Super Sequencing Strategies
Students will explore the informational text structure of sequencing in multiple contexts, as a reader and a writer, in order to improve their comprehension of informational text and their ability to analyze the author’s purpose. They will make connections between sequencing and events in their everyday life and use pictures and time order words to write their own informational text using sequencing.
Giving Meaning to Multiple Meaning Words
In this lesson, students identify and use keywords in a paragraph to infer the relevant meaning of multiple-meaning words. Students build a deep understanding of words by creating semantic maps that show relationships among words. The lesson was designed with English learners in mind and utilizes instructional strategies such as cooperative learning, visuals, graphic organizers, and sentence frames.
Retelling with Confidence
Students learn how to use the pictures in their books to retell a story in sequence. The teacher models how to use the pictures to retell the story Stellaluna by Janell Cannon. The students and teacher complete a graphic organizer using picture representations from the book. The graphic organizer is a frame for all the elements of a strong retell and requires students to include new vocabulary; the characters and setting; and the beginning, middle, and end of the book, Stellaluna. Students will apply the picture retell strategy by completing a graphic organizer for their own book and retelling the story to peers and their teacher.
Growing Our Vocabulary Goals
Students will use a variety of vocabulary strategies to apply their knowledge of unknown and multiple-meaning words.
2 Texas Middle School Fluency Assessment: Administering and Interpreting Results
This binder details how to score and interpret the results of the Texas Middle School Fluency Assessment (TMSFA). This course is Unit 4 of the Texas Adolescent Literacy Academy (TALA). These materials are available for view only; no credit or certificate is provided.
Many Stripes of Inferring
Students will infer character feelings and motivations and support their inference with text evidence.
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) Vertical Alignment
Click below to learn about the TEKS related to the unit and Research Lesson. The highlighted student expectation(s) is the chosen focus for the Research Lesson.
It’s More Than Just Sounding It Out
Students will be able to understand vowel digraphs (ai/ay pattern).
Locating Facts and Details in Text Features
First-grade students will rotate through engaging learning stations and read portions of expository texts to identify facts and details embedded within text features.
Traditional vs. Contemporary: "The Three Little Pigs"
Students will compare a contemporary version of "The Three Little Pigs" to a traditional version with respect to characters, setting, and plot. In a small group, students will analyze story elements on a t-chart to determine which parts of the stories are the same and which are different.
Revision Rally
Students will use the ARMS (add, remove, move, and substitute words and phrases) revision strategy to revise a procedural passage.
Flying High with Inferences
In this lesson, students integrate background knowledge and textual clues to respond to inferential questions that were generated by the students themselves. The lesson utilizes instructional strategies that have been identified as best practice for teaching inference such as: generating questions, identifying keywords, and activating prior knowledge. Additionally, the lesson is designed to support English learners and utilizes visuals, graphic organizers, sentence frames, and cooperative learning.
Stellar Sentences
Students will read a group of words, arrange them to make sense as a complete thought, and recognize and use capitalization at the beginning and a period as the ending punctuation mark.
Journalists Research, Too!
Students will research information in order to create a newspaper article about the topic.
Text Evidence and the Moral Lesson
Teacher will read How Spiders Got Eight Legs as a read-aloud. Students will write notes about what they think the moral is. Students will collaborate in groups to determine what they think the moral lesson is. Students will reread, highlight, and write the text evidence that identifies the moral lesson.
Click below to learn about the TEKS related to the unit and Research Lesson. The highlighted student expectation(s) is the chosen focus for the Research Lesson.
Get the Gist on the Main Idea
In this lesson, students use the Get the Gist Strategy to analyze text and identify the main idea. The lesson was designed with English learners in mind and utilizes strategies such as cooperative learning, visuals, graphic organizers, cloze reading, and sentence frames.
Uncovering Tone in Poetry
Students will interpret the tone of a poem, cite text evidence to justify their response, and research a synonym for the word they chose to expand their understanding of Tier 2 vocabulary.
Teacher introducing the poem
The Next Steps to Great Writing
Students will write a draft that is sequenced and logical after brainstorming.
Teacher introducing lesson
Revision is in the Details
Students receive the same pre-generated sentence and discuss with a partner how to revise that sentence, adding details either by writing or drawing.
Syntax Shuffle
Students will analyze one of four ways to incorporate grammar and syntax into their everyday language through the use of technological instruction. Once students have comprehended their grammatical type, they will practice among their peers to master and share the lesson (grammar rule) in a Jigsaw activity.
The "Moon" Idea
Students will observe the teacher sorting details that she read from a book about a dog. The teacher is making groups with the details and models her thinking. Students to help determine a title for each group. The students replicate that work in collaborative small groups using details they provided to the teacher after reading a book about the moon the previous day.