7 Keys to Comprehension Livebinder

"Sounding out or decoding words is part of the reading puzzle but falls short of real reading. If children don't understand what they read, they're not really reading. If they don't unlock meaning as they read, the words are boring babble and they will never read well or enjoy reading." ~ Susan Zimmerman & Chryse Hutchins

Research has shown us how to teach our students how to read and get it through the "7 Keys to Comprehension."

What are the 7 Keys you ask?

1) Visualizing
2) Making Connections
3) Asking Questions
4) Inferring
5) Determining What's Important
6) Synthesizing
7) Fix Up Strategies

Need More Information?

Powerpoint of the 7 Keys to Comprehension
7 Keys to Comprehension Posters
Parent Handout
Want to help your students learn the 7 keys but need resources? This is where the wonderful world of livebinders comes into play. Below you will find a livebinder that I made dedicated to the 7 Keys to Comprehension. Browse through the resources and print or save whatever you'd like!

7 Keys to Comprehension

Happy Reading!

My New Favorite Tool: Livebinders!

Does this look familiar?

Don't you just love those big, heavy binders full of resources? No? Didn't think so...The resources are great, but storing them can be a chore as well as sharing them with others. In this age where everything has gone digital there has to be another way! And there is!

Let me introduce you to my new favorite tool: Livebinders! This site lets you organize all those great resources you have in an online binder.

What can you upload?

• PDFS
• Videos
• Images
• URLs

How can this help me?

• Save time and access your Livebinder from anywhere
• Share your Livebinder with others
• Make as many Livebinders as you want!
• Update information easily and avoid layout issues

How can I sign up for a Livebinder?

• Go to www.livebinders.com
• Go ahead and sign up; accounts are free!
• Now sit back and enjoy your eco-friendly binder

Still have questions?

• Watch this video

Still Skeptical?

• Check out examples of great Livebinders

Happy Organizing!

What is Inferring Anyway?

"Read between the lines."
Like the authors of the book "The 7 Keys to Comprehension", I have often heard this phrase throughout my education but never fully understand what it meant. Imagine your students vigorously searching between the lines of the text. Imagine how frustrated they become when they realize there's nothing actually written between the actual lines of the text! A better way to explain it is to say "inferring involves forming a best guess about what the "evidence" (words, sentences, and paragraphs) means; speculating about what's to come; then drawing conlusions." (Hutchins & Zimmerman, 2003)

Learn more about what Susan Zimmerman and Chryse Hutchins say about Inferencing
from their book "The 7 Keys to Comprehension":

Chapter 5 Weaving Sense into Words
Key 4: Drawing Inferences Fast Facts


Let's get down to the RESOURCES:

Comic Strips are a great way to introduce the concept of Inferring because you must use the clues from the pictures in addition to your background knowledge to understand the punch line.
Far Side comics are a great tool!

Click for Google Search of Far Side Comics




A great way to practice Inferring is through the use of videos. Pixar is famous for making short films. Lucky for us, they are all available on Youtube. Check out this short flick about the Stork:



Have the students watch the entire film first. Then watch it again, but stopping to ask inferencing questions the second time around. There are lots of these videos on youtube that you can search for. Just type in "Pixar Short Films" in the search bar. Below is a link to the flicks I found on Pinterest:

Pinterest Board of Inferencing Videos

Finally here is a great web resource to help with
direct instruction and independent practice with Inferencing:

Into the Book is a great website for all comprehension strategies and it has a page dedicated just to Inferencing. They have lessons, videos, graphic organizers, research, suggested books for teaching, additional links, and the suggested language for explaining Inferencing to students.

Happy Inferencing!


C. Hutchins & S. Zimmerman (2003). 7 Keys to Comprehension: How to Help Your Kids Read it and Get it! Portsmouth, NY: Three Rivers Press.

The Levels are Changing! The Levels are Changing!

Now that I've gained your attention, the news is that Fountas & Pinnell are changing their Guided Reading levels to align with new trends in literacy achievement based on the following:

• Technology use among preschoolers and school-aged children have increased. Kids are using devices such as smart phones, tables, and computers.
• There is been a substantial increase in preschool enrollment since the 80’s; a 52% increase in 2009.
• An increase of full day kindergarten programs have increased our student’s literacy achievement, thereby increasing their exposure to literacy rich opportunities.

Their current Text Level Gradient is as follows:

Their NEW Text Level Gradient shows new grade level
expectations in regards to entry and exit levels:

So what exactly did they change and why? Well, you have two options:

Read the entire article: click here.

Read my fast facts: click here.

We as educators want to create proficient readers. ~Readers may take different paths to proficiency, but we ultimately want the same outcome. (Marie Clay 1991) The revision of the new F&P Text Level Gradients can help serve as a guide as we lead our students along the path to proficiency.

Happy Reading!

Ready & Looking ;) ... for Books!

One of our goals as educators is to create independent and lifelong readers.

We work hard to introduce our students to a variety of genres.

Our libraries are well organized with a plethora of books to engage all readers.

We spark their interests with new topics and exciting plots.

We do book previews to try and hook students into reading instead of
watching yet another TV show or movie.

But with everything going on in our classrooms these days, its hard to
drill down on each student's favorite type of book or find the time
to make a good suggestion for another alluring read.

However, there are options and tools to help us with this:
The first option is a website called bookseer.com. Basically, the student goes to the website, types in what they've just finished reading, and then the site generates a list of books similar to the one the student just read. For a student who finally found a book they love to read, this site is great because it helps them find similar books so they can continue to grow in that love of reading.

Book Seer

Another site that also generates book recommendations is whatshouldireadnext.com. Yet another great tool to help students find that next great read!

What Should I Read Next?

Have you ever heard of Pandora? That great music site where you can type in a artist or song and it plays songs similar for you to listen to? Welcome to the book version of that site. Booklamp.org is an online database where you can type in an author or book and it generates similar ones. The goal is to connect readers to a larger world of books.

Book Lamp

When children read, their minds are able to travel to places they never thought possible. Let's keep their imaginations soaring and put the tools at their fingertips.

Happy Reading!

Making the Most out of your Listening Resources

Listening resources are a great tool that are heavily used in the primary classrooms, however, there are lots of benefits to using "Listening to Reading" in the upper elementary classrooms as well. They provide a fluent model for students and can help to increase student's vocabulary. This is especially important in classrooms where there is a larger population of Learning Support or ELL students. One problem that many teachers encounter though is that there are not enough age appropriate resources for those upper elementary students or they do not have time to fit "Listening to Reading" into their busy schedules...until now...

This year our Language Arts block is transitioning from a 120 minute block to a 90 minute block. Therefore, that doesn't leave a lot of time for students to be able to listen to reading. The reasoning is because our teachers now have to teach Science and Social Studies everyday. Therefore, we need to be clever with how to implement this. One way is to use cross curricular resources for listening.

Science: Many programs come with their textbooks on CD. During this block of time students can use the CD for "Listen to Reading." Our new science program "Interactive Science" by Pearson has a leveled reader database available. You can register your account (via the green cardboard case with the registration code inside) and access content leveled readers that are available by many different leveling systems, including the DRA. You can then electronically assign readers to students where they can listen to the selection read aloud online by a fluent reader.

What more could you ask for?

Scholastic Readers: There is a student view for your student's scholastic reader online. You can put the link on your website and have students access it from their net books. You can have it read to them using the on level feature or below level feature. View the online user guide below to see all of the Scholastic Reader's features:

Scholastic Online User Guide
Cross curricular resources are a great way to fit in those standards
that that we need to teach to help our students become better readers.

Happy Listening!

Lesson Plans Made Easy

I feel like every year I look for an easier way to create my lesson plans and I believe I may have found it. Planbook.com is an online program for creating lesson plans.

It boasts that you can do the following:

• Develop custom schedules for each class.
• View and print lesson plans by day, week, or class.
• Create class templates for any day of the week.
• Adjust your lesson schedule with a single click.
• Share your plans with other teachers.
• Easily re-use lessons from one year to the next.

Why do I like it?

• I can easily access it from anywhere; work or home.
• I can color code my classes or subjects.
• If I don't get to an activity, I can use the bump feature to push it to the next day.
• I can print my plans to a PDF format to e-mail them to my principal.
• It has a section to easily add standards, even common core.
• I can create templates, even use a district one if necessary.
• It helps me keep my schedule!

Why is it so easy to use?

• Its similar to any other program our district uses whether that be Microsoft or E-Chalk.
• It allows you to transition from old versions of your lesson plans by allowing you to upload your lesson plans to the program.
• It also has an entire section devoted to videos showing you how to work different features of the program, like this one:

Click here for a list of the tutorials available.
My only disclaimer about the program is that is costs $12.00 to sign up to use planbook. But that will give you a subscription for an entire year! I'm not sure about you, but I am willing to pay that that amount if it will help me create lesson plans faster and focus on my students more.

Happy Planning!