Unit Plan
Texas Education Agency

Texas Gateway: Summarize Informational/expository Text (English 6 Reading)

For Students 5th - 7th Standards
[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.
Unit Plan
Texas Education Agency

Texas Gateway: Distinguish Between Summary and Critique (English I Reading)

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
In this lesson, students will learn how to write an effective summary using reading strategies to help ensure that the summary contains enough information without including unnecessary details or personal opinions. You will also learn...
Article
Reading Rockets

Reading Rockets: Activities for Struggling Readers

For Teachers Pre-K - 1st Standards
How can you help the struggling readers in your classroom? This site offers some insight into activities to help develop your students reading skills.
PPT
Sophia Learning

Sophia: Reading Strategies: Tutorial

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
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,...
Unit Plan
Texas Education Agency

Texas Gateway: Distinguish Between Summary and Critique (English I Reading)

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
Learn how to summarize a text in contrast to writing a critique that takes a position.
Lesson Plan
Read Works

Read Works: Read Aloud Lesson: Digging Up Dinosaurs

For Teachers K - 1st Standards
[Free Registration/Login Required] Teachers will read "Digging Up Dinosaurs" using the close reading technique. Young scholars will use graphic organizers to summarize the steps necessary to collect, study, and build a dinosaur skeleton.
Article
Khan Academy

Khan Academy: The Sat Reading Test: Information and Ideas

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
The Information and Ideas category of the SAT Reading Test includes questions that focus on what the passage says (directly or indirectly). To interpret the author's message, you'll need to consider both what's stated and what's implied...
Unit Plan
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University

De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Read to Learn About City Systems [Pdf]

For Teachers 5th
"Read to Learn about City Systems" is a one page, nonfiction passage about government systems and workers that keep people safe including police officers, food inspectors, and water and sewer system workers. It is followed by an...
Unit Plan
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University

De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Read to Learn About Elections [Pdf]

For Teachers 5th
"Read to Learn about Elections" is a one page, nonfiction passage about government systems and workers that keep people safe including police officers, food inspectors, and water and sewer workers. It is followed by an open-ended...
Lesson Plan
ReadWriteThink

Read Write Think: Using Comprehension Strategies With Elie Wiesel's Night

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
Working in small groups, students read and discuss Elie Wiesel's memoir Night and then take turns assuming the "teacher" role, as the class works with four different comprehension strategies.RI.11-12.4 Word meaning, RI.11-12.10b Text...
Unit Plan
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University

De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: A Garden in Lawndale [Pdf]

For Teachers 4th
"A Garden in Lawndale" is a one page, non-fiction, reading passage about an eighth grade class who planted a garden in a vacant lot by their school and maintained it to improve their neighborhood. It is followed by constructed-response...
Professional Doc
AdLit

Ad lit.org: Recommendations for Improving Adolescent Literacy

For Teachers 9th - 10th
In its practice guide Improving Adolescent Literacy: Effective Classroom and Intervention Practices, the Dept. of Education offers five recommendations for increasing the reading ability of adolescents. Those recommendations are...
Unknown Type
Education Development Center

Tv411: Summarizing: Activity 3

For Students 1st - 3rd Standards
In this activity, students choose the correct category to which details belong. Being able to categorize helps students to identify the difference between main ideas and details.
Lesson Plan
ReadWriteThink

Read Write Think: Get the Gist: A Summarizing Strategy for Any Content Area

For Teachers 6th - 8th Standards
A five-part standards-based lesson in which students learn to write a 20 word summary of an informational text by focusing on answering the questions who, what, when, where, why, and how. This strategy can be applied to any content area,...
Unit Plan
Texas Education Agency

Texas Gateway: Make Inferences in Informational/expository Texts

For Students 6th - 8th Standards
[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] Use different organizational patterns as guides for summarizing and forming an overview of different kinds of expository text while distinguishing factual claims from...
Article
AdLit

Ad lit.org: Grouping Students Who Struggle With Reading

For Teachers 9th - 10th
There are a variety of grouping formats that have been proven effective for teaching reading to students with learning disabilities: whole class, small group, pairs, and one-on-one. This article summarizes the research and implications...
Interactive
University of Victoria (Canada)

Reading Exercises: Comprehension, Sequencing & Summary

For Students 6th - 8th
Choose your story, then answer the multiple choice questions, recreate the story in the proper order, and summarize the action using the interactive exercises.
Lesson Plan
Read Works

Read Works: Grade 2: Three Lesson Unit: Sequence

For Teachers Pre-K - 1st Standards
[Free Registration/Login Required] A series of three lesson plans designed to teach students to retell and summarize a fiction story told in chronological order and a story told with flashback. Lessons are based on the books First Day...
Unit Plan
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University

De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Staying in Phoenix [Pdf]

For Teachers 4th
"Staying in Phoenix" is a one page, nonfiction, reading passage about how settlers solved the water shortage problem for growing crops. It is followed by questions which require students to provide evidence from the story; it includes:...
Website
Nobel Media AB

The Nobel Prize: The Nobel Prize in Literature 1907

For Students 9th - 10th
At this website from the Nobel eMuseum, you can read a biography of Rudyard Kipling, which summarizes Kipling's life, education, and published works. In additon, the Presentation Speech given by C.D. af Wirsen provides a detailed...
Lesson Plan
ReadWriteThink

Read Write Think: Guided Comprehension in Action: Teaching Summarizing

For Teachers 6th - 8th Standards
Students learn the ins and outs of writing biographies by researching a contemporary or historical figure and writing a summary.
Lesson Plan
PBS

Pbs Learning Media: Walmart Middle School Litercy Initiative

For Students 6th - 8th Standards
Interactive, student-paced lessons on such literacy skills as categorizing, comparing and contrasting, summarizing, evaluating, determining cause and effect, using text features, connecting, inferring, sequencing, understanding problems...
Lesson Plan
ReadWriteThink

Read Write Think: Reading Informational Texts Using the 3 2 1 Strategy

For Teachers K - 1st Standards
Learners can count on using the 3-2-1 strategy to help them successfully comprehend and write about an informational text.
Website
Other

Literature Circles: Lesson Plans and More

For Teachers 3rd - 8th Standards
What are the major roles in literature circles? Check out this site to learn more about the individual roles needed to form a literature circle. Includes links to various reading handouts and lessons.