Learning individual comprehension strategies like visualizing, schema, questioning, inferring, summarizing, predicting, connections and judgments is a great start. Unfortunately, having the ability to use each strategy in isolation not enough. Isolated strategy use is what is most often taught in schools and it is what is tested on standardized type tests. But as parents and teachers that want to raise thoughtful readers, our goals are just not the same – our standards are much higher. We are looking for our children and students to stack up their strategies and use them fluidly as they move through a text.
Strategy stacking is not something that is grown into rather it is something that must be modeled and taught. If you were around when I talked about metacognition you remember the blog I wrote about being a model – if not you can find it here. In this blog I talked about how you needed to speak out loud any thought you were having as you read a picture book to your child. Beyond your child seeing that you were thinking about your thinking while you were reading, this activity also hopefully modeled a variety of types of thinking thus modeling strategy stacking. While it is good to simply model, it is also good to intentionally teach.
Today I want to share with you ways to intentionally teach and practice strategy stacking while reading to your child. Each of these simple activities take only a moment to prepare and will make a world of difference as your child learns to use more than one strategy at a time.
- Pull Two: Write all eight strategies on an index card or scrap of paper. Shuffle the deck and spread them out. Have each child – and if you are feeling adventurous yourself too – pull two cards from the pile. These are the two strategies that you are in charge of using as you read a book together. The goal is for everyone to be able to use each of their strategies at least once before the last word is read.
- Roll It: Make a numbered list of six of the eight strategies. Choose a book. Each person rolls two dice to see which two strategies they are in charge of for this particular book. Everything that you share has to fit into the two strategies you rolled.
- All Thinking Except: This is similar to the one before it except you roll twice and those are the two strategies you CANNOT use while the book is read. This is a bit more of an advanced strategy stacking game since it involves using four strategies at once.
- Strategy Tic Tac Toe: Make a tic tac toe board. Put the word FREE SPACE in the center. Place the name of a strategy in each of the other eight eight boxes. Read a story aloud. When someone shares a piece of their thinking, they can cross out the box with the name of that strategy. First person to have a tic tac toe on their board wins.
- Strike It: Write all eight strategies on an index card or scrap of paper. Spread out all of the cards so that you can see the strategy names. When someone shares something they were thinking during the story, flip over the strategy that matches their thinking. Once a card is flipped over, that strategy can’t be used again until every other card has been used as well. See if as a family, you can “strike” all eight cards by the end of the book. If this become easy to do as a family, try it as individuals.
- Tally It: Make a list of all eight strategies leaving room to tally how many times you use each one as you are reading a story. Each time a piece of thinking is shared, decide which strategy it matches and make a tally mark by that strategy. At the end of the book, see which strategies you use the most and which ones you tend not to use. Next time challenge yourself to use more of the lesser used strategies.
Strategy stacking is just one of the many steps you can take as you work together to become thoughtful readers. There are several blog posts that have other ideas and activities to help you along your journey. You’ll also want to join us on the socials – Facebook, Instagram and Threads – for quick ideas, tips and tricks. Even better, join our email list as they always get exclusive content on just how to raise a thoughtful reader.
Recent Comments