Understanding the Big Picture

This is what we take away from a reading. We need to encourage students to focus on these big ideas to help them work through text. This will help them work through the harder texts that they will be faced with in the future. Fiction, Nonfiction and poetry should be made available to students and teachers should model reading and focusing on the big picture in the stories read together as a class or even in small group instruction. Ask about their knowledge of the big ides found in a story. Point out to the students how you knew what the big idea was by asking yourself questions and connecting the text to yourself, your experiences and to other texts. Teach students to ask these questions to themselves as they read. After reading a selection on their own have class or group discussions, follow ups, question sessions to really get an understanding if students are capable of discovering the big picture on their own. By the  end of 1st grade students should have the ability to do this with age appropriate texts. Reinforce that big pictures all around them in every subject that they are learning.