| Literacy Training: Double Entry Journals |
Context: |
| Proficient readers are actively engaged in the reading process, set clear goals, and monitor their own comprehension as they read. They also use comprehension strategies to help them construct meaning. Double entry journals help students make powerful connections as they learn to monitor their own comprehension. |
Goals: |
Tutors will be able to help students:
- Monitor their reading comprehension
- Make note of significant events in the text
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Materials/Preparation: |
| Blank paper, pencils or pens, texts or literature |
Activity: |
Model the process with tutors by using a simple children's picture book. (Because picture books are quicker to read than longer chapter books, they are good for modeling with tutors and students. However, this activity works with books of any length.) Ask tutors to flip through the book and make an initial prediction about what they think will happen in the story. Then show them how to use a double entry journal:
- Create a journal template. Draw a line down the middle of the page to make two columns: Predictions and Confirmations. For younger children, these columns can be: What I Think Will Happen and What Happened.
- Write predictions about the story in the first column and begin reading.
- While reading, monitor understanding by confirming or refining predictions and making notes in the second column.
- After reading, write a new prediction under the first one. The process continues in this way until the end of the book. Use the journal entry as a way to reflect on the reading process.
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Key Questions and Points to Remember: |
Talk with tutors about how to use this strategy with students. For example, tutors can model the strategy by reading the title, showing selected pictures, and reading the summary on the back cover of the book to make initial predictions. Discuss additional uses of double entry journals. For example, they can help students:
- Pace and document reading. If students read two chapters each day, they make two corresponding journal entries.
- Retell or summarize the story.
- Reflect on their own reading development by examining their past entries.
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Developed by LEARNS, a partnership of the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory (1-800-361-7890) and Bank Street College of Education (1-800-930-5664). For additional activities or assistance, please call. |
