Responding to Literature: Ideas and Book Responses for Teaching Reading Comprehension

Do you ever struggle getting your students to respond to books you read to teach comprehension?

Often do you wonder, "are they really getting it"?

When I am explicitly teaching about comprehension such as connections, schema, plot, etc., I use the vocabulary that teachers may think of as "scary" or "intimidating" for their students. 

Sometimes we think, "wait a minute, that word is way to big for me to use in my teaching dialogue with my 6 and 7 year olds!"

WRONG

My first graders use those big words, WHY...because they hear me use those BIG words.

Daily I hear my students using language such as this:

"I have a connection. This reminds me of a time....."

"I am using text clues to infer that..."

"In my schema..."

"I predict..."

We know that kids mimic what we say starting at a very young age.

If you are using "teacher talk" in your lessons, your  kids eventually will too!

Not only will they use they language, they will understand it and be able to write their thinking down as well! We all want our readers to be thinkers!

Here are some example books I use to teach my students comprehension strategies and the response pages they use to write about their thinking after we read the book.

Text to Text Connections

The Art Lesson

Patches Lost and Found

Text to Self Connections

The Relatives Came

Too Many Toys

Sequencing (Beginning-Middle-End)

Caps for Sale

Harry the Dirty Dog

Strega Nona

Comparing 

The Little Red Elf----Little Red Hot

Goldilocks----Goatilocks

Predicting

Green Wilma

Dory Story

Inferences

Two Bad Ants

Duck on a Bike

Main Idea

Click, Clack, Moo

Giggle, Giggle, Quack

Earlier this year we read the story Patches Lost and Found.

I had my students make 2 connections to the story. As they listened to me read, instead of raising their hand to share, they recorded their thinking on a sticky note.

{find the printable anchor chart seen HERE}

I love hearing my students thinking this time of year. They have seen me model enough to embrace and share their thoughts and such great conversations come from it!

You can find the reader's response sheets in the pictures above in my Reader's Response to Literature pack in my TpT store.