Compare & Contrast Teaching Comparative Thinking to Strengthen Student Learning

You're holding a new kind of professional development tool called a Strategic Teacher PLC Guide. Designed in partnership with more than 75 schools, Strategic Teacher PLC Guides make the important work of bringing high-impact, research-based instructional practices into every classroom easier than ever before. Each guide focuses on one strategy from the best-selling ASCD book The Strategic Teacher: Selecting the Right Research-Based Strategy for Every Lesson and serves as a complete professional development resource for a team of teachers (or professional learning community) to learn, plan, and implement the strategy in their classrooms.This guide focuses on Reading for Meaning, a reading and reasoning strategy that helps students understand new ideas, make inferences, and support their thinking with evidence. The strategy is designed around research showing that proficient readers use a specific set of thinking skills to build deep understanding of the texts they read and apply those skills in three distinct phases: before reading, during reading, and after reading. Reading for Meaning gives all students the opportunity to practice this three-phase approach by* Using simple statements to preview and predict before reading.* Actively searching for relevant evidence during reading.* Reflecting on and synthesizing both their learning and their thinking process after reading.This PLC Guide takes you and your colleagues on a "guided tour" of Reading for Meaning, enabling you to* Learn how Reading for Meaning builds reading, reasoning, and problem-solving skills.* Experience a model lesson using the Reading for Meaning strategy and learn from sample lessons and planning forms designed by other teachers.* Plan a complete Reading for Meaning lesson for your classroom.* Reflect deeply on your lesson to refine and expand your use of the strategy.* Examine student work at various levels of proficiency and use your findings to plan next steps in building students' reading, thinking, and comprehension skills.Harvey F. Silver, president of Silver Strong & Associates and Thoughtful Education Press, is a nationally recognized presenter and professional development specialist. He has collaborated with Richard Strong and Matthew Perini on several best sellers in education, including ASCD's The Strategic Teacher and Thoughtful Education Press's award-winning Tools for Promoting Active, In-Depth Learning. Susan C. Morris, an experienced consultant and former classroom teacher, develops practical applications for teachers, students, and parents in the areas of differentiated instruction, brain-based research, experiential learning, and curriculum design. Victor Klein, a former building-level administrator, has been a Silver Strong & Associates trainer for 25 years. He is an expert in professional learning communities, administrative training, and unit and lesson design.