STORY IMPRESSIONS For Story Impressions, teachers supply students with a predetermined list of words that provide clues about the text they are about to read. The list of words should somehow relate to the most important information in a text. For example, for fiction texts, there should be a one word or phrase pertaining to each of the story elements (character, setting, problem, resolution, etc), so that students can predict, guess, and generalize what the story will be about. This enables students to approach the reading with a sense of the story. Clues should be limited to a maximum of five (5) words. The clues should be listed in the order in which they appear in the text. Connect them with downward arrows to indicate that flow and chronology, and then share the list of "sequential clues" with the students. From the set of clues, students compose a written paragraph tying together all the elements in a short, hypothetical narrative that makes sense and is based in all the clues. It is basically a prediction of how all the clues will tie together. After reading the text, students compare their Story Impressions with the actual plotline. McLaughlin, M., & Allen, M.B. (2002). Story Impressions. In Guided comprehension: A teaching model for grades 3-8 (pp. 194-195). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.
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PICTURE WALKS As a pre-reading strategy that aids comprehension within text during reading, picture walks allow students to preview a text through pictures. This allowed them first to construct an understanding and familiarity with the storyline through visuals. Especially beneficial for struggling readers and visual learners, picture walks give students a visual grounding in the plot line. To introduce students to the idea of gaining a "sneak peak" of the text through a picture walk, the teacher can use the analogy of a movie trailer, asking students what they learn from movie trailers when they see them on TV or in a theater (i.e. the general idea of what a movie is going to be about). By linking the purpose of a movie trailer to the rationale of a picture walk, students are given a relatable (via prior knowledge) way of understanding "why" they are engaging in the reading strategy of a picture walk.
Klingner, J. K. & Vaughn, S. (1999). Promoting reading comprehension, content learning, and English acquisition through Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR). The Reading Teacher, 52(7), 738-747.
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WATCH-READ-WATCH-READ (W-R-W-R)
As a previewing strategy implemented when reading a chunked, or sectioned, text, W-R-W-R is a cycle of novel reading. At the start of the novel, a video clip (such as, but not limited to, the beginning scene of the book's movie adaptation) is shown to build students' background knowledge and scaffold them into the "verbal" representation of knowledge that they must comprehend in the actual textual reading that immediately follows. At a predetermined stopping point, another video is shown that somehow relates to what they just read or what is yet to come. This flip-flop between the textual and visual continues throughout the text, or until students show an ability to continue independently (without the dual-coding system). Therefore, this strategy preps students prior to the readings or, if implemented in reverse, provides an opportunity for self-checking as students move through the text. Hibbing, A. N., & Rankin-Erickson, J. L. (2003). A picture is worth a thousand words: Using visual images to improve comprehension for middle school struggling readers. The Reading Teacher, 56(8), 758-769.
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GRAB BAGS In this pre-reading strategy, students are provided with concrete objects and visuals that represent characters or plot events that they will encounter as they read a text. Grabs bags could have photos, found objects, maps, and other visual connections to a text in a bag. The bags would be distributed to students prior to approaching the text, serving as a resource to "take on their reading journeys." The objects included in the grab bag should be symbolic of major plot events, character traits, primary setting, etc. From the objects, students can predict what they think the story will be about - in a similar way that they would predict based on a story's pictures via a picture walk. The grab bag approach is especially useful as an alternative to the picture walk when dealing with a text absent of pictures (i.e. novel). Therefore, it can bring the benefits of a picture walk into the secondary classroom.
Wilhelm, J. D. (2012). From the known to the new: Building background before and during reading. In Enriching comprehension with visualization strategies (pp. 77, 94). New York, NY: Scholastic, Inc.
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OUR OWN IDEAS: Use CEREAL BOXES instead of paper bags (for sturdiness, durability) and adorn it with a book MINIMALIST POSTER!