Concrete Metacognition

Happy Thursday!  I hope your week has been a good one.  I am so excited...no...
thrilled...nope...HONORED to be here. My blogging journey started just 1 1/2 years ago with my teaching partner, Maria.  I didn't realize how much I would enjoy writing, sharing, and learning in this blog world!  And to be a part of Adventures in Literacy Land--WOW!  I look forward to this journey.

Just a little bit (more) about me--After teaching in the classroom (1st and 2nd grade) for 5 years, I requested to be a Title I teacher.  I no longer pull students out of the classrooms, but co-teach with the first grade teachers in my building.  The classroom teacher, intervention specialist, and I split the class up into groups and TEACH!  At times, we do some whole group lessons together.
And that leads me to our focus for today.  After winter break, my Reading teammate and I decided to start the 2014 year off with some concrete lessons on metacognition.  We turned to Tanny McGregor for some assistance with these lessons. 

We read "Comprehension Connections" and saw her speak at the Ohio Literacy Conference this past year.  We listened...we tried...and we were so excited with how well the lessons went!

Day 1: The lesson started with me doing some "fake" reading.  We discussed what "fake" reading is and how we are all guilty of this.  I explained that if you are not thinking when you read, then you might as well stop reading because there is no purpose.  Then I threw the book across the room.

 I think the shock value of throwing a book paid off because they remembered (throughout the week) that there is no purpose to "fake" reading.

This led us right into the main part of lesson--thinking about your thinking (or reading).  Tanny suggests making this lesson concrete with a reading salad.

I modeled this with the book "Wolf!" and then we invited students to do the thinking.

Day 2: When class started, we asked our firsties to tell us about metacognition.
 

Sure enough, they could!  The concrete lesson was all that Tanny said it would be!  They really understood the importance of real reading.  Karen explained that some students learn by making something (like the salad) and some learn through a graphic organizer.

(This is the "pretty" version my husband made for me.)

 We knew we wanted the poster to look like this but we built the whole thing guided by our students.  Because of this...day 3 went well!

Day 3:  The lesson started with our firsties explaining this poster.  I have to say that out of all our classes, our struggling readers did the best job!  They could explain every part and the importance of it.  Our study of metacognition ended with think bubbles.  I read the text and our students shared their thinking inside a large thinking bubble.

Karen and I also tried to stress that in order for your brain to think about your reading, you need to read with fluency.  We came up with some ways to make this concrete and hands-on as well.  If you want to read more about that just click HERE.

We would like all of our students to have their own copy of this poster. The following document is a blank version of the poster.  Students can either write in the "parts" of metacognition or cut/glue them.  If you would like to use this, please click on the image to grab it!

I look forward to observing the impact that these lessons will have on the reading that occurs in our classroom!  Happy thinking about your thinking!