Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Nonfict Readers Analyze Structure/views[pdf]
This graphic organizer contains questions for students as they analyze any nonfiction text. Students will read closely to determine the text's structure, viewpoint, and tone. This graphic organizer is a copyrighted material that may be...
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Comprehensive Questions: Nonfiction [Pdf]
Questions are provided to help students determine the main idea, topic, and fact versus opinion of a nonfiction piece. Students are prompted to write a summary of an informational text.
Other
Curriculum Associates: Determining Theme or Central Idea [Pdf]
In this reading comprehension lesson unit, learners are guided in learning how to find the main theme or idea of a text and understanding how details in the text convey that. Includes lots of exercises and examples, as well as...
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: Using Thieves to Preview Nonfiction Texts
Contains plans for three lessons that introduce a nonfiction prereading strategy with the acronym THIEVES, which stands for Title, Headings, Introduction, Every first sentence, Visuals and vocabulary, End Questions, and Summary. In...
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: Playing With Genre Through Newspapers and Short Stories
Contains plans for three lessons that ask students to compare narrative writing (short stories) to expository writing (news articles) in order to understand what makes each genre unique. In addition to objectives and standards, this...
Other
Academic Reading: Sample Task [Pdf]
This Academic Reading task provides a practice assessment for identifying headings and subheadings. In the task, students must read the selection and then determine the best subheading for each of the sections.
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: One Page Nonfiction Readings: Grade 6
This site contains 17 nonfiction articles that are appropriate for students with a 6th grade reading level, as measured by the Fry Formula. Questions for each passage are provided. Graphic organizers are available for these copyrighted...
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: Scaffolding Summarization With Fishbone Mapping
Lesson that teaches students how to find important and significant information while reading text. After locating information through strategies, students learn how to summarize content-area text. A downloadable fishbone template is linked.
University of Houston
University of Houston: Extra! Extra! What's the Big Idea?!
Get the feel of running a newspaper by selecting articles and pictures. If you are interested in checking out real newspapers, there is a clickable list of online newspapers for younger readers.
Read Works
Read Works: Passages: The Film Editor
[Free Registration/Login Required] Students read a nonfiction text about the job of a film editor and answer questions about comprehension, supporting details, inferencing, main idea, and more. Links to a paired text and paired text...
Read Works
Read Works: Passages: The Process of Acting
[Free Registration/Login Required] Students read a nonfiction text about what it takes to be an actor and answer questions about comprehension, main idea, supporting details, vocabulary, transitions, and more. Links to a paired text and...
Sophia Learning
Sophia: Understanding the Question
This lesson focuses on how to understand a reading question; it details three main parts: look for content and process words, state the question in your own words, and restate the question as a statement. It explains each and provides...
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Comprehensive Assessment: Nonfiction [Pdf]
Questions are provided to help students determine the main idea, topic, purpose, and opinion of a piece of nonfiction. Students are prompted to write a summary of the informational text.
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Summarize Informational/expository Text (English 6 Reading)
[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] Learn how to summarize the main ideas and supporting details in text and understand that a summary does not include opinions.
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Summarize Informational/expository Text (English 7 Reading)
[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] Learn how to evaluate a summary of the original text for accuracy of the main ideas, supporting details, and overall meaning.
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Synthesize Ideas in Informational/expository Texts
[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] Learn how to synthesize and make logical connections between ideas within a text and across two or three texts representing similar or different genres (including literary...
CommonLit
Common Lit: Where Did I Come From
CommonLit.org is a wonderful resource to use in a Language Arts classroom. Each story or article is accompanied by guided reading questions, assessment questions, and discussion questions. In addition, students can click on words to see...
CommonLit
Common Lit: Women in Ancient Rome
CommonLit.org is a wonderful resource to use in a Language Arts classroom. Each story or article is accompanied by guided reading questions, assessment questions, and discussion questions. In addition, students can click on words to see...
CommonLit
Common Lit: Duck & Cover: School Drills During the Cold War
CommonLit.org is a wonderful resource to use in a Language Arts classroom. Each story or article is accompanied by guided reading questions, assessment questions, and discussion questions. In addition, students can click on words to see...
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD)
Ascd: Building Literacy in Social Studies: Ch 1: Reading Social Studies Texts
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.
Other
Reading Quest: Making Sense of Social Studies
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...
Better Lesson
Better Lesson: Analyzing Text Complexity of Non Fiction Sources
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...
Louisiana Department of Education
Louisiana Doe: Louisiana Believes: English Language Arts: Grade 6: If Stones Could Speak
Sixth graders will explore history and will learn that archaeologists, like detectives, work to piece together the past through investigation. Archaeological research provides us with stories of human history that help us understand the...
ProProfs
Pro profs.com: 8th Grade Main Idea Quiz
An interactive quiz with four short passages and thirteen multiple choice and extended response questions focusing on main ideas and supporting details. Students can access all passages and questions without an account, but a free...