Come Read With Me

École Elsie Mironuck School

INTERACTIVE WORKSHOP

April 2008

Tonight’s Focus:

‣ Determining Importance*

‣ Synthesizing*

‣ How To Choose A Level Appropriate Book

*Determining Importance and Synthesizing are taken directly from the

“7 Keys of Comprehension” by Susan Zimmermann and Chrys Hutchins.

Review

✓Key #1: Sensory Images

✓Key #2: Background Knowledge

✓Key #3: Questioning

✓Key #4: Drawing Inferences

Our Focus

• What is important in text and the ability to synthesize it.

or

• Determine the overall meaning and significance.

Determining Importance

It has to do with knowing why you’re reading and then making decisions about which information or ideas are most critical to understanding the overall meaning of the piece. -7 keys of Comprehension

Information Overload

The modern world is inundated by “facts”.

Going Beyond

“We have an abundance of information, but information alone is meaningless. It has to be thought about and organized and then internalized, and then maybe you will end up with knowledge.”

- Susan Zimmermann

Determining Importance?

Discriminate!

Really!

It’s OK!

Feed Your Curriosity

Synthesis

• The combination of ideas into a complex whole.

• Reasoning from the general to the particular (or from cause to effect).

Still Not Convinced?

Reveal thinking

Tips For Success

✓Model what’s important to remember in the books you read together.

✓Keep track of thinking in margins to review critical information.

✓Ask questions, flag important information and discuss reading

✓Retell the most important parts of a story and then pare it down to a simple summary.

✓ Identify the essential story line and ask, What does it mean to me?

✓Stop now and then to consider what’s important to remember.

✓Distinguish between facts that are interesting and those that are important.