Paving the Way
in
Reviewed by Joy Wells
When do 3 F’s spell success for struggling students? When
you use one of Larry Lewin’s reading strategies he calls the Folded
File Folder
to solidify and track reading comprehension.
Since Larry is a fellow OWP student, I’ll refer to him by his
first
name. Larry explains his unique
strategies such as FFF in a practical and inspiring way, including his
experiences with students, and the subtle statements he finds make a
crucial
difference such as “jot down newly learned information,” instead of
“take
reading notes.” He conveys the wisdom of a master teacher along with
his
literacy approach: a two sided coin where writing is the composing of
your
thoughts, and reading is the comprehending of another’s thoughts.
Larry has a knack for mnemonic devices. Having discovered the power of the writing process, a writing movement that became prominent in the 70’s, Larry has developed a parallel process for reading: prepare – first dare – repair – share. He asks the question what do good readers do, and outlines various reading standards models, which are variations on the process he has named in an easy to remember sequence.
I appreciate the little gems that Larry emphasizes as he’s explaining a strategy. The little gems are the statements he uses to build student confidence such as “it takes two to tango” as he explains that some writers are considerate of their readers and some aren’t so considerate. This may come as a surprise to some students, and a relief. Questioning the usefulness and accessibility of a piece of writing opens the door to critical thinking and Larry includes a simple 8 question survey that he uses to engage students in such a discussion.
If you didn’t know better you might think Larry was a sales rep for 3M the maker of Post-it notes. He has a large number of strategies that involve sticky notes to engage students in learning. One of my favorite strategies presented in the book is SnapShots. Students are given 6- 3”x3 sticky notes on a piece of paper. Here is an excerpt from the book:
"Good
readers take pictures while they
read...they can picture in their mind's eye what is happening. You take mental SnapShots. This reading
tracking device assisted Aaron, a student in Marsha Ruh's class at
Glide Middle
School, as he read the assigned story, "The Proud Princess." He pauses periodically from his reading to
make a quick sketch of an important scene.
Beneath each SnapShot he quickly jots a caption to support his
drawing. ...pausing to think about reading
comprehension aids metacognition, thinking about what you are thinking
about." (p. 76)
This is not just another book of neat ideas – although the book is full of practical and immediately useful approaches. Larry provides a solid assessment approach with each of the strategies presented. The book has numerous “CheckBrics” Larry’s word for his cross between a checklist for students and a rubric for teachers evaluation purposes. I especially appreciate the assessment piece being fully fleshed out, since so many teaching strategy books leave it to you to figure out how to assess.
I recommend Larry’s website:
www.larrylewin.com
where you
can get a feeling for the scope of his work.
Also, he gives many helpful links there, and in the back of his
book. This is a book you want to have on
your desk and refer to often.
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