NOVEMBER

This month 4th graders in my literacy groups are learning how to use Collaborative Strategic Reading to understand nonfiction text.

CSR begins with a guided Preview of the text. We use the title, subtitles, pictures, captions, and glossary to make predictions about what we think the text will be about. We also make connections to the genre and our background knowledge to support our predictions.

Next we 'Click and Clunk' as we begin to read. 'Clicks' mean we are understanding what we read. When we come to a 'clunk' we stop, think and use a 'fix-up' strategy to figure out the hard parts.

Then we 'Get the Gist' of what we have read. We summarize the important parts in our own words by telling 'who or what' is the most important person or idea and why.

Finally, we Wrap Up our reading by asking and answering questions about what we have read.

We can use these strategies whenever we read to help us understand and remember information. They not only help us read better in social studies and science but will help us do better on reading tests, too!