Reading is Thinking!

This is the culminating poster word-smithed by 2nd and 3rd grade reading groups at the end of the 3rd quarter. I made it into a poster but they were the contributors.  After spending the entire quarter teaching them the importance to "leave tracks in their thinking" (Harvey & Goudvis, 2008) they really started to pay attention to that little voice in their head that makes all the thinking chatter during oral and silent reading.  

{Download the poster here}

During my mini-lessons, I would model the use of a Text/My Thinking T-chart and create anchor charts for them to refer back to.  I initially began the discussion by introducing them to the whole idea of "Stop, Think & Jot"...an anchor chart I found on Pinterest, a great place to get ideas, old and new to refine and/or make better). 

During guided reading, I would also reinforce this strategy while they were reading informational text about Soils.  This article about soils, I cut and pasted from the Internet into a Word document where I had created the T-Chart template....I guided them through their thinking of non-fiction text on the left and right side of the T-Chart.  Here is a student sample:

Download T-Chart Template (.doc) | Download Soils T-Chart (.pdf)

Students continued to demonstrate this strategy of keeping track of their thinking by using this Text/My Thinking T-Chart in their Reading Response Notebooks.