During Reading Strategies

Here's another screencast...

This time, it's about a few strategies to use during reading. 

Pop some popcorn, enjoy the video, then grab a good book and start practicing the strategies!

Tips from parents!

Many parents can experience nervousness about sending their child to a new school, or are unsure what they- and their child- can expect as they move on to another grade. If you (or your parent) falls into this category, you're not alone!

Although we're now a week and a half or so into the new school year, some parents submitted excellent tips for easing the transition back to school.


"As nerve-wracking as it may be for parents and/or child to send your kid off to a new place for the first time, just remember that it is unlikely that this is the first time that the school, daycare, or institution is welcoming a new face. If you've done your research, you're going to be leaving your child in the hands of well qualified individuals who likely have a seamless process in transitioning new children into a new school year/ program. As a parent, take a deep breath, kiss your kid goodbye, and really try to appreciate the quiet adult time you'll have (whether it be at work, school, or home) while your kids are off socializing."
- Mrs. W., mother of 2


"Build and develop a relationship with your child's teacher(s). Get to know, understand, and have comfort in the person or people who are the experts and are charged with educating your child. Once you have established an open line of communication, trust and development can thrive, for the student and the parent."
- Mr. R., father of 1 


"Try to tour wherever you're sending your child and meet the people who will be working with them, PRIOR to beginning their first day. It will be nice for the child and for you to have a familiar face and sense of the atmosphere, come that first day of school...when those nerves really start to act up!"
- Mrs. D, mother of 3


"In the days before school starts, help your child do some "mental walk-throughs" of the first day of school. This way, when the first day rolls around, your child will have already had an opportunity to mentally rehearse what the experience will be like!"
- Mrs. K., mother of 5

"...Reassure your student that nerves are normal, and that there are many other students who will be having the same thoughts and feelings on the first day of school. This will be the first day for a lot of the kids!"
- Anonymous

"The night before, make sure everything is ready for the morning. For my kids, that means picking our clothes, having their backpacks by the door, and 2 of them shower the night before."
- Anonymous

"Practice your morning routine before the actual first day, so you can start the day by being on time and not in panic mode!" 
- Mrs. F, mother of 3

Any more tips to share? Please email or comment below!

It's (almost) that time again!

I don't know about you, but I'm actually looking forward to the school year starting soon! I have a lot of ideas and plans for how I can make my teaching more effective and engaging, and I'm looking forward to getting to know all of my new students and seeing returning students.

At the middle school, we just finished up a 4-day mini-course for new students, where participants were introduced to a variety of strategies that will help them become more skilled at things like time management, organization, active reading, memorization, note-taking, and self advocacy. We had a fantastic group of students participate, and I want to thank their parents for supporting their attendance too.

Below is part of a letter that was sent home to parents on the last day of the mini-course; these are just some suggestions of how parents might support their student's continued progress once the school year is underway. Parents- you may see something in here that could be applicable to your child, even if he or she is not in middle school. Students- you may see something in here for yourself too! Just throwing it out here in case it can be helpful to anyone...

•  Help your student create and follow routines for homework and organization.

• Talk with your student about the strategies he or she is using to complete tasks; this reinforces the metacognitive element of learning.

• Help your student break down long-term projects or assignments into smaller, more manageable tasks; we call this “chunking” or “breaking big rocks into pebbles.” Then, help them to plan (and write down!) when to complete each smaller task, starting with the due date and working backwards; we call this “backwards planning.”

• Talk with your student about what he or she is learning, both content-wise and skill-wise. Emphasize that different strategies work for different people, and that we all need to figure out how we learn best, so we can be efficient and effective learners.

• Part of a student’s middle school experience should be figuring out how to manage more responsibility and independence. For students to have opportunities to learn and practice this, they need to be allowed to grapple with tasks, attempt to problem-solve independently, and experience natural consequences for their actions and inactions. (The Gift of Failure by Jessica Lahey is an interesting book that builds on this idea.)

• Encourage your child to communicate with his or her teachers and/or advisor, especially if they are feeling confused, overwhelmed or unsure of themselves. You could role-play a conversation they might have, or encourage them to write a note or email the teacher if they’re hesitant to initiate a conversation with them.

• Encourage your student to attend extra help sessions with their teachers, and any other skill-building workshops offered by the school (e.g. the HLC’s Snack and Study sessions are held about 2 times each month, for an hour after sports- so your student would need to be picked up from school when it’s over. Upcoming Snack and Study topics and dates will be posted in the weekly TNN email, and they will be in the daily morning announcements as well.) If you're not sure what resources might be available, have your child inquire!

•  Maintain a growth mindset- that is, embrace the belief that we can grow our “intelligence” in different areas, with strategic practice and perseverance. In conversations with your child about schoolwork, grades, and “abilities,” emphasize that strategic practice of a skill actually changes the brain’s structure by building and solidifying neural pathways; so, they’re not “doomed” to always struggle with one task, skill, or content area because the brain is like a muscle we can exercise to make stronger. (See the work of Carol Dweck for more information on growth mindsets- it’s pretty interesting stuff!)

Enjoy your remaining days of summer vacation, 

and see you soon!

Memory Strategy: Triple Note Tote

Memory Strategy: Triple Note Tote

A Triple Note Tote is an easy, fast, and fun way to remember vocabulary for classes like English, Social Studies, Science, and Foreign Language. Once you're done, it can also serve as a practice test, study guide, and/or reference sheet when completing work.

Materials needed:

1. piece of paper, folded into 3 columns
2. something to write with
3. vocabulary you're trying to learn

To make a triple note tote, label the three columns like this:

Vocabulary word	Definition  (in your own words)	Memory strategy or visual trigger

In the first column, you're simply going to write down the first vocab word you need to learn. 

In the second column, you'll paraphrase the definition, or put it into your own words. Not hard, right?

So far, your sheet should look like this:

Vocabulary word (Spanish)	Definition  (in your own words)	Memory strategy or visual trigger
Mesa	table

Now comes the fun part, which might take a little longer but will really help you to learn and remember the words. Think about a visual trigger that associates the vocab word with its definition. For example, I might think of a very messy-looking table, because "mesa" reminds me of "mess." Then, I would draw a messy table in that third column of my paper, like this:

Vocabulary word (Spanish)	Definition  (in your own words)	Memory strategy or visual trigger
Mesa	table

The reason you should have some sort of visual trigger, or image, associating the word with its definition is that images (pictures) and language (words) are stored in different areas of the brain. If the language portion of our brain is having a hard time recalling the meaning of "mesa" or the Spanish word for "table," the picture part of our brain still has a chance to kick-in to trigger that language part of our brain. This isn't the most scientific explanation of the process, I know, but it makes sense, right?

Here are a few more examples of how you could use a triple note tote to help you remember vocabulary for a foreign language (in this case, Spanish and Latin):

Vocabulary word (Spanish or Latin)	Definition  (in your own words)	Memory strategy or visual trigger
Correr (Spanish)	to run

The Terminator says "I will end you."

Terminare (Latin)                          To end, To finish                          
                                    

A Different Way to Take Notes

Visual Note-taking 

(aka Sketch Notes or Graphic Notes)

Bullet points, outlines, and summaries are not always the best way to take notes from assigned reading or from lectures and class discussions. The video below explains another method of note-taking called "sketch notes" that relies on the creation of visual images along with recording text, to record and reinforce essential information.

"Do things your way so everything makes more sense." In my opinion, this is one of the essential take-aways of that video. Everyone perceives things differently, and we all have unique learning styles.  If you find a method for taking notes that works well for you, and it is effective, then keep on using it! Most of us will have to try a bunch of different styles and strategies for note-taking before we find one that works. Many of us also have to use different styles of note-taking depending on the task or what we will be expected to use those notes for.

Below is a video I recorded when I was attempting to use this style of note-taking to keep track of events in a chapter from A Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck. Please be gentle when judging my sketches.

Thanks for not being a critic, but I'll admit it- I don't think that went that very well. It was difficult to not just draw the scene I was reading about. However, that was one of my very first attempts at this style of note-taking. So, I'm going to try it again... after watching this video done by someone way more versed in this style of note-taking.

A few important things I took away from this instructional video were that you don't have to try to get all of the details down in  your notes in the moment; instead, you can go back to fill in details like additional text, color, and more precise drawings. Also, the video pointed out the importance of thinking about the layout or format of the notes, prior to beginning. I think that for the notes I took from A Long Way from Chicago, it would have made more sense to have a storyboard setup, where I have frames showing the different scenes and important events in the chapter. Maybe even reading the whole chapter first, then going back to sketch out the most important elements like the conflict, rising action, climax, and resolution, would have made more sense.

I'll have to keep working at this format of note-taking because I do think that it would work well for me in certain situations. I hope you will try this style of note-taking as well, in a few different situations, so you can see if it's something that may work for you!

Remembering What You've Read... Audiobooks and other reading strategies

Do you find it difficult to remember what you've read? Or do you find yourself "zoning out" while reading? Try listening to an audio book while you read and visualize, and you might find that you remember more and/or can pay attention better!

Listen to the audio of the book while you read along and take notes! Although this article emphasizes the benefit of audio books for students who have learning differences, studies find that most people benefit from multiple means of representation when trying to encode (learn) new information.

Online resources like Audible.com, iTunes, audiobooks.com, and your public or school library have online audio books or audio books on CDs (or even cassette tapes?!) that you can check out, so you can easily try this strategy to see if it works for you!


Other active reading strategies you can use while listening to an audio book (or not), to better remember what you've read, include:

• End-of-chapter summaries
• Sticky Note summaries
• 3-bullet summaries
• SWBS summaries

• Stop and paraphrase at the end of each page (Stop, Think, Paraphrase)
• Visualizing
• Connecting
• Margin Notes

I'll post more about these other active reading strategies later. Happy reading (and/or listening!)

During-Reading Strategies

During-reading Strategies

While completing your summer reading, you should consistently check in with yourself to ensure you're reading actively, instead of simply looking at a bunch of words on a page (or a screen). There are lots of things you can do to be an active reader, and you're likely already doing some of those things. Below are some strategies you may already use without thinking about it, or may want to consider using, as you read.

1. Visualize
2. Make Connections
3. Make Predictions
4. Take Margin Notes

Visualizing means to "make a mental picture" of what's happening in the story, as you read. Because a book will likely be action-oriented, and the characters will be doing and saying things, this "picture" is really more like a movie. The more detail you're able to add to your mental movie, the more likely you are to understand what is happening in the story. Just make sure that the details you add to your mental movie (accents, background/setting, characters' facial expressions, etc.) are based on the information that the author has provided. If you find that you're unable to make a mental movie while reading, or if that mental picture is vague and not very detailed, that may be a sign that you're not really thinking about what you're reading, or that you're not understanding what's happening in the story.

Making Connections, as discussed in a previous post, is a great strategy to use in order to stay interested in what you're reading and to remember more of what you're reading. You can connect what you're reading to other things you've read in the past, movies you've seen, things that you have personally experienced, or what you know about the world around you. Making connections can also help you to visualize more clearly, and it can help you to make more logical predictions.

Making Predictions is basically just thinking about what will happen next, based on what has happened so far in a story and based on background knowledge and previous experience. Oftentimes, we have to modify predictions about what will happen, as we read and gain more information. Making predictions can keep us interested in what we're reading, and it can also give us a purpose or focus while reading; we'll keep reading to figure out whether or not our predictions are accurate!

The topic of taking Margin Notes deserves a lot more discussion and time than I'll give it right now, but in short, taking margin notes while reading is a great way to ensure that you're being active (and not just looking at the words on the page), and to show off your thought process or what's happening in your mind, as you read. I always suggest that people have something in their hand to write with, while reading. This is so you can jot down those connections and predictions you're making, as well as questions or other ideas you have, while you're reading. It is also helpful to have something to write with in your hand so you can easily underline or star important parts of the story, note down in the margins when a new character appears or when the setting changes, or when you think the author might be emphasizing a certain point over and over again. It can be a good idea to use symbols and abbreviations when taking margin notes, to save yourself some time and to make certain things pop out at you when you go back to review what you've read. For example, a star can be used to denote something you think is important; "Ch." can be written in the margin when a new character appears; you can jot down a question mark in a margin when you're confused, or an exclamation point when something surprising happens; "Set." can be written in the margin when there's a description of the setting (time and place) of the story; and, you can make up other symbols and abbreviations to show what you're thinking and what sorts of connections you're making as you read. The margins of a book, if large enough, can also be a good place to sketch out some of what you're visualizing as you read, if you think it's an important scene or page.

Happy Reading!