The goal of this book is to improve students’ reading and comprehension skills. The more experience
a student has with reading and comprehending, the better reader and problem-solver he or she will
be. Daily Warm-Ups: Reading contains a variety of passages to be read on a daily basis. Each passage
is followed by comprehension questions. The questions that follow the passages are based on Bloom’s
Taxonomy and allow for higher-level thinking skills. Making this book a part of your daily classroom
agenda can help your students’ reading and comprehension abilities improve dramatically.
Nonfiction and Fiction
Daily Warm-Ups: Reading is divided into two sections: nonfiction and fiction. It is important for
students to be exposed to a variety of reading genres and formats. The nonfiction section is divided
into five categories. These categories are animals, biographies, history, science, and current events. By
reading these nonfiction passages, your students will be exposed to a variety of nonfiction information,
as well as questions to stimulate thinking on these subjects.
The fiction section of the book is also divided into five categories. These categories are fairy tales/
folklore, historical fiction, contemporary realism, mystery/suspense/adventure, and fantasy. Each story
is followed by questions to stimulate thinking on the plot, characters, vocabulary, and sequence.
Comprehension Questions
Comprehension is the primary goal of any reading task. Students who comprehend what they read
perform better on both tests and in life. The follow-up questions after each passage are written to
encourage students to improve in recognizing text structure, visualizing, summarizing, and learning
new vocabulary. Each of these skills can be found in scope-and-sequence charts as well as standards for
reading comprehension. The different types of questions in Daily Warm-Ups: Reading are geared to
help students with the following skills:
- • Recognize the main idea
- • Identify details
- • Recall details
- • Summarize
- • Describe characters and character traits
- • Classify and sort into categories
- • Compare and contrast
- • Make generalizations
- • Draw conclusions
- • Recognize fact
- • Apply information to new situations
- • Recognize sequence
- • Understand vocabulary
Readability
Each of the reading passages in Daily Warm-Ups: Reading varies in difficulty to meet the various reading
levels of your students. The passages have been categorized as follows: below grade level, at grade level,
and above grade level. (See the Leveling Chart on page 6.)
Record Keeping
Use the Tracking Sheet on page 176 to record which warm-up exercises you have given to your students,
or distribute copies of the sheet for students to keep their own records.
How to Make the Most of This Book
Here are some simple tips to supplement your educational strategies. They are only suggestions to help
you make your students as successful in reading as possible.
- • Read through the book ahead of time so you are familiar with each portion. The better you understand how the book works, the easier it will be to answer students’ questions.
- • Set aside a regular time each day to incorporate Daily Warm-Ups into your routine. Once the routine is established, students will look forward to and expect to work on reading strategies at that particular time.
- • Make sure that any amount of time spent on Daily Warm-Ups is positive and constructive. This should be a time of practicing for success and recognizing it as it is achieved.
- • Allot only about 10 minutes a day to Daily Warm-Ups. Too much time will not be useful; too little time will create additional stress.
- • Be sure to model the reading and question-answering process at the beginning of the year. Model pre-reading questions, reading the passage, highlighting information that refers to the questions, and eliminating answers that are obviously wrong. Finally, refer back to the text once again to make sure the answers chosen are the best ones.
- • Create and store overheads or interactive-whiteboard slides of each lesson so that you can review student work, concepts, and strategies as quickly as possible.
- • Utilize peer tutors to assist struggling students.
- • Offer small-group time to students who need extra enrichment or opportunities for questions regarding the text. Small groups will allow many of these students, once they are comfortable with the format, to achieve success independently.
- • Adjust the procedures, as you see fit, to meet the needs of all your students.
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