Checking for Understanding

 

Teachers ask the following types of prompts to check for understanding.  A teacher might join a triad or triangle knees group during Guided Reading the Four Blocks Way or a Shared Reading lesson and ask a specific prompt for setting purpose. 

-Who can read the part that tells us where this story takes place?

-Ask a student to “read the part where —– ” to a buddy or to their triad (triangle knees) partners.

E.R.T…find out or figure out

I believe in setting purpose for reading (and all lessons).  Reading for a purpose is necessary in classrooms and during at home reading.  Children are motivated to read carefully to figure out the answer in order to participate in the class discussion.  By setting purpose, students are experiencing gentle, relentless pressure to reread for the answer and to read carefully.  Students are asked to read materials chosen by the teacher.  By asking students to turn and talk to each other for the set purpose, it helps to have the students refer to the text when proving their answers to their friends.  Setting purpose motivates and engages students.

Two authors help to assure that students read for a set purpose. 

 Pat Cunningham writes about E.R.T. (Everyone Read To…find out or figure out) in her book, Guided Reading the 4 Blocks Way.     

Connie Hebert  author of ,Catch a Falling Reader,   made a list of setting purpose prompts that I use frequently.