Context Clues in Info Texts (Part 2) – Conferring with Students
Posted on February 4, 2025Share This Content
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Are your students citing “text evidence” without really having control of the meaning of that evidence? Do they forget to explain further or elaborate? If either of these is the case for your students, they may need to space to contemplate what one detail or quote from the text means. A simple way to do …Read more
BUT. DESPITE. WHEREAS. ALTHOUGH. IN CONTRAST. INSTEAD. HOWEVER. YET. WHILE. NEVERTHELESS. NOTWITHSTANDING. Our students may gloss over these words as they read, not realizing how powerful they are. Words like these signal a causal relationship that is in opposition to what a reader might have expected. These words are a BIG DEAL. Technically they’re called …Read more
Three books about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Three different authors. Each shape the facts to reveal distinct insight. Here are two examples of how the authors address the same part of Ginsburg’s life in different ways. 1. As a child, Ruth’s love of reading 2. Ginsburg’s landmark case in front of the Supreme Court for …Read more
Do you have students who blow through texts? Getting the gist, but not really thinking through specific details that might make a difference in their understanding? Help them slow down by conferring about just a small part of the text–an important word, phrase, sentence. Sample conference When I leaned in to confer with a student, …Read more
During conferences, while I do listen to what students are saying, I also listen for what they are NOT saying. This is why. Frequently when you ask a student to tell you what they have learned from a complex informational source (or a part of a source), they will talk about content they understood without …Read more
“Why can’t I just highlight? Why do I have to annotate?” Ever heard this from a student? I don’t have to convince you of the value of annotating, but we do need to remind (and even convince) students that annotating a source can help us monitor for meaning. HERE’S THE WHY! Annotating can help us …Read more
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
Comparing details about similar topics can be a helpful reading strategy. In addition to teaching this, though, we also need to teach students to notice when they need to ask comparison questions. Below is a description of a series of demonstration lessons I gave focused on this issue. Phase One – Meet the Source Phase 2 …Read more
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.