Think Outside the Book: Create Context with Reading Treks
Monday, June 28, 2021 ⬥ 3:00 – 4:30 PM EDT US
Presented by Ruth Okoye, Karen Streeter and Stephanie Bass
Session Description:
Background knowledge or context is, tragically, often a missing piece of the reading comprehension puzzle. Learn to use mapping software to build a resource that helps to fill in the missing pieces. We’ll show finished examples and then help you make your own. Make Learning a Journey with Reading Treks.
Purpose:
Readers constantly draw on their background knowledge to understand a story. Many students do not have background knowledge that informs them of the time period, geographic area or customs of the characters in the books they read. This lack of information increases the difficulty when students are asked to summarize, infer or predict from the text. The purpose of this session is to share an active learning instructional strategy that allows the teachers to facilitate instruction while building background knowledge and increasing student independence.
Using mapping software, teachers can create a Reading Trek – a map that travels along with the story providing the missing context. Coupled with instructional activities, Reading Treks can be used for individual students or groups in remote/blending/face-to-face settings. We will look at a few example Reading Treks and corresponding activities then review how they can be used with students. We will cover how to choose an appropriate text that will work with the Reading Trek strategy, next we will walk through how to find copyright-friendly media to include in a trek, and finally we will work on assembling the trek and assigning student activities.
Objectives:
As a result of this session, teachers will:
1. Understand how to use Reading Treks in the classroom;
2. Learn how Reading Treks are created; and
3. Plan a new Reading Trek you will create for your instructional setting.
Session Slide Deck:
