1.
Reading Skill: Making Inferences
Sometimes an author doesn’t tell you exactly what’s happening, but gives
you clues so you can figure it out yourself.
An inference is a logical guess you make based on facts in the text plus
what you already know from life. Maybe you or a friend have had a similar experience.
Or maybe you read about something similar in a book or saw it in a movie. You
can put the facts and personal knowledge together to figure out what’s going on
and why characters act or feel the way they do.
Example
A soaked Randy slipped inside the door and put his dripping umbrella in
the corner. As he crossed the room to our table, his shoes made a squishy,
squeaking sound. “What a day!” he moaned as he plopped into a chair and grabbed
a menu.
The author didn’t state what the weather was like or where the people
were, but you can infer the answers. Clues in the text and your own experiences
help you infer that a soaked Randy and dripping umbrella indicate it’s raining
outside.
Randy going to a table and getting a menu helps you infer he’s in a
restaurant!
Some people call making an inference “reading between the lines.”
Reading Strategies
Time Line
A time line helps students organize both fictional and nonfictional
events in sequential order along a continuum. Not only do students see the
events in order, but they are also exposed to the overall time frame in which the
events occurred.
Example:
Predictogram using quotes
Predictograms ask students to use what they know about words and phrases
from a selection to make predictions about its content and structure.
Predictions activities involve students in the text, engage their attention,
and give them a stake in the outcome of the story.
Example:
Character Change Map
A character-change map helps students understand characters in fiction.
By analyzing a character over the course of the story, students can see how a
character changes in response to plot events.
Example:
2.
Reading Skill: Visualize
The Visualize Strategy involves creating a vivid image in your mind
based on what you read. Visualizations can include sights, sounds, smells,
tastes, and feelings—anything that makes the scene more real.
Reading Strategies
Story Triangle
A story triangle is a creative way to think about and summarize a story.
Like a traditional story map, the story triangle helps students recognize story
elements. However story triangle allows students to respond personally to a
story since students most describe rather than just list characters, events and
problems.
Example:
Plot structure map
A plot structure map helps students recognize the structure, or grammar,
of a fictional selection. Identifying structure grammar enhances comprehension
by helping students identify important characters, predict events, and be
better prepared to summarize a selection.
Example:
Predictogram Asking Questions
Predictograms ask students to use what they know about words and phrases
from a selection to make predictions about its content and structure.
Predictions activities involve students in the text, engage their attention,
and give them a stake in the outcome of the story.
Example:
3.
Reading Skill: Compare and contrast
Some authors use a compare-and-contrast text structure to organize ideas.
To compare, they tell how things are alike; to contrast, they tell how things are
different. Words like same, different, some, all, every, also, but, both, or
many signal to readers that the author is using a compare-and-contrast
structure.
Compare: Every student in the school wore the same blue uniform.
Contrast: They may have to wear uniforms, but we don’t!
Reading
Strategies
Story
Comparison Map
A story comparison
maps helps the students see the similarities and differences between two
stories. By comparing two selections, students can make connections across
texts- between texts structures, characters and other story elements, authors’
styles, and points of view.
Example:
Compare
and Contrast Text Frame
A compare contrast
article is organized on the basis of similarities and differences of its
objects. A compare-contrast text frame helps students recognize this type of
expository text structure. Knowledge of this and other expository text
structures helps students comprehend content area text.
Example:
Venn
Diagram
A venn diagram helps
students notice and understands comparisons and contrast in text. By making
comparisons and contrast in both fiction and nonfiction, students can clarify
ideas within a text, across texts, and between prior knowledge and new ideas.
Example:
4.
Reading Skill: Cause and effect
Things don’t just happen; living things and forces make them happen. Whatever
or whoever makes something happen is the cause; what happens is the effect. For
example, a singer hits a very high note and a glass shatters. Vibrating sound
waves are the cause; broken glass is the effect. As you read, look for clues to
what makes things happen. Authors may use words to signal a cause-and-effect
text structure. Words like because or since may indicate a cause, and so or
therefore indicate an effect.
Examples
I missed the bus
because I overslept.
I overslept, so I
missed the bus.
In the examples
above, the signal words point out that oversleeping was the
cause and missing the
bus was the effect. But sometimes there are no signal
words. Readers must
figure out the cause-and-effect relationship from the text.
Reading
Strategies:
Cause-Effect
Frame
This type of
cause-effect frame helps student to identify what happened and multiple reasons
why it happened in both fictional and nonfictional text. When the students can
see that there are casual relationships between events or ideas in text, they
can make generalizations about other casual relationships in new texts and in
life situations.
Example:
K-W-L
K-W-L is a strategy
for reading expository text that helps students use their prior knowledge to
generate interest in a selection. K-W-L also helps students set purposes for
reading by encouraging them to express their curiosity for the topic they will
be reading about. K-W-L encourages group members to share and discuss what they
know, what they want to know, and what they learned about the topic.
Example:
Main
Idea Map
The main idea map
helps students recognize the main idea of a nonfictional selection and
distinguish between the main idea and the supporting details. Students
determine the relative importance of what they read by organizing and reorganizing
information from the text.
Example:
5.
Reading
Skill: Sequence
The word "sequence" means to put something in order from first to last.
Sequence of events in
a story is the order in which the events happen.
Knowing the sequence
of events in a story helps us to picture what is happening and when. It helps make the story clear and easy to
follow. When events are not in order,
the story becomes blurry and hard to follow.
We also use sequence
of events to understand how to do daily activities like following a list of
directions when cooking or building something.
Reading
Strategies:
Details
Web
A details web helps
students to organize information in fictional or nonfictional text when many
details are centered around one key or main idea. By completing the web
students see the relationship between the key or main idea and the details that
support it.
Example:
Character
Trait Web
A character trait web
helps students to understand characters in fiction. By identifying character
traits, students become personally involved in their reading, which increases
their understanding and enjoyment of the selection.
Example:
Story
Sequence Chart
A story sequence chart helps students to recognize the
sequence of the events in a selection. Keeping track of the sequence of events
is a simply way to give students a sense of story. In addition, understanding
sequence prepares students for more complex types of story structures.
Example:
