Motivate+Kids+to+Think+About+What+They+Read

toc flat =What did that mean? Students need to think about the words they read and see how they fit together to make meaning!=

Let's All Add Great Ideas We've Created That Work To:

 * __**Encourage and enable kids to think, write and discuss what they think while reading.**__

We had many students that could accurately read the words of a text and yet have no idea what it was about. We began to pause at the punctuation marks and discuss what that sentence tells us and how it fits in the whole text we had read to that point. We called them the "think marks", because that is where we would stop and think. If they raced past without pausing, they were more likely to miss the meaning in the text.

I created a bookmark that was also a book report that included an area for the student to write in important elements of the story as they read. It was printed on a large index card, so it could also function as a bookmark with their name sticking out the top of the book. This made it easy to locate their same books the next time the group met. This index card was their notes to present the highlights of the book to the group when they finished the book. They got to decide what to tell about the book that might get someone else in the class interested in reading that book. The cards got holes punched in the side and then put in my binder according to the student who did it. It was easy to track what they read and how their thinking changed as the year went on. We did not do a bookmark book report for every book, but when we did, they took it seriously.



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 * Please only add material that you created and/or have legal rights to publish.

=Help them tune into and explore word meanings, the effects of punctuation, subtle inferences, character analysis, illustrations, and all other literary elements that add to the richness of the texts!=