In this video, Joan Schottenfeld is the teacher and she is joined by her students from the Boston Centers for Youth and Families/Perkins Adult Learning Program. Joan demonstrates on how to teach comprehension using the summarizing strategy, Topic and Main point.

Joan uses explicit instruction by explaining why summarizing will help the students to learn. She then models this strategy with the students just listening and observing her ("I do”).

She then moves into guided practice where the students, together with the instructor, do the Topic and Main Point strategy together (“we do”).

At the end of the video while Joan is doing a fluency lesson, her students continue to reach the application phase of explicit instruction by working in small groups without the teacher (“you do”).

The video concludes with Joan demonstrating the fluency strategy Collaborative Oral Reading while the comprehension group continues with their summarizing strategy. The students in the fluency group are reading Charlotte’s Web using the Collaborative Oral Reading strategy. You will notice Joan helping the students who are struggling while reading a difficult section of the book and you will also notice that Joan does a quick comprehension check to ensure that the students understand what they are reading. If students do not understand what they reading, their fluency will be impacted by this.

Select the play button below to view the video. You can view a full screen version of the video here.

STAR Comprehension and Fluency Lessons from SABES/ACLS on Vimeo.