For those of you who follow my blog, you know that I am a High School Music Teacher and Head of a Faculty at a large comprehensive High School. I have only recently joined my new school and will being my second term teaching there after the holidays. I am certainly looking forward to going back to work, especially now that I feel like I am a lot more familiar with how things work there!
My only regret, or point of frustration at my new school is that they don’t use, as a school wide set of strategies, the Super Six. I have been using these strategies with all of my classes from 7-12 for at least 18 months, and I now can’t teach a lesson without using them!
The Super Six are
- Making Connections
- Monitoring
- Questioning
- Predicting
- Visualising
- Summarising
Each of these has lots of different methods, graphic organisers and strategies to use to actually teach them. There are lots of websites out there to help you take the Super Six journey I have put a couple here that I have found useful.
A link to the Super-Six.info website is here.—this site has lots of FREE resources and explanations
A Link to the Teaching Skills website is here—this site has a really good overview of each of the Super Six
A link to the NSW Curriculum Support Super Six PDF download is here—again lots of great information.
How would you like an awesome FREE 28 page Super Six Mini Bundle? Click here to get more details and your freebie!
The main reason I like using the Super Six is that I can see real progress and students actually learning the material being taught—because they are explicitly taught strategies to use with any text!
In my Super Six Staff Resource Book, link to it on TPT here, I have a page that came from the NSW Curriculum Support document about teaching the Super Six using the Modeled-Guided-Independent Teaching Model.
Explicit instruction of Reading strategies
NB: Regardless of the strategy being taught, the process of explicit instruction remains the same.
Step 1: Select a reading strategy
Reading can range from easy to challenging. The criteria for reading selection should focus on usefulness for teaching a particular strategy or set of strategies, student interests and connections to literacy themes. If the reading is challenging use ‘think-aloud’ when modelling.
Step 2: Explain the strategy
Focus on the two questions:
What is it?
Why is it helpful/necessary for reading?
Provide examples to assist this explanation and wherever possible make connections to students’ background knowledge and prior learning.
Step 3: Model the strategy
Talk about what thought processes you go through when using this writing scaffold aloud and use a Think Aloud and a visual (symbol, chart, etc. ) to share ideas with students.
NB: Think Aloud involves orally explaining precisely what is triggering thoughts and how it is affecting understanding.
Explain thinking so that students have a clear idea of the cognitively active process readers experience. If a strategy requires a written or sketched response, model that during this step.
Step 4: Guided support
Discuss the next section of the reading aloud and ask students to work with a partner to apply the new strategy.
Discuss the response from paired students and continue to guide and support students as needed.
Step 5: Independent practice
Monitor as students work independently within the whole group. Either continue reading sections of the strategy with reduced teacher support or invite students to read independent text on their own. Regardless, students independently use the strategy. Differentiate instruction by providing scaffolding for those students who need more support (through further modelling or guided support), and by releasing the task to those students who are ready to use it. The goal is to ensure that students know the strategy and the process for using it. Ultimately students develop a range of strategies that they can use as needed when they are reading on their own.
Step 6: Reflect
Ask students to reflect on how using the strategy helped them to understand the text being read. Invite them to share their reflections in small groups or with the whole class. Discuss how they can use the strategy when they are reading on their own.
A few other resources I have created are available for FREE at my TPT store.
Link to Posters here. There are two versions of this set – one in USA spelling and one in Australian/British spelling.
Link to Posters here.
If you would like a FREE 28 page Super Six Mini Bundle of resources that you can print and use in your class, right now, then click here for more details.
Until next time
Happy Teaching
Julia from Jooya