1. Ignite Your Passion for Literacy
Building Vocabulary and Enhancing
Comprehension with Children’s Books ©
Marcia Collins, M. Ed.
Literacy Coach/Reading Specialist
Dorris Jones Elementary school
Rockwall, Texas

2. Igniting the Flame for
Literacy
• Objective: Reading a wide range of
children’s books coupled with a few
interactive activities will enhance the
student’s vocabulary and increase
comprehension.

3. “Sketch to Stretch”
• Purpose: This strategy helps students represent
the most important picture that plays in their
mind when they read a selection.
• Student Benefits:
• Varied meanings seen from different perspectives
• Share and discuss their drawing
• Subject: Literacy
• Book: Fiction Amber on the Mountain by Tony Johnston
• Grades: K-6th

4. “It Says I Say and So”
• It Says --- I Say --- And So
• Adapted from Kylene Beers
• Skill: Inferencing
Questions
• Read the question.
• It Says
• 2. Find information from the text that will help you answer the
question.
• I Say
• 3. Think about what you know about that information.
• And So
• 4. Combine what the text says with what you know to come up
with the answer.
» Subject: Social Studies
» Book: More than Anything Else by Marie Bradby
» Grades Third-Sixth

5. “Capture My Thoughts”
• Focus: Comprehension, and Self Monitoring
• Using small sticky notes, students write sentence
starters…………………………………………………..
• I’m thinking……………………………………………..
• This reminds me of…………………………………
• My friends might…………………………………….
• I wonder if………………………………………………..
• Why would…………………………………………………
• Source: Region 10
• Subject: Writing
• Book: Amelia Notebook
• Grades: Prekinder-4th

6. Rethinking Misconceptions: New
Information Changes Thinking
• Purpose: Linking what we know to what we learn
• Resources: Health
• Hidden Worlds Looking Through a Scientists Microscope by
Stephen Kramer 5th-6th
• Math
• A Pair of Socks by Stuart J. Murphy
• PreKinder-Kindergarten
• Coyotes All-Around by Stuart J. Murphy
• 2nd-3rd
• Poetry
• Science
• Comets, Stars, the Moon, and Mars: Space Poems and Paintings by
Doug Florian
– Strategies That Work: Stephanie Harvey 3rd edition
– Activity “Schema Folder”

7. Look In, Look Around,
Look Back
• Focus: Using various tools to learn unfamiliar words and their
meanings
• Finding Context Clues to Crack Open Vocabulary
• Tools for decoding unfamiliar words using hand motions and chant
• “What can you try when you come to an unfamiliar word”?
• “Look in”
• “Look around”
• “Look back”
• Source: Region 10 Educational Center
• Grades 3rd-6th
• Book: Fly High: The Story of Bessie Coleman, by Louise Borden and Mary
Kay Kroeger

8. “Pickles”
Focus: Using context clues to determine word meaning
Process: Read aloud book for a small group or whole group,
• Select one word
• Cover with a green post-it note/cover up EVERY time it appears in the
selection
• Choose a word that is important to the text, but not a new concept or
vocabulary for students.
• Say the word “pickles” each time the covered-up word is encountered in
the book.
• Stop and Discuss how students gather clues about the mystery word
• Transfer this learning to later independent reading and remind students
they can use the information around an unknown word to determine the
meaning of the word.
• Source: Region 10 Educational Center
• Subject: Social Studies
• Book: Tight Times encore
• Grade: 4th, 5th, 6th

9. “Throw Away Your
Troubles”
• Focus: Generating discussion, easing concern about reading,
gaining insight into students’ perceptions
• Students will write the word “trouble” they encounter while
reading a text on piece of paper-solving unknown word,
understanding what they read, reading rate, etc. When finished
wad the paper up and “throw away their troubles” in the trash.
• Student Benefits:
• Discussions with peers/literacy centers are all meant to provide
the information all “good readers” need to use to read and
comprehend print.
• Teacher Benefits: Gain Insight into students’ thinking about
reading for upcoming mini-lessons.
• Resource: Region 10
• Subject: All subjects adapted to any grade level

10. Marcia Collins, M.Ed.
Texas Literacy Coach
lakecollins@tx.rr.com
469-855-0338 cell
We are all advocates of reading...…these are
suggested children’s books and strategies that
will help our students build their vocabulary
and enhance their comprehension.
Kelly Gallagher wrote in his book Readicide
(2009), “Our students should be reading
through many windows, not just a single, narrow
window that gives them a view of the next
exam”.