The DRTA is a general plan
for directing children's reading of either stories in
published reading series,
trade books, or content area selections and for
encouraging children to
think as they read and to make
predictions and check
their accuracy.
In preparing a DRTA, the
teacher should select points at which to pause so that
the children can make predictions.
This is an example of a DRTA
(Directed Reading Thinking Activity) used with
William Steig’s The Amazing
Bone. All examples under each step are specific for
this particular piece of
literature and would be different based on your selection of
quality children’s literature.
Four basic steps: Predict---Read---Confirm---Revise prediction.
************************************************************************
Literature: Steig, W.
(1984). The amazing bone. New York: Houghton Mifflin.
Targeted Grade Level for this DRTA: 3rd grade
Step 1: Motivation and Development
of Background
Show a purse and prompt students
to tell what they know about "purses." Make purses
from envelopes. Decorate
with "magic" pens.
Play "mystery" item game
to introduce the bone. (I used a “mystery box” with
different
items and students put their
hands in one at a time to try and figure out what an
object
was based on the way it
felt. One of the items in the box was a dog bone.)
Step 2: Initial Predictions
Ask students: What does
the word "amazing" mean. Can you name things that
are
amazing? Look at the picture
on the cover of the book. Who are two characters
you
would expect to be in the
book? Is the pig a boy or a girl? Is the pig happy or sad?
Is the wolf a boy or a girl?
Do you think he is nice or mean? What time of year
is it? How do you know?
What is in the pig's purse?
Step 3: Set purpose for initial
reading
Read from pages 1 through
7 to find out what the pig finds in the woods.
What amazing talents did
it have?
What do you think is going to happen next? (Record predictions on a chart, etc.)
Step 4: Designate all stops,
what questions you would ask to prompt for
predictions and give purposes
for reading.
1. Read from page 7 to 11
to find out what scary thing happens to Pearl.
How would you feel if someone
tried to steal something from you?
What should you do if some
approaches you and asks for something of yours?
What do you think Pearl
will do?
What do you think is going to
happen next?
2. Read pages 12 and 13
to see what happens with Pearl and the robbers.
Why did Pearl and the bone
laugh?
Do you think they will be
involved in another adventure? What will it be?
What do you think is going to happen
next?
3. Read pages 14 through
17 to see if another character seen on the cover of the
books shows up and what
part he plays.
Why wasn't the fox afraid
of the bone?
What do you think will happen
when the fox gets Peal and the bone to his house?
4. Read 18 through 23 to
find out what happens to Pearl when Fox tries to eat her.
What did the bone do to save
her? Where did he learn that trick?
Could Pearl trust her parents
with the truth? Would you be afraid to tell your
parents something you did
not think they would understand?
What do you think is going to happen
next?
Step 5: List 1 reading skill
you could focus on with this story.
Sequencing or characterization
would work well with this piece of literature.
Step 6: How would students
practice this skill.
Students might draw pictures
on cards to represent different things that happen in
the story and then practice
sequencing the cards. Students might volunteer to “play”
certain characters in the
book and act out the story.
Step 7: Enrichment activities.
Students could compare and
contrast this book with other books that involve
wolves as evil characters.
Students could read other books by William Steig and build a
display board of his books,
complete with student comments and activities based on the
books (students would invent
the activities).
On-Line Resources for DRTA's:
Directed Reading Thinking Activities
Directed Reading-Thinking Activity (DRTA)
ED327218 1990-11-00 Developing Metacognition. ERIC Digest.
Internet Academy - Reading Resource Bank
Directed Reading-Thinking Activity
Basal Reading
Instruction - DRA
TRADITIONAL
BASAL SERIES
Basal sets differ from company to company.
directed reading activity
(DRA) - type of reading instruction planned by basal
reader manufacturers - see
Directions BELOW
Trends in Basal Readers
1. workbooks and duplicating
masters of skill sheets
Workbooks are not designed
to teach the skills and strategies and should not be
used for this purpose.
2. big books
3. student journals
4. read-aloud libraries
for the teacher
5. unit tests
6. puppets
7. computer management
Positive Aspects of Basal Readers
1. many provide anthologies
of stories, content area selections, poems, plays
2. newer basal programs
present integrated, thematic approaches to reading
3. teacher's manuals offer
valuable suggestions and allow for systematic
teaching and reteaching
of skills and strategies with systematic review
4. offer ways to monitor
the success of instruction
5. language in today's basal
readers is more natural and conversational
6. more diversified characters
(racially, ethnically, elderly, disabled -
less stereotyping - updated
women's roles
Negative Aspects of Basal
Readers
1. identical materials negate
student choice
2. graded materials and
controlled vocabularies may be "dumbed down"
3. detailed lesson plans
tie teachers to a specific lesson sequence and do not
allow for personal judgement
4. **If teachers try to
do everything suggested, they may use valuable
time for activities that
are inappropriate for some groups of children,
leaving inadequate time
for appropriate ones.
5. Teachers should not use
basal readers from front to back in their entirety
without considering the
special needs of the children in their classes.
6. The systematic teaching
of skills and strategies will not appeal to educators
who believe that there is
no particular skill sequence.
7. basal reader workbook
pages often fail to relate directly to the story and
slight higher-level comprehension
skills
Answer: Teachers must be
prepared to analyze the content of basal programs,
make use of the good materials
when they are appropriate to the particular
classroom contexts, and
choose not to use inappropriate suggestions.
“Teachers have a responsibility
to plan the use of all materials in their
classrooms, including the
basal readers, regardless of the presence or absence
of guiding suggestions accompanying
the materials.
BASALS CAN NEVER PROVIDE
ALL OF THE READING SITUATIONS A
STUDENT NEEDS TO ENCOUNTER.
note: If you learn to teach
reading and learn sound literary practices in this class,
then you will know how to
make the basal reader work for your students. ppetty
USES AND MISUSES OF BASAL MATERIALS
If teachers perceive basals
as total reading programs, they may fail to provide
the variety of experiences
children need for a balanced program. Basals can
never provide all of the
reading situations a student needs to encounter.
Ability grouping - the match
of materials with children is not always good.
1) good readers are often
placed in comfortable reading materials in which
word recognition problems
are not frequent and attention can be given
to meaning.
2) poor readers are often
placed in "challenging" material that causes
frustration and is not conducive
to comprehension, because so much
attention is needed for
word recognition
3) all readers should be
given material that is comfortable enough to allow
reasonable application of
comprehension skills.
Recommended Grouping Practices
1. teach core basal lessons
with whole class and form small groups for
follow-up activities
2. flexible grouping based
on needs for that day only
3. instruction, rather than
materials, would be adjusted for all learners
p. 6 ways that teachers
should use direct instruction in basal reader
lessons
p. There is no reason for
teachers to use basal readers only as indicated
in the manual. Teachers
should read the selection and decide what
should be done before, during,
and after reading. Teachers should
pick and choose from basal
materials according to the children's
needs.
Workbooks
1. never use to keep children
busy
2. don't use sequentially
ignoring children's needs
3. the activities should
always be purposeful
4. should be graded and
promptly returned
************* DIRECTED
READING ACTIVITY ********************
The directed reading activity
(DRA) is a teaching strategy used to extend and
strengthen a child's reading
abilities. The DRA is the strategy that is generally
built into basal reading
series' teacher's manuals.
To gain experiences in teaching
reading with a basal reader, you need to find out
from your cooperating teacher
how (or if) the basal reader is used in the
classroom. If so, ask how
you could participate in any of the lessons.
These are the five components of a DRA:
1) Motivation and development
of background. The teacher attempts to interest
students in reading about
the topic by helping them associate the subject matter
with their own experiences
or by using audiovisual aids to arouse interest in
unfamiliar areas.
2) Directed story reading
(silent and oral). Before children read the story silently,
the teacher provides them
with purpose questinos or helps them to set their own
purposes to direct their
reading. Following the silent reading, the teacher may ask
children to read aloud their
answers to the purpose, read aloud to prove or reject
their predictions, or read
orally for a new purpose.
3) Strategy or skill buiding
activities. At some point during the lesson, the teacher
provides direct instruction
in one or more word recognition or comprehension
strategies or skills.
4) Follow-up practice. Children
practice strategies and skills they have already
been taught.
5) Enrichment activities.
These activities may connect the story with art, music, or
creative writing or may
lead the children to read additional material on the same
topic or by the same author.
These are generally the components
of a basal reading series, but your
cooperating teacher may
use the basal in many other ways. However you
participate in teaching
reading using the basal will be acceptable. You can do
these lessons with one child,
a small group, or whole group.
Individualized Reading Approach
the individualized reading
approach encourages children to move at their own
paces through reading material
they have chosen. Each child receives assistance
in improving performance
when need for such assistance becomes apparent. I
thought this would be best
used with children who need some assistance with
Accelerated Reader books.
Components of an Individualized Reading Approach:
1) Self-selection. Children select the books themselves based on interest.
2) Self-Pacing. Each child reads the material at his or her own pace.
3) Strategy and Skill Instruction.
The teacher helps students develop word
recognition and comprehension
strategies as needed. You note problem the
child(ren) has and plan
direct instruction to help the child learn needed skills or
strategies ... these can
be word recognition problems or comprehension
problems OR both.
4) Recordkeeping. The teacher
keeps records of each child's progress... dates,
which books read, strengths,
weaknesses, skills taught, mastery of skills, etc.
5) Student-teacher Conferences.
The teacher spends 3-15 minutes with each
child letting them talk
about their reading experiences, the books, the successes
or frustrations.
6) Sharing activities. If
several children are involved in Individualized Reading
Instruction, you need to
schedule a time once a week for them to get together and
share their books.
Language Experience
Approach
(for a better copy of this
go to this site:
http://www.sasked.gov.sk.ca/docs/ela/e_literacy/language.html
The language experience approach
supports children's concept development and
vocabulary growth while
offering many opportunities for meaningful reading and
writing activities. Another
benefit of the language experience approach is the
development of shared experiences
that extend children's knowledge of the world
around them while building
a sense of classroom community. Students are
involved in planning, experiencing,
responding to, and recording the experience
and later, in participating
in "remember when we …?" conversations.
Objectives
The activities described
on the following pages are intended particularly to
support development of the
following English language arts objectives.
Students will demonstrate emerging:
awareness that print conveys meaning
awareness that everyone's
thoughts and ideas can be expressed in spoken
and written language
ability to gather meaning
from reading or listening to others read resources that
relate to personal experiences
ability to make meaning known by speaking in informal situations
ability to use listening to understand the meaning and intent of others
ability to report factual
information using various formats including pictures, charts,
and written reports
ability to tell and retell personal experiences
ability to dictate stories, sentences, and phrases for others to transcribe.
Materials
Materials used will depend
to some extent upon the nature of the chosen
experience. Those materials
common across most experiences include:
books, poems, songs, and/or
chants related to the focus
chart paper and felt markers
materials for writing and
bookmaking
cameras and film for taking
pictures of the experience for use in developing
memory books and memory
walls.
Procedures
The general procedure for
the language experience approach involves the whole
class or a small group in:
experiencing
discussing the experience
recording the experience
using the record of the
experience for reading and writing activities.
Choose a focus. A wide range
of possibilities exists for the creation of language
experience records. These
include:
cooking (recording the recipe),
special feasts, and other food experiences
(describing the feast)
growing vegetables or flowers
in the classroom (making a "How To Grow
Vegetables/Flowers" chart)
planning a field trip, talking
and writing about it both before and afterward (making
lists of things to bring,
rules to follow; drawing and labeling a map of where you
went; describing the experience)
making various kinds of
"how to" charts describing experiments the class has
done or things they have
made
making a record of a cultural
event such as a Pow-Wow or of the visit of a special
guest
summarizing a favourite
story that children have heard, viewed, or dramatized
several times.
Demonstrate print concepts
as you record the experience. Initially in language
experience, it is the teacher
or another adult who does the recording. This is
because the approach is
intended to demonstrate to children the match between
what they say and its written
form, and to develop other print concepts. The
teacher would draw attention
to these aspects of print while writing on chart paper
positioned so as to be visible
to all the children.
Record children's own language.
The most important aspect of recording is to use
children's own words, keeping
the match between what they say and what you
write. Use children's names
as much as possible because their own name is one
of the first words children
learn to recognize. As well, this practice helps to
maintain children's connections
to the experience in subsequent reading.
Vary the type of record that
you create. The written product of your experience
might be made into a Big
Book, a bulletin board, or an illustrated chart. Other
ideas for creating a lasting
record of the experience include the following:
Create a class album through
using your classroom camera to capture an
experience. Children can
dictate captions for each photograph and you can
discuss concepts of print
as you record what they dictate.
Have children work in pairs
to draw a picture of their favorite part of the
experience and then dictate
the accompanying text for the teacher to write on a
sentence strip. These pictures
and sentence strips can then be used in a
sequencing activity ("What
did we do first? next? etc.") and made into a bulletin
board or Big Book to be
used for Shared Reading.
How TO:
1. Provide an experience (must be concrete, not vicarious)
2. Students dictate a retelling
of the experience to you and you write it down
verbatim on a chart or on
the board. If you write it on the board you will need to
transcribe it onto a notebook
and so you can take the story home with you. Have
students read the story
back to you, do choral readings of the story, ask for
volunteers to read the story
... repetition and re-readings are a very important
aspect of an LEA.
3. Take the story home with
you and look for areas of need ... subject verb
agreement, punctuation,
run-on sentences, sequence, tense, etc.
Don't try to plan a mini-lesson
for every problem. Isolate the problem that you
consider in "most need"
and then make notes that some instruction should follow
on some of the other areas
of need at another time.
4. Plan a mini-lesson using
the chart for the next day ... teach the mini-lesson and
then have students tell
you how to modify the original chart/story so that it is now
correct.
Rewrite the chart incorporating
all the changes that need to be made to make the
chart correct. Read it over
and over and over ....
Literature
Based Reading Instruction
LITERATURE-BASED
APPROACHES
Using literature in this
way is congruent with a whole language philosophy,
although some whole language
advocates regard some literature-based
approaches to reading instruction
as too structured.
Types of literature useful for literature-based instruction:
1) wordless picture books
2) patterned books
3) read alouds
4) retelling stories
5) written reactions to
books
6) conversations about books
A literature-based approach
places emphasis on connecting the stories to the
children’s personal
background knowledge, analyzing stories and selections for
particular elements, and
monitoring students’ understanding o the reading
materials.
Essential reading skills
and strategies can be taught within the context of material
the children are actively
involved in reading.
trade books – books not written for instructional purposes.
In a literature-based approach
to reading instruction there are clear instructional
plans, clear goals, and
expectations for students. NOT STUFF AND FLUFF.
4 approaches for using literature-based reading instruction:
· whole-class
reading of a core book
· literature
circles with multiple copies of several books
· thematic
literature units
· individualized
reading instruction
SSR - Silent Sustained Reading
may be a component of literature-based
instruction.
Whole-Class Reading of a Core Book
1. every student has a personal
copy
2. must be a piece of quality
childrenÂ’s literature
3. teacher must personally
like the book and communicate that to students
4. the book must have something
significant to say
· prereading
activities
i. minilessons on a literary
element
ii. purposes
5. reading the book
· teacher may
read a selection first
· book may
be read in installments by students
· silent reading
· readers’
theater
· small group
or whole group discussions
6. write reactions to the
reading (293)
· literature
logs
o teacher or buddy
NOTE: Teacher’s comments
should be encouraging, thought provoking and
nonjudgemental.
- student should be encouraged
to link reading materials with personal
experiences.
7. follow-up activities
o writing
o retelling
o illustrating
o story maps
o drama
Literature Circles
The teacher chooses several books for which multiple copies are available.
o introduce each book
o allow students to choose
which book they want to read
o students hold discussions
about the books in groups
o students respond in literature
response logs
o students make decisions
about ways to share the experience of the book
Thematic Literature Units
Thematic literature units
center around themes, based on topics such as homes,
families, survival, taking
care of our earth, wild animals, pets, specific geographic
regions, or specific groups
of people; genres, such as biography, science fiction,
or folktales; or authors,
such as Cynthia Voigt, Judith Viorst, or Maurice Sendak.
Thematic units allow students
to delve more deeply into ideas and thus develop
deeper understandings and
see connections between ideas.
A theme offers a focus for
instruction and activities, making it easier for students
to see the reason for classroom
activities, acquire an integrated knowledge base,
achieve depth and breadth
of learning, and connect with real audiences.
Perhaps the biggest advantage
of thematic teaching is the promotion of
POSITIVE ATTITUDES TOWARD
READING AND WRITING.
Your Teacher-Work-Sample-Literature-Based-Unit-Five-Day-Sequence
can be
one one of the methods of
teaching reading.