RE 5730: Workshop Plan
Katy Dellinger
April 22, 2010
The READ ‘EM Strategy
The Read ‘Em Strategy will be taught to teachers so they can show their students how to summarize reading passages while reading through the End-of-Grade tests. Teachers will first be taught why this strategy is so important and why it has been effective with students. Teachers will then be able to try summarizing paragraphs in reading selections on their own because how can teachers teach something they do not know how to do themselves. They will be given a short reading sample and they will be asked to summarize out to the side and follow the steps of the Read ‘Em Strategy. They will then answer the questions that follow the particular reading passage. Teachers will be able to see how using this strategy makes it easier to answer the questions that follow. They will then be given a poem and will be taught how to do the same thing with poetry, but how you might approach poetry a little differently than if it were a fiction or non-fiction (prose) selection.
The Read ‘Em Strategy is some what of a spin-off from the infamous Paraphrasing Strategy which was developed at the University of Kansas in 1984. The main focus of the Paraphrasing Strategy is to help students improve their reading comprehension skills by following specific steps while reading text. Most students will read a selection once and then answer the questions without looking back in the text, but by trying to remember it. Many times they will carelessly answer the question incorrectly, which inevitably harms their test score. The Read ‘Em Strategy, which was derived from the Paraphrasing Strategy, teaches students to write down information about their reading as they go along. Students will most likely remember something if they have written it down. Not only that, they will also be more likely go back into the text to try and find the correct answer. After students have used this strategy and have realized that it helps their reading comprehension, they will gain confidence in themselves and they will see an improvement in their test scores.
I will first introduce the strategy to them by showing the teachers in my workshop the powerpoint. As we go through the powerpoint the teachers will learn the steps to the strategy. After the strategy has been modeled to them, the participants will then be asked to work in pairs to follow the steps to the Read ‘Em Strategy while reading the reading selection about Sequoya. They will then use their summaries and information to answer the four questions correctly. After giving the participants enough time, we will regroup and go over the reading passage and answers. The second activity is for the teachers to try the poetry selection and answer the questions. I will have some of the teachers share how they used the Read ‘Em Strategy and we will then go through the answers.
The Read ‘Em Strategy is designed to help students focus on the most important information in a passage. Students read passages, identify the main idea and details, and rephrase the content in their own words. Comprehension is influenced by the reader. We look to good readers to find out what they do that makes them comprehend well. We know that a good comprehender uses existing knowledge to make sense of new information; asks questions about the text before, during, and after reading; draws inferences from text; monitors his or her comprehension; uses fix-up strategies when meaning breaks down; determines what is important; and synthesizes information to create sensory images. Comprehension strategies are deliberate plans that, when used effectively, can help readers to make sense of text and become purposeful readers and active meaning makers. As educators we use a variety of reading strategies to meaningfully and actively engage students with text (Zygouris-Coe, Wiggins, & Smith, 2004).
Zygouris-Coe, V., Wiggins, M., & Smith, L. (2004). Engaging students with text: the 3-2-1
strategy. The Reading Teacher, 58.
Schumaker, J.B., Denton, P.H., & Deshler, D.D. (1984). The Paraphrasing strategy. Lawrence,
KS: Learning Strategies Curriculum.
Workshop Objectives:
1. Teachers will understand the theoretical perspective of how important it is to engage students while they are reading.
2. Teachers will be able to summarize each paragraph in a couple of words from a reading passage.
3. Teachers will be able to teach students how to summarize and follow the steps to the Read ‘Em Strategy.
Workshop Outline:
I. Welcome (Workshop facilitator has set up the room with tables and has the powerpoint presentation ready to view. Participants can sit four to a table and materials such as highlighters, post-it notes, pens/pencils, paper are set up on each table in baskets. A refreshment or “chocolate” table is set up with snacks, drinks, water, and coffee. Handouts including power point slides are prepared and set aside for participants to pick up as they walk in the room.)
-Refreshments and coffee/drinks will be provided
-Participants receive handouts
II. Presenter post objectives for what the teachers will know at the end of the workshop and briefly discusses them.
III. Participants will be given the two-paragraph reading selection and answer choices. (Sequoya) They will work independently on reading the passage and answering the four questions.
IV. Presenter will begin the slideshow by explaining that Read ‘Em is a strategy used to help with reading comprehension and the presenter will briefly go over the steps (slide 1).
R – read and summarize
E – evaluate the question
A – ask for key words
D – dig for the answer
E – eliminate the wrong answers
M – mark the correct answer
Presenter will then explain why it is important for students to be engaged in the text as they are reading it. While sharing this, the presenter will explain the theoretical perspectives and observations to the teachers (slide 2).
V. The presenter will go through slides 3-8 and share in detail each step of the Read ‘Em Strategy.
VI. Presenter will then model using the Read ‘Em Strategy with the Lou Gehrig reading passage. While reading the text, the presenter will be sure and underline or highlight important information such as “New York Yankees’ first baseman” and “shy, modest person”. After reading the first paragraph, the summary for the first paragraph will appear on the screen which is “Gehrig played in Ruth’s shadow”. The presenter will then do the same thing with the second paragraph, highlighting “Iron Horse” and “blistering line drives”. The summary will then appear on the screen for the second paragraph which is “outstanding hitter”. By using this strategy and these summaries, the questions will be much easier to answer.
VII. The group will then go over the questions and answers by using the strategy. By reading the first question, I would underline the words “Iron Horse” because I know that I need to go back in the selection and find where it talks about this. When I look back in the text, I see that this information is in the second paragraph. I would underline “played in 2,130 consecutive games between 1925 and 1939” because this tells me why he was called the “Iron Horse”. We know then that the answer would be D. We would eliminate C because even though we know Lou Gehrig had an incurable disease, in the passage that we read it does not say anything about his disease. We would also eliminate A because it never said anything about him not liking publicity. It also never said anything about him batting after in Babe Ruth so we would mark out B also. In the second question we would find the answer in the first paragraph. The last sentence says he was a “shy, modest person who was content to leave the spotlight to Ruth.” We could mark out D because he could not be such a good baseball player and clumsy at the same time. We could also eliminate C because no way at all was he showy. In fact it says he was the opposite which would be humble and modest. He was also not impatient. The author makes it appear as if Gehrig was the most selfless person and honest person ever. The best answer choice would be A. The answer to question number 3 would be in the second paragraph in the last two sentences. It says word for word that he was remembered for his consecutive games by the public and his blistering line drives by his team. B could be eliminated because there is no mention of Hank Aarons. D could be marked out because he did get publicity, just not as much as Babe Ruth. A could also be marked out because his teammates remembered him for his blistering line drives.
VIII. The presenter will then give the teachers a chance to do this on their own with the selection about Sequoya. They will be able to create their strategies and follow the Read ‘Em steps with a partner. After giving the teachers enough time the group will go over the answers and summaries together. We will do the same thing with the poem. However, the presenter will have to explain that when doing poetry, you should read the entire poem all the way through first and then go back and summarize because poetry can sometimes be difficult to analyze in pieces compared to fiction and non-fiction passages.
IX. Time for questions and answers.
X. Discuss follow-up activities (should be completed over 6 weeks)
-sample of student work without the use of the strategy (completed in 1 week)
-sample of student work right after being taught the strategy (completed in 3 weeks)
-sample of student work after lots of practice with the strategy (completed in 6 weeks)
XI. Create a plus delta and complete together on chart paper. The focus will be what was good about the workshop and what could be improved. This will be very informal, but it is a way to get immediate feedback.
Small Group Activity:
Within a pair or small group the participants will read the passage about Sequoya and will follow the steps to the Read ‘Em Strategy. They will summarize each paragraph in 3-4 words and they will underline or highlight any important information. They will then answer the questions by first evaluating the question and then asking for key words. They will go back in the text and find the correct answer or find any key words that may help them determine the answer. They will analyze the text to determine if there are any answer choices that can be eliminated. The pairs or groups will then answer the correct answer.
As a group the participants will come back together and compare and contrast the first time they completed the reading passages to the second time. The objective here is that the teachers will find that it was much easier to complete the answers by summarizing and being engaged in the text than just by only reading it and then answering the questions. Some may even find that questions may have been difficult the first time they went through the text without the strategy and the second time the questions were very visible.
After the presenter has shown the teachers how to use the Read ‘Em Strategy with poetry, they will then complete the poem about the turkey. They are to read the entire poem first and then go back and summarize each stanza of the poem as if they were summarizing paragraphs in a fiction or non-fiction selection.
They will then work together to answer the questions correctly using the strategy they have just learned. They will be able to see easily what answer choices can automatically be eliminated based on their readings and what they need to go back into the text to find. As a group the answers will be shown and the participants will be able to see that finding the answers is much easier by summarizing the stanzas.
Follow-up Activities:
The first follow-up activity is for the teachers to assign a reading selection to their students without teaching the Read ‘Em Strategy beforehand. This is to take place within one week of when the workshop took place. The teacher is to grade the questions for accuracy. By the end of the third week, the teachers are assigned to have taught the strategy to their students and then given their students a reading passage to practice with. This can be any type of fiction or non-fiction passage. Teachers should also grade this for accuracy of questions. By the end of the sixth week, teachers should have several reading selections to show where and how their students used the Read ‘Em Strategy. They are to have checked the answers to determine if they are accurate or not. An optional assignment is for teachers to keep a chart of the student’s progress within those six weeks. At the end of six weeks, the group will meet together and discuss outcomes of reading comprehension skills of students by being taught the Read ‘Em Strategy.
There will also be a blog where participants from the workshop can post information about their students they are working with and how they are making progress. The blog is also for asking their colleagues questions and responding to questions their peers may have. The participants are required to have a minimum of 10 responses to the blogs within the six weeks of teaching the strategy.
An optional assignment is for the teachers to co-teach the strategy to students. They can also ask the presenter to help teach with them as well. The presenter can come in and observe and answer any questions the teachers may have while they are instructing their students on the Read ‘Em Strategy.
Assessment of Effectiveness:
At the end of the workshop, the group will create a plus-delta chart. Teachers will be giving immediate feedback on what they liked about the workshop and what could be improved with the workshop. This is a quick assessment to determine changes that could be made when presenting this workshop again. Teachers can use the sticky notes to post one plus and one delta on the chart. The presenter will be provided with ideas on how to improve the workshop and what the participants liked about the workshop.