AdLit
Ad lit.org: Explicit Comprehension Strategy Instruction
Use explicit strategy instruction to make visible the invisible comprehension strategies that good readers use to understand text. Support students until they can use the strategies independently. Recycle and re-teach strategies...
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Five Areas of Instructional Improvement to Increase Academic Literacy
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...
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Seven Strategies to Teach Students Text Comprehension
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...
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Improve Performance on Reading Comprehension Tests
This article describes some of the thought processes that can help students perform well on standardized tests of reading comprehension. It includes two reading passages along with sample test questions that call on skills that eighth...
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Key Literacy Component: Text Comprehension
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.
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Teaching Content Knowledge and Reading Strategies in Tandem
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,...
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Content Area Literacy: Science
The demands of comprehending scientific text are discipline specific and are best learned by supporting students in learning how to read a wide range of scientific genres. Besides text structures emphasizing cause and effect, sequencing...
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Effects of Intensive Reading Intervention of Decoding Skills
This article summarizes a study that evaluated the effectiveness of intensive instruction in the Word Identification Strategy, a learning strategy for decoding multi-syllabic words. Results indicate that intense strategy instruction...
AdLit
Ad lit.org: An Introduction to Analytical Text Structures
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...
Scholastic
Scholastic: Lesson Plan for Nonfiction Comprehension: Skimming Text
Build comprehension by developing reading strategies for use with nonfiction text. This instructional activity focuses on teaching students to recognize text elements as clues to help them quickly locate key information in text.
Wisconsin Response to Intervention Center
Wisconsin Rt I Center: Close Reading [Pdf]
Teachers will learn about the importance of close reading. Teachers will learn how to implement close reading; measure progress of close reading; and find research to support close reading. A list of close reading activities are also...
Grammarly
Grammarly Handbook: Patterns of Organization for Academic Texts
A list of six different ways to organize a text with links to more information for each.
Other
Reading Skills for Academic Study
Designed for university students in the United Kingdom but applicable to English and advanced ESL students in other countries, this tutorial provides strategies and skills for required academic reading loads.
Grammarly
Grammarly Handbook: Body of the Text
This page explains how to write the body of the text from your outline (a link to "How to Write an Outline" is provided). The body must support the thesis and provide evidence and examples to support the thesis.
Virginia Tech
How to Read Essays You Must Analyze
Provides a detailed discussion on how to approach an essay for analysis.
Other
English Companion: Reading Expository Text
Taken from "Reading Reminders: Tools, Tips, and Techmiques," the information on this website provides advice on how to read, understand, analyze, and write expository texts.
Palomar Community College District
Palomar College: Reading an Informational Text
Glenn Foss, an instructor at Palomar College, discusses some possible reasons why students have problems reading and recalling textbook material. Provides an outline for seven steps of effectively reading assigned material.
International Reading Association
Reading Online Articles: Comprehension Instruction
An article on improving reading comprehension through time-tested strategies as well as a summary of new hypotheses about effective comprehension instruction.
Colorado State University
Colorado State Writing Center: Critical Reading
In-depth instructions on critical reading with lots of links to more reading guides and activities. A good site to help improve reading skills to become a better writer.
Sophia Learning
Sophia: Connecting With Reading
A brief slideshow that identifies and defines the ways that readers can make connections while reading a text (Text to Self, Text to Text and Text to World) and instructions about annotating while reading. Includes a worksheet that...
Sophia Learning
Sophia: Reading Strategies: Tutorial
In this slideshow tutorial, students will review different types of reading strategies to promote comprehension of text. The strategies included are the following: making predictions, visualizing, questioning the text, retelling,...
AdLit
Ad lit.org: What's the Big Idea? Integrating Young Adult Literature
Drawing on New York City teachers' experiences, this article examines three ways to effectively integrate young adult literature into the curriculum: use core texts (usually novels, but also other genres as well) that the entire class...
Harvard University
Harvard College Writing Center: How to Do a Close Reading
A brief explanation of the tasks involved in doing a close reading in preparation for writing. This writer breaks the process into three steps which involve annotating the text, looking for patterns, and asking questions of the text.