Fun 4 All- Text Mapping

I am once again linking up with my favorite blog, All Things Upper Elementary, for their Fun 4 All linky party. This link up is all about LOVE! So I am sharing about a strategy I LOVE! And also about a NEW LINKY Pinterest party I am LOVIN- see below!

Many of you know that I am a Reading Coach and work with the teachers and students at my school as we focus on reading achievement. A few weeks ago, one of our ESE (special education) teachers came to me about a workshop she had attended on engagement strategies for readers. She showed me what she had learned about text mapping and I was excited for both of us to get started and try it out with our kids.
I worked with a group of 4th graders, and we had so much fun- I think anytime we had markers to a lesson it seems to add a level of fun for the kiddos. We also pushed our tables out of the ways so they had some room to work.  Text mapping is a scrolls-based graphic organizer technique that can be sue to teach reading comprehension. . The basic gist is that you copy text and make it into one large scroll then the children box off or circle pieces of the text that go together and color code them. This makes the reading of the text easier for the kids to do (because they know the chunks that go together). It also helps them to see how each of the smaller parts goes together to make the bigger picture.
To learn more about text mapping, you can visit The Text Mapping Project website. Here are some pictures of my kiddos at work, and be sure to read to the end to grab a FREEBIE to use with your own students.

Here is the anchor chart we made to remember our codes. Click on the pic to download your FREEBIE.

Now for all of you bloggers out there. Check out this new linky party that combines my two favorite online things- Blogging and Pinterest!

That's it for now! Have a Happy Sunday!