The Inner Conversation reflection

The week leading up to our state fair field trip, we talked about main idea and supporting details during reading. This proved to be an excellent opportunity to use the monitoring comprehension strategy, the inner conversation, from the book "Strategies That Work."

Last Friday, our reading article was on the topic of crazy fair food. The students performed a rally robin with their shoulder partner and brainstormed different fair foods that they had eaten or heard of. After engaging the students in the topic, I handed out our article. After reading the first section of the article to the students, I asked them what they heard so far in the article that might give them a clue as to the article's main idea. From the ideas that sprung from the conversation, I modeled making connections in my own life to what we read in the article and modeled thinking aloud.

For the rest of the article, I had the students silent read and highlight parts of the article that they thought would support the article's main idea. Additionally, the students wrote any questions or confusing parts in the margins of their paper. I instructed that it is helpful to write down your thoughts when you read something to help understand it better and to go back and clarify things later on.