Stop! Notice & Note

Over the summer, I attended a Common Core conference with Understanding by Design guru, Grant Wiggins. (He is reallllllly smart! I wish I could have a conversation with him one-on-one and pick his brain!) One of the sessions I attended was about how to get students better at close reading and the speaker mentioned a book by Kylene Beers and Robert Probst, Notice & Note. The book was ordered and waiting on the shelf to be read! Seriously, it was probably fifth on my to-read list this summer and I finally got to it a few weeks ago. I wish I had read it sooner because I am gobbling up these signposts!

Before introducing these signposts, we started studying the theory of a character to help start us off in the right direction.

Here are the signposts that I made to hang around the classroom for students to see and use throughout the year!

We have been using these signposts in our read alouds and it is really causing us to think in a more meaningful way! Students' responses are really helping us make better predictions and inferences, and we are learning to comprehend in a deeper way than before!

Do you use these signposts in your classroom? Parents, have you seen a difference in the way that our students are connecting with a book?