Teaching students to use metacognitive reading skills to understand an author’s message can be challenging if instruction and practice isn’t carefully planned.
The ability to analyze an author's work is the heart and soul of the being an active, strategic reader. On state tests, simply being able to summarize and answer basic retelling questions is a thing of the past. Proficient readers use the author's craft to understand the message and make connections to their lives and the world. Students need teachers to show them how to think about the author's use of literary elements, text structures, point-of-view, and word choice.
A few weeks ago, during a small group reading observation, I watched a group of five learning-disabled students struggle with key vocabulary in a reading passage. While the goal of the group was to develop comprehension, it was clear that these learners needed a strategy and practice for decoding new words. Here is an easy-to-implement strategy that can be used to warm-up for reading group.
How many questions do you ask each day? How many questions do your students ask? Most teachers ask the majority of the questions. One little thing that you can do to help students process new learning is to turn the questioning over to the learners.
After four to six weeks of school, guided reading really gets going! The purpose of guided reading is to provide closely monitored structured practice of the reading strategies your students need to be successful readers. Guided reading gives teachers opportunities to observe and coach students as they apply strategies and knowledge of author's craft.
As I travel around to different districts and schools, I've noticed a difference in definition when it comes to shared, guided and independent practice. Having common verbiage and practice is crucial to students' success.
Teaching writing is a challenging task in itself, but throw in genres and conventions, and you have taken expertise to a new level! As a fourth grade teacher I know the struggles of teaching writing first hand. Teaching the difference between writing a personal narrative and imaginary story or an expository piece is tricky. Make students develop knowledge in concrete and visual ways. Create an anchor chart to keep posted and have students can create their own notes about the key points after you have taught the genre. Checklists are easy tools to use as a study guide or reference. I created a checklist for students to keep in their writer's notebooks as an easy reference tool.
Flipping instruction in any 
subject is easy when you know which tools to use and how to provide students access to lessons that teach critical understandings from the Common Core State Standards.
Social media has become a necessity more than a luxury these days. We find out breaking news, friend’s life events, and tons of new information daily. From Facebook to Instagram, social media floods the world. So why not use this to the educator’s advantage?
