Following our spring reading assessments, Whiteside teachers and staff identified a need to be more explicit in their teaching practices towards reading comprehension strategies.

As such, we started our 2024-2025 year by focusing our professional learning on reading comprehension strategies.

First, we created a shared collection of reading comprehension strategies to ensure that each classroom used the same language and strategies. Our most important strategies are:

• Connecting: This means relating what you're reading to your own life, other things you've read, or the world around you. It helps you understand the text better and makes it more meaningful.
• Inferencing: Like a detective, you use clues in the text and what you already know to figure out things that aren't directly stated. This helps you "read between the lines" and understand the deeper meaning.
• Predicting: You make educated guesses about what will happen next in the story. This keeps you engaged and helps you anticipate what's coming.
• Visualizing: You create a picture in your mind of what you're reading. This helps you understand and remember the story better.
• Questioning: You ask yourself questions about the text. This helps you stay focused, identify important information, and deepen your understanding.
• Comparing: You find similarities and differences between characters, events, or ideas in the text. This helps you analyze and make connections.
• Drawing conclusions: You put together all the information you've gathered to form your own understanding of the text and its message.
• Applying: You use what you've learned from the text in a new situation, like solving a problem or understanding a real-life event.

Although the lessons and language may change, we believe that every child at Whiteside should be able to share their reading in each of these areas.

To develop literacy programs that focus on reading comprehension strategies, we will:

• Engage in ongoing professional learning as a staff
• Build consistency among grade levels by collaborating
• Access collaboration support from our district literacy specialists
• Connect with local resources to provide to our students
• Continually assess student learning and refine our instruction to meet their needs.

We look forward to sharing our community’s growth throughout the school year.