Comprehension Intervention: Small-Group Lessons for the Comprehension Toolkit

"When it comes to learning reading comprehension strategies children differ. They learn in fits and starts. What works for one may not work for another. For some it's a matter of time, for others a matter of interest. Some kids take these strategies and run with them after one whole-group Toolkit lesson. Others need additional time, guidance, and practice to internalize comprehension strategies and use them to make sense of what they read. The small-group lessons in Comprehension Intervention are specifically designed to support those kids."
-- Stephanie Harvey, Anne Goudvis, and Judy Wallis

Enhance your Toolkit Instruction with Targeted, Small-Group Lessons

Created to follow each Toolkit lesson, the Comprehension Intervention small-group sessions narrow the instructional focus, concentrating on critical aspects of the Toolkit's lesson strategy to reinforce kids' understanding, step by step. Using the language of the Toolkits in a small-group setting, Comprehension Intervention approaches each Toolkit strategy lesson in a new way and with new texts, showing kids that they can apply the thinking and strategy language they learned within the whole group to a wide variety of readings.

Framed around the gradual release of responsibility, the four-step session structure provides explicit scaffolded instruction. With an eye towards formative assessment, each session ends with Assess and Plan, a section that supports daily progress monitoring with strategy-specific suggestions for reviewing student work, assessing students' thinking and accomplishment of session goals, and determining the need for additional practice.

Comprehension Intervention lessons lend themselves to a variety of instructional settings:

Guided reading groups-Sessions are ideal for small, flexible, needs-based guided reading groups to reinforce or extend what has been taught in a Toolkit lesson.

Tier 2 RTI groups-Sessions are designed to take about thirty minutes. They break down the original Toolkit instruction into smaller steps, making learning more accessible for Tier 2 students.

Tier 3 RTI groups-Infinitely flexible and targeted, sessions help teachers increase instructional intensity for individuals or very small groups, allowing additional time for instruction and practice.

Special Education-The Toolkit whole-group lessons are ideal for special ed inclusion because they are based on shared readings, which allow for natural differentiation. All kids can participate in the whole group Toolkit lessons and then have their individual needs met in the small-group intervention lessons.

Learn more about the Comprehension Toolkit series at ComprehensionToolkit.com

The Comprehension Toolkit series helps you teach nonfiction reading strategies in a variety of instructional settings.
Whole-Group Instruction
Grades K-2: The Primary Comprehension Toolkit
Grades K-2: The Primary Comprehension Toolkit Bundle (includes Trade Book Pack)
Grades 3-6: The Comprehension Toolkit
Grades 3-6: The Comprehension Toolkit Bundle (includes Trade Book Pack)
Small-Group Instruction
Grades K-2: Small-Group Lessons for The Primary Comprehension Toolkit
Grades 3-6: Small-Group Lessons for The Comprehension Toolkit
Short Nonfiction for Guided Reading and Independent Practice
Grades PreK-1: Toolkit Texts
Grades 2-3: Toolkit Texts
Grades 4-5: Toolkit Texts
Grades 6-7: Toolkit Texts
ELL Support
Grades K-2: Scaffolding The Primary Comprehension Toolkit for English Language Learners
Grades 3-5: Scaffolding The Comprehension Toolkit for English Language Learners
Staff Development
Staff Development with The Comprehension Toolkits
Resources for PLCs
Comprehension and Collaboration Book Study Bundle
Inquiry Circles in Elementary Classrooms DVD
Inquiry Circles in Middle and High School Classrooms DVD

Save with Teacher Packs
The Primary Comprehension Toolkit Teacher Pack
The Comprehension Toolkit Teacher Pack

Stephanie Harvey has spent her career teaching and learning about reading and writing. An elementary and special ed teacher for fifteen years, she now works as a staff developer and educational consultant. Insatiably curious about student thinking, she is a teacher first and foremost and continues to work in schools on a regular basis savoring any time spent with kids. The coauthor of the Heinemann titles Comprehension Going Forward and Comprehension & Collaboration as well as the author of Nonfiction Matters and Strategies That Work, the latter coauthored by Anne Goudvis, Stephanie works with educators, schools and districts to implement progressive literacy practices. She has created a number of video series that showcase thoughtful literacy practice. Her most classroom materials with firstHand include The Comprehension Toolkit, the Primary Comprehension Toolkit, and Comprehension Interventions. Created along with Anne Goudvis, they form an intensive resource for comprehension instruction and active literacy across the day and throughout the year. » Listen to an interview with Stephanie Harvey on Education Talk Radio - 2/29/2012 (30:35)

Judy Wallis has spent the past four decades as a teacher, literacy coach, staff developer, and university instructor. She served two large, diverse, Houston, Texas school districts as language arts director and provided leadership support for literacy coaches for 21 years. Her professional interests and work focus on leadership and whole-school/district change through robust literacy instruction. She currently works with schools and districts across the country as a staff developer and educational consultant. Her work has focused on linking research and practice and bringing out the strengths in others. Judy has authored a number of professional book chapters and articles and written the "Blue Pages" in Conversations with Regie Routman. Recent books, Comprehension Intervention, K-2 and Comprehension Intervention, 3-6, were co-authored with Steph Harvey and Anne Goudvis.