I love teaching reading strategies. I actually wasn't aware that I do any of the strategies that I learned about at UAB, but clearly I do. I infer, I make predictions, I ask questions to myself, I visualize, and I go back and re-read things I don't understand. I do! And so do all great readers. This is why it's important to teach these strategies, right? Right.
So I officially start teaching next week and I'm so excited that my first lesson is being able to teaching a reading strategy to my buddies. We're going to be learning about making inferences about the characters that we read about. To start off the week, we're going to read The Paper Bag Princess. Oh how I love Princess Elizabeth! She's strong, independent, and brave. And as we learn at the end of the book, she is clearly very intelligent. I quote:
" "Ronald," said Elizabeth, "your clothes are really pretty and your hair is very neat. You look like a real prince, but you are a bum."
They didn't get married after all. "
YOU ARE A BUM!! I absolutely love this. LOVE. So, we're going to do some character development based on the actions and words of Princess Elizabeth. In addition to using the book to find some clues about Elizabeth's personality, we're going to bring in some paper bags of our own. I am going to give each buddy a lunch-sized paper bag and ask them to fill them up with a few items that might describe them. For example, in my paper bag, I will be placing my dog's collar, a wooden spoon, and a book. Students might infer from the collar that I have a dog {they'll also be able to infer that she's not a very large dog, based on the size of the collar}; from the wooden spoon they might infer that I love to cook; and from the book, they might infer that I like to read. All of which would be correct. They'll bring in their paper bags and we'll start inferring about one another on Tuesday.
Later in the week, we'll be reading Officer Buckle and Gloria - one of my favorites. I love dogs. I created a little worksheet that will help them find clues about Officer B. and what those clues tell them. Officer B is so cute to me with his round little body, his bald head and his serious demeanor. Below is a screen shot of my worksheet, but click here to download the original file.
Enjoy and happy inferring!Labels: Character Traits, Inferring, Language Arts
