PBS
Pbs Learning Media: Walmart Middle School Litercy Initiative
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...
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: History Thinker: Analyze Then Summarize [Pdf]
This Center for Urban Education resource provides a downloadable worksheet. Students will read about a historical event and answer scaffolded questions that will help them retell what happened, explain the causes and effects, and then...
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
Depaul University: Center for Urban Education: Content Vocabulary [Pdf]
This graphic organizer will assist student with learning technical words from content area reading. This graphic organizer is a copyrighted material that may be used for educational purposes.
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
Depaul University: Center for Urban Education: Guide Nonfiction Reading
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. These graphic organizers are copyrighted and may be used...
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Analyze Hist: Challenge, Choice, Changes [Pdf]
Students can use this chart to help them analyze the cause(s) and effect(s) of historical events. Students will identify historical events and then identify the effects that follow afterward. Extension questions are provided after the...
Utah Education Network
Uen: Africa, a Look Through the Eyes of a Child
As an introduction to the seven continents unit, 2nd graders will read and explore assorted informational texts about Africa. Students will answer the following questions to acquire knowledge about the continent: Who? What? Where? Why?...
Utah Education Network
Uen: The Good, the Bad, and the Both
After exposures to assorted forms of informational text and media, Istudents will identify positive and negative effects of microorganisms. Students will explore how some micooorganisms have overcome their negative attributes while...
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.
Annenberg Foundation
Annenberg Learner: Analyzing Complex Text
During this lesson, students will use close reading strategies to analyze aspects of the setting in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. [7:57] CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.10, RL.11-12.10a/b Text Complexity
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Use Easy Nonfiction to Build Background Knowledge
A Texas librarian shares his strategy of using nonfiction picture books to introduce new concepts to struggling adolescent readers and to build their background knowledge. Once students have been exposed to academic content in easy...
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: Reading and Writing in the Academic Content Areas
This issue brief from the Alliance for Excellent Education looks at the role every middle and high school teacher must play to help older students become fully literate, and puts forth a four-part agenda for improving literacy in the...
AdLit
Ad lit.org: The Content Literacy Continuum: Improving Adolescent Literacy
The Content Literacy Continuum (CLC) is a tool for enabling teachers and administrators to evaluate literacy instruction/services offered within a school and to formulate a plan for improving the quality of those services. This article...
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: I Can Draw Conclusions: History Analysis [Pdf]
Graphic organizers are provided to help analyze the importance of people in history and to place events in chronological order. Guiding questions are provided to help guide students
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Read to Learn, Share What You Learn [Pdf]
Several tips for reading to learn are provided on this page. Students will explore the BIG idea presented in a nonfiction piece.
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Classify and Summarize Information [Pdf]
This learning module contains a link to graphic organizers that will help students categorize content and comprehend short and extended texts. The graphic organizers are designed to be applied to reading nonfiction passages in science...
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: I Can Locate and Classify Information [Pdf]
A blank T-Chart is provided for students to use as they sort facts into two categories. Students will classify science information with this aid.
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
Depaul University: Center for Urban Education: Interpreta La Historia [Pdf]
Students will read about a historical event and then illustrate their interpretations. Questions are included to extend the students' comprehension of the events. This activity is written in Spanish.
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
Depaul University: Center for Urban Education: Interpet History [Pdf]
Students will read about a historical event and then illustrate their interpretations. Questions are included to extend the students' comprehension of the events.
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Guided Reading/listening Ques: Nonfiction[pdf]
This graphic organizer will assist students with taking notes connected nonfiction content. After taking notes with the graphic organizer, students will ask guiding questions listed on the sheet.
Other
Super Teacher Worksheets: Reading Comprehension: Hurricanes [Pdf]
Read the fifth-grade reading passages and charts about hurricanes by Erin Ryan and answer the comprehension questions over the selections. PDF includes an answer key with explanations.
International Reading Association
Reading Online: Content Area Literacy Lessons Go High Tech
Research and ideas about the use of technology to aid in reaching content area literacy goals.
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: I Can Classify and Infer When I Read [Pdf]
This site contains links to two graphic organizers to guide and assess the understanding of nonfiction text in science and social studies.
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
Depaul University: Center for Urban Education: Classify Facts and Opinions [Pdf]
Students will find three lessons about facts and opinions in this learning module. The following topics are linked in the module: contrast and evaluate fact and opinion; classify facts and opinions; and locate and classify facts.