Flag Your Thinking

Begin your year reviewing how to make connections with your students.  During a read aloud model how to flag your thinking with a sticky flag  marked with a check mark for things we already know ...that are part of our schema and the R sticky flag for something that reminds of us ourselves, a story we have read or heard, or something in the world.  Provide students with their own book marks to use while you continue the read aloud, stopping at critical places in the read aloud to have the children stop, think, use a flag on their bookmark  and then pair and share their thoughts with their elbow partners. Later your kiddos will meet with you in small group to continue learning how to used the sticky flags while reading independently, and finally during literacy centres they will use their bookmarks independently.

Grab a copy of the bookmark HERE.

 Once your kiddos have mastered the "I can connect " bookmarks you can move them to a more complex tool that allows them to code their thinking with something learned, questions they are asking themselves, and inferences they are making.  Grab a copy of the bookmark HERE.