What Your Teacher's Guide Won't Tell You About Comprehension

Hi there!  It's Hannah from The Classroom Key.   Do you ever feel like your kids are drowning in all the reading strategies and terms you have taught them?  When you ask for the main idea of a text, do they just give you a one word answer?  Or do they launch into a full summary?


One of the first reading strategies I teach is finding the main idea.  Then later we also talk about summarizing... and along with summarizing comes identifying story elements... and some assessments ask students to identify the topic of a text... and on, and on!  Geeze, my head is spinning already!

What your reading series teacher's guide (if you even have one!) won't tell you, is that kids need a way to organize those strategies and terms in their heads!  It may be that your students are good comprehenders but they're getting lost in the terminology.  This can be especially problematic on assessments when you can't prompt them for less or more information. 

Enter: a solution!  This chart shows how some of the most common reading comprehension terms and strategies relate to one another.  

Notice the bottom of the pyramid is the whole text.  This is the maximum amount of information.  Next is a summary which offers a little less information.  Up higher is the major story elements (characters, setting, problem, and solution) or content from text features (for nonfiction) which is less information still.  Then comes the main idea which is probably just a sentence or two.  Finally at the very top is the topic which would only be one or two words.  

If you ask your students to identify the main idea and they start launching into a summary, draw their attention to this chart to define the difference.  Conversely, if you ask for the main idea of a text and a student says "owls," you can point out how a one word answer would be the topic, but a main idea statement gives a little bit more information.  

Click the picture to download the chart and also a black and white version you can copy for students! 

Thanks for stopping by!

Hannah

Clip art in this post comes from the talented Sarah Pecorino.

Reading Comprehension Passages from The Learning Chambers

Hi y'all!  This is Stephanie from The Learning Chambers.  I hope that your Sunday is off to a super start.  It's been raining off and on all week here in southeast Texas, so I'm hoping for a dry day so my boys and I can enjoy a day outside.  I hate to complain about the rain, but one day of no rain would be great for my littles!

Today for Sample Sunday, I'm very excited to share some samples from my Easy Printing Reading Comprehension Passages Packs.  I've really tried to cut back on the amount of color ink that I use, and these have come in handy a lot this year! 

Here's a closer look at how they can be used in your classroom...

I've used these easy printing reading comprehension passages in both guided reading small group and during workstations for independent practice.  My kids really love the informational texts!  This one was about the Arctic Fox and it can be found HERE.

When I use them for independent practice, I normally use them as a quick check to see my student's written responses.  This student was working on main idea and supporting details during our workstation time.  My students still struggle with this concept from time to time, so I love that it gives them the extra practice that they need!

When I use them in a guided reading small group setting, I love to have my students highlight the text evidence that helped them answer the comprehension questions.  We just use yellow markers and they work great!

During one of my guided reading groups on Friday, we worked on locating facts in an informational text.  I noticed that a lot of times my students were writing down facts that they already knew and not facts from the text.  I loved having them highlight the textual evidence to prove that the fact was actually in the text.  Plus, they love using their yellow marker to highlight.

Since Earth Day is next week on Wednesday, I'm very excited to share this Earth Day informational text sample with you guys.  I would love to hear how it worked in your classroom!  You can grab your sample, by clicking on the cover below.