Wonder of the Day® is a free, interactive, online tool to assist literacy efforts and teach-ing practices in the classroom and currently does not have an assessment component built-in. The Wonders ignite wonder and curiosity in the classroom setting by answering students’ burning questions such as: Why Do Bees Buzz? Why Are Flamingos Pink? What Is a Hybrid? Every day a new Wonder of the Day® is posted and connects informational text to Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts and STEM content areas of science, technology, engineering, and math. Harvey (1998) points out that “[s]tudents and teachers gain understanding through inquiry. Inquiry projects born of learners’ passion and curiosity encourage students to understand what they learn, rather than merely retell it” (p. 2).
An Exciting and Engaging Educational Tool
In October 2011 during a weekly team meeting, I introduced the Wonder of the Day® to my fifth-grade team teachers. We viewed the website, watched the video clip, read through the Wonder Words to know, and explored the Wonder of the Day® text. Next, we had a discussion about how to best utilize the resource. The team decided that the site would be piloted and become a component of our reading block each day. Two out of the four, fifth-grade classrooms committed to daily use of the Wonder of the Day® for the purpose of improving student learning and reading of informational text as measured by the 4-Sight Reading Assessment. The Wonder of the Day® promised to be a best practice in education that would excite, engage, and immerse students in short, high-quality, interactive, nonfiction text on a daily basis. The Wonder of the Day® was used for whole class, small group, and individual instruction during the reading block each day throughout the school year.
The Wonder of the Day® was displayed on the SMARTboard or copied on paper for the students to interact with using colored pencils. At first, each teacher modeled strategic reading and facilitated the process with the students. The process included:
Dr. Laura S. Caisse is a 5th grade teacher in the Morgan County RII School District and an Adjunct Instructor for William Woods University. Laura has taught for 20 years in elementary education grades 2-6. Her research interests include reading comprehension strategy instruction, struggling readers, and new teacher induction programs.
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Wonder of the Day®—Ask the question and discuss student responses.
Preview the short, informational video clip.
Review the Wonder Words to know and use— have highlighter ready to highlight the words as we are reading aloud and add the words to Vocabulary CRASH game deck which is a vocabulary card game that students create and play to review vocabulary words and meanings.
Set the Stage—Have you ever wondered.…
Interact with the nonfiction text: Read Did You Know?—students read aloud and trade each paragraph. Students mark interesting details and write questions that they still have lingering.
Try It Out—This was an at-home and report back to the class assignment.
Still Wondering?- Add to your Wonder book for further investigation and research at a later date.
Wonder What’s Next—predicting tomorrow’s topic.
Submit a comment—great way to use those higher-order thinking skills to process informational text by creating a response that includes at least three details that the student found interesting, one detail the student did not already know about the topic and learned, lingering questions about the topic, and a prediction about tomorrow’s wonder.