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Handout
Scholastic

Scholastic: Writing With Scientists With the American Museum of Natural History

For Students 3rd - 8th Standards
Follow this six-step method and you'll have a good understanding of what a good scientific research paper involves and how it is organized. There are plenty of samples for you to look at. This explanation is also very helpful for...
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Lesson Plan
ReadWriteThink

Read Write Think: Using Thieves to Preview Nonfiction Texts

For Teachers 6th - 8th Standards
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...
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Unit Plan
TES Global

Blendspace: Questioning Nonfiction Text Oil Spills

For Students 6th - 8th Standards
An eight-part learning module with links to texts, videos, and websites to use while improving informational text skills through the topic of oil spills. The print materials have directed exercises for text analysis by students.
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Unit Plan
Read Works

Read Works: Passages: Predicting the Future

For Teachers 7th - 9th Standards
[Free Registration/Login Required] Students read an informational text about the predictions of a futurist and answer questions on comprehension, text support, main idea, vocabulary, and more. Links to a paired text and paired text...
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Unit Plan
Read Works

Read Works: Passages: Vanquishing the Gooples

For Teachers 7th Standards
[Free Registration/Login Required] Students read a story about a girl named Melissa and her adventure at a Renaissance Faire and answer questions in comprehension, setting, characterization, main idea, inference, transitions, and more. A...
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PPT
Sophia Learning

Sophia: Annotating Text

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
This slideshow focuses on the reading strategy, annotating text. It defines the term and purpose, lists types of annotation, explains what to annotate, and suggests how readers develop their own method.
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Unit Plan
Sophia Learning

Sophia: Critical Reading as a Learning Strategy

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
This tutorial focuses on critical reading using a downloadable PowerPoint presentation, "Critical Reading 101," which includes separating fact from opinion, 6 propaganda techniques, and 6 common fallacies in reasoning. Also provided is...
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Unit Plan
CommonLit

Common Lit: Financial Literacy

For Students 7th - 8th Standards
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...
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Lesson Plan
Other

Warren County Schools: Citing Textual Evidence

For Teachers 6th - 8th Standards
Well-organized and in-depth instructional activity on citing textual evidence and understanding inferences. Many examples are included, as well as exercises for the students to practice what they have learned. [PDF]
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Lesson Plan
Better Lesson

Better Lesson: Analyzing Text Complexity of Non Fiction Sources

For Teachers 6th - 8th Standards
This lesson plan will help middle schoolers 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...
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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...
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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...
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Professional Doc
AdLit

Ad lit.org: Explicit Comprehension Strategy Instruction

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
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...
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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.
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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,...
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Article
AdLit

Ad lit.org: Content Area Literacy: Science

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
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...
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Professional Doc
AdLit

Ad lit.org: Effects of Intensive Reading Intervention of Decoding Skills

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
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...
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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...
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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.
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Graphic
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University

De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: I Can Infer Character Traits and Support [Pdf]

For Students 5th - 8th Standards
Students can use this graphic organizer while making inferences about characters in a story or history text. Students will collect text evidence in the chart to support their character trait inferences.
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Activity
InterLink Language Centers

Interlink Language Centers: Reading Exercises Science

For Students 6th - 8th Standards
An interactive exercise for students to use while developing an understanding of how to read scientific informational texts. The text is presented one paragraph at a time and difficult vocabulary words are defined as footnotes. Then...
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Handout
Other

Kid Bibs: Effective Use of Textbook Features

For Students 3rd - 8th Standards
Here, parents and teachers can find tips for helping young readers understand the expository writing found in textbooks.
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Lesson Plan
ReadWriteThink

Read Write Think: Questioning a Comprehension Strategy for Small Group Reading

For Teachers 6th - 8th Standards
Contains plans for three lessons about asking the right questions while reading. After the teacher explains the difference between factual and inferential questions, students practice using them in small-group guided reading. In addition...
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Website
Other

English Companion: Reading Expository Text

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
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.