Explicit Connections:

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Explicit Connections

• Read Well 1 to 2nd Grade

Erin Chaplin Reading First Regional Coordinator
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Session Goals

• Participants will be able to
• Identify the five essential components of reading
  within Read Well lessons
• Identify how Read Well 1 connects to EALR 2
• Increase the explicitness of essential
  comprehension strategies and skills within Read
  Well through intentional planning

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Correlations between the decoding and
comprehension components of reading
1st grade .89 5th grade .70 2nd
grade .83 6th grade .69 3rd grade .77 7th
grade .69 4th grade .73 8th grade .63
--Connecticut Longitudinal Study Yale University
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With a partner read the following activities
identify which component of reading is being
addressed phonemic awareness (PA), phonics
(Ph), fluency (F), vocabulary (V), comprehension
(C).

• ___ The teacher asks students to identify the
  main characters and setting in a story.
• ___ Students reread words with a common phonic
  pattern so that they dont have to sound them out
  
• ___ The teacher tells students that ck and -k
  stand for /k/ at the end of a word students sort
  a list of 20 words to determine when to apply the
  ck rule.

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• ___ Students partner read taking turns one
  partner is the reader, the other partner listens
  and provides corrective feedback.
• ___ Before reading the teacher has students
  preview the book to predict the content as well
  generate questions about what they may learn.
• ___ The teacher points to the written word
  experiment and asks how many syllables are in the
  word.
• ___ The teacher says /s//a//m/ and asks the
  students to blend the sounds and say the word.
• ___ The teacher leads students in filling out an
  attribute chart for the word metamorphosis.
• ___ Students move three cubes into boxes as they
  say the single sounds of the word /m//ou//s/.

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Answers

• C The teacher asks students to identify the main
  characters and setting in a story.
• Ph Students reread words with a common phonic
  pattern so that they dont have to sound them out
  
• Ph The teacher tells students that ck and -k
  stand for /k/ at the end of a word students sort
  a list of 20 words to determine when to apply the
  ck rule.

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• F Students partner read taking turns one
  partner is the reader, the other partner listens
  and provides corrective feedback.
• C Before reading the teacher has students
  preview the book to predict the content as well
  generate questions about what they may learn.
• Ph The teacher points to the written word
  experiment and asks how many syllables are in the
  word.
• PA The teacher says /s//a//m/ and asks the
  students to blend the sounds and say the word.
• V The teacher leads students in filling out an
  attribute chart for the word metamorphosis.
• PA Students move three cubes into boxes as they
  say the single sounds of the word /m//ou//s/.

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Research into Practice

• Each core reading program addresses the five
  components of reading.
• The amount of instruction in each component area
  varies with grade level.
• With a partner identify the components of reading
  that are addressed within a Read Well Unit.

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Share out
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Focus of Five Components

• With a partner identify the five components
  within two more Read Well Unit lessons.
• After identifying the five components discuss the
  following
• What is the same within the three units?
• What is different and how?
• When does the shift in focus of the five
  components occur?

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Share Out
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Our CurriculumGrade Level Expectations

• In first grade, student apply concepts of print,
  phonological and phonemic awareness, oral
  language skills, and phonics. They continue to
  expand their reading vocabulary and demonstrate
  comprehension by participating in a variety of
  responses. Students choose and read a variety of
  books for pleasure.

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EALR 2

• Purpose of looking deeper at the1st Grade Level
  Expectations
• To increase your level of familiarity with the
  GLEs and the Evidences of Learning
• To gain greater understanding how of how the
  GLEs align with Read Well 1

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EALR 2 The student understands the meaning of
what is read.

• Each EALR is made up of components which align to
  the end of the year grade level goal.
• Each component is further defined by specific
  Grade Level Expectations.

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2.1 Demonstrate evidence of reading comprehension
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2.1 Demonstrate evidence of reading comprehension

• 2.1.1 Understand how to use questioning when
  reading.
• 2.1.2 Understand how to create mental imagery.
• 2.1.3 Understand and identify important or main
  ideas and important details in text.
• 2.1.4 Understand how to use prior knowledge.
• 2.1.5 Understand how to infer/predict meaning.

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2.2 Understand and apply knowledge of text
components to comprehend text.
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2.2 Understand and apply knowledge of text
components to comprehend text.

• 2.2.1 Understand story sequence.
• 2.2.2 Understand and apply features of printed
  text and electronic sources to locate and
  understand information.
• 2.2.3 Understand story elements.
• 2.2.4 Understand simple organizational structures
  of text.

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2.3 Expand comprehension by analyzing,
interpreting, and synthesizing information and
ideas in literary and informational text.
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2.3 Expand comprehension by analyzing,
interpreting, and synthesizing information and
ideas in informational and literary text.

• 2.3.1 Understand similarities and differences
  within and between informational/expository and
  literary/narrative text.
• 2.3.2 Understand concept of categories.

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2.4 Think critically and analyze authors use of
language, style, purpose, and perspective in
literary and informational text.
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2.4 Think critically and analyze authors use of
language, style, purpose, and perspective in
informational and literary text.

• 2.4.1 Understand how to give personal or
  text-based responses and make connections to
  text.
• 2.4.2 Understand purposes of text.

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• What would we need to attend to in order for our
  students to be able to be proficient with the
  comprehension skills and strategies by the end of
  first grade?
• Discuss with your partner(s).

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Share out
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Scaffolding to Meet the Goal

• We need to teach retell of fiction and nonfiction
  textregularly and explicitly.
• Beginning of the year
• Modeling through teacher think alouds during read
  aloud and small group instruction
• Identifying story elements and facts learned
• Restating questions
• Students begin to answer individual prompts
  orally
• Middle of year
• Students are able to retell when given a general
  prompt
• End of year students are independently able to
  write a brief retell of what they have read.

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Planned Read Alouds

• Start early! Begin read alouds with Unit 1
• Why? The student text is not strong enough to
  support comprehension work at the beginning of
  first grade.
• There is a recommended list of read alouds in
  Appendix 4. These will further support the theme
  and connected vocabulary of the Read Well Unit.
  Read Well addresses how to integrate read alouds
  into instruction in Notebook 1, page 46.
• What should it look like/sound like?
• The actual read aloud should take about 10
  minutes.
• Another 10 minutes should be spent developing
  vocabulary and comprehension.
• Remember that comprehension work goes on before,
  during, and after reading.

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• The comprehension strategies can and should go
  deeper than those in the student text as they are
  not expending mental energy on decoding.
• Write questions before reading a story aloud to
  students. Write these on a sticky note place on
  the corresponding page.
• Examples of read aloud comprehension work
• You can begin modeling the response to reading
  by writing a question on chart paper remind
  students to be thinking about the question as you
  read. With students you can model the
  metacognitive process involved when responding to
  a question. WASL question stems are a great
  resource.
• Graphic organizer K-W-L, Venn diagram, story
  map, T-chart

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In order to make explicit connections we need to

• Read the teachers edition, the story, and the
  Comprehension Skill Work before teaching the
  lesson.
• New skills and teaching tips are identified
  throughout the Read Well teachers edition a
  star denotes a change in procedure.
• Pre-reading the lesson also allows you to
  identify critical vocabulary and comprehension
  strategies and skills needed for explicit
  instruction.
• If you prefer reading the story from the student
  book rather than the teachers edition, write the
  questions directly in the book. This is
  especially important for the Oral Story Retell,
  as this is not included in the story book.

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Questioning

• When asking questions allow students think time.
  
• Vary how you have students respond to questions
• A choral response is appropriate for a one word
  response.
• A partner response is appropriate for both long
  or short answers and keeps all students involved.
  You can randomly choose students to share their
  partners response with using student turn or
  question sticks.

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Vocabulary

• Identify in vocabulary words in advance
  highlight these in the teachers edition, or
  student book if you use that to teach from
• Choose additional Tier 2 vocabulary when
  appropriate
• Concept boards can be made in advance to further
  support vocabulary
• Bring in realia is an additional tool to support
  vocabulary acquisition
• Practice and apply set routines for introducing
  and practicing new vocabulary with students.

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Comprehension Skill Work

• Determine the target of the Comprehension Skill
  Work. Teach explicitly to the target.
• Comprehension skill work should not be handed out
  as an after thought to small group time.
  Consider when and how do you explicitly go over
  the Comprehension Skill Work with students?
• Determine which question(s) are appropriate for
  look-back citations. Make this notation on the
  Comprehension Skill Work blackline master.
  Look-back citations is a skill which needs
  explicit instruction.
• Determine the appropriateness of adding an
  additional question, i.e., WASL short answer
  question stem.

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Link to the 2nd grade Core Reading Program

• Identify the comprehension language used in your
  schools 2nd grade core program
• Make sure this language is used in read alouds
  and small group instruction.
• Teachers may need training on when and how use
  this comprehension language.
• Identify graphic organizers to support
  comprehension in specific Read Well stories.

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Explicit Planning for Comprehension
(Without slowing down your pace!)
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Theme

• Consider the theme of the RW Unit.
• Read alouds during whole group time will further
  support background knowledge and comprehension.
• Explicit connections to the overall theme while
  reading story/selection further support
  comprehension.

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Text Genre

• The organization and structure of text varies
  based on genre.
• When explicit connections are made students begin
  to anticipate the organization and structure
  which further supports them in comprehension.

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Vocabulary

• Read the teachers edition prior to teaching.
• Which vocabulary does RW indicate you should
  define for students?
• Which vocabulary is crucial to the story yet it
  is likely your students will not know the
  meaning? Are these words that students will most
  likely encounter in text or in conversation?
  Will they have the opportunity to incorporate
  them into their communicationoral or in writing?

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Vocabulary Support

• Bring in realia
• Concept board
• Define quickly in context
• Teach vocabulary using a vocabulary routine

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Vocabulary Routine

• Example
• Read the story
• Contextualize the word within the story
• Have the students say the word.
• Provide a child-friendly definition of the word.
• Give examples in a different context.
• Engage children in interacting with words.
• Have students repeat word again.
• Review and use new words.

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Comprehension Strategies

• The National Reading Panel identified the
  following comprehension strategies as most
  promising and effective for helping students
  improve their comprehension. These are most
  effective when used as a part of a
  multiple-strategy method.
• Comprehension monitoring
• Cooperative learning
• Use of graphic and semantic organizers
• Question answering
• Question generation
• Story structure
• Summarization

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• Each core reading program uses a
  multiple-strategy approach in teaching
  comprehension.
• It is important for 1st grade teachers to know
  the terminology and meaning behind each of the
  comprehension strategies introduced in the 2nd
  grade curriculum.

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• Each comprehension strategy is used at various
  times throughout the text reading.
• Before reading
• During reading
• After reading
• Use the terminology that is used in the 2nd grade
  curriculum to begin to build a bridge between the
  two programs.

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Before Reading

• Teach the meaning of unknown, critical vocabulary
  terms
• Determine how you will support vocabulary prior
  to teaching the lesson
• Teach or activate any background knowledge
• Preview the story or article

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Before Reading

• Predict
• Connect
• Question
• Recognize text structure

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During Reading

• Make use of effective passage reading procedures
• 1st read
• Choral reading
• Subsequent readings
• Partner reading
• Mix it up, i.e., boys read/girls read, students
  wearing purple, etc.
• Random individual turns, all other students
  whisper read

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During Reading

• Ask questions
• Generate questions
• Use graphic organizer
• Visualize
• Monitor
• Predict

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After Reading

• Increase fluency and comprehension using repeated
  readings
• Summarize
• Connect
• Verify
• Directly teach comprehension skills
• Question
• Answer written questions

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RW Comprehension Skill Work

• Read the Comprehension Skill Work prior to
  reading the story/selection.
• What key points need to be emphasized during and
  after reading to support student comprehension?
• How do you make the Comprehension Skill Work
  explicit? HINT This is an excellent
  instructional opportunity.

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Oral/Written Retell

• Before reading the story/selection, determine if
  there is an oral or written retell that will
  follow the selection.
• How will you support this before, during, and
  after reading?

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Look-Back Citations

• Begin modeling look-back citations during read
  alouds. Pose a question and refer back to text
  to confirm the answer.
• Determine which Comprehension Skill Work
  question(s) would be appropriate for look-back
  citations. On your copy master indicate page
  __ beside the question(s) you expect students to
  use text to confirm their answer. As text
  becomes more complex students should be able to
  answer page __ paragraph __

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Short Answer/WASL Question Stems

• You can begin modeling how to answer short answer
  questions using a read aloud
• i.e., how to restate the question
• Confirm answer
• Begin with capital letter, end with a period
• Determine whether the Comprehension Skill Work
  questions support higher order thinking skills.
  If a more meaty question is appropriate, WASL
  question stems are an excellent resource.

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Your Turn

• With a partner use the planning matrix to plan
  for explicit comprehension support in a Read Well
  lesson.
• Choose a Read Well lesson that is followed by
  Comprehension Skill Work or Oral/Written Retell.

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Share Out

• With a person sitting next to you (that you did
  not plan with) discuss
• How did you decide which vocabulary words to
  explicitly teach? How will you support this
  instruction?
• Which comprehension strategies did you focus on?
  How did you decide?
• How did you make Comprehension Skill Work more
  explicit?

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Inside/Outside Circle

• What was most difficult about choosing and/or
  supporting vocabulary?
• What steps do you need to take to ensure that you
  will be able to put this explicit comprehension
  planning into action?
• What would you add or change to this planning
  matrix that would make it more helpful to you?

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Thank you!

• If you would like an electronic version of the
  Read Well 1 Comprehension planning matrix you can
  email me at
• chaplin.erin_at_ysd.wednet.edu