In order to improve students' reading achievement,
all middle school ELA teachers will:

1. Ensure "time on text" 

Students must be actively engaged with text during every class period (e.g., both reading and writing in response to text); "time on text" also means teaching students to slow down their reading so that they actively read and reread text to ensure comprehension.  Students must be involved in close readings of text every day , which should include annotating or annolighting the text, posing questions in the margins, summarizing main ideas of key sentences or paragraphs in the margins, underlining important details, analyzing vocabulary in context, etc.

2. Explicitly target specific reading outcomes

Every time teachers put text in front of students, they must explicitly target one or more specific reading outcomes & the targeted reading outcome(s) should be communicated to students. The targeted essential skills listed below should be a first (and continuous) priority, but teachers should also continue to explicitly teach different informational and literary text outcomes based on students' needs and the demands of various texts.  Click here to go to the Reading Outcomes .

3. Teach strategies for developing proficiency with specific outcomes

Teachers must be explicitly teaching students reading strategies through modeling, guided practice, and independent application; these strategies should include a range of informational and literary text strategies and the goal is to scaffold students toward more independent, critical, and reflective interactions with text. Click here to go to the list of Reading Strategies or Tools for Reading, Writing, & Thinking .

4. Develop students' metacognitive skills

Teachers must provide frequent and ongoing opportunities for students to reflect on the skills and strategies they are learning, as well as reflect on the strategies they are using to answer questions in response to text.  Brief but frequent opportunities for reflections should accompany instruction with a new skill or strategy that students are learning to apply to make meaning from texts.

5. Inspire confidence & celebrate success

Teachers must take a positive or strength-based approach to working with students; continue to build on their strengths while working to improve their weaknesses and communicate your belief that they will succeed.  The positive expectations that teachers consistently communicate have a tremendous effect on students' sense of their own ability to succeed.

Based on reading comprehension pre-tests administered during the fall of 2003, the following skills were identified for instructional emphasis in grades 6-8.  Rather than teach these skills in isolation or through drill activities, these skills should be taught using the texts that students are reading .

• Understand stated information & comprehend texts

Students consistently demonstrate difficulty answering questions with answers that are stated in the text.  These "right there" questions require students to first read the text carefully and then selectively reread the passage that contains the "right there" information.  When students skim the text initially and/or fail to return to the text, they consistently answer these questions incorrectly. 

• QAR Strategy

• Annotating a Text

• Annolighting a Text

• Collaborative Annotation

• Key Concept Synthesis

• Main Idea Notes

• Process Notes

• Q-Notes

• Pyramid Notes

• Interactive Notes

• Interactive Notebook

• Parallel Note-taking

• Questions Only

• Making inferences & drawing conclusions

Making inferences and drawing conclusions require students to go beyond the stated information to understand what the text suggests or implies.  These "think and search" questions require close reading of the relevant passages so that students can reason their way to the best answer.  Close reading involves actively engaging with the text to pose questions in the margins, identify main ideas, paraphrase key concepts, underline important details, etc.

• QAR Strategy

• Key Concept Synthesis

• Dense Questioning

• Socratic Seminars

• Collaborative Questions

• Questioning a Text

• Inference Notes

• Inference Text/Subtext

• Inferential Reading

• Metaphor Analysis

• Reciprocal Notes

• Reciprocal Teaching

• Question Generator

• Transactional Reading Journal

• Think Aloud

• Understanding vocabulary in context

Students consistently struggle with reading comprehension questions that require them understand the meaning of unfamiliar words.  Just as students need to return to the text to answer "stated information" and "inference" questions, they need to return to the text and use context clues to decipher the meaning of new and unfamiliar words.  Using roots, prefixes, and suffixes can also provide students with enough information to rule out incorrect answer choices and reason their way to the best answer.

• Daily close reading: Select a passage (1 sentence to 1 paragraph in length) from a text students are reading and engage them in a close reading, annotating the text and using context clues to understand the meaning of vocabulary words in context.  Close reading can also include posing questions in the margins, identifying main ideas, paraphrasing key concepts, underlining important details, etc.

• Using Context Clues: There are at least seven different types of context clues that students can use to decipher an unfamiliar word in context (e.g., synonym clues, comparison and contrast clues, definition or description clues, association clues, words in a series clues, tone and setting clues, cause and effect clues).  Click here for a handout that describes these different types of context clues.

• Paraphrasing passages: Using brief excerpts or passages from text students are reading, have students paraphrase what they have read, accounting for the vocabulary words and concepts that are important to the excerpt.  Students can compare their paraphrasings to see if they put the vocabulary words and concepts into their own words without leaving out essential information.

• Roots/Prefixes/Suffixes: Using words that students encounter in their reading, use the roots/prefixes/suffixes glossary in the LRG (pages 41-43) to unpack the word parts that would provide clues to the word's meaning.  Avoid having students memorize the list of roots/prefixes/suffixes or applying them to words taken out of context. Click here to go to the Language Resource Guide .