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Collaborative Strategies for Teaching Reading Comprehension: Maximizing Your Impact

Chapter 3: Using Background Knowledge: Emerging Lesson


This is a photograph of Melanie and Keisa team teaching.

Kinder-first grade classroom teacher Melanie ElLaissi and teacher-librarian Keisa Williams cotaught this lesson in the library at the Monarch Academy in Oakland, California. After introducing the lesson to the whole class, they divided the class in half in order to support the students in learning to make text-to-self connections, determine similarities and differences, and to use a Venn diagram to show these relationships.

After the lesson, each educator wrote a reflection and shared it with the other.

 

Melanie wrote: "Having two teachers made the lesson more dynamic for the children. While the children needed a lot of support to fill out the Venn diagram, I think [coteaching] is an excellent way to introduce a new complex skill. The small groups made it easy for all kids to get plenty of support." Melanie suggested that the next time they coteach a lesson like this one that she read the book to the children in the classroom in advance of the library lesson.

Keisa wrote: Next time, "I would ask the classroom teacher to read a similar book and have them produce a class-sized Venn diagram in the classroom. I would also do a similar lesson in the library. In this way, students would be more prepared to do the individual Venn diagram when we split the groups."


Whole group sample Venn diagram

This was the whole class sample Venn diagram.


AASL Standards for the 21st-Century Learner:

  • Use prior and background knowledge as context for new learning. (1.1.2)
  • Read, view, and listen for information presented in any format (e.g., textual, visual, media, digital) in order to make inferences and gather meaning. (1.1.6)
  • Collaborate with others to broaden and deepen understanding. (1.1.9)
  • Organize knowledge so it is useful. (2.1.2)
  • Connect ideas to own interests and previous knowledge and experience. (4.1.5)


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Launched: March 2007
Updated: 1 June 2013