This week, I decided to try implementing a new reading technique. Students at my school are 2-3 grade levels behind in their reading comprehension, especially in informational text. To help promote a love of reading and science, I decided to try something new.
Many students don’t realize how important science and technology is in the real world. This year, I had students read an article about being a crime scene investigator. In addition to reading, students had conversations about evidence before reading and discussed answers to higher-level thinking questions about the article. Not only were students engaged, but they were also talking about becoming crime scene investigators. Students wanted to learn more and even gave suggestions for different articles that they would be interested in reading.
A great resource for this type of learning is Science News for Students. This site has articles with questions already created and articles with no questions. What’s great about this website is how it takes actual science journal articles and rewrites them to be in student friendly terms. This allows students at all reading levels to enjoy them!
This is DEFINITELY an idea that I will be sticking with by incorporating informational text once a week. More updates soon!
How do you incorporate informational text in your classroom?
Blair Stamper, LLC 