Using with Making Meaning

The Making Meaning program teaches students comprehension strategies through read-alouds, guided and independent strategy practice, and Individualized Daily Reading. The Being a Writer Teacher’s Manuals include specific tips for teachers who are already using the Making Meaning program. Notes are printed in the margins of the Teacher’s Manual.

Some read-aloud books in the Making Meaning program appear again in the Being a Writer program. This allows students to extend their understanding of the book to what the author is trying to accomplish and communicate. If both programs are being taught simultaneously, we recommend that the teacher starts both at the beginning of the year and teaches the lessons in order.

Teaching the lessons in both programs in sequential order will ensure that students encounter books first in the Making Meaning reading comprehension program, where they can gain both surface-level and deep understanding of the books, before working with them from a writer's point of view.

Read-alouds serve different purposes in each program. In the Making Meaning program the emphasis is on making sense of the text and understanding the subtleties of the selection. In the Being a Writer program, the selections serve to immerse students in multiple examples of a genre and help students learn what it is the author is doing to communicate. One program emphasizes the information. The other emphasizes style and technique.