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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
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
Just a few photos from THIEVES (Manz, 2002) lessons as reminders of what we need to think about when introducing this strategy to students. I taught two demo lessons with third and fourth grade students. This was the first time they’d used the strategy and it seemed to take longer than I expected, but when …Read more
A student glancing at a text and predicting “It is about dolphins” is just not good enough. This surface level prediction will not help them as much as an informed prediction, a prediction that will move them forward in comprehending big ideas in the text. This is an example of the kind of prediction we …Read more
Do your students ever need help with explaining how key details support a main idea? Here are a few thoughts and artifacts from a three-phase lesson I gave. Phase One – Meet the Source The students read the article entitled “Tortoises battle it out with Marines for the right to stay put.” Suggestion – Before …Read more
Just be careful. NEWSELA is a great site for short informational articles for students to read. The content is usually worthy of student-led discussions and writing about in response. The beauty of NEWSELA is that the same article is available at different Lexile levels. (When you click on an article, check out the blue bar …Read more
A few posts ago I wrote about shaking up how we ask students to write in response to texts–creating hall of fame posters, designing two-page layouts for trade books, and writing letters. One of my colleagues in the field, Britany, a fifth grade teacher, gave this a go! She asked students who’d read the book …Read more
Here’s a middle school lesson for teaching students to analyze how two authors writing about the same topic may shape their presentations of key information by emphasizing different evidence or advancing different interpretations of the facts. Preparation Go to Science News for Students and locate an article that cites a study. Most of these articles …Read more
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