Why Teaching Your Students CAUSE & EFFECT is Important!

Cause and Effect is an Important Skill to Use with Every Academic Discipline

TPT Cause & Effect

CAUSE & EFFECT:

• encourages critical reading

• inspires writing with indepth plots and characters that come alive

• helps to make sense of regrouping

• shows a relationship between historical events in reaction to one another

• understanding the scientific method

Although we use cause & effect with every academic discipline area, teaching cause & effect can be daunting.  

One of the most simple ways to introduce or review cause & effect is to use the following T-Chart:

You can begin by having students read sentences and inserting the words "because" and "so" into the sentences.

Here is a simple example:  

• CAUSE:  I watched a scary movie.

• EFFECT:  I couldn't sleep last night.

• Add the sentences to the chart.

You would read it aloud:  

• I watched a scary movie, so I couldn't sleep last night.

• Because I watched a scary movie, I couldn't sleep last night.

   

The reason for an action.

We all know that kids thrive on learning through and playing with technology!

I LOVE THIS ACTIVITY!  It is a fun-loving parody of Twitter... TWEETER.  

The students use realistic looking TWEETS and have to match the CAUSE TWEETS to the EFFECT TWEETS. 

Here are a few cause & effect posters that you may want to display in your classrooms. You could even make your own anchor chart and have students share their own examples of cause & effect words.

Check out the question stems below.  You will want to display these in your classroom or keep the question stems handy so that you are staying true to precise cause & effect questioning.... without reinventing the wheel.

Using graphic organizers will really help your students with being able to organize their thinking while they are reading and writing. You will see better results if you model how to use the GO! (graphic organizers) Charts for your students.  I like to use a variety of charts with students.

 

If you need resources for Cause & Effect, please visit my Teachers Pay Teachers Store.

  

Do you have an inspiring strategy that you use to encourage cause & effect with your students?

jen :)

#education

#comprehension

#causeandeffect

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Crossing the Bridge from Fluency to COMPREHENSION

Tim Rasinski, the fluency guru, explains that there are 3 different components of fluency.  

• Accuracy while decoding and reading words

• Reading words automatically

• Interpreting the meaning of text

The US Department of Education did a study that discovered that there is an extremely strong relationship between a students oral reading skills / fluency and that same student being able to comprehend and interpret the meaning of text when they are reading silently to themselves.  

They also discovered that fluency can actually be taught by using modeling and teaching students specific fluency behaviors.  Best of all, when a student makes progress with fluency, they also make progress in comprehension.  I think most of us as teachers know and understand that comprehension is the ultimate end goal.  

Tim Rasinski talks about several different strategies that teachers and parents can do to help their students because stronger readers.  He also agrees that good fluency equals good comprehension.  Here are a few of the strategies he suggests:

• Model expressive oral reading for students

• Use repeated readings frequently

• Practice PERFORMANCE texts:  POETRY & READER'S THEATER

• Scaffolding student's reading

• Practice reading phrases

• Be sensitive of the difficulty and level of the text

Metacognition Song Video

Metacognition Song Video

FREE Story and Writing Organizer

This Story Organizer is just right for extending your students' thinking and comprehension. Students are assisted with sequencing the story they are reading into beginning, middle, and end. There is also a portion for focusing on the characters, problem, and solution. 

This organizer is also a great tool for organizing thoughts before writing. 

Younger students can draw pictures to show comprehension and older students can use words or even complete sentences.

Click to download the FREE Story Organizer.http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Story-Organizer-for-Comprehension-with-Summary-Sequence-Focus

Click to download the FREE Story Organizer.

What kind of organizers do you use to inspire your students to think?

Are your students REALLY Reading?

Are your kiddos REALLY reading?  
Don't Let them fake you out!!

Imagine this.  You are in the middle of working with a small group of students ... maybe guided reading ... you look up, to of course make sure that all your little friends are reading, writing, thinking, spelling, etc.  At first it looks like everything is going perfectly.  Ah, the easy life of a teacher.  :)  But upon closer inspection...  

Wait, what is that?  Your students are actually reading their books upside down, staring at the ceiling, whispering to their neighbors about eating chicken nuggets for dinner last night, staring at a Microsoft manual (these are first graders - I don't even understanding that stuff -  LOL), or walking around "collaborating" with their pals.  Ummmm, these kids are NOT reading!

Anchor Chart - Reading Rubric for 
Real Reading vs. Fake Reading 

It focuses on Metacognition, thinking about your thinking, and what it really looks like to be a real reader.  You can print this out as a poster, kids can put it in their Reader's / Writer's Notebook, or you can use it as a model for making an anchor chart with your students.  It works great to create the Real Reader vs. Fake Reader anchor chart together during a mini-lesson focused on what reader's should really be doing.  

These ideas and reading strategies were adapted from my favorite comprehension book, Tanny McGregor's Comprehension Connections.

Have you created a Real Readers vs. Fake Readers anchor chart with your students?  I would love to see it!!!  Please send me a picture or a link and I will post it to my blog.

See ya!
jen 
   

Question Stems...Huh????

Model!  Model!  Model!  There is no better way to introduce the metacognative "Thinking Stems" than to Model!  Model!  Model!  Ok...why is Marsha Brady coming to mind? 

For some kiddos, thinking about their thinking.... metacognition...., just comes very naturally.  For others, not so much!  It works best if teachers explicitly model and think aloud how they use the Metacognitive Thinking Stems.  Students need modeling, mini-lessons, guided practice, and lots of time to practice thinking! 

When students understand how to be reflective readers, their understanding and comprehension goes through the roof!  Along with improved comprehension comes an improved self-confidence.  What a wonderful cycle!!!  :)

Oh yea.....don't forget the conversations!  Kids learn better when they are able to discuss their thinking with someone else.  "Turn and Talk" to your neighbor is one of my favorite strategies for discussing thoughts with classmates.  

Jen :) 

Make Connections. Make a Salad. .......

Crazy, but when I was in school, I was nnnnneeeeevvvvveeeeerrrrr taught how to think.  So, I'm not really sure how or when I truly learned to think about text while reading.  But then again, I also learned by sitting in perfectly straight words....never speaking aloud during lessons.....seriously, WOW!  

Picture from Angela Bunyi, Scholastic.com - Thank you!

Today I helped out a bit at our kindergarten professional development over comprehension.  My focus was metacognition.....so I chose to do the Reading Salad lesson.  I adapted this lesson from Tanny McGregor's book, Comprehension Connections.  I Totally LOVE this book!!!  If you read only one book this year, read this book!  It will change your thinking about teaching.

I started the lesson by reading a page from a book straight through, without any stopping. Then, I asked the group what they noticed about how I was reading. They shared comments like: reading very quickly, being able to read all the words, etc.  I told them I had a big secret to share with them. I was fake reading! I was able to read all the words..... a.k.a "word calling", and it looked like I was reading, but I was a actually thinking about having lunch with my friends instead! They couldn't believe it! I asked them to be honest, and raise their hands if they had ever just pretended to read. All their hands flew up in the air. They admitted to thinking about P.E. recess, lunch or even playing video games, not actually reading at all!  ....They admitted to only look like they were reading.  I couldn't believe how forthcoming they were! 

Next, I chose three special friends to come up to the front to be my assistants.  As I read aloud, one friend put in green squares of paper that represented the "text" part of the reading and another friend put in red squares of paper to whenever I stopped to think aloud about the text.  Another friend mixed the red and green together.  Voila!!!  REAL READING SALAD!

Bon Appetite!
Jen Bradshaw