Stellar Teacher Podcast with Sara Marye

Today’s episode is the second of this month’s Reading Comprehension Skill Series and will be focused on main idea. More specifically, finding the main idea in nonfiction texts. I remember when I used to teach my students by using an elaborate lesson and telling them they needed to do the same. What I realized was that after all the time I spent, I wasn’t showing my students how to find the main idea themselves.

There are so many reasons I decided to focus on reading comprehension this month, the number one being that these are difficult skills to teach. One of those higher level, more abstract concepts that I get asked about most is making inferences. Although it may seem like there’s a simple equation to mastering this skill, there are so many factors that can influence your student’s success. After you hear my experience teaching inferences, head over to my Instagram and share what you’ve found to be effective!

Most teachers that I know fantasized about being teachers from a very young age. I’m sure I’m not the only one who envisioned what my future classroom would look like or the successes my students would have due to my hard work and attention. My guest on today’s episode, Pernille Ripp, was disappointed to find that the current education system made it difficult for her to fulfill her dreams and provide students with authentic reading experiences.

Today’s episode continues the conversation we’ve been having on a topic related to reading comprehension, which is vocabulary. As I’m sure you know, if a student isn’t understanding what they’re reading they will likely not be motivated or interested in the text. This is why it is so important to teach students how to figure out what unknown words mean, bringing us to today’s topic: context clues...