Nine Interesting Ways* to Teach Reading Comprehension in the Classroom *and tips This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial Share Alike 3.0 License.

#1 - Five Sentences I write a passage of around 5 sentences for the class and then we discuss how likely some statements about the text will be. With higher end children I will discuss the ideas of literal and inferential answers Here's an example.. The cat walked slowly around the kitchen. He looked cautiously at the work surface and then leapt up onto it. He greedily ate the chicken flavour cat food from the bowl, all the time looking around. He cleaned the plate and then looked at the fridge before jumping back down. 1. The cat was male. (A warm-up, the class tell me the word he shows this is true) 2. The cat was hungry (the class agree because he ate the food so quickly) 3. The cat was in someone else's house (now we get interesting - some children say 'the cat was looking around, so maybe he was' others will say ' He looked at the fridge so that suggests he knows where the food comes from). 4. The cats favourite food was chicken flavour (again the class are split, but most can tell me that the fact he at the chicken all up suggests this COULD be the case) 5. It was raining outside. (The class should spot this as a red herring - there is no evidence either way,) Robert Drummond

#2 - Reciprocal Reading Strategies Reciprocal reading is a well-researched programme for developing children's comprehension. It focuses on the four key skills of prediction clarifying questioning summarising But these must take place within a supportive reading environment that models the following ideas; predicting, self-questioning, making connnections to self, text and world, visualising, knowing how words work, self-correcting, summarising and evaluating. The next four slides give ideas for the reciprocal strategies

#3 - Predicting This is not just about predicting from the front cover but can also occur within the text predicting the next what the next chapter, paragraph or sentence will be about. Predict what a text will be about from a o key image o image and title o by covering up the next paragraph o using the headings and sub-headings share by creating a sentence 'I predict this text will be about because Putting it into a sentence forces us to make it coherent. Make a list of words that you think will be in the text use a wordle of the first page, paragraph and try to link words and identify what the text is aboutwordle

#4 - Questioning This is not about the teacher going in with a set list of questions but the pupils generating questions that can be answered from the text. The comprehension is shown through the discussion about generating the questions not the answers work on smaller pieces of text before attempting a whole text - paragraph or even sentence. generate as many questions as possible - the most obvious will come out first and then you will move into inferential and evaluative make sure the children know where the answers are - run a competition children generate the answer and ask what the question is (jeopardy) (jeopardy)

#5 - Summarising There are lots of ways in which this can be done: use autosummarise in word - keep summarising. When does it start to lose meaning. Which words does it remove? write a blurb write a review of the tv pages of a magazine tell the story/text in six wordssix words summarise in 100 words, 50 words,

#6 Tell Me Framework from Aiden Chambers to start a discussion about a book use the likes/dislikes/patterns and puzzles grid and then discuss each section in turn. Aiden Chambers has a Tell Me framework that are generic statements to start a discusion about a book and its meaning.Tell Me

#7 Put yourself in the Character's Shoes Use blabberize or blabberize voki or voki domo animate to record the thoughts of the main character of your bookdomo animate Example using blabberize can be found herefound

#8 Interactive Poster with Glogster Create an interactive poster using glogster. Educators can sign up for edu.glogster - creates class accounts in one go!edu.glogster Creation Ideas: Summary Author's Message Informative/Persuasive Poster Example of Social Issues poster created for a Reader's Workshop Lesson can be found herefound

#9 Change the mode of the text Give pupils a passage of text and ask them to draw what is being described. Once pupils have finished they can compare what they have drawn with what their partner has drawn in order to discuss the differences and explain why - this will prompt them to focus on specific words or

#10 Using Film - Rapid Recall Use a short film and periodically pause the video, asking children questions about character, setting and textual cohesion. This can also include inference and deduction questions. This activity can be extended by getting the children to write film reviews. Films, which children are not familiar with are most effective for this type of activity. I personally recommend Studio Ghibli

If you would like to: Contribute your ideas and tips to the presentation. Let me know how you have used the resource. Get in touch. You can me or I on Twitter You can metombarrett Thanks for helping Tom Barrett Tom Barrett Image: ‘Sharing‘Sharing If you add a tip (or even if you don't) please tweet about it and the link so more people can contribute. I have created a page for all of the Interesting Ways presentations on my blog.on my blog The whole family in one place :-) Have you seen Maths Maps yet?Maths Maps