During Reading

This strategy should be used whenever students are provided text. Students can annotate on digital text using free programs like Kami. Annotating text has multiple benefits, including:

• forces students to slow down and think about the text

• helps students document their thinking about the text

• provides an assessment of text comprehension

• allows teachers to guide students through the text by providing a purpose for reading

Teachers can require students annotate one or more of the following:

• write questions about the text

• highlight main ideas or concepts

• identify new vocabulary or unfamiliar words

• make connections to the text

Many of our students approach reading as a contest - who can be the first to finish? This approach results in diminished comprehension as students miss the key points in the text.

How do we know when students are reading to fast? They are the first ones to ask, "what do I do now?". To fix this, ask students to read aloud to you, and ask questions about what they read. Instruct the student to reread the text and annotate as they read. I've also had repeated success with asking students to read the text as if they were a news announcer (or influencer). To do this, students must pay attention to what the text is saying, and use intonation appropriately.

What about students who read slowly? These students are struggling with decoding the text. To help these students, provide text that is on their reading level. If you need help determining their reading level or finding appropriate text, please email me (a.dobbs_gaa@gaa-ad.com).

Making inferences is a higher-order thinking skill that requires students to connect what is in the text with what they know about the world.

To guide students in making inferences, it may be necessary to provide guiding questions. Guiding questions should start with why or how. Students should annotate the text as they read, showing their thinking and identification of the evidence.

Click here for an example of a Grade 9 Social Studies text for Unit 2: Revolutions with guiding questions and highlighted passages.

This strategy works best when modeled by the teacher in whole group, showing how strong readers interpret and think about text as they read. Students will benefit if they also have a copy of the text and can make the same annotations on the text. Students should then be given a text within their own reading levels and work in small groups to practice think alouds.

Context clues are the hints in the text that help readers find meaning in unknown words. The most important tip to understand with context clues is that they may not give the exact definition of a word - most of the time, context clues will provide a generalized meaning, which is enough for the students to move on. These hints can be in the form of antonyms, synonyms, definitions, punctuation, or inference.

Students should be taught to recognize and use context clues as they provide independence when reading. Like all things, the more that students use context clues, the better they will be at using them.

See the example attached of identified context clues and the glossary of context clues.

Sample text with identified context clues

Glossary of context clues

Word attack strategies are necessary for students who have difficulty decoding (or sounding out) words. We will often see this in our BML students who are new to the school or country. Students who struggle with decoding are in the emerging stage of reading, and have compromised comprehension. There are several ways to help these students, including segmenting words by syllables, and teaching spelling patterns and word families. Visit the Vocabulary section for an in-depth look at content-related word attack strategies.

Most importantly, if you have a student who consistently has difficulty sounding out words, contact your grade level BML or SST teacher as this student may require further assessment.

This strategy works best for any text that describes or explains processes. Students should show their understanding of the text by creating visual representations of their understanding. This will work with any content and can be used as a formative.

Students should annotate the text with questions as they read. Students who are new to thinking about the text will often start with basic questions (who is ...? where is...?). Encourage these students to write questions starting with how or why to deepen their understanding.

This strategy works best with longer text. Students will be instructed to read a section of the text then stop and check for understanding. This can be in the form of a small group discussion, answering guided questions, writing questions about the text, making connections, or visualizing. This strategy is also effective with struggling readers as the text is broken down and is not as daunting.

Similar to the Stop! strategy, this strategy allows the students to tackle the text in smaller sections. Students will read a section, then assess their understanding with assigned questions or a discussion. Students should then reread and improve their analysis of the text, looking for evidence, clues, or missed information.

This strategy works best with content-related text. Be sure to read over your chosen text first, and determine what information you want the students to learn. Provide the students with the purpose for reading, and direct them to find the evidence in the text to support their purpose. For the struggling readers, you may want to provide keywords that will help direct their search.

As a teacher, this is my preferred strategy as it helps students categorize information and allows me to assess their understanding and analysis of the text. It is most effective when you have read the text first and tailor the organizer to your standards, objectives, or essential questions. For example, you can create a section for vocabulary, main idea, supporting details, and evidence, or even divide the organizer by sections of the text.

The easiest way to create the organizer is by creating a table in Google Docs. If you need suggestions, please contact me and I can offer assistance.

This strategy allows students to identify with the concepts in the text, which leads to better comprehension. There are three types of text connections:

Text to Self: Students find topics or ideas in the text that relate to their own lives. For example, if reading a science text about biodiversity and classification systems, students can make connections to the different features of animals.

Text to Text: Students find topics or ideas in the text that connect to other written works. This works best if you provide students with multiple texts on the same topic and instruct students to find the similar ideas between the two.

Text to World: Students make connections to what they are learning with events in the world. For example, if you are teaching revolutions, students can find similarities between what happened in the past with what is happening in Ukraine now.

You can use this strategy by combining it with others on this page (such as graphic organizers) or on its own. Encourage students to make connections either independently or through class discussions.

SSQ stands for Stop-Summarize-Question.

Like the Stop! or Question the Text strategy, students read to a certain point in the text, summarize the text, then write questions or answer questions about the text. This works best for struggling readers, especially in small groups. This method removes the stress from reading large amounts of text, and allows the students to tackle difficult text in smaller sections. Additionally, this strategy works well in small groups when guided by either the teacher or co-teacher.

The Jigsaw strategy should be used to generate discussion about complementary and contrasting views on a question or issue from your content (Filkins).

To start, choose an assortment of texts in different reading levels and with differing points of view. Four different texts would allow you to successfully do this activity in a class of 28-30.

Strategically group students in two sets:

Set 1: Groups are organized according to reading levels. Assign a purpose for reading in the form of guiding questions that apply to all texts. Each person in the group receives the same text in the beginning of the activity. Students can read as a group or independently, annotating as they read.

Set 2: Groups are then reorganized with one member from each reading level group. Each member of the new group shares their findings and responds to the guiding questions. Groups should engage in discussion and debate about their findings, with the purpose of enhancing their evaluation of the content.