Reading Informational Texts

EOG Practice

Grade 8 ELA Practice Test

ELA 8 Practice Test

NYS Common Core Tests Released Items (choose from a list of different tests)

ELA/Literary Practice Standardized Tests by grade level (mostly fiction and poetry)

Older Practice Tests

EOG Practice Tests (2015)

EOG Practice (pre-Common Core)

Advanced Practice Tests

English II EOC Practice Test

Khan Academy Reading and Writing Practice

Informational Reading Strategies Review

Context Clue Practice

Answers

Context Clue 1 - IXL

Context Clue 2 - IXL

Context Clue 3 - IXL

Main (Central) Idea Practice - this worksheet is helpful for students who have difficulty finding important information and eliminating unimportant information in a non-fiction text. Students should read the passage and cross out any information that is not essential to the overall main idea of the article. Students should then paraphrase the remaining words to identify the central idea. Students should then check their own answers against the Suggested Answers below to see how close they are.

Suggested Answers to Main Idea Practice

Text Structure Practice Exercises

Answers

Steps to Finding Central Idea of an Informational Text

• Preview vocabulary.
  • Skim the text to find unfamiliar words.
  • Read the sentence to find context clues to help you understand the meaning of the word.
• Scan the article for text features.
  • Use text features, such as the title, pictures, captions, and headings, to give you an idea of what the central idea of the text is.
• Read entire text through once.
  • Ask/answer questions to check for understanding. Either discuss with someone else who has read the article, or write questions in the margin as you are reading. Answer your questions when you finish reading.
• Read text again.
• Identify key ideas and details.
• Identify text structures, such as compare/contrast, sequential, chronological, cause/effect, and description.
• Use your understanding of the text structures to Identify the author’s purpose in writing the article.
• Identify Central Idea
  • Synthesize: Use all the evidence that you have found (key ideas and details, author's purpose, text features) to identify the central idea, or the author's main point.
  • Check to make sure that your evidence supports what you wrote for the central idea.

Summarizing Information Text

Step 1:

Identify where the information came from: (In the article:, " article name," the author....

Select a Verb: states explains . tells describes narrates identifies demonstrates shows

Finish your thought with the central idea: that "central idea of the article.)

Step 2:

Copy your topic sentence below to look like a complete sentence. Edit to fix spelling, capitalization, and grammatical errors.

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

Step 3:

Create a fact outline. List the facts, key ideas and details, that you will include in your summary:

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Step 4:

Use your fact outline to write a summary paragraph. (Begin with a topic sentence, use transitions, and end with a closing sentence.)