Taking the Conversation Deeper
Children have been focusing on questioning and listening to individual responses up to now but now it is time to help them connect what another reader is saying to their own thoughts, ideas and questions. This will help the flow of the conversation stay connected as one large idea instead of disconnected thoughts from each individual child.
Children should ask the following questions before joining a conversation:
-Allow children to talk and discuss books in meaningful ways even in early elementary grades
-Model a book club with other adults giving children a chance to observe the adults and respond verbally as to what the adults are doing
-Ensure that students have heard the text read aloud in the early grades in order to help start the conversation and include all students- even struggling readers
Making Thinking Visible
Children should ask the following questions before joining a conversation:
- Does what I have to say connect to the question or topic?
- Can I connect what I have to say to what someone else has said?
- Can I support what I have to say? What evidence or personal experience do I have to make my point?
- Has someone else already said what I am about to say?
- If I am speaking to disagree, can I state what I heard the other person say and explain how and why my thinking is different in a nice way?
- Does what I want to say take the conversation deeper?
-Allow children to talk and discuss books in meaningful ways even in early elementary grades
-Model a book club with other adults giving children a chance to observe the adults and respond verbally as to what the adults are doing
-Ensure that students have heard the text read aloud in the early grades in order to help start the conversation and include all students- even struggling readers
Making Thinking Visible
- Sticky notes: use the notes to place thinking in the text even when you can't write in the book
- Notebook entries: another avenue to recording a variety of thinking except it is outside the text
- Two column notes
- Venn diagrams: useful in comparing two things in a story
- Webs
- Story Maps: help students understand how story elements work together along with their own knowledge to create meaning
| Two Column Notes |
| Story Mapping |
