Welcome! I’m joining up with a few of my favorite teacher bloggers for a book study of Jennifer Serravallo’s book, The Reading Strategies Book. Join us as we focus in on a few of our favorite reading strategies.

When our principal walks through our rooms she leaves a little note with a few compliments and a suggestion. The last suggestion she left me was to increase student talk. Knowing that this is an area I need to work on, I’m excited to take a deeper look at a few of the ideas presented in “The Reading Strategies Book”. Deepening comprehension through speaking & listening is part of the 12th goal. Here are 3 “gold nuggets” I especially liked from this chapter:

12.2 Listen and Respond

Listening is as equally important as speaking during a conversation. Students and some adults sometimes overlook this key concept! So, active listening should be explicitly taught and modeled.
Seravallo suggests telling students, “Sometimes when you come to a club or partnership conversation, you get so excited to talk about what you were thinking when reading independently that you don’t listen well enough to the other people in your group. Or sometimes you might find that you’re rehearsing what you want to say over and over in your mind that you can’t actually hear what other say. When this happens, you miss out. The new thoughts your friends offer might help you revise your own thinking, come to new conclusions, or even get a whole new idea. Listen first, then share your own thoughts in response to what you heard.”

12.4 Say Back What You Heard

Actively listen to your partner, paraphrase what they say. This not only ensures that you were listening but confirms that you understand before you respond. A simple sentence frame to help students with this would be “I heard you say ________. What I think is ________.”

12.10 Sentence Starter Sticks

Sentence starters can prompt students to move from one thought to the next. I’ve put these sentence starters on popsicle sticks in a jar. When the conversations begins to feel stuck, pull a sentence starter stick, and use that phrase to get the conversation going again.

Some sentence starters you might use are:

• In addition…

• On the other hand…

• I agree/disagree because…

• I’d like to add to what ___ said…

• What do you think about…?

**Bonus ~ Conversation Playing Board

This idea looked too good, I couldn’t leave it out. It looks like it would be most effective in upper elementary. The idea on the post-it in the center is in play. The group focuses on talking about the one idea that is in play for as long as possible. When the idea is talked out, a different group member takes a new idea from his or her pile, reads it, and moves that one into the center so it becomes in play. Checking the middle can help anyone who might lose focus. Group members can suggest, “Do you think we can keep going with this topic or is it time to switch to another one?”

For this book study, we are only focusing on a few strategies. This book offers so much more! I encourage you to check it out for yourself. If you’d like your own copy you can find it here:

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