COMPREHENSION THROUGH CONVERSATION: The Power of Purposeful Talk in the Reading Workshop - Softcover

With superb examples and flawless logic Nichols demonstrates how to orchestrate conversations that build literate habits of mind. -- Peter H. Johnston

Maria Nichols offers not possible lessons but full descriptions of actual lessons. Here you'll find ...classrooms of the sort that we hope our children and grandchildren are lucky enough to encounter--not once in a while but routinely. -- Richard L. Allington

Comprehension Through Conversation is a practical guide to comprehension, conversation, and collaboration. Maria Nichols invites you to listen in on reading workshops where purposeful book talk leads students to deeper understandings of fiction, nonfiction, and the world beyond. Moving forward from the widely understood concept that exchanging ideas builds students' comprehension, Nichols shows you specific ways to use conversation as a scaffolding that bridges prior knowledge to more advanced reading skills and techniques as well as to big ideas such as themes. Her useful ideas for conversations begin with lesson designs that use read-alouds to spark discussions, lead to suggestions for units of study that support children as they read progressively more complex texts, and ultimately build toward fully independent reading and thinking.