Unit Plan
Other

Carson Newman College: Close Reading of a Literary Passage [Pdf]

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
Provides a number of questions that students can ask themselves about a literary passage when doing a "Close Reading" and following this with an organized piece of writing. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.5
Article
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD)

Ascd: Building Literacy in Social Studies: Ch 1: Reading Social Studies Texts

For Students 6th - 8th Standards
Article provides excellent tips and strategies for building comprehension and critical thinking skills in Social Studies. It describes some of the challenges students have with reading and understanding their textbooks.
Website
Other

Reading Quest: Making Sense of Social Studies

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
Teaching students to read well in areas other than language arts requires teaching and reinforcing the kinds of reading strategies taught here. There are 27 strategies, ranging from brainstorming to word mapping. The site includes PDF...
Lesson Plan
Better Lesson

Better Lesson: Analyzing Text Complexity of Non Fiction Sources

For Teachers 6th - 8th Standards
This instructional activity will help students read and comprehend nonfiction, specifically biographies, through determining criteria for text complexity. Included is a PDF and Smart Notebook titled Determining Text Complexity, and an...
Professional Doc
Texas Education Agency

Texas Gateway: Using Features of Literary & Informational Text to Guide Reading

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
A learning module that teaches students about using text features to guide reading in three mini lessons: Engaging with Text, Literary Think-Aloud, and Informational Think-Aloud. Download a PDF with lesson plans and printable handouts...
Unit Plan
Texas Education Agency

Texas Gateway: Write Expository Text That Synthesizes Ideas

For Students 7th - 9th Standards
[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] A learning module that teaches students how to bring ideas together in an expository text in four lessons: Introduction, Analyzing Our Sources, Pulling Out the Major Points...
Professional Doc
AdLit

Ad lit.org: Classroom Strategies: First Lines

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
First Lines is a strategy in which students read the beginning sentences from assigned readings and make predictions about the content of what they're about to read. This pre-reading technique helps students focus their attention on what...
Professional Doc
AdLit

Ad lit.org: Classroom Strategies: Listen Read Discuss (Lrd)

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
Listen-Read-Discuss (LRD) (Manzo & Casale, 1985) is a comprehension strategy that builds students' prior knowledge before they read a text. During the first stage, students listen as you present the content of their reading through a...
Professional Doc
AdLit

Ad lit.org: Classroom Strategies: Inferential Reading

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
Teaching students to "read influentially" helps them learn how to read more strategically. This technique is derived from the teaching model that learners develop knowledge via the process of interpreting new information in light of past...
Professional Doc
AdLit

Ad lit.org: Extended Discussion of Text Meaning and Interpretation

For Teachers 6th - 8th Standards
Teachers should provide opportunities for students to engage in high-quality discussions of the meaning and interpretation of texts in various content areas as one important way to improve their reading comprehension.
Professional Doc
AdLit

Ad lit.org: Five Areas of Instructional Improvement to Increase Academic Literacy

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
How can content-area, non-reading-specialist teachers contribute to academic literacy? They can incorporate these five techniques throughout their lessons: (1) provide explicit instruction and supported practice in effective...
Professional Doc
AdLit

Ad lit.org: Seven Strategies to Teach Students Text Comprehension

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
Comprehension strategies are conscious plans - sets of steps that good readers use to make sense of text. Comprehension strategy instruction helps students become purposeful, active readers who are in control of their own reading...
Professional Doc
AdLit

Ad lit.org: Key Literacy Component: Text Comprehension

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
Text comprehension allows readers to extract or construct meaning from the written word. Students who misread words or misinterpret their meanings are at a disadvantage. Proper instruction can boost students' skills in this key area.
Professional Doc
AdLit

Ad lit.org: Analytical Writing in the Content Areas

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
Because writing is thinking, the organization of students' writing reflects both the structure of their thinking and the depth of their understanding. Students should be writing in all their classes, explaining what they know and how...
Professional Doc
AdLit

Ad lit.org: Teaching Content Knowledge and Reading Strategies in Tandem

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
Many areas of instruction can have a rippling effect for the expansion of readers' repertoire of skills, including pre-reading, predicting, testing hypotheses against the text, asking questions, summarizing, etc. Literacy-rich,...
Professional Doc
AdLit

Ad lit.org: An Introduction to Analytical Text Structures

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
Many students are used to writing narratives - stories, description, even poetry, but have little experience with analytical writing. This article is an introduction to six analytical text structures, useful across content areas. See...
Professional Doc
AdLit

Ad lit.org: A Summary of "Writing Next"

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
What does research tell us about effective teaching techniques to help adolescents develop their writing skills? This article summarizes Writing Next, a 2007 study of adolescent writing instruction.
Lesson Plan
Scholastic

Scholastic: Lesson Plan for Nonfiction Comprehension: Skimming Text

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
Build comprehension by developing reading strategies for use with nonfiction text. This lesson focuses on teaching students to recognize text elements as clues to help them quickly locate key information in text.
Website
E Reading Worksheets

E Reading Worksheets: Summarizing Worksheets and Activities

For Teachers 6th - 8th Standards
In this instructional resource, students will learn more about summarizing texts. Worksheets and PowerPoint lessons are provided to reinforce understanding about ways to summarize nonfiction texts and to identify main ideas. This module...
Professional Doc
Wisconsin Response to Intervention Center

Wisconsin Rt I Center: Text Dependent Questions [Pdf]

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
Describes a reading strategy where students must respond to text by supporting their ideas with text-based evidence. Lists different categories of questions the teacher can prepare based on the text chosen, with examples for each.
Handout
Curated OER

Mc Graw Hill: Use Details and Examples

For Students 6th - 8th Standards
Review how to use text evidence, details, examples, and personal experiences to make inferences then read a passage to practice on your own.
Handout
Curated OER

Mc Graw Hill: Part 2 Reading: Determine Main Ideas and Supporting Details

For Students 3rd - 8th Standards
See how to pick out the main ideas and supporting details on this site. Click on Model at the bottom right.
Handout
Curated OER

Mc Graw Hill: Part 2 Reading: Determine Main Ideas and Supporting Details

For Students 3rd - 8th Standards
See an example of how to determine the main ideas and supporting details of a story.
Handout
Grammarly

Grammarly Handbook: Patterns of Organization for Academic Texts

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
A list of six different ways to organize a text with links to more information for each.