Reading organizers - Preparations for reading

Painless Reading Comprehension - Darolyn “Lyn” Jones Ed.D. 2016

Reading organizers
Preparations for reading

Reading organizers can help you even before you start reading.

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Reading organizers are just what they sound like. They help you organize your reading. Reading organizers show your thinking on paper. They can help you even before you start to read!

Reading organizers are like glue. They help your brain stick to the reading. Now, there are three main types of glue: Elmer’s, Rubber Cement, and Superglue. Elmer’s will hold for a while, Rubber Cement will hold longer, and Superglue can hold forever. I want what you read to stick to your brain like Superglue!

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Before you read, reading organizers can remind you of what you already know about a topic and help you to think about what you want or need to know about a topic. Reading organizers ask you to use your background knowledge. Anytime you can connect or glue yourself to what you are reading, the easier and more interesting the reading will be.

Background knowledge can include what you learned from your family and friends, in another class at school, from the media, online, or from other books.

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The anticipation guide

A terrific reading organizer to use before reading is an Anticipation Guide. If you anticipate something, then you look forward to it, or you have an expectation or idea about something. For example, most of us anticipate a vacation on the beach. We have certain expectations or ideas about how our vacation will be. An Anticipation Guide is a super way to begin thinking about your reading topic before you read. An Anticipation Guide asks you what you already know for sure about a topic and what you think you know about a topic. Then, after you read, you can see how correct your anticipations were. My Anticipation Guide is adapted from Richard and Jo Anne Vacca’s book, Content Area Reading: Literacy and Learning Across the Curriculum.2

The KWL chart

Another helpful graphic organizer to use before you read is a KWL Chart, which was created by Donna Ogle. A KWL Chart stands for what you know, what you want to know, and what you learned.3 When filling out this chart you don’t have to write in complete sentences. You can just jot down words or phrases that come to mind when considering the topic. Only the “what you know” and “what do you want to know” columns are completed before you read.

Eye think guide

A third reading organizer is the Eye Think Guide. When you look at the reading passage, what do you see? What do you think? Picture and predict. For example, look at the pictures and illustrations. Most reading selections will include pictures, graphics, or figures that give you hints about what you are going to read.

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If there are pictures, stop and look. Look at the cover of the book. Look at the art on the page with the short story. Look at the diagram in the science chapter. Look at the map in the social studies selection. Look at the title. First, ask yourself how you know it is the title. Sometimes, the title is centered at the top of the passage or it is in all capital letters or it is in italics or it has quotation marks around it. Does the title have a subtitle that appears after the title? What extra information does it provide about the title and what you will be reading? Look at the headings and the words in boldfaced type and/or italics. What hints do they offer about the reading?

Let’s Practice!

Before you read about Agnes Vogel, who survived the Holocaust during World War II, use the Anticipation Guide, KWL Chart, and Eye Think Guide to anticipate and think about what you know about the Holocaust and World War II.

HOLOCAUST ANTICIPATION GUIDE

Read each statement carefully and decide whether you agree or disagree with each statement. On a separate sheet of paper or on your computer write or type two or three sentences explaining your decision.

Jews were the only victims of the Holocaust.

The persecution of the Jews was the cause of World War II.

Adolf Hitler believed that people of northern European descent were superior to other ethnic groups.

Nobody helped the Jews of Europe escape from the Nazis.

Only Americans helped to liberate the concentration camps at the end of World War II.

The Holocaust could never happen again.

HOLOCAUST KWL CHART

Before you read the biography about Holocaust survivor Agnes Vogel, complete the KWL Chart that follows and complete the K column and the W column. What do you know about the Holocaust and World War II? What do you want to know?

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W

L




Don’t read about Mrs. Vogel yet. After you complete the KWL Chart, you should complete the Eye Think Guide. You don’t have to complete three before-reading activities, but we are just practicing different ones so you can see what tool works best for you!

HOLOCAUST EYE THINK GUIDE

Picture and predict before you read!

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What do you see in the pictures? Write down or type a description of the pictures. Can you guess what you might be reading about based on what you see in the pictures?

Read the title. What picture do you see in your mind when you see the words in the title and subtitle? What else do you think you will learn from this reading passage?

What do you picture when you read those heading titles? Write down or type a description of what you visualize. Can you predict what else you might be learning as you read?

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English and Social Studies Selection: “Agnes Vogel: Survivor from Hungary” by Kelly Watson

Agnes Vogel’s story of survival during the Holocaust is one of indescribable courage. A long-time resident of Indianapolis, Indiana, Agnes and her late husband Michael Vogel were outspoken voices of the Holocaust for Indiana school children, speaking all over the state about the dangers of hate and the lessons of the Holocaust. Mrs. Vogel was interviewed by an eighth grade student and Mrs. Watson as part of a project for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Agnes’s Early and Happy Life

On January 21, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a day when the world remembers a man who fought for liberty, justice, and freedom for all, I talked to a woman who was robbed of all those things and thrown into the open jaws of the Holocaust so many years ago.

Agnes Veronica Wieisz was born in Debrecen, Hungary, in the 1930s. She has faint memories of growing up with a big backyard and going to birthday parties and movies with her friends on rainy afternoons. She grew up as the oldest of four girls. Her father worked as a representative for a farming machinery company. Overall, Agnes had a very normal childhood. That was all about to change.

War, Persecution, and the Ghetto

On March 19, 1944, at her home in Debrecen, Agnes recalls watching enormous black planes fly across the dark, cloudy sky. The German planes landed in the city, and the next morning German soldiers roamed everywhere.

From that point on Agnes remembers everything in fast forward. On April 5, she was told to wear a yellow star, and one month later on May 6, 18-year-old Agnes was taken to the ghetto in the heart of the city.

In the beginning of June an air raid struck the city. A voice on a loudspeaker informed all Jews to be out by afternoon; the Nazis were liquidating the ghetto. Agnes and her family followed the orders, although they had no idea where they were going next. In the afternoon, two men and one woman made their way through the city, checking to make sure no person took anything of value out. Agnes remembers the woman taking her mother into the back room and physically feeling her over to ensure nothing was smuggled out. Finally, they boarded trains. They were on the trains all night, but the trains did not move. The cattle cars were cramped, hot, and dark.

After a night of mental torture—knowing where they were headed, but not sure why they were stopped—the cars started to move. After looking out the small cracks in the transport cars, everyone was surprised to find that they were going toward Budapest. They headed onward until they realized they were in Austria. In the small town of Strasoff, between the Hungarian border and Vienna, their cars stopped once more.

The Concentration Camp

In Strasoff there was a camp that had not been used. They unloaded and immediately formed two groups: women on one side, men on the other. Agnes followed her mother and sisters into a very large room, big enough for hundreds. They were told to get completely naked, and a German doctor came in to inspect them all. Agnes was wearing a delicate silver chain with the Star of David on it around her neck. When the young doctor reached her, he tore the necklace off her neck and stuffed it in his pocket. He proceeded to go on, but a woman behind Agnes said something to him in German. She has vivid memories of the woman who so bravely stood up for her rolling around on the floor in pain after a hard kick in the back from the insulted doctor.

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Again they were put back on the cattle cars and taken to the industrial part of Vienna. They stayed in a school, and her father soon went to work at a factory. While Agnes and other young women her age went to work at a housing project every day, her mother and young sisters stayed at the school where they lived. The girls mixed mortar and cleaned brick for days upon days. There were terrifying air raids three to four times a day, but one in particular stands out in Agnes’s mind. It was a bright, sunny afternoon, and there was not a cloud in the crystal blue sky. Agnes saw a plane was hit and watched as a man in a bright white parachute floated to the ground. She still claims today it was the most beautiful thing she ever saw in her life.

The Death Camp: Bergen-Belsen

After almost eleven months of tedious work and unbearable living conditions, they were taken back to Strasoff for reasons unknown to them. Strasoff was in a terrible condition, and there was no food. After a terrible but short time there, they loaded the cattle cars for one of the few remaining times, supposedly headed for the labor camp Bergen-Belsen. As they sat in the cars, ready to leave, an air raid began. Agnes recalls the unmistakable noise that a bomb makes as it falls to the ground. She smiles as she explains the way her father would stretch his arms around the whole family each time the whistle of a bomb drew near.

Amazingly, not one of the twenty-five cattle cars was damaged from the vicious bombings. After that, they were let out of the cars and the conditions became considerably better. They had no way to clean themselves, so the hygiene worsened, but there was enough food for a while. However, lice were everywhere and hope seemed to be running out.

Liberation

On April 10, 1945, sounds of fighting could be heard from all directions. The Russians were coming from the east, and the Americans from the west. Agnes laughs as she imagines the Germans who had guarded her that same day, crawling like babies, running away from Vienna.

The very next morning the Russians marched into camp. Agnes shudders as she explains a terrifying time. That afternoon some Russian soldiers began gathering up young girls to “go peel potatoes in the kitchen.” Agnes’s mother and two aunts would not let Agnes out of their sight, so luckily she was spared the nightmare that many young women faced that night. Each and every one returned at midnight screaming with terror and pain because each one had been raped. It is these kinds of unthinkable things that make Agnes’s liberation process a terror in her memory.

Journey Home

The prisoners stayed for only three more days and then were told to get out. They could not go west because fighting was still going on, so their only option was to go back where they came from. They gathered their last possessions and started walking east on a journey for home. As they walked, the Russians were coming in the other direction, and at one point a Russian soldier came across the road to ask Agnes’s father to light his cigarette. Being a polite gentleman, he obliged and lit the soldier’s cigarette. As he did so, the Russian spotted a shiny watch on her father’s arm. Someone he worked with in the factory had given the watch to him. The Russian demanded he give the watch to him. Of course, Agnes’s father refused. The Russian went across the road, came back with an open bayonet, and said, “Give me your watch.” Agnes’s father gave him the watch.

They continued on their way and stopped at the Hungarian border. They loaded cattle cars and headed back to their hometown. As they trudged into the city, looking tattered and worn, a few young men stopped them. Through their conversation the men let them know they wished the Germans had done what they intended to do. Dumbfounded and exhausted, they came to their home, only to find it completely empty.

The United States

Not long after returning home, Agnes, a grown adult, decided she could no longer live in Hungary. She quickly made plans to move to the United States of America to stay with her aunts in Detroit. There she claims she started her life. She has worked to move past the devastating tragedy that affected millions of other Jews just like her. Through it all, she has learned valuable life lessons, most of which the average person will never understand.