Sampler PacketContents:

Comprehension Strategies Based Lesson Plan: Visualizing

Title: Terrifying Beasts of the Deep

Guided Reading Lesson: Terrifying Beasts of the Deep

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Nonfi ctionLevel N

English Language Arts

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Using CSI Chapters forExplicit Teaching (Part 1)

CSI Chapters is designed to be a flexible resource thatsupports multiple approaches to classroom teaching. Thisteachers’ guide supports three principle approaches bywhich teachers can use the resource:

1. Using comprehension-strategy-based lessonsand the CSI Chapters e-books to explicitly teachcomprehension strategies (recommended if youhaven’t explicitly taught comprehension strategiesbefore or if your students are not familiar withcomprehension strategies).

2. Using e-books to practice applying already-knowncomprehension strategies (recommended if youhave already taught the comprehension strategieslessons in this guide or if your students are alreadyfamiliar with comprehension strategies).

3. Using guided-reading lessons and hardcopyCSI Chapters books to follow a leveled literacyprogram using already-learned comprehensionstrategies (recommended if you have already taughtexplicit comprehension strategies, especially if yourstudents are familiar with CSI – ComprehensionStrategies Instruction).

We recommend that teachers use the approach mostappropriate for their students and their school, yet alsoencourage teachers to be flexible between the approachesto make the most of this resource.

Shared and Cooperative ReadingUsing the E-BooksShared reading using the strategy-based lessonsCSI Chapters provides teachers with a model lesson foreach of the following comprehension strategies:

Making Connections, Asking Questions, Visualizing,Drawing Inferences, Determining Important Ideas,Synthesizing Information, Monitoring Comprehension andRepairing Understanding.

CSI Chapters books come in two formats:

For shared and cooperative lesson plans, see pages 14–35.

For guided reading lesson plans, see page 38–112.

E-Books for shared andcooperative reading

Hardcopy books for guided andindependent reading

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The strategy-based lesson plans (pp. 14–27) focus onteaching one comprehension strategy at a time, followingthe advice of Harvey and Goudvis (2007) and others whoadvise that, while we use strategies in combination, it isbest to explicitly teach each strategy in isolation to givestudents the best chance to learn it.

The strategy-based lessons are strong, engaging modelsfor teaching comprehension strategies and academicand general vocabulary, as well as for reinforcing writing,fluency, and decoding. They are designed to be used withthe CSI Chapters e-books in whole-group shared/modeledreading using an interactive whiteboard or data projector.Depending on your preference, you might use a wholechapter book or part of a chapter book for this step.

Cooperative learningAt the conclusion of the shared reading lesson, teacherscan group students to complete a cooperative activity.Together, students can work together in pairs or smallgroups around a computer as they read, think, and talkabout the e-book texts to reinforce the explicit instructionfrom the previous whole-group lesson.

Have the students practice the strategy they have justlearned (for example, “Making Connections”), and supportthem as they hold learning conversations, as follows:

1. Pair students or put them into small groups.2. Provide students with the e-book (or hardcopy

version if technology is unavailable) of the text beingused for instruction.

3. Have students practice the target strategycooperatively – they read, think, and talk their waythrough the book or spreads of the book, using thee-book text and digital tools.

Move around the room, listening in to the learningconversations and guiding students in their understandingand use of the target strategy.

Once finished reading and exploring the e-book, studentscan complete a graphic organizer (pp. 28–35) that has beenspecifically designed to reinforce the strategy they havebeen practicing.

The e-books operate within a unique CSI Chapters digitalinterface, with tools specifically designed for use withstrategy-based lessons. The interface is an easy-to-useand powerful tool for explicit teaching and learning ofcomprehension strategies, vocabulary, and metacognition.For a detailed look at how to use the digital tools with thee-books, see pages 11–13.

Please note: If you have technology restrictions preventingyou from teaching with the e-books, you can also completethe strategy-based lessons using the hardcopy books.

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COMPREHENSION STRATEGY-BASED LESSON

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VisualizingThe strategy of visualizing refers to the mind’scapacity to imagine what is being suggestedby words or symbols on the page or screen orin a text that is heard.

As proficient readers read or hear a text, theycan “see” what is happening, almost as if theyare running a movie in their mind. They utilizeall their senses to create mental pictures ofwhat they read. This is what we should modeland teach to our students.

Students should be encouraged to use allthe senses of sight (“in the mind’s eye”),smell, hearing, touch, and taste whenvisualizing to enrich their mental picturesand improve their subsequent recall andcomprehension of the text.

CSI Chapters places special emphasis onactive learning and interaction by studentswith their teacher, their peers, and the textsthey read and hear. Visualizing is very muchpart of active reading.

Visualizing is strongly related to makingconnections and drawing inferences. Readersvisualize by drawing from their worldknowledge using visual clues on the page.ELLs and struggling readers often needadditional support to build world knowledgeso that they can improve their visualizing.

Students who don’t know a word or conceptwill want to see a picture representing thatword or concept or have the word or conceptdescribed to them in rich language so thatthey can visualize it for themselves.

Lesson FocusIn this lesson, the students will learn how to visualize asthey read a text and will notice how visualizing deepensmeaning and helps them remember what was in the text.

Before ReadingState the lesson focus. Display the e-book text you havechosen to focus the student on.

Describe your own visualizations about the displayed text(using all your senses). Model, by thinking aloud, whichsense you are using and what world knowledge you aredrawing on for your visualization.

Model your predictions about the book – what you expectit to be about, what text type it could be – and how you arevisualizing as you predict.

• With your learning partner(s), discuss thevisualizations you created by using all your senses.

• Make and discuss your own predictions about whatthe book might be about, and what text type youexpect it to be.

If you have masked any part of the text, facilitate adiscussion about visualizations and predictions the studentsmay have about what is hidden under the masked area.Unmask the text.

Model part of a skim and scan of the text you have chosen todisplay. Show the students how you notice text features andkey words, and how you quickly run your eyes over the text.

• Skim and scan the remaining text and any maps,graphs, size scales, fast facts, etc.

• With your learning partner(s), discuss any othervisualizations you have about the rest of the book,after your skim and scan.

Facilitate a discussion about how the students’visualizations and predictions are related to their worldknowledge. Discuss how the visualizations and predictionschange as the students preview the text, and howpreviewing the text helps prepare the students minds forthe reading to come.

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During ReadingRead the first paragraph aloud. Model how you do a closereading, slowing down when you need to and notingvocabulary that might trip you up. With fiction, note thatearly paragraphs set the scene. With nonfiction, note thatearly paragraphs contain important ideas.

Model how to visualize as you read to increase yourunderstanding of text.

Model how you change your visualization when you readnew information. Explain that it is like running a movie inyour mind.

• With your learning partner(s) discuss anyvisualizations you have after doing a close reading ofthe first part of the text.

• Discuss how your predictions are being confirmed orchanged.

Read the remaining text aloud. Stop after each paragraphfor students to discuss any visualizations they have, andhow they change.

Record some of the students’ visualizations on the board,or use the e-book virtual sticky note and drawing tools tomake digital annotations.

• Think, pair, share about visualizations you had whilereading this text, and about how your predictionschanged.

After ReadingReflect with the students about how visualizing helped yourunderstanding of the text. Tell the students that visualizingwill help them understand and remember the text, too.

• With your learning partner(s), discuss which of yourvisualizations really helped you to understand thetext.

Facilitate a whole-group discussion – with think, pair,share – about the strategy of visualizing including:

• the different visualizations people have and why

• how visualizations change when you read newinformation.

• how visualizing helped the students understand thetext better

• what other strategies the students used alongsidevisualizing.

• how we visualize differently at different parts of atext, depending on our world knowledge.

The graphic organizer for this

lesson can be found on page 31.

3131

Name(s):

Date:

Title of book:

What I visualized from the text:

Visualizing

My visualization(s) helped me understand the text better, because:

I used these senses when I was visualizing: (circle one or more)

SIGHT HEARING TASTE SMELL TOUCH

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Guided Reading Using theHardcopy BooksFor some teachers, guided reading is a valued approach forliteracy teaching. For the purposes of guided reading, CSIChapters books have been leveled. The individual level foreach book can be found on its inside front cover.

This teachers’ guide contains 25 guided reading lessonplans (pp. 38–87), each one supporting students touse multiple comprehension strategies while reading.The lesson plans use a well-known guided readingstructure, in which students are matched with booksat an appropriate level and guided through the readingby the teacher. However, a unique feature of the CSIChapters guided reading lesson plans is the focus onseven key comprehension strategies that are commonlyrecommended, and which are taught in CSI –Comprehension Strategies Instruction. While it is oftenrecommended that comprehension strategies be taughtone at a time, it is also well accepted that we, as readers,use them together. The CSI Chapters guided readinglessons prompt teachers and students to use up to sevencomprehension strategies as they read each book.

In their 2011 article “Let’s Start Leveling about Leveling,”the authors, Kath Glasswell and Michael Ford, offer thefollowing advice:

“Ensure that students (especially those who struggle)are provided with opportunities to engage in cognitivelydemanding work in reading” (Glasswell and Ford, 2011).

CSI Literacy is based on the premise that, in their readinginstruction, students should have work that is bothcognitively challenging and emotionally engaging. Thismix of supports and challenges is at the heart of goodinstruction, and good guided reading practice, too.

The guided reading lessons provided in this teachers’ guideare deliberately demanding – yet they are intended for allstudents with the close support of their “guide and mentor”in literacy: you, their teacher.

The guided reading lessons are designed to offer you andyour students a way to reinforce and deepen knowledgeabout comprehension strategies. They are intended to betaught to students who already know what comprehensionstrategies are, having been taught them using eitherthe CSI – Comprehension Strategies Instruction kits or analternative resource. If students have done the groundworkof using comprehension strategies with shorter texts, theywill now be ready to apply this knowledge in the context oflonger books – such as those in CSI Chapters.

Sustaining and combining comprehension strategies overa longer text, or “building reading mileage,” is the nextchallenge for students who have already been taughtcomprehension strategies one at a time.

Practical tips for using CSI Chapters for guidedreading1. Group the students as you normally do for guided

reading.2. Provide a CSI Chapters book at the appropriate level

for the students.3. Teach the guided reading lesson using the lesson

plans (pp. 38–87) and your own knowledge.

The guided reading lesson plans also reinforce academicand general vocabulary, and provide opportunities forwriting and reinforcing decoding and fluency – dependingon student needs.

To complete the guided reading lessons, a graphicorganizer specifically tailored to each book is provided(pp. 88–112) to encourage writing responses to texts. Theseoffer opportunities for students to independently think,reflect, and write about the text they have just read.

Using CSI Chapters forExplicit Teaching (Part 2)

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Some teachers may have previously taught comprehensionstrategies through CSI – Comprehension StrategiesInstruction, and may choose not to run a guided readingprogram. For them, CSI Chapters may provide moreengaging and interactive texts across content areas withwhich to continue using the CSI Literacy approach of whole-class learning to apply comprehension strategies.

Teachers are invited to use the e-books, digital tools, andhardcopy materials in CSI Chapters to provide furtherlearning experiences for students to actively engagewith the materials and apply comprehension strategiesas a class, with peers, and independently. Teachers mayalso want to adapt parts of the guided reading lessonsor comprehension-strategy lessons to further supportstudents’ understanding.

Please note: We seek your feedback! Theguided reading lessons in this guide combineexplicit comprehension strategies instructionwith conventional guided reading approaches.They are a new development in literacyinstruction. They are challenging, and for thisreason, we seek your responses to them. Afteryou have taught at least three CSI Chaptersguided reading lessons, we welcome you tosend your feedback. To do this, please visitwww.csi-literacy.com/feedback. Every teacherwho fills out a feedback form can choose one6-pack of a CSI Chapters book for free. Thisis our way of saying thanks for the time youhave taken to fill out the response form. Yourresponse will help your teaching colleaguesand their students. The community of practicethat is growing up around CSI Literacy aimsto benefit students in countries around theworld.

GUIDED READING LESSON

LEVEL

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About this bookThis book describes what a megalodon was, whatmade it the most terrifying predator to ever exist onEarth, and why it disappeared.

Text typeInformational text

• Scientific• Historical

This book contains:• Captioned photographs and illustrations• Charts• Diagram• Fast Facts• Glossary• Index• Maps• Timeline

Lesson focusDuring this lesson, students will use a varietyof comprehension strategies to deepen theirunderstanding of the text and build content vocabulary.

Terrifying Beast of the DeepBy Janice Marriott

M

Before ReadingRead the title aloud without showing the cover to thestudents.

• Visualize the beast. What does it look like, smelllike, sound like? If you could touch it what wouldit feel like? If you could eat it, would it be tasty?What kind of habitat would it have? Monitor yourcomprehension by deciding which words are helpingto create your visualization.

Hand out the books and have the students look at the frontcover.

• How is the cover different from your visualization?What is the same?

Have the students turn to the back cover and read theblurb.

• Make a prediction about why the blurb says, “Readon, if you dare…”

Set a purpose for reading the contents:

• What questions do you have after reading thechapter headings?

During ReadingSet a purpose for reading the chapter “The Beast Attacks”(pp. 2–5):

• Read pages 2 and 3. Do the text and illustrationremind you of any books, movies, or TV shows you’veread or seen? Any connections you can make aretext-to-text connections.

• Read “What Is a Shark?” (pp. 4–5). Review yourbefore-reading visualization of the “beast” andchange it to fit with the new information. Haveyou ever seen sharks’ teeth or a live shark in anaquarium? These text-to-self connections will helpyou improve your visualization of the megalodon.

NON-FICTON

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The graphic organizer for this

lesson can be found on page 89.

Set a purpose for reading the chapter “When Was theMegalodon Alive?” (pp. 6–7):

• Read pages 6 and 7 and look carefully at the chart.This is a timeline, a chart that helps us visualizetime. Use your fingers to measure the section of thegraph representing how long humans have been onEarth. Compare that measurement to how long themegalodon lived.

Set a purpose for reading the chapter “How Do We Knowabout the Megalodon?” (pp. 8–10):

• Read pages 8 to 10, monitoring your comprehensionas you read. If your understanding breaks down, usestrategies, such as checking bold vocabulary wordsin the glossary.

• Determine the important ideas in this chapter andsummarize the main ideas in two sentences. What isthe answer to the question in the chapter title?

Set a purpose for reading the chapter “What Big Teeth YouHave!” (pp. 11–15):

• Read pages 11 to 15. Compare and contrast yourteeth with a megalodon’s. What similarities anddifferences are there?

• Draw an inference about why sharks may need somany sets of teeth.

• Look at the map on page 14 and synthesize theinformation in the text to explain why megalodonteeth are found in so many countries and on land.

Set a purpose for reading the chapters “Open Wide!” (pp.16–17) and “How Big Was the Megalodon?” (pp. 18–19):

• Read pages 16 to 19. Use the information in the text,illustrations, and diagrams to help you visualize howbig the megalodon was.

• Review the information about blue whales on page18. Draw an inference about why megalodons weremore dangerous than blue whales.

Set a purpose for reading the chapter “So Long,Megalodon!” (pp. 20–23):

• Read pages 20 to 23. Determine the important ideasin “So Long, Megalodon!” Synthesize the informationin the text to explain why the megalodon hasn’tsurvived if it was such an awesome predator.

After Reading• Using the graphic organizer, list the attributes of the

megalodon. Show how they made it such a fiercepredator.

• Draw an inference about why the megalodon lived somuch later than dinosaurs.

Reflect on the text with the students.

• What strategies did you use to repair yourunderstanding if you were confused while readingthe text?

• What text features were there to help you?

Name:

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List the attributes of the megalodonthat made it such a successfulpredator. Use the book to help youcomplete the information.

Five kinds of fins,to help:

Razor-sharp teeth,to help:

Rough, thick skin,to help:

Other attributes:Powerful jaws,to help:

Camoflagueunderneath and ontop, to help:

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