reading strategies and tools for beginning...

Reading Strategies and Tools for Beginning Readers

Start-to-Finish® Literacy Starters

37 Teacher Guide© Don Johnston Incorporated

http://www.donjohnston.com/products/start_to_finish/literacy/index.html

http://www.donjohnston.com/


38 Teacher Guide © Don Johnston Incorporated



39 Teacher Guide© Don Johnston Incorporated Intervention Planning Tool



40 Teacher Guide Intervention Planning Tool © Don Johnston Incorporated



41 Teacher Guide© Don Johnston Incorporated Intervention Planning Tool



42 Teacher Guide Intervention Planning Tool © Don Johnston Incorporated



43 Teacher Guide

Building Vocabulary

Four word cards are included with each of the books in the Start-to-Finish Literacy Starters series. At the

Enrichment and Transitional levels, these word cards are intended to build oral language—particularly

vocabulary knowledge.

Enrichment and Transitional Vocabulary

• The vocabulary words selected for the enrichment stories represent core concepts and ideas that have a particularmeaning in the story, but may have other meanings in other settings.

• The word cards are NEVER intended to be used in flash card drill and practice.• Use the vocabulary cards to build a vocabulary wall in your room and encourage everyone who enters your

room to find a word and relate it to something they know or have experienced. • Categorize, sort, and complete activities that highlight connections among words.• As you begin using new books, don’t abandon old vocabulary – continue to build on and use existing vocabulary

as new words are added. • Create webs and graphic organizers that relate the new words to experiences and vocabulary the beginning

readers already know. Some beginning readers will generate these related words over time with minimal support– adding them to the organizers. Other beginning readers will require support from their parents or caregivers,who can be asked to send in photos and other relevant items that might trigger associations for the beginning readers.

The word cards that are provided with the Conventional books serve a very different purpose from those

that are provided with the Enrichment and Transitional books. The conventional word cards, like the books

themselves, are aimed at building word identification skills. The words are carefully selected to ensure that

the most frequently occurring words and words with the most common spelling patterns are represented

across the entire Start-to-Finish Literacy Starters series.

Conventional Vocabulary• Notice that the vocabulary cards do not focus on meaning, but support beginning readers in developing fluency

in word identification. • Add these words to a classroom or personal word wall that continues to grow as beginning readers are

introduced to and read more conventional texts.• When beginning readers encounter these high frequency words when reading or need support in spelling them,

refer them to the word wall for support.• Engage beginning readers in word wall activities every day that require them to spell the words letter-by-letter.

The lesson format is:• See the words • Say the words • Chant the words (clap, stomp, rock) • Write the words and check them together with the teacher

© Don Johnston Incorporated Building Vocabulary


Always Activities

All reading, re g a rdless of the difficulty or type of text, should be purposeful. Each time you read with a

beginning re a d e r, you must set a clear purpose. State the purpose clearly by saying, “Read so that you can...”.

• Each time you read a book with your beginning reader(s), decide on ONE purpose for reading.

• Read each book several times, focusing on a different purpose for reading each time.

• Use the before, during and after reading activities for your chosen purpose for reading to motivate

beginning readers to read and re-read, building their reading skills with each reading.

• Select from the examples provided or develop your own purpose to match the type of text

your readers are reading.


44 Teacher Guide

• Tell beginning re a d e r s ,“Authors use titles to helpreaders know what ismost important in the book.”

• Ask readers to identifysome of the titles of theirfavorite television shows,movies and books.

• Have them sort the titlesbased on whether theydescribe the place, aperson or some other partof the show, movie orb o o k .

• Tell beginning re a d e r s ,“ H e re are three possibletitles for the book you’llread today. While youread, think about whichtitle you think is best.”Hint: As you pre p a retitles, make them allp l a u s i b l e .

• Remind beginningreaders that they shouldbe thinking about whichtitle is best whilethey read.

• Several times duringreading, look at the thre epossible titles youp resented before re a d i n gand ask which title thebeginning readers thinkfits the story best at thattime. Be sure to talk aboutWHY they think ap a rticular title fits the book(for example: the book isabout this person or thes t o ry teaches us aboutplants, etc.).

• Ask beginning readers toselect or vote on the besttitle. Then, compare thereaders’ title with the real title.

• Look back through thebook with the beginningreaders to find the word sand pictures that mighthave lead them to choosea title diff e rent from theone the author chose.

Selecting a Book Title

Purpose for Reading Before ReadingAlways begin with something

beginning readers know very well.

During ReadingRemember that the reading or

listening should take longer than theb e f o re and after activities.

After ReadingOnly ask beginning readers to

complete activities that directly re l a t eto the specific reading purpose in the

left column. Be explicit—always tell beginning readers the specific

purpose of their re a d i n g .

Always Activities © Don Johnston Incorporated



45 Teacher Guide© Don Johnston © Don Johnston Incorporated Always Activity

• Tell beginning re a d e r s ,“ P redicting means tomake a guess aboutsomething that you thinkwill happen.”

• To help beginning re a d e r svisualize predicting, askthem to makep redictions—or guesses—about what will happen ifyou: drop a raw egg,squeeze a balloon, ticklesomeone, or anything elsewith an outcome that isfamiliar to them.

• Tell beginning readers, “Iam going to show you thefirst few pictures in thisbook. Then you’re goingto make a prediction, orguess what the story isabout.” Hint: Whenworking with altern a t i v ecommunication tools,p re p a re some pre d i c t i o n sf rom which beginningreaders may choose.

• Stop one or two times (nom o re) in the middle of thebook to ask beginningreaders about theirp re d i c t i o n s :• “Do you think you

guessed right aboutwhat this story isabout? Why or why not?”

• “What do you thinkwill happen next? Isthat the same thing youthought would happenb e f o re you read the story ? ”

• “How do you think thes t o ry will end?”

• C o m p a re the pre d i c t i o n sbeginning readers madeb e f o re they read the bookand during the reading ofthe book with what re a l l yhappened in the story.

• With the beginningreaders, look backt h rough the book to findthe information that shows whether theyguessed corre c t l y.

Predicting









• Tell beginning re a d e r s ,“ We can use lots ofd i ff e rent words todescribe people. Wo rd slike tall, short, young, old,mean and nice all work todescribe people.”

• To practice thinking aboutdescribing words, askbeginning readers toidentify words you’vep rovided or readers havegenerated that describesomeone very familiar tothem (for example, atelevision character, thep r i n c i p a l ) .

• Tell beginning re a d e r s ,“While we read today,think about which of thesew o rds best describe thecharacter(s), setting(s) ortheme in the story.” H i n t :To control the diff i c u l t ylevel of this activity,p rovide familiar words foryour beginning re a d e r s(including picture symbolsas needed).

• Model thinking aloud forbeginning readers whenyou encounter inform a t i o nthat would guide you toselect a part i c u l a rdescribing word.

• Work with beginningreaders to find the word sthat best describe thecharacter(s), setting(s) ortheme of the story.

• After beginning re a d e r shave completed theirselections, look backt h rough the book togetherto find the inform a t i o nthat led to their choices ofdescribing words.

D e s c r i b i n gCharacters, Settingand other Elements



46 Teacher Guide

• Tell the beginning re a d e r s ,“Sequencing meansputting things in the ord e rthey happened.”

• Ask beginning readers tohelp you put events thata re very familiar to themin order: meals they eat,days of the week, theirschool schedules, etc.P rovide pictures and/orw o rd cards that can bemixed up and thenre a rranged into thec o rrect sequence.

• Make photocopies ofseveral pages from thebook. Tell beginningreaders, “Here are somethings that happen in thes t o ry. While you re a d ,think about these thingsand the order theyhappen.” Hint: You canuse as few as two eventsand as many as happenin the story. Thedescriptions of the eventscan be in written formand/or picture form.

• Remind beginningreaders that they shouldbe looking for the thingsyou told them wouldhappen in the story.

• Model a think-aloud suchas, “Hey, that was one ofthe things we knew wouldhappen. It is the first onewe’ve found, so it mustcome first.”

• Work with beginningreaders to put the eventsyou talked about beforereading into the order thatthey occurred in the story.

• After beginning re a d e r shave placed the events ino rd e r, re - read the book tocheck their sequencing.

Sequencing












47 Teacher Guide

• Tell beginning re a d e r s ,“When you summarize,you retell the mosti m p o rtant parts of thes t o ry using just a feww o rd s . ”

• Model this concept bysummarizing (in just a feww o rds) something yourbeginning reader didearlier in the day. Then,ask beginning readers tohelp you use just a feww o rds to summarize anexperience you haves h a red (for example, a PEclass, field trip, etc.).

• Tell beginning re a d e r s ,“ H e re are thre esummaries I have writtenabout the story we aregoing to read. As weread the story together,think about whichs u m m a ry does the bestjob of telling about thewhole story.” Limit yoursummaries to 8-10 word sand make sure thechoices are not toos i m i l a r. Hint: Make one ofyour summaries humoro u sto add fun to this activity.

• Remind beginningreaders that they have toremember the import a n tp a rts of the story in ord e rto decide which summarydoes the best job of tellingabout the whole story.

• Model thinking aloud asyou read parts of thes t o ry that are included inyour summary by sayingthings like, “Hmm. Iremember that one of oursummaries mentionedthis! Let’s check them tosee which one it was.”

• Work with beginningreaders to choose the bests u m m a ry. Talk aboutwhich parts of eachs u m m a ry are true andwhich are not. Hint: Makethe activity harder byo ffering two summariesthat contain tru ei n f o rmation, but whereone focuses on lesserdetails and the other oni m p o rtant parts of the story.

• After choosing as u m m a ry, go backt h rough the book to make sure the selectionincludes the mosti m p o rtant inform a t i o nf rom the book.

S u m m a r i z i n g









© Don Johnston © Don Johnston Incorporated Always Activity



48 Teacher Guide

• Show beginning re a d e r sthe book and make aconnection to knowledgethey have (for example, ifreading "Wear a Helmet,"ask beginning readers ifthey know anyone whowears a helmet).

• P rovide concre t eexperiences (wherea p p ropriate) withsomething related to thebook content (for example,if reading "Wear aHelmet," bring helmets toclass for readers to look atand talk about).

• Model making explicitconnections between thebook and the hands-onexperience you didtogether before reading(for example, if reading"Wear a Helmet," pointto a helmet in the book.Then, pick up a helmetyou have in class andsay something like, "Thehelmet this person iswearing is the same asthe helmet we have right here!").

• Ask questions to helpbeginning readers make aconnection between thehands-on activity, theirown experiences( b a c k g round knowledge)and the book ( f o rexample, if reading " Wear a Helmet," usep rompts such as, "Somehelmets in the book havefancy designs. Do any ofthe helmets at school havefancy designs?").

• While reading a newbook, ask beginningreaders to talk about thethings they know about thetopic. If they were able totouch a hard helmet inclass, ask something like," A re helmets hard orsoft?" Make a list ofresponses on the board orc h a rt paper.

• Go back through the bookwith the beginning re a d e rand look for inform a t i o nthat is related to the list ofwhat they already knew.Use a prompt like, "Wesaid some helmets havefancy designs. Here is ap i c t u re of a helmet with afancy design."

• Talk about what beginningreaders learned from thebook and add that to the list.

• Ask beginning readers tolook for things related tothe book in theirc l a s s room, at home or in the community( Text-to-Self), in otherbooks or magazines( Te x t - t o - Text), on televisionor on a field trip( Te x t - t o - Wo r l d ) .

Making Text-to-SelfConnections andActivatingBackgroundKnowledge













Alternative Communication




Reading Portfolio Tools



56 Teacher Guide Reader Preferences Graph © Don Johnston Incorporated

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