In this course national trainer Mary Beth Allen and other experienced primary-grade educators use research-based, classroom-proven strategies and activities to strengthen young students' reading comprehension. Teachers explain, model, and actively engage diverse groups of students with questions and prompts during read-aloud, shared reading, and guided reading lessons.
Making connections, summarizing, and generating questions are three foundational skills that effectively boost primary-age students' overall reading comprehension. In this course you'll see teachers using a wide variety of effective strategies to teach those key skills and move children towards using them independently.
You will learn how to:
- effectively use daily read-aloud to model and teach components of reading comprehension
- maximize primary students' connections with text to deepen their understanding of key story elements
- broaden students’ text connections beyond their own life experiences
- teach students a variety of highly practical strategies and structures for summarizing text
- help students apply meaning-making comprehension strategies in both fiction and nonfiction text
- engage students in developing questions before, during, and after reading to increase their comprehension of the text, their interest in the content, and their motivation for further reading
- actively involve all your students – not just the most verbal – in thinking more deeply about text
- make optimal use of guided reading lessons to boost children’s comprehension
- scaffold young students’ interactions with text to promote effective use of a variety of comprehension strategies
Watch an excerpt from this course:
"Thank you! Great course and an awesome resource to refer back to throughout the year. Many helpful strategies to engage readers and deepen their understanding."
– M. Robbins
"This is my first BER on-line course, so I was not sure how relevant the material would be. I was pleased with the practical suggestions that I can put to use right away. I would recommend the course to my co-workers."
– L. Marshall
"I loved seeing teachers in action! I'll definitely be taking another course very soon! Thank you for going with this format!"
– R. Wettstein
"Watching the lessons in action is always helpful. I enjoyed learning more about the questioning strategies and keeping students engaged."
– C. O'Connor
"I was very hesitant to do an online course but after completing this one, I am sold! I especially liked the on demand aspect as well as backtracking the video so I can review over and over again. I also benefitted from watching actual teachers teach the students."
– M. Afzal
"I thought that the course was extremely well orgranized and helpful. The videos were interesting and engaging."
– H. Grimbol
