Instruction
1. Strategic Integration
Teaching Text Structure
- Once students learn to accurately identify a text structure element, integrate it with previously learned elements.
- Integrate text structure elements into new stories and expository texts.
- Use text structure in developing literal, inferential, and evaluative comprehension questions.
Teaching Literal, Inferential, and Evaluative Question Answering
- Once students can consistently respond to literal questions, include simple inferential questions.
- Increase the complexity of inferential questions gradually as students demonstrate success.
- Integrate evaluative questions throughout story reading and independent passage reading.
- Integrate literal, inferential, and evaluative questions with questions about text structure.
Teaching Retelling
- Once students learn to retell paragraphs, provide opportunities for retelling chapters and complete stories orally and in writing.
- Once students learn to summarize the main ideas in expository texts, provide opportunities to summarize in other contexts, such as reading directions, content area textbooks, mathematics problems, and school news.
2. Judicious Review
Teaching Text Structure
- Provide a range of activities that will require students to use the text structure elements they have learned, including oral and written summaries of stories.
- After reading stories with similar themes, have students compare elements of their text structures.
- Teach students to use text structure maps in planning their writing assignments.
Teaching Literal, Inferential, and Evaluative Question Answering
- Once students learn to respond to all three question types, include all three in any passage reading activities.
- Encourage students to ask each other different question types during literature discussion and partner reading.
- As you move to new passages, students may need to be reminded of what sources they need to use to answer the question (passage, their own knowledge, experiences, opinions).
Teaching Retelling
- Regular opportunities to retell parts of stories and expository texts should be planned as part of reading instruction.
- During group and partner reading, students should be encouraged to summarize major events in stories and main ideas in expository texts.
3. Formal and Informal Assessment
Monitoring Students' Progress
- Have discussions and conversations about texts that include open-ended, more complex questions.
- Observe students as they read and respond.
- Have students retell stories and monitor for accuracy and completeness of responses.