Focus Wall and Comprehension

Are you using a focus wall?  There are focus walls for reading, math, writing... probably for just about any subject you can think of.  I was wanting to be a bit more intentional with my reading and comprehension this year.  This is what it looked like at the beginning of the year before we began using it.

I like to focus on these four basic areas of comprehension.  My goal is to try to cover these each week with the book we are reading.  Once we get into the routine of identifying these areas, it becomes easier to do and we get quicker at it.  This picture shows using the focus wall for one book.

I needed a change from the other focus wall because I wanted to include more than one grade on my focus wall.  So second grade gets yellow Post Its and third grade gets the purple.  This will help me manage the skills I want to teach every week and use the wall for more than one group.

For the comprehension skill that I want to cover, I have posters that cover those skills.  I hang them up and trade them out each time we change skills.  

As we learn a skill, we can glue inserts into notebooks that cover the comprehension skill.  We then can use that comprehension skill to write about the text.  

I like that a focus wall helps me to be purposeful with my lessons, getting in those skills each week that I want to be sure and cover and at the same time switching out my comprehension skills to cover.  It also makes it more organized and predictable for my students!