Teaching Reading Comprehension with Fairy Tales

 

I always loved teaching with Fairy Tales. As a Special Education Teacher, I had many ways to teach Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Fluency, and Vocabulary. But comprehension deficits? Those were more difficult to remedy. It seems obvious, you just need to understand what you are reading - but how? 

Students of all ages love to read fairy tales. Fairy Tales are the best way to begin to teach the important comprehension skills that students need to automatically think about when they read.

Fairy Tales are familiar, predictable, and have clear story elements. Students don't have to struggle to figure out what the story is saying, so they can concentrate on what skill they need to work on.

When you do a fairy tale unit, concentrate on one fairy tale every few days. 

1- Start with the Setting and Characters - where, when, and who? Take Goldilocks and the Three Bears, for example - it took place in the woods, once upon a time, and the characters were Goldilocks, the Three Bears, Mother, Grandmother, and the woodcutter.

2 - Sequencing - What happened first (Goldilocks went off to bring her grandmother a basket of goodies), next (Goldilocks met the wolf), then (the wolf got into Grandmother's clothes and bed), etc.

3 - Main Idea and Details - The main idea: a wolf tried to trick Grandmother and Goldilocks and eat them, but they were saved by a woodcutter. The details - Goldilocks went to bring Grandmother a basket of goodies, she met a wolf, etc.

4 - Summarizing - Tell what happened at the beginning, middle, and end of the story.

5 - Cause and Effect - This happened because ... Goldilocks told the wolf/grandmother that she had a big nose because it was really the wolf. The wolf found the grandmother's house because Goldilocks didn't listen when her mom told her not to talk to strangers. 

7 - Fairy Tales are also good to promote discussion about moral dilemmas, right and wrong and learning life lessons.

      Keep doing this over and over for many different fairy tales, and it will become easier and easier for students to begin thinking about this as they read. Another great comprehension strategy you can use when reading fairy tales (or other stories) is to use the Think Aloud method. While you read the story aloud to the students, say things like "Oh, so the setting is in the woods." Hopefully your students will begin to do this when they are reading.

     Fairy Tales are so much fun - there are a lot of fractured fairy tales out there to compare points of view. You could also put one of the characters "on trial" and let your students decide if they are guilty or innocent.  The ideas are endless - your students will love it!

Fairy Tales

 

What do you remember?

      My memory isn't great - I admit that. It is funny how there are certain things in life you can remember every detail about - where you were, who you were with, how you felt, what was said. I remember the day that JFK was shot - I was sitting in the car with my mom at my sister's school waiting for her to get out of school - my mom was crying - I was pretty little so I didn't totally understand. I remember watching the sad coverage of Martin Luther King's assassination and Nixon's resignation. I remember when Princess Diana died, we had just gotten back from a Gator game and we were all glued to the TV. I remember 9/11 - I was at school when we heard about it and then we watched in horror as the second plane went into the tower. We were all pretty scared.

   I was thinking about the kids today and what they will remember. They will never forget going home from school for Spring Break in 2020 and then not coming back that year, or maybe the next. The masks...the quarantine ... a global pandemic.

   Thinking about the good things that we remember, I also remember watching the Apollo missions. We all sat around the TV in the living room watching as Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. It was so exciting! That's why I am excited about the Artemis Program. It will be the first mission to the moon in 50 years. I hope that the students get excited about it and follow it. We might even get to Mars in their lifetime. I hope that there are a lot more good things for them in their lifetimes. I hope that they find a cure for cancer, I hope that there is world peace, an end to hatred, hunger, poverty, and prejudice - is that too much to ask?

   Anyway, we can start with the Artemis Program. The Artemis I goes up next Monday, August 29th at 8:33 A.M. - don't miss it! 

The Artemis Missions

   

To retire or not to retire ... That is the question!

Everyone always told me that when you are ready to retire - "You will just know". After 30 years of teaching, I kept waiting (for 10 more years) for that moment to come. Each year I wondered if it was the right time. Every year I would wait for that "you will just know" feeling, but it never came. My students needed me. I love my team. I still feel great and have so much more to do. 

So do you leave when things are bad and you are feeling burnt out? I really didn't want to get to that point! Do you leave when your health gets bad and you can't do it anymore? I sure didn't want to get to that point! Do you leave when your students no longer need you? That will never happen.

So, I had to go with a different theory than the "You will just know" theory. I decided to go with the "Just Do it" theory. Put in your years, and just do it while you can leave on a happy note, healthy and able to enjoy life. The kids will ALWAYS need you and there will always be so much more you can do. 

Thankful for Learning

This Thanksgiving season has me thinking about how very thankful I am for the many blessings that I have in my life. I have a wonderful, healthy family. I have many great friends. All of my students are adorable and wonderful people. I work in a great school.
I am able to work hard and play hard. On top of all that, even though I am getting "older", I am very thankful for the drive that I have to still learn every day. I am learning how to create good teaching materials, to blog (kind of), to share good thoughts on social media, who knows what will come next. I guess that all teachers think this and that is probably why we are teachers ... but it is so important to keep learning. 
On that note, here's a freebie that I made for my class that I wanted to share with anyone who is teaching cause and effect. I've never tried to put a link on here before so I hope it works. (learning - haha) Happy Thanksgiving!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Thanksgiving-Cause-and-Effect-Cards-1560673

The Candy Corn Contest

I just discovered this book this year - The Candy Corn Contest - by Patricia Reilly Giff. The most awesome thing about it is that it motivated my students to read. In the book, a teacher has a jar of candy corn and has a contest to see who can guess the number of candy corn in it. Every time that one of the students reads a page in a book, they can make a guess. I had a contest in my class too after we read the book. I decided that after each chapter of a book they could make a guess. It was amazing to see my little hard workers trying to get their work done so that they could read. Pretty awesome teacher moment. We counted the candy corn and announced the winner on Halloween. Next year I will probably do it the week before Thanksgiving. That is when the book takes place. The students loved it.

Worm Week - blah

I wasn't really planning on ever having a week revolving around worms. I pretty much think that worms are totally yucky and I am not the type of person who doesn't mind touching them. Put them on a fish hook? Never. So, it was one of those things in the classroom that just happened.
First of all, we are studying rocks and soil in science. We did an experiment on comparing different kinds of soil. We are so lucky to have a wonderful retired couple who love science and provide a lot of our science stuff that we need. So, each student had three different soil samples to compare.

Yes,a few of the samples contained some worm friends. Don't get me wrong - this was an awesome experiment and the students loved it. I was just avoiding the worms samples like the plague!

We read a chapter book during our read aloud time each week. I try to choose one that is related to what we are doing in science or social studies. It seemed like a perfect book - Chocolate Covered Worms. This is a perfect book for second graders!

At the end of the week, what would you do if you were me? Yes of course, make some chocolate covered worms!

They are easy to make. Melt chocolate chips, butterscotch chips and a little bit of butter in the microwave. Stir. Toss in some Chinese noodles and stir. Put in the refrigerator. They are delicious.

Some of the students loved them, and others weren't so trusting.

All in all, worm week turned out to be pretty fun.

The Tiny Seed

This week we had a fun time studying Eric Carle books. Our main story was The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle. It is a great story to learn about seeds, plants and the seasons.

We read the story together every day. We completed a story study too.

The students had so much fun making Tiny Seed collages - just like Eric Carle. It is amazing!
The first day ... they chose which illustration that they were going to try and make so that they knew what colors to paint their paper. You have to paint the whole paper.

The next day they cut and glued their illustrations together. We used some bird seed to represent the seeds.

The pictures came out pretty cute - and Eric Carle-ish!

At the end of the week, we did a Literature Scoot as an informal assessment. I placed the cards on tables all around the room and students moved from one to the next. It is so much better than sitting in your seat taking a test. The students love doing these and they have no idea that they are being assessed. 

Yes ... tricky!

It sure was a fun week. Eric Carle books are the best!!!