Reading Comprehension Questions for Parents

I found a great resource last year that I had totally forgotten about until I really needed it this year.  I found a set of question stems for parents to use at home (or teachers to use in class) when studying a reading story with their child.  These questions are broken up into here questions, head questions, and hidden questions.  Here questions have answers that can be directly in the story.  For example, what is the character's name? Head questions have answers that use knowledge from the story but the answer is found in your head.   Hidden questions have answers found in context clues.  The site itself is Adrian Bruce's Reading Stuff where there are actually a few other good resources as well.  I plan on remaking the questions because some of the words have British spellings like colour.

Click on the picture

Click on the picture

FISH Binder

I use a FISH (Find Important Stuff Here) Binder for each of my students.  The binder is divided up into sections using clear plastic sheet protectors.  The first section is for reading and in the sleeve I put their spelling and vocabulary list.  Behind the sleeve I place any extra reading "helpers" that the students may need for that particular story or in general.  The next section is for math.  In the sleeve I place a hundreds chart but the students use this sleeve as a whiteboard for math games.  It serves the purpose really well so they keep their gameboards in the sleeve as well.  Of course I place any math "helpers" in this section like multiplication charts or anything helpful for the unit we are studying.  The third section is for writing.  In the sleeve, the students place the writing rubric.  This section houses all of the writing "helpers" like synonym charts, and juicy color words, etc.  We clean out our binders at the end of a unit or the end of a story.  It just depends on which section we are working from the most.  I also keep in the binders their agenda and their morning work.  These binders go home every night!  The pocket in the front of the binder is for parent communication to and from school.  The pocket at the back of the binder is for work that is not completed yet.  Here is the cover page I made for this year's FISH binder.  Feel free to use it.  Leave me a comment if you like it and printed it.  :)  Thanks! Click on the picture of it to get a PDF.

Parent Communication

At the beginning of every year, I usually have my parents either fill out a questionnaire or write me a letter to tell me about their child.  On Pinterest, I found this link to a great blog that was full of great parent communication reproducibles.  Check it out here: