AUSSIE

 

Tools:

As educators we understand the importance of comprehension to literacy learning. The documents below are taken from AUSSIE's Teaching Comprehension interactive CD-ROM as provide sample activities for skills such as summarizing, visualization, questioning and more. Download a few and try them in your classroom.

Prediction/Prior Knowledge - Use this activity during Shared Reading for fun with language patterns.

Summarizing - Use this grid to help students sort out key facts in order to build summarization skills.

Visualizing - This activity utilizes sketching as a visualization technique. 

Questions & Questioning - This outlines questions that good readers ask before, during and after reading a text.

Think -Aloud - Some strategies to used to model thinking aloud for students.

Text Structure & Features - Tips on planning a genre study through Read Aloud, Shared Reading, Guided Reading and even Independent Reading.

Planning for Effective Comprehension Teaching - A summary of instructional practices.

 

Articles:

Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment - Firm evidence shows that formative assessment is an essential component of classroom work and that its development can raise standards of achievement, Mr. Black and Mr.
Wiliam point out. Indeed, they know of no other way of raising standards for which such a strong prima facie case can be made.

Gradual Release of Responsibility - This diagram shows the gradual release of responsibility model for a balanced literacy classroom.

Bookmarks for use with Reciprocal Teaching - Having a guide to the sorts of questions and the things to think about when participating in a Reciprocal Teaching group takes the pressure off the students and supports them as they read through the text.