Higher Order Literacy: Engaging Readers in Grades 4-9

Dr. Keith Polette

Pieces of Learning

Look Out! Letters Alive is an easy to use reproducible activity resource that helps teachers create dynamic learning activities for students of all ages with a minimum of preparation. Activities provide students in different grades with a fun and meaningful learning experience. Used with elementary, middle school, or high school students activities tap into students prior knowledge, engage higher order thinking skills, promote vocabulary development, and encourage cooperative learning. The author presents the alphabet in altered forms. Then he invites students to observe and make sense of these letter-images in multiple ways. Students brainstorm word lists, analyze word-letter relationships, categorize words, construct sentences, and write poetry.

Look Out! Letters Alive (Enrichment Activities for Language Arts)

Education & Teaching

Schools & Teaching

Making inferences rests at the heart of reading effectively. When we consider the act of making an inference in the context of reading, we say that it is reading between the lines. Most students struggle with the ability to make inferences because they do not know what inferences are. They do not know the kinds of inferences that exist. And they do not understand the process to use to make accurate inferences. It is understandable, then, why many students read only on the literal level and why they do not like to read. At the inferential level, readers are able to see beyond the literal level of words and sentences; they see connotations, discover associations, make amplifications, construct inferences, and engage in evaluations. Readers not only have a literal understanding of the text they are reading, but they make interpretations that can be supported with textual and extra-textual citations. Inferences are central to the Common Core Standards. These standards state that students must be able to: determine a theme; compare and contrast two characters; determine the meaning . . . of metaphors; explain how a series of chapters, scenes, or stanzas fits together to provide the overall structure of a particular story; describe how a narrator s or speaker s point of view influences how events are described; and compare and contrast stories in the same genre . . . on their approaches to similar themes. Polette includes 50+ activities to teach the process for making inferences, the four kinds of inferences, and exercises requiring inferences and explanations of the types of inference including 24 activities from popular student literature.

Reading Between the Lines - Inferencing Skills

Reading Between the Lines - Analyzing Skills

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Books by Dr. Keith Polette