Session+One

=Strategies for Understanding Informational Text=

Goals:
expand knowledge of comprehension strategies for informational texts; promote technological literacy; participate in a professional learning community

Essential Questions:

 * 1) How can we make the content areas the “home” of strong comprehension instruction, using nonfiction topics and materials?
 * 2) How can we adapt our teaching practice to meet the demands of “traditional” and “contemporary” literacies?
 * 3) What is comprehension and how do we teach it?
 * 4) How can we leverage digital media tools to support reading comprehension instruction?
 * 5) What are the connections between DI, Content Maps, and strategy instruction?

Major Understandings:

 * All proficient readers, regardless of reading level, use strategies to make meaning from text. These are monitoring comprehension, asking questions, connecting, visualizing, inferring, determining importance, summarizing and synthesizing.
 * Non-fiction features (graphs, charts, maps, etc.) give information and signal importance.
 * Understanding how informational text is framed around varied structures helps readers determine essential ideas.
 * The “new literacies” require a shift in how we teach reading comprehension strategies.
 * Think aloud protocols utilizing technology enable educators to model metacognitive strategies, promoting active reading.
 * In terms of cognitive strategy use, in some ways, reading on the Internet looks the same as reading printed text and in other ways, reading on the Internet is uniquely more complex. (Leu et. al., 2008)

Agenda:
Get materials, sign in (3:45-3:55) Warm-up (3:55-4:05) Opening discussion following completion of form (4:05-4:20) International Reading Association Position Statement and two-column note-taking (4:20-4:50) Leu video segment "Literacy and Literacy Instruction" and response (4:50-5:05) Next steps/homework (5:05-5:15)


 * Please respond in the fields below to pinpoint what you need from staff development and to begin the work.**

media type="custom" key="4591962"

**Assignment**
Read article online, noting the strategies you use. How do these differ from the strategies you use to comprehend conventional print? include component="comments" page="Session One" limit="10"

**Future Sessions**
11/5, 1/7, 2/4, 3/11 and 4/22