Deep Comprehension and Freebie

Teaching For Deep Comprehension, by Linda Dorn and Carla Soffos would be a great addition to your professional library. 

Linda Dorn and Carla Soffos describe the process of comprehension as a reflection of the mind—a window into the reader's thoughts. In Teaching for Deep Comprehension, they discuss comprehension from a socio-cognitive perspective — specifically, how teachers can use the social context of reading workshop to promote deep comprehension. The book is framed around three guiding questions:

• Can comprehension be taught?
• How does a model become a barrier to comprehension?
• When does a tool become the reason for reading?

Linda and Carla mesh complex theories of comprehension with everyday practical examples in such a way as to help teachers develop a better understanding of what it means to comprehend while reading.

Using the ideas in the book, I created 7 Comprehension Task Cards to use in reading workshop.  These activites help students to use deeper comprehension skills.

Download HERE!

Teacher Appreciation Freebie

I appreciate teachers and want to show it this week by offering my Simile Fun Unit as a freebie.  You can see more great  items to use with this unit on my Presentations Page.  The unit should work well for grades 2-5.  It is very adaptable. 

If you download the unit, would you consider following my blog?   I would also love to hear from you!

Download here!

The Read Aloud Isn't Just for After Lunch

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What a beautiful and inspiring quote by Mem Fox.  Her words express what I see as my mission; to help teachers and children fall in love with books.  If you fall in love with books, you make the journey of learning much more rewarding and less stressful.  I hope to ignite that emotional spark!

I just did a presentation on Read Alouds and how they can strengthen writing.  The resources for this presentation are listed on my Presentations Page.  I used the book Fireflies by Julie Brinckloe to show how vivid language in the form of similes can take writing to the next level. We can teach figurative language in writing workshop.  That makes so much more sense than teaching it separately.  You give your students a "hook" to remember similes.  When they think of similes, they will remember this beautiful book.

I also added nonfiction books and websites for research.   Firely.org is a great website for learning about fireflies.  Here are a few books that I used:



Lester Laminack is the go-to guy for understanding the power of the read aloud.

“To make read aloud intentional I believe that we must be as thoughtful in our planning as we are when selecting manipulatives for mathematics or when establishing the flow of a classroom. We must select the books we will read with the same care we take in designing centers or in setting up a science lab. We must be as diligent in considering our reasons for reading aloud as we are in selecting the focus of a mini-lesson in reading and writing workshops. In short, we must pay careful attention to our intentions for the read aloud. So why do we read aloud to our students? What are our expectations for the experience? What result or product do we hope for? How will our students be different for living through these experiences with us? Are we hoping to motivate them to explore a topic or genre? Are we inviting them to meet a new author or illustrator? Are we leading them to compare the organizational framework of this story with a favorite known by all? Are we simply reading today for some future benefit, investing the time now to connect future instruction later? Are we reading to introduce specific vocabulary that will be essential in understanding the concepts for a unit of study in a subject area? Are we reading to contrast the multiple meanings of troublesome words? Are we reading to raise awareness of a targeted issue? Are we reading to model a specific reading strategy or skill? Are we reading to draw them in, to lure them into wanting to read more for themselves? Are we reading to bank images and language we will draw upon in an upcoming study?”
-Unwrapping the Read Aloud, 2009

Letter Writing is Alive and Well

Thanks to the NCTE post on my Facebook page, I found this delightful NPR article and radio transcript.  It reminded me once again that letter writing is still a vital source of comfort and kindness.
Putting pen to paper does something that an email can never do. There is something real and powerful in placing our thoughts and feelings onto paper.  It is tangible proof that we exist and that we have the courage to share ourselves with others.

Letters Of Heartbreak Find Some Love In Verona, Italy
by Lulu Miller


Tatiana Schranz/Courtesy of the Juliet Club


Each year, the town of Verona, Italy — home of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet — receives thousands of letters of heartache and unrequited love addressed to the play's star-crossed heroine.

The tradition of sending letters to Juliet very likely goes back centuries. People started by leaving notes on a local landmark said to be Juliet's tomb. Later, many started sending mail directly to the city. By the 1990s, Verona was receiving so many letters, it created an office to deal with it. And each letter — the Juliet Club office gets more than 6,000 a year — is answered by hand.

The Juliet Club is housed in a small building on the outskirts of the city and is staffed by a small army of volunteers who call themselves the "secretaries." There are about 15 of them. They can read letters addressed to them in a wide variety of languages: Italian, English, German, Spanish, Japanese.



Secretary Elena Marchi says that they take their job seriously. Some of them come every afternoon to tend to the ceaseless outpouring of letters. They are grandmothers, young students, old men, divorcees, married folks, bakers, economists, scholars of literature, a ballet dancer.

The city pays for stamps and paper — promoting its identity as the hometown of Romeo and Juliet is not a bad thing for tourism — but the secretaries work free.

Marchi says they use their own experience to reply. "When there's a difficult letter, we talk to each other to see which is the best answer to give," she says.


Still, despite the heartbreak, many of the secretaries have been doing this for years — decades even. But the odd effect of witnessing so much loneliness, the secretaries explain, is that it actually makes them feel closer to humanity at large. "Seeing that so many people are sharing the same feeling," says Marchi, "makes you a little less lonely.""People start the letters often saying, 'Juliet, you are the one who can understand how I feel,' which is nice in a way, but very sad in another way, because they don't feel they can talk to the person next to them," says club manager Giovanna Tamassia.

Most likely, it is that contact that the letter writers are seeking, too. All of the secretaries say that it is not advice so much that the letter writers are seeking but being witnessed. That's what's quietly unbelievable about the Juliet Club, that in this sometimes lonely, isolating world, the secretaries are always there.

Want to write Juliet?
Club di Giulietta

via Galilei 3 - 37133 Verona ITALY

The secretaries keep every letter sent to them. There's an archive available to the public in their office in Verona.


Check out the original NPR broadcast!