Reading & Writing Across the Curriculum

A Collaborative Project - Plainfield South & Plainfield High School - Central Campus

Informational Reading Tips & Strategies

1. Don't assume that your students know how to read for information. Modeling your own thought processing of the informational text is extremely helpful for the students to understand how it is done--"Think aloud".

2. When reading, talking and writing go together, it allows all learning styles and ability levels a better chance to get involved.

3. Students need to read for information on a regular basis. Practice makes it easier! Students will be more apt to read, if the lectured material is new material and not directly from the text.

4. If the text isn't "user friendly", the teacher needs to do more - read together, paired reading, or reciprocal teaching.

5. Start each chapter by activating prior knowledge or an anticipation guide. If there is little or not prior knowledge, use picture books, personal stories, or visuals to create a base knowledge to work from.

6. Use a notebook for: vocabulary words/definitions, Cornell note taking, questions generated by their reading, making predictions, active reading, and writing summaries. The students need to be taught how to write summaries.

7. Make transparencies of pages in the text on a regular basis and highlight main ideas, key terms, supporting facts. This modeling can lead to guided highlighting and eventually independent highlighting.

8. Use idea webs and graphic organizers to accompany readings. This works well in paired or small groups.

9. Assign shorting readings for homework ( a couple of pages). Ask students to list 1 facts in their notebooks, written in their own words based on the readings, or create a graphic organizer or web.

10. When you have your students round-robin read, you will be the only one listening!