Constructing Meaning Through Kid-Friendly Comprehension Strategy Instruction (Paperback)

~ (Author) "Successful readers use a repertoire of comprehension strategies, not just one at a time..." (more)
Key Phrases: teaching written response, individual comprehension strategies, picturing strategy, New York, Snowflake Bentley, Ted Kooser (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...an expert and professionally written guidebook to honing one’s teaching skills and bringing out the best in one’s students.: -- The Midwest Book Review, “The Bookwatch” Page 8 Column 3

"Constructing Meaning is an expertly and professionally written guidebook to honing one's teaching skills and bringing out the best in one's students." --"The BookWatch," The Midwest Book Review, October 2004

Integrating writing with reading enhances comprehension (Brandenburg, 2002) because the two are reciprocal processes. Writing to learn engages students, extends thinking, deepens understanding, and energizes the meaning-making process...Writing to learn is an opportunity for students to recall, clarify, and question what they know about a subject and what they still wonder about with regard to that subject matter. Students also discover what they know about their content focus, their language, themselves, and their ability to communicate all of that to a variety of audiences. Without doubt, writing can optimize student learning of content subjects. Being able to express thinking in writing is a skill students take with them beyond the elementary social studies and science classrooms. --Writing to Learn across the Curriculum: Tools for Comprehension in Content Area Classes, by Kathy J. Knipper and Timothy J. Duggan, The Reading Teacher, February 2006

Product Description

Good readers think about reading while they are reading. But how does a teacher teach students to apply comprehension strategies as they read? By applying the explicit teaching model to comprehension strategy instruction, Dr. Nancy Boyles offers teachers an easy, effective, and innovative approach to improve students' reading comprehension. Using her book--rich with models, teacher-talk,and real-life examples--teachers learn how to explicitly teach students to apply comprehension strategies competently while they read. And with Dr. Boyles' detailed lesson plans and templates, teachers can embed comprehension strategy instruction into guided, shared, and independent reading for both literacy and content-area instruction. Constructing Meaning shows teachers: * A kid-friendly way to introduce and model a blended repertoire of comprehension strategies concurrently, so students practice strategies as readers actually use them: flexibly and as an integrated whole while reading. * How to refine students' comprehension of fiction and informational text during shared, guided, and independent reading with focused lessons in specific strategy applications. * How to monitor students' progress in reading comprehension and comprehension strategy use through follow-up activities, rubrics with discrete assessment criteria, and questions that make kids think. Teachers can reproduce classroom-ready visual supports from the book or customize them from the included CD.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 254 pages
• Publisher: Maupin House Publishing (May 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0929895746
• ISBN-13: 978-0929895741
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #49,092 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Guidebook to honing one's teaching skills , October 10, 2004

By	Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

Enhanced with an accompanying CD, Constructing Meaning Through Kid-Friendly Comprehension Strategy Instruction by Nancy N. Boyles (Professor, Graduate Reading Program, and Graduate Reading Program Coordinator at Southern Connecticut State University) is a resource intended especially for educators, including teachers, parents, tutors, and home schoolers. Techniques meant to maximize a students' ability to comprehend written text through strategies applied while reading, focused lessons offering specific strategy applications, an included CD with classroom-ready visual supports and recommendations for guide-reading group practice or think-aloud modeling sessions, and much more fill this quality resource. Constructing Meaning is an expert and professionally written guidebook to honing one's teaching skills and bringing out the best in one's students.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Constructing Meaning, July 19, 2004

By A Customer

This book is full of practical and kid friendly comprehension strategies that any teacher can use to help students with comprehension. There are charts/posters, sample lessons, and reading activity forms that can be reproduced or forms may be downloaded by a CD that is included with the book. The reading strategy activity forms can be used with a book of your choice to teach a specific reading comprehension strategy. Dr. Nancy Boyles also recommended a bibliography of books to teach each strategy. This is a great book to read if you are still searching for reading strategies to help your class with comprehension.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Comprehension Bible, June 26, 2006

By	LadyN (Wallingford, CT) - See all my reviews

This book is a MUST for classroom teachers and reading teachers/literacy coaches. It provides easy to use lesson plan templates, an extensive bibliography, and ready-to-use reproducibles while focusing on research-based comprehension strategy instruction. This book will answer questions for teachers of reading. They will know why and how to teach comprehension strategies. Dr. Boyles knows how to give teachers the information they need so that they can try things immediately.