Inspiration

When we teach a child to draw, 
we teach him how to see.
When we teach a child to play a musical instrument, 
we teach her how to listen. 
When we teach a child how to dance,
We teach him how to move through life with grace. 
When we teach a child how to read or write,
We teach her how to think
When we nurture imagination, 
we create a better word, one child at a time. 
-Jane Alexander (as cited in Cornett, 1998, p.79)


Cornett, C.E. (1998).The arts as meaning makers: Integrating liturature and the arts
    throughout the curriculum. Upper Saddle River, NJ. Prentice-Hall.

How to Look for Evidence of Growth in Comprehension

Why are 'the arts' such a good place to help develop reading comprehension skills?
Many strategies initiated by an arts integrated program help to promote reading comprehension.

Lets take a look at what kind of evidence to look for from children's responses that would indicate that this deeper level of learning is indeed occurring.

Strategies

Develop sensory images:
*make pictures in mind
*use multiple senses
*include an emotional component
*adds detail through imagery
*develops a mental model to organize meaning

Building and Activating Schema
*Makes text-to-self connections
*Makes text-to-text connections
*Makes text-to-world connections
*Uses connections to build meaning

Questioning
*Asks yes or no questions
*Asks higher level questions
*Asks questions to clarify author's intent
*Uses questioning to evolve in his or her thinking

Determining Importance
*Distinguishes between details and essential ideas
*Recognizes important themes

Inferring
*Communicates emotional content of text
*Has insight into the characters and events of story
*Makes predictions passed on inferences of text
*Creates a personal interpretation
*Discovers author's  implied messages

Synthesis
*Creates a summary of the text
*Discovers commonalities in texts
*Generates new meaning based on author's ideas and own personal interpretations

Mantione, R. Weaving through words: using the arts to teacher reading comprehension strategies.
     2003. International Reading Association. Newark, De.

WELCOME

Welcome to our blogspot. The core standards are coming. Be ahead of the curve and start to integrate the arts into your lessons and you will find that you will be meeting the requirements of the new common core standards. http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cc/

Look over our lesson plans we have put together for you. There are lots of easy ideas you can start using today. So, what are you waiting for???