DIY Reading Strategy Fans!

Reading comprehension is such an important skill for our students to have, yet is it very tricky to teach. There is just SO much to it!

Explicitly teaching the strategies that we as adults do so readily in our head (such as predicting, clarifying, asking questions, summarizing, making connections, and visualizing) is a great way to get the students involved in their reading and internalization of the content.

Providing modeled lessons with examples is a wonderful teaching method to chose.

HOWEVER, I find that I can model my heart out until the cows come home, but if the students aren’t actively participating in the process, they simply won’t retain enough of the strategy to make any meaningful difference in their own independent comprehension of text.

So what, you might ask, have I done to get the kids involved and thinking about the Reading Comprehension strategies? I created Strategy Fans for them!

These fans are fairly simple to make. Each student gets one “card” for each of the 6 reading strategies we learn in class.

The cards are different colors (ie: Clarify is purple, Predict is black, Visualize is red, and so on) which match the big reading comprehension posters I have in my class.

You might want to check out:

Need some new ideas for differentiation in the classroom? This 45 page digital book has you covered!

Includes 8 articles from Organized Classroom, including topics such as:

How to Deploy No-Prep Brain Breaks
Keeping Students on Task During Cooperative Learning
Choice Boards
Ideas for Organizing Your DI
Creating Differentiated Assessment in a Snap

…and even more!

Now available in our Shop! And the second copy to share with a friend is half price!

See it HERE.

These are all put together, on top of each other, with a brad holding them together at the bottom. This allows them to be moved around, fanned out, and easily accessed.

When we are reading a story, either during our reading block or at other times, the students bring these to the rug with them (or, if you don’t have a rug, just have them pull the fans out on their desk to use while reading).

As I am modeling the strategies in the lesson, they are using them as a sort of strategy reminder. During the read, if they wish to use a strategy, they flip to that card on the fan, hold it up, and I can easily see who wants to visualize, clarify, ask a question, or make a connection.

I have found, from my own experience, that just *holding* the fan gives the students enough of a reminder to actually use the strategies. They pay attention more during whole class reads because they actually *want* to use the fan!

The kids are actively searching for a place where they can use the reading comprehension strategies in the reading. When they are partner reading, I can see them using the fans (and the comprehension strategies) from across the room. These fans facilitate a deeper conversation about the text and generate a greater understanding of it.

Reading and Language Arts Power Pack

11 reading and language arts resource sets that pack a punch!

This power pack includes the following 11 files:

Beach Activities Pack (K-6)
Chapter Book Reading Strategies Activities (grades 3-8)
Chrysanthemum Reading Packet (grades 2-4)
Contraction Packet (grades 1-3)
DI Spelling Menus Packet (grade 2+)
Never Ride Your Elephant to School Activities (grades 2-4)
Reading Bingo (grades 2-8)
Space Theme Reading Logs (grades 2-5)
Fiction and Nonfiction Story Maps (grades 2-6)
Vocabulary Bingo (grades 3+)
Writing Menu (grades 3+)

See more details HERE.

Here is the document I created for the fans. There are 6 pages, one for each strategy.

Just print off each page on a different color (or on white and then back the little cards on construction paper), and put together with a brad. That is it!

Reading Strategy Fan Printable Freebie