Topic: Strategies for Teaching

10-second review: Make up a strategies toolbox. Each card answers three questions and gives an example: 1. What is it? 2. Why use it? 3. How does it work? 4. Example.

Title: “The Strategy Toolbox: A Ladder to Strategic Teaching.” KR Mehigan. Reading Teacher (March 2005), 552-566. A publication of the International Reading Association (IRA).

Example:

What is it? K-W-L

Why use it? Helps students systematically establish what they already know about a topic, what they want to know about the topic and what they learned from reading the chapter on the topic.

How does it work?

Students divide their papers into three columns.

Under the first column, labeled “K,” students brainstorm what they already know about the topic of the chapter.

Under the middle column, labeled “L,” they brainstorm what they want to earn about the topic from the chapter.

Under the third column, labeled “L,” students write what they have learned from reading the chapter.

Example:

Title of the story, “Miss Brill”

Column “K”: After reading one paragraph a column from beginning to end of the story, students tell what they already know: Miss Brill goes to the park each Sunday and sees herself as an important part of the activities there.

Column “W”: Why did Miss Brill go home that Sunday with her ego shattered?

Column “L”: Two young people made fun of her and laughed at her.

Comment: What I like about the strategies toolbox is that it forces me to define the strategy and its purpose. The next step should be for the students to develop their strategies toolbox. What strategies do they use when they read? What strategies do they use when they write? RayS.