The Forest And the Trees: Helping Readers Identify Important Details in Texts and Tests

by Emily Kissner

It pays to be detail-oriented. Emily Kissner shows why in The Forest AND the Trees . She proves that in any content area, focusing readers on details can help you achieve important classroom goals, such The Forest AND the Trees begins with ways to get students in grades 58 looking for detailsparticularly those that contribute to meaning. From there through end-of-year testing, Kissners activities help students make better inferences, uncover main ideas more easily, and use details to create interpretations. Best of all, students will be better able to support their ideas in discussion, classroom writing, multiple-choice exams, and on-demand responses. Kissner also gives you assessment strategies to take into your classroom. She tells you not only what to look for but how students process details, how they infer meaning, and how they use details to visualize as they read. Youll have everything you need to begin helping any reader use details to build literacy-based skills and abilities. The devil isnt in the detailsmeaning is. Give your students a new, deeper way to look at texts and succeed on tests by leading them through the Forest AND the Trees .

184 pages, Paperback

First published September 10, 2008

Reviews

[Carmyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second Kissner book I've read and while I wasn't blown away by it, I found lots of little gems I might try with students. The book is aimed at grades 4-8 and I teach high school, but I figure title 1 reading students are in the class for a reason and that some of these techniques might prove helpful. If nothing else, I may try some of her standardized test approaches for multiple choice questions and for on-demand responses.

Ultimately, regardless of the age of the students many of them still struggle with the same problems. Often I assume it's laziness with high schoolers, but that may not be accurate and so I need to dig deeper and see if I can be more explicit in how I have students approach their reading and perhaps I can teach them how to respond to specific details. I liked many of her handouts and admire Kissner's willingness to write her own materials for the kids to read and respond to.

Her explanations of inferences was wonderful and I plan to use some of that tomorrow in class. Her explicit instruction on how to read dialogue was also eye-opening and has spurred me to dig deeper and find out if the students I teach are, in fact, understanding how to read dialogue.

I think both texts by Kissner, this one, and her book on summarizing have proven to be useful in helping me help kids and I would recommend them.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I use activities from this text often and turn to it for ideas.