Aloha friends! I am so happy to be participating with such amazing teacher/bloggers in the Bright Ideas Blog Hop! Today I am sharing a strategy that I have been using with my struggling readers to find and track information in a non-fiction text. Our 2nd grade team is focusing on Common Core Standard RI.2.1-Ask and answer questions such as who, what, when, where, why and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text. My advanced readers are doing great, but I have a group of struggling readers who are having such a difficult time understanding how to answer a question completely. These kiddos are struggling just to read the text and now they have to cite evidence!? I worked with a small group this week and we did this activity together. This paragraph is from an old science text I had. We read through the paragraph together and discussed what we thought was the main idea. Then we read the questions. I had them highlight number one with a yellow crayon. We went back up to the text and found where it talked about rain. I had them highlight the whole sentence. We did it again for number two, but used pink this time. I had them use a different color for each question. Finally I had them answer the questions on a separate sheet of paper. I had them copy the colored sentence word for word. Then I read each question and they answered it in a complete sentence by reading what was on their paper. This was incredibly helpful to keep them focused and to keep track of their evidence/answer to each question. This was very low level, but they really need to practice this skill in order to move on to more complex questions. I am hoping that soon they will be able to quickly find information, underline it and begin to answer the questions in their own words. I am so glad you stopped by and hope this strategy can help some of your learners as well. The next stop on your hop is to my sweet friend Traci over at Dragonflies In First. She has a great classroom management tip on how to stop students from interrupting while you are working with individual students.
