Connect to Comprehension is a comprehensive, scripted intervention reading program for struggling readers in grades 1-8. It is effective for small group intervention as well as for one-on-one tutoring. This program was developed to provide students who struggle with decoding access to upper-level comprehension instruction. Struggling readers typically don't get practice in these comprehension skills either because the reading materials are too difficult to decode or the lower-level text they can read are not engaging and motivating. As a result, when struggling readers begin to become more fluent, they then have to conquer their gaps in comprehension, especially upper-level skills such as making inferences, determining cause and effect, comparing and contrasting. In Connect to Comprehension, these upper-levels skills are explicitly taught, scaffolded, and practiced while students are learning and practicing basic decoding/structural analysis skills.

An escaped housecat encounters twelve birds in the back yard but fails to catch any of them and has to eat feathers for lunch.

Grades 3-6 "Active literacy is the means to deeper understanding and diverse, flexible thinking, and is the hallmark of our approach to teaching and learning. Reading, writing, talking, listening, and investigating are the cornerstones of active literacy. The Toolkit captures the language of thinking we use to explicitly teach kids to comprehend the wide variety of informational text they encounter. Through the Toolkit lessons, we demonstrate how the kids adopt and adapt our teaching language as their learning language." - Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis In The Comprehension Toolkit, Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis have created an intensive curricular resource designed to help students understand, respond to, and learn from nonfiction text. By actively engaging students in reading, talking, and writing about information and ideas, The Comprehension Toolkit provides a foundation for developing independent readers and learners across the curriculum and throughout the school year. Framed around the Gradual Release of Responsibility approach, The Comprehension Toolkit provides scaffolded comprehension strategy instruction. First through modeling and guided practice, then releasing responsibility to students through collaborative practice, independent practice, and application, the Toolkit's lessons teach students to use comprehension strategies flexibly in a variety of texts, topics, and subject areas. Professional Support A series of resources introduce, support, and extend the Toolkit's core lessons. The Teacher's Guide outlines the thinking behind the Toolkit and describes its components, instructional design, and assessment options. The Resources for The Comprehension Toolkit CD-ROM provides an array of print and video resources including a photographic overview of an Active Literacy Classroom, downloadable research articles, templates, assessment masters, and full-colour lesson text. Extend and Investigate helps you extend the Toolkit's comprehension strategies across the curriculum and throughout the year. It provides strategies for content area reading and research, textbook reading, test reading, and a variety of practical bibliographies. 6 Strategy Clusters The 26 strategy lessons in The Comprehension Toolkit are organized into six Strategy Cluster books. Informational Text A series of short, engaging, real-world informational texts provide an effective context for using and practising the Toolkit's comprehension strategies. The Source Book of Short Text provides two kinds of nonfiction text: Lesson Text, 24 articles from children's magazines; and Nonfiction Short Text, 43 short informational articles specially written for the Toolkit.

This practitioner resource and course text has given thousands of K-12 teachers evidence-based tools for helping students--particularly those at risk for reading difficulties--understand and acquire new knowledge from text. The authors present a range of scientifically validated instructional techniques and activities, complete with helpful classroom examples and sample lessons. The book describes ways to assess comprehension, build the skills that good readers rely on, and teach students to use multiple comprehension strategies flexibly and effectively. Each chapter features thought-provoking discussion questions. Reproducible lesson plans and graphic organizers can be downloaded and printed in a convenient 8 1/2" x 11" size. New to This Edition *Chapters on content-area literacy, English language learners, and intensive interventions. *Incorporates current research on each component of reading comprehension. *Discusses ways to align instruction with the Common Core State Standards. *Additional instructional activities throughout.

"This book is intended for middle school and high school teachers of social studies, science, English, English-language development, and any other subject with challenging texts and classes with readers who struggle to understand them. The activities are especially meant to help readers who are below grade level to access and organize the content of grade-level texts." - Preface.

"In this book, structured literacy is conceptualized as an umbrella term encompassing a variety of intervention methods, instructional approaches, and commercial programs. In addition to focusing on SL approaches to intervention, this book is organized around common poor reader profiles that have been identified in research. The chapters in this volume are written by experts who are well known as researchers but who are also highly skilled at writing for practitioners. Chapters were written with a strong foundation of research that is summarized, but with a concentration on translating research into practice, including case studies, sample intervention activities, and lesson plans. Each chapter includes application activities at the end to check for and extend readers' understanding"--

Summary: "Through their celebrated Comprehension Toolkit series Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis present an active literacy learning framework that grounds students in the nonfiction reading and thinking strategies they will need throughout school and into college and careers. In Connecting Comprehension and Technology Steph and Anne invite teachers to join them in Katie Muhtaris' and Kristin Ziemke's classrooms to envision and embrace technology as a powerful tool for extending these Toolkit practices and enhancing literacy instruction and innovation. Offering the know-how born from years of classroom experience and clear steps for getting started, Connecting Comprehension and Technology provides practical lessons that teach students how to navigate, evaluate, collaborate, and communicate through digital resources. Not limited to specific hardware or software, lessons are designed around technical functions; tools readily accessible to students in their world and easily adopted in your school, whether you are taking your first steps into technology or looking to leverage existing resources"--From publisher's website.