CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.4

Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.

Strategy: Identifying Similarities and Differences (Bridges)

Detailed Description: Students identify different words and phrases within a text. They compare and contrast the meanings of these words and phrases. It helps students to broaden their vocabularies and to analyze how language conveys and shapes the-the meaning of a text.

Practical Application:  In pairs, students create analogies using different adjectives (words or phrases used to describe) within a text. They select certain adjectives from a list (that includes words and phrases that were likely unfamiliar to the students before the lesson) and relate them to other descriptive phrases with which they are already familiar. They create two analogies, one which compares adjectives which are similar and one which compares adjectives which are opposites.

TRAP: Identifying similarities and differences is a strategy from the book Classroom Instruction that Works: Research-based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement. It was published in 2001 and written by Robert Marzano, Debra J. Pickering, and Jane E. Pollock. The book is designed specifically for busy educators that desire to apply education research within the classroom. The authors examined decades of research findings to distil the results into nine broad teaching strategies that have positive effects on student learning.

Marzano, R., Pickering, D., and Pollock, J. (2001.) Classroom Instruction that Works: Research-based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement. Alexandria, VA: McREL.

Strategy: K.I.M. Vocabulary Strategy (Freeman)

Detailed Description: K.I.M is an acronym which stands for the keyword, important information, and memory or mnemonic device. In the K section, students will record words to be learned, in the I section students will keep records about what students have learned about the keyword in their own words, and in the M section students will memorize or create a mnemonic device to help them learn the key terms

Practical Application: This can be used throughout the course of a text. At the beginning, students can write down any words that stick out to them, or words that the teacher  says they need to know. Then as they’re reading the text, they can write down the context that the words in placed in and its definition. Afterward, the students can create their own way to remember what the words mean.

Also, before reading a chapter, the students can skim through it and see if there is any vocabulary, headings, and pictures that stick out. Then they can talk about what they might expect from the chapter, and make a KWL chart.

TRAP: The strategy is relevant because by giving an insight to the chapter before it starts, the students can prepare for what’s to come and can set goals for themselves. The students can also have questions that they would like to have answered from the chapter. The audience is teachers who are looking for new, effective strategies to incorporate into their literacy time at school. The purpose of the strategy is to improve their understanding of a topic by allowing them to see it once before they read the chapter in more detail. 
Common core teaching and learning strategies (2012, May 1). Retrieved February 22, 2015, from http://www.isbe.net/common_core/pdf/ela-teach-strat-read-