Tried-it Tuesday: New Reading Comprehension Strategy

I'm linking up with Holly from "Fourth Grade Flipper" to her new linky party, "Tried It Tuesday!"

Today we tried a great new reading comprehension strategy from MargeD Teaching Posters- have you ever been to her site? If you haven't - GO! It's AWESOME...and best of all...everything is FREE! I've gotten a lot of great teaching ideas, posters, and classroom decor ideas from her site.

Today we were looking at the types of questions that are asked in a reading comprehension passage. She has created a great PowerPoint to use when teaching the concept.

We started out by discussing what reading comprehension means and the different methods we had already covered in the previous months (we've been doing this ALL year, but we've really done a focused study in the past three weeks in preparation for THE test!)

The strategy states that there are four types of questions that we must answer after reading a passage. We must answer them by looking in four places:

1. Here - what's written straight on the page

2. Hidden (reading "in between the lines")

3. Heart - using one's feelings or emotions

4. Head - using information from the text plus prior knowledge

Each slide had a poem (yay for Poetry Month!) and specific questions that we answered as a whole class.

I LOVE this poem - chalked-full of great adjectives and vivid verbs.

She has a great note sheet template that you can use:

After going over the examples on the PowerPoint, I gave each student a copy of the following page. We read a passage and then I asked a question. The students needed to decide which type of question I was asking and held up the corresponding picture.

You can grab these pictures for FREE by clicking here:
Here-Hidden-Heart-Head Questions

I then gave them a reading comprehension sheet to complete. They needed to analyze each question and draw the symbol for the strategy they used to answer the question (an arrow for here, a magnifying glass for hidden, a heart for heart, and a brain for head)

Looking for some fun, engaging, and easy-to-use reading comprehension graphic organizers? Check them out: