Into the Book

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Into the Book

Written by Bob Sprankle

Monday, 16 March 2009 10:40

There are sites that we love and then there are sites, that once discovered, we can no longer live without. "Into the Book" is one such site.

Developed by the Wisconsin Educational Communications Board with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction and experienced educators, "Into the Book" centers on the eight research-based strategies for reading comprehension: Using Prior Knowledge, Making Connections, Questioning, Visualizing, Inferring, Summarizing, Evaluating, and Synthesizing. The site directs the user into two different areas: one for students, one for teachers. Let's start with the student side.

One great feature you'll notice right away is that students can save their work within the site. No email or registration is needed. Students simply enter their name (or a name of their choice) and they are given a "key": their entered name with a string of numbers after it. Students (or teachers) need to write this down so that any work saved can be accessed later, or they can simply create a new key each time they enter the site if there's no desire to save past work. By saving, student work can be printed at a later time for assessment or portfolio sharing. Once the student enters, he/she is presented with a closed book and animated representations of all eight strategies around the book. The student "drags" one of the strategies into the closed book. The book opens and the instruction begins. Each strategy is explained in text and audio immediately and a short tutorial is shown for how to operate the strategy within the site. Students are then able to jump right in to use the strategy or watch a video of a teacher using the strategy in a classroom. This video is staged and not from a real classroom, but has a genuine feel to how the lesson would play out (I'm convinced the teacher is really a teacher, however, and I'll bet those kids are really students!).

When students carry out the strategies themselves, they can usually choose from different pieces of text to work with (great for repeating each lesson at multiple sittings). Again, all directions and text from the story is accompanied by an audio version, but students have the option to ignore this feature and read the text on their own.

Each strategy has places where the story pauses and the student carries out the task for that particular strategy. So, for instance, in the strategy of Questioning, at each break in the story, the student types in a question he/she has about the text. In the next section, the student clicks on a part of the story that answers that question (if it has in fact been answered) and types in a new question. Each phase of the task feels much like a video game. In this particular strategy (Questioning), for instance, the student is given a key to open the next part of the story at each level.

Students can view a great wrap up to all the lessons by dragging the "Using the Strategies Together" tool into the book. There they see a demonstration of how all the strategies can be used on one piece of text.

The Student Interactive side of "Into the Book" is only part of all that the site has to offer. In the teachers' section, there are plenty more videos for each strategy (geared toward professional development and for using with students), lessons connected with the videos and the strategies, plenty of downloads (songs, posters, and bookmarks explaining the strategies), a section with the National and Wisconsin Standards that are covered by "In the Book," a discussion forum, an interactive (360 degree) classroom to help you design your own classroom (complete with downloadable instructions on how to build certain features), and even a Teacher's Notebook you can use to take notes or make reflections in. Teachers can order a DVD of longer versions of the videos (both for professional development and for student use) as well as posters and bulletin board strips illustrating the strategies.

Two books that I'd highly recommend (that can be found in the Bibliography at "Into the Book") are Strategies That Work: Teaching Comprehension To Enhance Understanding and Mosaic of Thought: Teaching Comprehension in a Reader's Workshop. A great site to find more amazing resources for teaching reading comprehension that connects to the above mentioned books is ReadingLady.com. Along with "Into the Book," you've got plenty to help your readers improve their comprehension, and plenty of links that you can no longer live without.

Bob Sprankle has been a multi-age teacher in Wells, ME for 10 years and has served as the school's Technology Integrator for the past two years.