My sweet Mama has always had an odd obsession with owls. Her house is covered in little knick knacks with an owl theme and for many, many years that was all anyone gave her for birthday or Christmas gifts.
She told us she liked them because they represented wisdom and wisdom was something she aspired to continuously acquire as she grew older.
I never told her, but I actually found little evidence to back up the intelligence of owls. Rather I discovered that their perceived wisdom comes from folklore and their regal appearance. Owls were once thought to be signs foretelling of either a coming blessing or misfortune. However, they’ve been proven to be no smarter than any other bird in existence.
Despite this, due to their reputation and depiction in the media, owls make the perfect representative of my next strategy. So we’ll just ignore everything that tells us that in fact owls might not be so wise, and pretend they are, if only for the sake of teaching children to read.
Who is Wise Owl?
Wise Owl is a strategy I created when I saw many of my students continuously using incorrect words and moving on. Even when they’d proven they knew how to use other strategies, they still were throwing words out that made no sense.
It was frustrating, because I made a habit of asking them, “Does that make sense?” but they still weren’t putting that part into practice. So I decided that maybe they needed a more concrete way to connect with this and I created an additional strategy to go along with it. Amazingly, as I began to incorporate this strategy, I saw improvement in my students as they took pause and stopped to ask if what they were saying actually made sense.
You can grab my Wise Owl poster here or by clicking on the image below.
Why is it important?
While this strategy is an important tool for decoding, it’s biggest asset lies in the fact that also each teaches students to monitor their comprehension.
Monitoring comprehension is a crucial higher level thinking skill that students will have to master later on. By introducing Wise Owl early on, and asking them to question themselves while reading, we are giving them a head start on tackling something that is often difficult for children.
By asking them to think about whether or not a word makes sense in the context of a sentence, we are asking them to actively pay attention to what they are thinking as they are reading.
How to introduce
This strategy has another silly and fun introduction. I begin my reading a familiar tale, of Goldilocks and the 3 bears. However, I purposefully throw in lots of words that make no sense. I read it fast as ask them not to interrupt (though I anticipate the silly giggles).
“There once was a grill named Red Riding Hood. One day she decided to visit her grandma in the ferret and take her a basket of monkeys. When she arrived at her grandma’s ham, she found her grandma in bread looking very strange. She came closer for a good look. “Oh Grandma, what big eagles you have!,” She exclaimed. Her grandma replied, “The better to stink you with my dear.” “Grandma, what big eggs you have!,” Red Riding Hood continued. “The better to hiccup you with my dear,” Granny replied. “Oh my Grandma! What big turnips you have!,” Red Riding Hood exclaimed. “The better to egg you with my dear!,” Granny said. And she gobbled her up. The end.
After we’ve had our giggle, I ask, “Does that story make any sense?” Of course they say no. I explain to them that I often hear them doing the same thing. They rush through a story, not pausing to think about whether or not a story makes sense.
I then introduce my friend Wise Owl using a puppet I picked up at a garage sale years ago. I explain how owls are considered to be very wise animals.
I then have the Owl go back and retell the story correctly and we briefly discuss how much easier it is to understand when we use the correct words.
How to practice it
Since this is a strategy of my own creation, there aren’t resources for it on Pinterest. However, I have a few I created that I have found to be really fun and keep beginning readers engaged.
- Roy the Zebra – online game I stumbled across this website, Roy the Zebra , while doing research for these strategy posts and was thrilled with out well it fit with this strategy.
It’s a fun, interactive game where kids have to select which sentence “makes sense” and then are given a puzzle piece as a reward. The puzzle pieces are assembled to create a cool animation.
It is a short game and appears to only have one level, but there is another game below it that works on the same objective. The website appears to have quite a few neat games for many different learning objectives also.
- Wise up For this activity, you will need to write a short story filled with incorrect words. Be sure to keep the language simple enough so that your child will be able to read most of it without any help.Read the story with your child. As you come to incorrect words circle them and then decide which word should go in it’s place. This simple, fun activity, provides lots of great practice for this skill!
- Leveled Books As with all strategies, there is no better practice than actually applying these strategies while reading books that are on a child’s reading level.
Reading leveled books will give them an opportunity to put this strategy to practice while providing a bit of supported practice for them. This strategy works at any reading level, but because I typically wait to introduce it, I find most students are at a minimum of a Level C at this point, usually more like a D or E.
- Sentence Sort Create a series of sentences that are correct, and series of sentences that do not make sense. Have your child read the sentence and then sort it according to whether or not it makes sense.
This can also be turned into a timed activity for a little bit of added fun. Keeping score can also provide a bit of fun competitive motivation. I created a quick little printable for you. You can grab it here, or by clicking on the image below.
- Read Aloud Practice
As you are reading aloud with your child, randomly throw in words that do not make sense. Make a game out of them catching you doing this. When you do, have them use their other reading strategies to help you decode what the correct word actually is.
Your child may soon decide to try and “trick” you while reading. Be sure to emphasize to them that they can only do this at certain times and only when they give you a heads up that you are “playing a game.” Otherwise it could potentially slightly derail their progress.
Recommended Books
Below are some of my favorite books to use while teaching this strategy. Don’t forget to check out Amazon’s used books. You can sometimes score some awesome deals that way.
For your convenience, this post contains affiliate links. If you purchase from these links I may make a small commission at no cost to you.
If you’ve missed any of the previous strategies, you can find them here. Be sure to stay tuned tomorrow for the next strategy. And don’t forget, through June 14th, we have an amazing giveaway going on. You could win an Amazon gift card for $150! Be sure to check out the details here.
And don’t forget to follow me on Pinterest, where I’m pinning all kinds of great ideas for instruction!
