Program Synopsis
As the school year draws to a close, Mrs. Pingel's students demonstrate their expertise with learning comprehension strategies during small group book discussions. Persuaded that they are now strategic readers, Mrs. Pingel herself leads the whole class into her own version of Hansel and Gretel for a surprise finale to the series. The students demonstrate their proficiency with the strategies by rescuing a theatre performance from disaster.

Featured text:
Hansel and Gretel (any version)

Other texts mentioned:
I'm not Scared, by Stuart Stotts. Madison, WI: Tomorrow River, 1992. (sound recording)

Sacagawea: Girl of the Shining Mountains, by Peter and Connie Roop. New York: Hyperion, 2003

Teaching Suggestions:

• Think about how you want to use this program. How does it fit into your teaching plan?
  1. Use it to focus on the idea of using learning strategies across the curriculum and outside of the classroom.
  2. Use it to help students identify and internalize the use of multiple strategies as a means of understanding and communicating their understanding of text.
  3. Use it as an enjoyable finale to the series, and a discussion starter as to what it means to go "into the book".

Before viewing:

• Ask students to predict what they think might happen in the last program.
• Ask students to watch for something specific in the program, for example:
  1. What makes the students' book discussions interesting?
  2. Watch the special effects and see if you can explain how students are using a strategy each time you see the strategy icon.

During viewing:

• Pause the video during teachable moments. For example:
  1. After the book discussion about I'm not Scared or Sacagawea:
     Ask your students to comment on the discussion. What tools do these students use to make their book discussions interesting? Could they use these tools in their own discussions?
  2. After a student uses two or more strategies in conjunction:
     See if students can identify how the strategies work together, such as:
     • Lizzy using visualizing and inferring to infer how kids feel about touching eyeballs.
     • Emmet and Conlin using visualizing to evaluate the language in Sacajawea
     • Malaika using prior knowledge and visualizing to understand the passage about stabbing the water
     • Conlin using visualizing to make an inference about how the men felt around the fire
  3. You may wish to show this program completely through once without pausing. Then show it again, asking students raise their hand when Mrs. Pingel's students use a strategy in the fantasy — pause each time an icon appears and have students explain how that strategy was useful.

After viewing:

• Discuss students' thoughts on focus questions you asked before watching the video
• Model the use of strategies regularly during your read-aloud time. Use think-alouds to point out how you:
  • choose a strategy that is likely to help you in a given situation, such as visualizing in a science text or going back to look for clues to infer a character's motives; or
  • sometime use strategies together, such as visualizing to help you infer or making a connection that results in a synthesis.
• Prompt students to use strategies as needed to help them understand during individual conferencing.
• Organize your students into book groups and encourage them to use the discussions from the video as a model.
• Have students do the Strategies Together activity in the student area of the Web site.
• Try some of the lesson plans on this site.
• Listen to the Strategies Together song.

Preview Clips

Demonstrating understanding video Notice that the object of using strategies is to increase students' involvement with and understanding of text. Book discussions are a great way to assess student engagement with and comprehension of texts. Notice how Mrs. Pingel watches the discussions and takes notes for ongoing assessment, but lets students run their own discussions. Try it yourself: Download Mrs. Pingel's Book Discussion Starter Card and start book clubs in your classroom. Audio book video Notice how students who may not be proficient readers can work with the same comprehension strategies using an audio book. This is a great way to differentiate instruction for your students with special needs. Try it yourself: Get a tape player, CD player or MP3 player for your classroom and look for sources of free and low cost audio books. You can often check out tapes, CD's or even downloadable audio books from your library. Notice how these students are making meaningful connections and inferences while listening to a spooky story. Try it yourself: Be sure to make available a wide variety of texts so all your students will find something to interest and engage them. Meaningful discussion video Notice the meaningful discussion students are able to have. Their knowledge of the strategies gives them the means to delve deeper into the meaning of a text, and the vocabulary to express themselves. Try it yourself: Try showing this clip to students before their book discussion time. Give them props such as a discussion starter cards or strategy icons to help them express themselves and have more meaningful discussions. Into the book video Notice how Mrs. Pingel herself goes into the book and the kids go after her. Try it yourself: Read in front of your students, and talk to them how you go "Into the Book" in different ways (visiting a park you read about in a magazine, having conversations in your head with a favorite character, making a recipe or a craft project you read about...). You are an important model for your students reading habits! Take this opportunity to talk about the meaning of going "into the book". Do the students in the series really go into the books or are they imagining it? (We had this discussion many times while filming the series — everyone has a different answer!) Have you ever gotten so involved in a book that you felt like you were actually in it? What happens when you use strategies? Reading is more than just sounding out words on a page; reading is about making the text come alive for you. Theatre video Notice how students are using their strategies in a different situation outside of school... Try it yourself: Ask students to identify strategies that are being used during the play and explain how. Or ask student to think of situations when they have used the strategies in their own lives outside of school.