Combining+Strategies+Charts

Kindergarten Math
With a small group, students solved this problem: I f you have 6 marbles and 3 holes, how many marbles can you put in each hole in order to fill the holes equally?

They **visualized** the problem:
 * I see three big, black holes with marbles in them.
 * One marble in each hole.
 * Two marbles in each hole.

They made a KWC chart (What do we Know? What do we Want to find out? Are there any special Conditions to remember?) to be clear about what they had to find out.

They made **connections** to solve the problem: to classroom materials, and to their real-life experiences. Then they showed their thinking on paper.

Second grade: Integrating Strategies with Fiction
As we get to the end of second grade, we are really working on using all the comprehension strategies in an integrated way as we read. So we invented this idea of a "Brain Map." Students pick 4 strategies they want to use, and as we read we "map" the thoughts we have. They are practicing it with independent reading books and listening center books as well. Eventually they might not need the structure of the boxes and it could be a more free-form web.

Today one student made a prediction ("She's going to refuse to sit [in the back of the bus]") that came from his connection between Patricia McKissock's Goin' Someplace Special and books we have read about Rosa Parks. So we drew a big arrow between his prediction and the connection, highlighting how the strategies don't work in isolation.

You can also see the icons we are using for each strategy: a P in a circle for predictions; a question mark for questions; two interlocking circles for connections; a swirl for synthesizing. Each comprehension strategy has an icon and a motion or hand movement to go with it.

**Second Grade: Integrating Strategies with Poetry**
Here second graders read "Poem," by Langston Hughes, and practiced a number of strategies.