QAR is a reading strategy created by Taffy Raphael to help students understand the text better by becoming strategic readers. Learn about the four QAR types and how to teach them to your students and use them in your planning.
Activities for Stories Assessment Common Core Critical Thinking Cross-Content Partner Activities Questioning Reading activities

QAR

Note: I first heard about QAR in a workshop with Carol Gaab during our 2011 AFLA Conference. I began to dig into it and published this post soon thereafter. Imagine my surprise when my principal brought in consultant Susan Van Zant just two weeks after I published it, announcing to the staff that this would…

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Activities for Stories Just for fun Reading activities

Team Responses

The Alaskans For Language Acquisition Conference was last weekend, and we were blessed to host five incredible speakers for the weekend (Carol Gaab, Terry Waltz, Laura Terrill, Hiroko Kataoka, and Uwe Kind). I spent much of my time in the sessions presented by Carol Gaab, president of TPRS Publishing, Inc., as three of them focused…

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Activities for Stories Common Core Cross-Content Listening Reading activities Vocabulary Activities Writing

Cornell Notes

Developed “far above Cayuga’s waters“, Cornell Notes are an effective note-taking strategy that can be used across grade levels and content areas. I was first introduced to Cornell Notes by my administrator in a 6-8 public school in Anchorage, Alaska. She didn’t have to sell me on it too hard since my grandfather, my parents,…

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Activities for Stories Cross-Content Reading activities

Four Square Story Map

One struggle for me has been to create questions and activities that help my students practice their critical thinking skills. Much of what we do in class, regrettably, is regurgitation and transformation. Standardized test results show that students at my school and at schools throughout the nation struggle when it comes to critical thinking and…

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