Sticky Situations
By Beth Bedard

I spent hours reading poems, novels and short stories in college. I discovered that taking notes in the book helped me remember and make sense of texts. My notes supported connections to other readings. I wrote myself notes about symbolism and themes. I also found that bracketing confusing sections, underlining difficult language and making pictures in my mind about the words in the texts guided my understanding. Reflecting on this, I realized that my self-found study strategies guided me to construct meanings for difficult passages.

Strategic teaching
I thought about using these strategies with my fifth graders when I read Mosaic of Thought: Teaching Comprehension in a Reader's Workshop by Susan Zimmermann and Ellin Oliver Keene (Heinemann, 1997) and Assessment is Instruction: Reading, Writing, Spelling and Phonics for All Learners by Susan Mandel Glazer (Christopher-Gordon, 1998). Workshops with Judy Davis at the Manhattan New School coaxed me into strategic teaching. These teachers introduced me to sticky notes instead of notes on pages. I guided my students to make notes to themselves while reading in preparation for student-led discussions. Miraculously, the sticky notes helped students attend to tasks, get actively involved and prepared them for small group discussions. The kids also referred to their sticky notes during discussions and when writing their responses to texts. Most importantly, I found students' sticky notes helped me guide them to become aware they were self-monitoring their reading comprehension.

Sticky notes are great for helping kids to prepare for group discussions and for self-monitoring their reading comprehension.

Get sticky!
I gathered my students in groups of four to eight and handed them a short piece of literature – usually a poem – and some sticky notes. I modeled how to use the notes by talking out loud to myself. As I read the poem I said, "Hmm... I don't understand this line, 'With hocked gems supporting him.' So I'm going to write on my sticky note, 'Hocked – don't know meaning.' I'm pasting the sticky note right in the book next to the word 'hocked.'"

Once I modeled, I repeated my actions with the children. I said, "Now read the section in the text yourself and use a sticky note whenever you have an idea. Paste the note right next to the words that gave you the idea."

Sticky strategies
I also used the sticky note strategy for assisting my students when responding to "Hist Whist," a Halloween poem by E.E. Cummings that never mentions the holiday. I read the poem to my students as they followed along with their copy. Then we read it out loud together. Next, they read the poem to themselves, wrote on sticky notes and pasted them into the text.

One student wrote that the poem made him think of, "a burglar tiptoeing in a house" and drew an arrow on his sticky note to the line that he felt pointed to this mental image. Another made connections to the unusual language and said, "It reminds me of a Halloween poem because of the word 'witches.' " These notes inspired another child to write the following:

The poem reminds me of Halloween and fairies. It also reminds me of witches and goblins. This line is also very scary: "Little itchy mousies/with scuttling/eyes, rustle and run and/hidehidehide." It reminds me of people hiding from witches.

The student visualized the poem and his notes helped him to monitor his comprehension because he wrote down the connections he had made.

The Good Learner Strategy shows how each student comprehends what they've read.

The Good Learner Strategy sheet
I continue to use this strategy and often meet with individual students for five minutes so I can guide them to use the Good Learner Strategy sheet. I found that this framework helps students to understand how different people comprehend difficult text. Amazingly, my students were able to see all of the good things that they were doing while reading. The sticky note strategy, followed by self-monitoring metacognitive behaviors, helped to build students' self-confidence. Writing about how they were making meaning and discussing strategies lured my students to discover what has to be involved in order to understand. As one student wrote, "I figured out what the word 'hocked' means by talking to Jenny and also my grandmother who told me that she hocked her jewelry when she and Grandpa were young so she could have money to come to America." My students began to use metacognitive descriptions of their Good Learner Strategies because the sticky note strategy coupled with the Good Learner guide helped them to make these connections.

I hope you try these ideas and find as much success as I did.

Guest columnist Beth Bedard is a graduate student working toward her degree as a reading specialist. She is studying with Dr. Glazer at Rider University.

November/December, 2003, Vol.34, No.3