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Context Clues in Info Texts – Part 3

In the third entry of this series, I describe three reading conferences I had with students focused on making sense of context clues and share some tips.

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Context Clues in Info Texts – Part 1

Explicitly teaching TYPES OF CONTEXT CLUES can be a game changer for our students. Here’s a lesson I gave along with a bookmark and student artifacts.

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“Well I noticed…!”

“What just happened in the story?” When a student is reading fiction, this is the question I ask first. As they respond, I begin to notice what they are NOT saying OR important details that might have been overlooked. During a recent conference, a student read the page below to me easily. The title of …Read more

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Less is More – Knowing One Part of a Text Well

Have you ever asked a reader to tell you about what they learned in a short nonfiction book or article and they do one of the following? Or does the student do one of the following? If you experience the former more than the latter, it may be worth your time to engage the students …Read more

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When kids ‘mumble read’ a word they don’t know…

A few weeks ago I was in a conference with a student reading a book about the sea lizard. When he came to a word he didn’t know, he mumbled the word and kept going. Do you have students that do this? These students are self-monitoring but they lack fix-up strategies. They know when they …Read more

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Orally rehearsing with key words can boost writing

Do your students struggle to compose sentences about nonfiction topics that make sense or sound right? Do they lack structure at the sentence and paragraph level? Here’s a few tricks I’ve been trying with small groups of late-early and transitional stage readers. Generate key words As part of a conversation generate key words they will …Read more

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Discourage students from taking notes like this. Here’s why.

If students are reading multiple texts on a topic and taking notes on each of those sources, I require that (or strongly suggest) they write notes in phrases–just enough words to help them remember what they learned or what the author was saying or the student’s response to information. In most cases, I strongly encourage …Read more

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Do our students notice “definitions” & “examples”?

Do you students notice when authors provide definitions and examples? Many nonfiction authors use these and other types of details when they describe concepts like forces, magnets, weather and so forth. Readers need to recognize these types of details to understand these concepts. I was surprised one day to find out the middle grade students I …Read more

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“I highlighted all the words! They’re all important!”

When annotating, do your students underline (or highlight 😉 most of what they’ve read because they think “it’s all important”? Maybe they’ve underlined that much because they don’t know how to determine what is important? Below I describe a Phase 2 demo lesson I gave to tackle this issue – focused on helping students identify …Read more

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Are your students’ minds wandering while they read?

When I ask students if they ever think about lunch or something else while they are reading, most give me a thumbs up! After we get past the “shocked teacher” look, I talk to them about the importance of staying focused and monitoring for whether they are understanding the content in the source. Then I …Read more

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