Chapter 6 Monitoring Comprehension

We used Read, Write, and Talk during our Estimation unit. I asked the students to read an article where the teacher told her students to take out a piece of paper and a pencil for a pop quiz. The article asked the students questions like, how many stars are in the sky? how many grains of sand are on a beach? It talks about how the kids get frustrated because the numbers were too hard to work with and that there was no way to find those answers. Then the article tells them there is a way to get around these problems, and introduces estimation. After reading the article I asked my students to write down what they remember about estimation and had them brainstorm with their partner ways they could solve problems like the ones in the article. I had the students write down their reactions to the "pretend" pop quiz in the article and had them talk with their partner about what they were thinking as they read the article. I asked my students to answer three questions on the back of their estimation paper. I asked them to write down something they learned, if it helped to talk it through with a partner and if they had anymore questions. I think this way of monitoring comprehension helped the student become more involved in their reading and understand the concept of estimation better.