STRATEGY BOOKS: Stephanie and Anne have organized the 22 strategy lessons in The Primary Comprehension Toolkit into six strategy books.
1. Monitor Comprehension encourages students to think about their thinking as they respond to the words, pictures, and ideas in a text.
2. Activate & Connect teaches young readers how to build knowledge and understanding by connecting the new to the known.
3. Ask Questions shows children how to use questions to deepen thinking and discover new information.
4. Infer & Visualize prompts young readers to create pictures in their minds and use clues in the text to construct meaning.
5. Determine Importance helps children identify, organize, and share the important ideas and details in a text.
6. Summarize & Synthesize guides readers to see the bigger picture, pull together their thinking, and learn about the world.
INFORMATIONAL TEXT: The short, engaging, real-world informational texts Anne and Stephanie have chosen for the Primary Toolkit provide effective contexts for exploring comprehension strategies.
The Lesson Text Poster Pack, 6 posters from popular children’s magazines and an issue of National Geographic Young Explorer, provide high-quality opportunities to engage with nonfiction texts from multiple access points.
The Source Book of Short Text provides two kinds of nonfiction text: Lesson Text, the exemplar text from the lessons (48 pages); and Additional Text, 88 pages of age-appropriate nonfiction texts specially written for the Primary Toolkit.
BUILT-IN PROFESSIONAL SUPPORT: A series of resources introduce, support, and extend the Primary Toolkit’s core lessons.
The Teacher’s Guide outlines the thinking behind the Primary Toolkit and describes its components, instructional design, and authentic assessment.
The Resources for The Primary Comprehension Toolkit DVD-ROM includes live-from-the classroom video footage of the authors teaching lessons; a photographic overview of an Active Literacy Classroom; and downloadable research articles, think sheets, and full-color lesson text.
