Clarifying- I Can Read Clearly Now!
Have you ever found yourself watching a movie and you look away for a second then something crazy happens that makes no sense?! You stop and rewind or ask someone you are watching with “WHAT IS GOING ON!?” I feel like this happened to me all the time during The Bachelor because the drama would change in an instant and if you blinked you missed what was going on. Anyway, we stop and clarify what is going on because we want to make sure that we understanding correctly! Clarifying is a reading and life strategy that is really important for kids to learn to use.
Clarifying is a really difficult skill to teach students because we cannot tell when they are confused or misunderstanding parts of a text. Readers need to consistently monitor their understanding. So many of my students have misunderstood the meaning of just one word and then their perception of the story just doesn’t quite make sense. The best way to teach students to clarify while they read is to model it for them and to prompt them to reflect on their thinking very often while reading. I do this during my shared reading time.
Clarissa The Clarifier
I teach clarifying with my friend Clarissa The Clarifier! She is a queen and wants everything to be perfect, proper, not one thought out of place! So if she doesn’t understand even the smallest thing, she stops to clarify it! I use this concrete example as part of how I model clarifying for my students. I also find that showing students that Clarissa and I do not understand things while we read in addition to CELEBRATING when students find something they need to clarify then they are more empowered to share and recognize when they do not understand. However, there are some other engaging aspects too…
What is the Comprehension Crew?
Comprehension Crew is a group of characters each representing an essential reading skill. Each character has a profession, song, gesture, and prop that provide a concrete representation of the reading skill. These characters are used to model and reinforce each skill both in life and in text. The character helps students to understand, remember, and intentionally apply skills as they are reading.
to help YOU become Clarissa The Clarifier too!
Do you like my Clarissa The Clarifier outfit? My fancy pearls make me a queen! haha! See those cool glasses I am wearing? Students get to hold them up to their face to help them “see clearly” as they clarify something. After Clarissa has given direct instruction on the strategy, we read together during shared reading. I model monitoring my understanding and clarifying while I read. Then students use the sentence frame and hold the glasses to clarify anything and everything while we read! This picture was so early into me teaching this strategy that I hand wrote the sentence frame in the speech bubble!
Read more about how I structure my shared reading time here!
Aspects of Text to Clarify While Reading
Examples:
- meaning of a word
- decoding of a word
- an event
- the motivation behind an action
- a character’s background
What needs to be clarified can vary so greatly depending on the text and the student.
BUT HOW DO WE CLARIFY?!
Clarifying is a multi step skill! So you monitored your understanding and realize that you need to clarify something… but HOW! Well Clarissa teaches you that too!
The word /sound strategies are HUGE in the primary grades. In my second grade class I had many students who were so focused on decoding each word on a page that they did not put the words together to comprehend what they had just read. Empowering kids with those strategies and showing that everyone needs them no matter what book we are reading, I found takes off some of that pressure. Practicing with Clarissa also helps them to reflect at the end of the page if they just understood what they read, and if not they know what to do about it!
Modeling clarifying and teaching the strategies works really well in shared reading with the Comprehension Crew instructional strategy. Then in guided reading groups I really zoomed in on what exactly each level of reader needs to work on clarifying when they read on their instructional level.
Practice With Pictures
In my Clarissa The Clarifier resource pack, there are task cards for students to practice clarifying. There are photograph task cards and short paragraphs on cards to practice clarifying. The photographs were thoughtfully chosen to encourage students to have questions and misunderstandings to clarify! It is important for students to practice clarifying on a small scale to gain understanding and confidence in the skill. Often an entire text can be overwhelming, especially for younger students! Differentiated passages on worksheets with scaffolded graphic organizers and questions are also included to help your students break down clarifying their understanding!
Mentor Texts for Clarifying
