Thinking about Theme 🤔

I've spent most of this post Thanksgiving weekend working on resources for my TpT store and my classroom centered around theme. Traditionally, this has been something that my students have struggled with. I think it has to do with making abstract concepts concrete. How exactly do you do that? One way I've found helpful is the use of anchor charts. Sometimes they might be displayed on the classroom walls, other times I'll have students post "mini- charts" in their reading notebooks.

I think a key factor in effective instruction is the use of metacognitive strategies - making your thinking and thought processes clear to students. I try to model the type of thinking I use through interactive read-alouds, as well as to explicitly teach my thought processes in my mini-lessons, as you can see below with a slide from one of my teaching theme min-lessons.

A final strategy that has proven to be useful for me when I’m teaching difficult concepts like theme is to provide students with examples, as well as non-examples, that are representative of common student errors.

If you’d like some extra resources for teaching theme, then click on the link to grab a few THEME FREEBIES.

Or click HERE to head to my tpt store to access all of my theme resources. Please comment below to let me know what works for you when teaching concepts like theme!