parrot, "The author is the one who wrote the book," but they often lack the deeper understanding that authors have a clear objective that guides how they craft a text.  Developing a strong writing program in your classroom will also support the understanding that an author makes choices when creating text for a specific purpose.

An author's choices can be critiqued and evaluated using the framework of Question the Author.  Instead of simply asking students about the content of a piece of text, questions are framed with the author at the center of the analysis.  How does the author organize the information about sea turtles?  Why does the author include this piece of dialogue?  How does the author make the reader want to keep reading?  What does the author mean by that phrase?  How well did the author explain that?  What in the text makes you think that? The possibilities are endless, but it requires us to be ever-mindful of the ways we communicate and frame questions about text. You will know that you are changing thinking when students begin to use the word "author" in their discussions instead of just saying "It says... " when referring to the text.

The slides below review the rigor of Author's Purpose in the standards and assessments.

I have been teaching model lessons for the strategy of Anticipation Guides.  This strategy is perfect for engaging students in nonfiction text.  Anticipation guides help to focus students' attention on important details and to develop the important skill of recognizing when the text causes them to change their thinking.  Thank you to Mrs. Gwin, Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Coons, Ms. Byrnes, and their third and fourth grade students!  The examples below use nonfiction passages from www.readworks.org.  Resources for anticipation guides and other nonfiction strategies will be linked from the nonfiction page currently under construction.

Mrs. Mohle's 3rd grade students (KGES) helped us try out a graphic organizer that I created for character analyis.  The organizer was a good match for the goals of the lesson:  using evidence from the text to analyze characters, understanding the difference between a trait and a feeling, and generating words that describe multiple characters in the text (The Littles).  The template can be found on the Formative Assessment page and the Inferring Character Emotions and Traits page.  Thank you Mrs. Mohle for the wonderful collaboration today!

I will be using this Voki to introduce character traits related to the word "mean."  Thank you to Ms. Harkness for allowing me to work with your 3rd grade students today!

Mrs. Minter's students (2nd grade KGES) learned about different types of QAR today during a model lesson!  The first photo shows students' work after groups answered questions about Henry and Mudge and ordered them from easiest to hardest.  Their discussions were so interesting!  Most thought the Right There question was the easiest, but some argued that the On My Own question was the easiest.  The last photo shows students learning the signal for an Author and Me question.  The lesson is attached below.  Thank you Mrs. Minter!
2nd Grade Questioning Henry and Mudge

Some of our elementary classrooms in King George will be participating in Read for the Record.  The featured text this year is Otis, by Loren Long.  Classroom teachers will be reading the book aloud to students on October 3.  Please also use the Direct Vocabulary Lesson below after reading the picture book.

Otis Direct Vocabulary Lesson

During the year, I will be conducting mini-PD sessions to discuss instruction that addresses the comprehension skills and strategies in the KGCS Comprehension Framework.  Check your email for current dates.  Please check the Assessment Resources page for tools that you can use prior to each training.  This is not required, but having student samples will support our reflection!  For the Sept. 17-19 sessions, use any of the assessments under Questioning or Inferencing.

Remember Word Talks?  KGCS teachers did a fantastic job implementing this strategy in preparation for new reading SOL tests.  Resources and procedures can be found on the page to the right.  If you would like to view a video of a word talk lesson, please contact Ms. Darcy.  Let's begin this type of vocabulary analysis early in the 2013-14 school year!

Welcome to Reading Pass Advanced!  Tools for effective reading instruction will be collected here to support King George County Schools reading teachers.  Please email Ms. Darcy with suggestions for developing this resource site.