Danny and the Dinosaur

                       Comprehension

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 DEVELOPING COMPREHENSION:

    Developing comprehension skills can be facilitated through diverse activities.

     * During shared reading - oral questions to guide thinking, self-talk, picture walks through the book, and strategies to develop context clues.

     *  Pocket Chart Sequencing - write the sequence of the chapter/story on sentence strips.  Place sentence strips out of order in the pocket chart.  Read the sentences with the group.  Have students decide how the sentences should be arranged in order, beginning to end.  This can also be made on overhead sheets copied from the printer.  Cut the sequence sentences and place on the overhead projector for the students to arrange.

     *  Sequence Necklaces - Cut a piece of construction paper into thirds.  Students draw/write an event from the beginning on one paper; the middle event on another paper; the end on the last paper.  Make a cover for the necklace papers the same size.  Punch a hole in the top.  Put yarn through the hole and tie.

    *  Standardized Test Practice - Students need diverse opportunities to practice for the Stanford -9 or other form of standardized testing.  The following is an example of a test for Danny and the Dinosaur using this format.

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                  DANNY AND THE DINOSAUR - TEST 2

                                 p. 30-47

1.  The dinosaur could not eat the grass because:

       0   the sign said, "keep off"

       0   his mom said, "no".

       0   he did not like to eat grass.

2.  Danny and the dinosaur ate ice cream.

       0   true

       0   false

3.  Danny and the dinosaur went to see animals at the

       0   museum

       0   zoo

       0   fair

4.  The people came ______ to see the dinosaur

       0   walking

       0   hopping

       0   running

 5.  Why did the zoo man tell Danny and the dinosaur to leave?

       0  they made a mess with the food

       0   nobody was looking at the animals

       0   the dinosaur was too big to be in the zoo.

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                     Encourage Rereading - Cloze

    To encourage reading, copy sentences from the story, chapter, poem.  Leave out target words (vocabulary, spelling, contractions, etc) that you want students to focus on during the lesson.  Students reread the selection, looking for the missing words.  This procedure gives students a purpose for rereading a selection.

        Copy the selection using a copy machine.  Give the students highlighter pens.  Have them work alone or with a partner to find certain words in the selection.  Examples may include:

            *  Find all of the words that have /ow/

            *  Find all of the word family words (at, ill, etc)

            *  Find all of the contractions.

            *  Find all of the nouns, verbs, etc.

            *  Find words that begin with ( target sound), end with (target sound), etc.

            *  Find all of the words that have two syllables.

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