Context Clues in Info Texts – Part 3
Posted on February 4, 2025Share This Content
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Preparation Select a text that has strong supporting/extending features – graphs, maps, photos and captions, etc. Locate 3-4 features that you can focus on during the Phase 2 part of the lesson. If you’re unsure whether the features are strong, think about how you might answer the questions posed in steps 1-3 on the ANCHOR …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
Our students may need a reminder to use multiple sources of information to figure out a word – meaning cues (context & pic clues), visual cues (the letters in a word), and syntax cues (how the language sounds). They may need to learn to ask questions like: Does that make sense? Does that look right? …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
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
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
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.