I love reading blogs from Language Arts teachers. I have no formal training in how to teach reading because my degree is in Spanish, so I get a lot of ideas from teachers who HAVE been taught this skill. One of my favorite resources is by Stephanie at Teaching in Room 6.
The main reason we do post-reading activities is to trick students into reading the text… One. More. Time. Research shows that it is reading that builds usable vocabulary acquisition, not comprehension questions and vocabulary quizzes. Any activity I can do that offers more exposure to reading is a good activity!
I decided to try “Cutting up the Text Evidence” after reading this post. The experience was amazing!
STEP ONE
Students read chapter 12 of La Vampirata silently. I passed out colored pencils and blank copy paper.
Students drew an image that represented the chapter.
STEP TWO
When there were only 15 minutes remaining in class, I passed out a copy of the text from the chapter (we have classroom sets of the novel), scissors and glue sticks.
Students had to “prove” that what they drew was in the text by cutting the words out that described their image. In order to do this, they had to reread the chapter.
Their focus was amazing!
This is SUCH a cool idea!!!