Marking The Text
Description
What Is It?
Marking the text is an active reading strategy that asks students to think critically about their reading comprehension. Readers use distinct marking techniques such as, numbering paragraphs, circling key terms, and underlining information relevant to one’s reading purpose.
Why Use It?
This strategy gives the reader a way to isolate important information that can be referenced quickly during discussions and writing tasks. Students are focused on what is being stated in the text, leading to increased comprehension and retention of information.
Quick Tips
Extension: To increase rigor, consider giving readers the purpose for reading but not the specific directions on how to mark the text. But be sure to have students share out how they chose to mark the text as a debrief!
Did you know?
Explicitly using Marking The Text strategies in all content areas can support the development of language and literacy skills.
Marking The Text is also a Close Reading strategy.
Aligning how we "Mark The Text" in each content area schoolwide can accelerate students' skills because they aren't learning a new way in each class or grade level.
A related strategy is "Highlighting the Text."
When highlighting texts, students are making key points visually prominent. It is important to teach students what to highlight since highlighting everything in a paragraph can be more of a hindrance than a benefit.
Highlight key terminology and definitions if available in another color, such as pink or green.
The main idea of each paragraph should be highlighted yellow. It is usually contained in the first sentence, but it can sometimes be found elsewhere in the paragraph, such as the ending sentence. Beside each main idea, consider writing the notation (MI) or put an asterisk or other marking.
If there is a chart or important graphic, also mark in yellow to illustrate the main idea or point of the information contained there.
Highlighting the text is one of the top ten strategies recommended by the Stetson & Associates Group.