I just finished the reading salad lesson with my first graders. They got the symbolic meaning almost immediately.... what a wonderfully concrete way to get the message across to both early and fluent readers that reading is more than reading words... it is thinking. I think the best commentary was made by one of my most struggling readers after he counted more lettuce leaves (thinking symbols) than tomatoes (text symbol) in his salad bowl. His comment was... I just knew I was a reader ... for a minute there (after the DRA assessment) I thought I was not... but now I know can read even as well as Matthew...a really fluent decoder...) Now when I readaloud, kids are raising their hands telling me their "I betchas" and their mind pictures about the story but we haven't even started comprehension strategy lessons yet. The whole process is just instantly made visible to them in such an effortless way!
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