What Other Approaches Do Teachers Use to Teach Reading Comprehension?

This past school year, my grade level team had five first grade teachers (one class had two teachers because they did a job share, and only one of them taught reading). One colleague and I used both the basal reading program and "The Cafe" for teaching our students reading comprehension strategies. We began using The Cafe in February and found that even with only four months of instruction, the students learned a lot of strategies and referred to The Cafe Menu daily. We can't wait to begin the program at the beginning of the school year!



The other two teachers taught their students reading comprehension strategies through the use of modeling, using the basal, reader response journals, and think-alouds. For think-alouds, the teacher cut out big thinking bubbles and wrote "I wonder..." in the middle of them. Then, she laminated them for durability and had the students use the bubbles as they were reading independently and reading with a partner to check their understanding and make connections. The students would have to make a statement about what they were reading or about what their partner was reading. Also, the students made thoughtful responses in their journals about the stories that they read. Sometimes the students had prompts to answer and other times the students were free to write about what they wanted as long as they made some kind of connection to what they were reading (text-to-text, text-to-self, text-to-world).