Connecting Comprehension & Technology: Adapt and Extend Toolkit Practices

When we begin our technology journey by grounding it in time tested comprehension instruction, we ensure that our use of technology is meaningful and authentic. We help students see the natural links between strategies they use in print text and the strategies they need to use when navigating the vast digital world.
--Stephanie Harvey, Anne Goudvis, Katie Muhtaris, and Kristin Ziemke

Active literacy strategies matter now more than ever! Our students are growing up with dynamic information systems and constantly changing online texts. Connecting Comprehension & Technology will help you expand your students' literacy toolkit to incorporate practices that help them thrive in this digital world.

Through their celebrated Comprehension Toolkit series Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis present an active literacy learning framework that grounds students in the nonfiction reading and thinking strategies they will need throughout school and into college and careers. In Connecting Comprehension and Technology Steph and Anne invite teachers to join them in Katie Muhtaris' and Kristin Ziemke's classrooms to envision and embrace technology as a powerful tool for extending these Toolkit practices and enhancing literacy instruction and innovation.

Offering the know-how born from years of classroom experience and clear steps for getting started, Connecting Comprehension and Technology provides practical lessons that teach students how to navigate, evaluate, collaborate, and communicate through digital resources. Not limited to specific hardware or software, lessons are designed around technical functions; tools readily accessible to students in their world and easily adopted in your school, whether you are taking your first steps into technology or looking to leverage existing resources.

Organized around Steph and Anne's active literacy learning framework, Connecting Comprehension and Technology will help you to teach your students how to:

Monitor Comprehension

• Reflect Thinking with a Drawing Tool
• Think About Online Information
• Notice Internet Distractions
• Evaluate Internet Sources

Activate & Connect

• Annotate Thinking Digitally
• Narrate Thinking with Podcasts
• Explore Web Features
• Compare Text and Web Features

Ask Questions

• Share Questions Online
• Read an eBook to Answer Questions
• Ask Questions in Online Discussions
• Research Lingering Questions Online

Infer & Visualize

• Visualize with Digital Drawings
• Create and Illustrate Digital Poems
• Infer with Visual Cues
• Infer with Media Cues

Determine Importance

• Organize Thinking on a Spreadsheet
• Research Digitally Archived Questions
• Collaborate on a Spreadsheet
• Evaluate Infographics

Summarize & Synthesize

• Produce a Media Project
• Create an Inquiry Movie
• Record a Video Book Review
• Create a Book Trailer

Samples

• Introduction and Sample Lessons

Not limited to specific hardware or software, lessons are designed around technical functions; tools readily accessible to students in their world and easily adopted in your school, whether you are taking your first steps into technology or looking to leverage existing resources. The accompanying DVD provides live-from-the classroom video footage of the lessons in action and a rich sampling of student work.