Other
Introducing Plain Language
This site by Plain Language Online states that plain language "begins with the needs of the reader," which will determine why and how the writer writes. It goes on to elaborate on audience and purpose, idea organization, use of...
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.
TES Global
Blendspace: Questioning Nonfiction Text Oil Spills
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.
Read Works
Read Works: Passages: Predicting the Future
[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...
Sophia Learning
Sophia: Purpose
This slideshow lesson focuses on purpose; it defines purpose and lists the two main purposes of all writing: to educate (didactic text meaning to inform and instruct) or to entertain (imaginative text). The purpose could also be art for...
Sophia Learning
Sophia: Annotating Text
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.
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Synthesize Ideas in Informational/expository Text
[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 and support with...
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Summarize Informational/expository Text
[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] You will learn how to summarize main ideas, supporting details, and relationships among ideas within expository text.
CommonLit
Common Lit: Financial Literacy
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...
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: Frayer Model
The Frayer Model is a strategy that uses a graphic organizer for vocabulary building. This technique requires students to (1) define the target vocabulary words or concepts, and (2) apply this information by generating examples and...
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: Extended Writing to Learn Strategies
Writing enables students to process, organize, formulate, and extend their thinking about what they have been learning. In addition, teachers can also assign writing to help students evaluate what they know and understand about a topic....
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.