Other
Carson Newman College: Close Reading of a Literary Passage [Pdf]
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
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...
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Using Features of Literary & Informational Text to Guide Reading
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...
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Write Expository Text That Synthesizes Ideas
[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...
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Classroom Strategies: First Lines
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...
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Classroom Strategies: Listen Read Discuss (Lrd)
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...
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Classroom Strategies: Inferential Reading
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...
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Extended Discussion of Text Meaning and Interpretation
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.
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: 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: Analytical Writing in the Content Areas
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...
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: 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...
AdLit
Ad lit.org: A Summary of "Writing Next"
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.
Scholastic
Scholastic: Lesson Plan for Nonfiction Comprehension: Skimming Text
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.
E Reading Worksheets
E Reading Worksheets: Summarizing Worksheets and Activities
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...
Wisconsin Response to Intervention Center
Wisconsin Rt I Center: Text Dependent Questions [Pdf]
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.
Curated OER
Mc Graw Hill: Use Details and Examples
Review how to use text evidence, details, examples, and personal experiences to make inferences then read a passage to practice on your own.
Curated OER
Mc Graw Hill: Part 2 Reading: Determine Main Ideas and Supporting Details
See how to pick out the main ideas and supporting details on this site. Click on Model at the bottom right.
Curated OER
Mc Graw Hill: Part 2 Reading: Determine Main Ideas and Supporting Details
See an example of how to determine the main ideas and supporting details of a story.
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.