The Threads of Reading Blog » motivating children to read

Understanding the Characters

KTankersley — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 00:53:58 +0000

In our diverse culture, students bring their own culture to the reading experience. We can help students better understand the characters in the fiction they are reading by asking them to consider the perspectives a character might have rather than looking at the issues or problems from their own background or cultural perspective. Some questions we can ask that can help guide students in their thinking are the following:

1) Would you have felt like that if (event) happened to you?

2) How might you have felt (reacted) in that situation?

3) How is (character) different from you?

4) Since (character) is different in this way, how do you think s/he might have felt in this situation?

5) What clues in the story tell you how s/he might have been feeling?

This type of discussion helps students focus more on why something happened and also helps them learn to identify a different perspective from their own. This may also help students better accept different perspectives and reactions in their own world.

Visualization Helps Students Connect to Text

KTankersley — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 21:51:45 +0000

We know that good readers visualize characters or the information in the text as they are reading. Research shows that students are more likely to remember new factual information in nonfiction books if the student tries to “see” the information as it is presented in the text. Teachers can help students better develop this ability in several ways. The first is by modeling the process yourself as you are reading text. Say things to the students like, “This description helps me see in my mind…..” or “The way I picture this process is…..” or something similar. When students hear how you create mental images, it helps them also think about their own connections and mental images. The second way is by asking students to create graphic organizers of various types to show their mental images of what they have been reading in a non-fiction text. For fiction, call student’s attention to particularly descriptive passages in the text and ask them to think about the text and then draw either the setting or the character as they envision him or her from the selection of text. You can also use picture books such as Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney, When Grampa Kissed His Elbow by Cynthia DeFelice or even passages out of Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White or The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman that are particularly descriptive to help students improve their text visualization skills.

Building Strong Readers with Personalized Books

KTankersley — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 18:42:00 +0000

Whether we want to admit it or not, we all like to see our name in print! Giving personalized books to our favorite children are great ways to motivate young children to read a book over and over again. Children love to identify with the characters in the book and personalized books quickly become the favorite choices for both individual reading as well as bedtime stories.