Stephanie Harvey | Anne Goudvis

A Comprehension Curriculum
for K–6 Teachers to Use

T
Throughout the Year

DIGITAL SAMPLER: SECOND EDITION

PRIMARY & INTERMEDIATE
INTERMEDIATE
GRADES 3-6

. . . ask questions and

deepen understanding

. . . make informed decisions

. . . build knowledge
across the curriculum

Learn more about the new second edition at comprehensiontoolkit.com

@HeinemannPub Heinemann.com | P 800.225.5800 | F 877.231.6980

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 Stephanie Harvey | Anne Goudvis

Powerful Tools to Deepen Students’

T
Understanding of Nonfiction

SECOND EDITION DIGITAL SAMPLER

PRIMARY & INTERMEDIATE

The Comprehension Toolkit Strategy Books

Lessons based on
• Uses research-based six research-based
comprehension strategies comprehension
strategies *
• Builds knowledge across
the curriculum
• Provides ready-to-go lessons
and texts
• Supports you in designing your
own lessons for any topic

Informational Text Professional Support

Short, engaging, real-world nonfiction New online videos of classroom lessons,
plus print and digital resources to
design lessons and plan units

* New Lesson Book!

Content Literacy: Lessons and Texts for Comprehension Across the Curriculum
Integrates and extends all six strategies across the curriculum.

Heinemann.com | P 800.225.5800 | F 877.231.6980 @HeinemannPub

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 Stephanie Harvey | Anne Goudvis
DIGITAL SAMPLER:
WHAT'S INSIDE...
T SECOND EDITION
PRIMARY & INTERMEDIATE

Excerpts from
Strategy Book 4:
Infer & Visualize
(Intermediate),
Sampler Includes plus lesson 10:
the Introduction and Infer the Meaning
a lesson from the of Unfamiliar
Words
New Lesson Book: (pages 34-60)
Content Literacy: Lessons and
Texts for Comprehension Across
the Curriculum
(pages 65-96)

Excerpts from Keep Reading (Intermediate) Excerpts from the

a source book of short text Teacher's Guide:
(pages 61-64) Toolkits for Teaching
Comprehehnsion (Intermediate)
(pages 4-33)

Heinemann.com | P 800.225.5800 | F 877.231.6980 @HeinemannPub

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 Stephanie Harvey | Anne Goudvis

Tools for Teaching Comprehension

Teaching Thinking Strategies with

The Intermediate Comprehension Toolkit

THIS DOCUMENT CONTAINS PAGE SAMPLES FROM

THE INTERMEDIATE COMPREHENSION TOOLKIT, 2ND EDITION
TEACHER'S GUIDE
LESSON 10 FROM STRATEGY BOOK 4: INFER & VISUALIZE
KEEP READING: A SOURCE BOOK OF SHORT TEXT

FOR MORE INFORMATION AND AUTHOR VIDEOS

OR TO ORDER, VISIT:
COMPREHENSIONTOOLKIT.COM

HEINEMANN
Portsmouth NH
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contents

Acknowledgments ix

Welcome to The Intermediate Comprehension Toolkit  1

Thinking About Readers 1
The Power of Nonfiction 2

Six Key Comprehension Strategies  4

Monitor Comprehension 4
Activate and Connect 5
Ask Questions 5
Infer and Visualize 6
Determine Importance 7
Summarize and Synthesize 7

Six Effective Teaching Practices for Fostering Comprehension  8

 Creating an environment for active literacy and investigation 9

Foster passion and curiosity 9
Creating a Culture of Thinking  9
Teaching for Understanding and Engagement  9
Sharing Our Literate Lives  10

Set up the classroom 10

Room Arrangement  10
Classroom Libraries  11
Book Organization  11
Materials and Resources  11
Halls and Walls  11

 Choosing compelling texts 12

Collect texts that engage kids 12
Build instruction around real-world reading 12
v

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 Match instructional texts to your class 14
Choose appropriate texts for strategy instruction 14
Thinking Through the Text When Planning  14
Text Selection for Specific Strategy Instruction  15

 Providing explicit instruction through the Gradual Release of Responsibility 16

Teach with the Gradual Release of Responsibility framework 16
Connect and Engage  17
Modeling  17
Guided Practice  17
Collaborative Practice  17
Independent Practice  17
Sharing the Learning   17

Provide explicit instruction 18

Think-Alouds  18
Interactive Read-Alouds  18
Anchor Charts  19
Text Annotations  19
Oral, Written, and Artistic Responses  20

 Promoting collaboration 21
Create a common language for literacy and learning 21
Support collaborative thinking 22
Fostering Discussion  22
Brainstorming  23
Jigsawing  24

Encourage social interaction and purposeful talk 24

Turn and Talk  24
Paired Reading  25
Work Talk  26
Large-Group Shares   26
vi

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  Differentiating, teaching, and assessing with the end in mind 27
Determine your teaching and learning goals 27
Differentiate instruction 28
Collect and assess evidence 29
Ongoing Assessment  29

Move from assessment to evaluation 30

 Teaching comprehension across the curriculum 31

Teach Toolkit in the literacy block 31
Reader’s Workshop  32
Balanced Literacy with Guided Reading  32
Programmatic Reading  33

Use Toolkit in social studies and science 34

Researcher’s Workshop  34
Inquiry Framework  36

Implementing and Sustaining Toolkit Comprehension Instruction  41

Teach Toolkit in every grade 41

Look across the whole year 42

Schedule your lessons 42

Sample Weekly Schedule  43

Stay flexible 44

The Comprehension Toolkit Research Base 46

Works Cited 52
vii

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acknowledgments

The Toolkits came to life through the creative energy, enthusiasm, and unwavering
support of Lois Bridges, Mike Gibbons, and Leigh Peake. Their unique vision
for firsthand curricular resources inspired the first Comprehension Toolkit. The
original publishing team—Jean Lawler, Charles McQuillen, Tina Miller, Elena
Raymond, and David Stirling—was enriched by the talented help of Lisa Fowler
and Kelley Hersey (design), Cheryl Kimball and Angie Rice (editorial), John Gayle
(technology), and Mason Jones (photography).
Now, ten years later, Toolkit and the team that support it have evolved. We’ve
created two Toolkits, not just one, and an array of support materials to enhance the
effectiveness of comprehension instruction and curricular learning. Lisa Fowler
corralled the second-edition editorial and production efforts: Heather Anderson’s
writing and editing, Suzanne Heiser’s creative design, Stephanie Levy’s masterful
juggling of moving parts and details, Tina Miller’s alliance with the authors, and
Sue Paro’s readiness to step in whenever needed. This group relied on the talents,
expertise, and dedication of many others—Patty Adams, Lauren Audet, Sherry Day,
Ehren Joseph, Julie Kreiss, Roberta Lew, Ruth Lindstromberg, and Mark Corsey—
all of whom depended on Steve Bernier to pull the many pieces together at the end.
This work rests on the shoulders of many extraordinary educators, and we
thank them all. David Pearson’s research and insights permeate Toolkit. David
Perkins’s concept of Active Literacy informs all our practices. A special thanks to
the teachers who have opened their classrooms to us throughout this project: Mary
Pfau, Carol Quinby, Liz Stedem, Courtney Ferguson, Jeanette Scotti, and Anne
Upczak-Garcia. They have created classrooms and libraries that are truly magical
places for learning. The real beginnings of Toolkit, however, go back to the many
teachers and kids we have worked with over the years. It is their best thinking we
have tried to capture and re-create.
As always, we are grateful to our husbands and kids (and now grandkids) for
their cheerful demeanor, sense of humor, and tempting distractions.

ix

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 Welcome to the
Intermediate Toolkit

Thinking About Readers

Kids’ thinking matters. When our students begin to understand that their thinking
matters, reading changes. The refrain of “What time is recess? When’s lunch?”
becomes an anthem of “Can we please go read now?” As teachers, we take kids’
thoughts, ideas, opinions, and learning seriously. We design instruction that engages
kids and guides them as they grapple with the information and concepts they
encounter in school, particularly as they read nonfiction text. We teach the reader,
not merely the reading, by modeling strategies that guide our kids to construct
meaning as they read. We respond to our students’ needs and challenges as they
reveal their learning and understanding by drawing, writing, talking, and doing. We
continuously observe, listen, keep track of, and document our students’ learning,
stepping in with additional support as needed and pulling back and letting kids take
the lead when they show us they can.
An Active Literacy Classroom fairly bursts with joyful, enthusiastic learning.
Reading, writing, talking, viewing, drawing, listening, making, and investigating 1

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2 Tools for Teaching Comprehension: The Intermediate Comprehension Toolkit

are the cornerstones of active literacy. Throughout the school day, kids are actively
questioning, discussing, arguing, debating, responding, and generating new
knowledge. We can’t read kids’ minds, but one way to open a window into their
understanding is to help them bring their thinking to the surface by talking and
writing about it. Active Literacy is the means to deeper understanding and diverse,
flexible thinking and is the hallmark of our approach to teaching and learning.
The Intermediate Comprehension Toolkit emphasizes responsive teaching.
Toolkit lessons capture the language of thinking we use to explicitly teach kids
to comprehend the wide variety of text they encounter with a special focus on
nonfiction reading. Through Toolkit lessons, we demonstrate how the kids adopt
and adapt our teaching language as their own learning language.

The Power of Nonfiction

The real world is rich, fascinating, and compelling, and nonfiction offers the most
engaging way in. Nonfiction is the most accessible genre. The infographics, charts,
illustrations, photos, etc., found in much nonfiction combine to make it highly
visual as well as text based. Nonfiction readers need to merge their thinking with
the text and visual information to learn, understand, and remember it. When
readers and viewers merge their thinking with the information, they can turn that
information into knowledge and actively use it. Most importantly, engaging kids in
transformative nonfiction topics often leads them to care and take action.
With all our concern that kids read, we often forget how important it is what
they read. Until recently in language arts classrooms, we have relied almost
exclusively on fiction—stories, folktales, dystopian novels, etc. We celebrate that
magical body of literature as a foundation for kids’ literacy experience, but we also
applaud the recent focus on informational text reading. So much of what adults
read is nonfiction, and we are always hoping to prepare kids for the future.
The range of options for nonfiction reading is mind-boggling—magazines,
newspapers, infographics, visuals, video streams, e-reading, and of course books.
When kids encounter fascinating topics, amazing information, and dramatic
photos, they want to know more and share what they find out. There’s no better
genre than nonfiction to spur kids’ thinking and wondering.
Our Toolkit lessons and materials focus on that broad range of fascinating
“true” material called informational or nonfiction text. In Toolkit we feature a wide
range of nonfiction—including feature articles, picture books, infographics, and
nonfiction trade books—to expand our kids’ appetites for investigating the real
world through reading. We also include a bit of realistic fiction, historical fiction,
and informational poetry.

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 Welcome to the Intermediate Comprehension Toolkit 3

The Toolkit lessons lay the foundation for readers to use strategies as tools
when reading nonfiction. Once kids develop familiarity with and get some practice
using comprehension strategies to gain meaning, they will integrate them and use
them more flexibly as they read. Our lessons in Content Literacy are practices that
often integrate several strategies. Readers do not tend to use strategies in isolation.
For instance, an inference usually follows quickly on the heels of a question. The
Content Literacy lessons teach kids to debate an issue, analyze infographics,
synthesize information across multiple media sources, determine and consider
different perspectives on an issue, discern cause and effect relationships, and
so forth. All of these processes require that readers have an arsenal of thinking
strategies at their fingertips to use flexibly when the need arises. The Content
Literacy lessons are powerful practices for reading and understanding nonfiction
in every discipline.

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 The Six Key
Comprehension Strategies

Our intermediate grade comprehension instruction centers on the specific kinds of

thinking proficient readers use: six comprehension strategies that research has shown
are part of an effective reader’s mental toolkit. Kids need an arsenal of tools to build
their store of knowledge and think deeply about text. What we call a strategy is really a
whole package of strategic possibilities for reading to understand and remember new
information. We don’t simply teach a strategy one time and call it day, nor do we do a
strategy unit for weeks on end. Instead we share multiple ways to give kids a repertoire
of strategic tools that allow them to delve into the text and work out their thinking to
construct meaning. (For a more extensive review of the research, see pages 46–51.)
No matter what their age, effective readers employ the following six strategies:

Monitor Comprehension
When readers monitor their comprehension, they keep track of their thinking
as they read, listen, and view. They notice when the text makes sense or when it
doesn’t. They distinguish between what the text is about and what it makes them
4 think about. They listen to the voice in their head that speaks to them as they

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 The Six Key Comprehension Strategies 5

read and follow the inner conversation they have with the text. Comprehension
monitoring is more a thinking disposition than a strategy. When readers monitor
their comprehension, they are aware of their thinking and take steps to maintain
and further understanding. Only when they are “thinking about their thinking”
can they make sense of what they read and also recognize when meaning has
gone astray. We teach readers to “fix up” their comprehension by using a variety of
strategies, including stopping to refocus thinking, rereading, and reading on.

Activate and Connect

David Pearson reminds us that “[t]oday’s new knowledge is tomorrow’s background
knowledge” (2006). The background knowledge we bring to our learning colors
every aspect of our understanding. Whether we are connecting, questioning, or
inferring, our background knowledge is the foundation of our thinking. We simply
can’t understand what we hear, read, or view without thinking about what we
already know. To comprehend, learners must connect the new to the known. So
we consider every conceivable way to build our kids’ background knowledge to
prepare them to learn new information. Sometimes, however, our prior knowledge
consists of misconceptions that get in the way of new learning. So we have to
prepare kids not only to think about what they already know but also to revise their
thinking when they encounter new and more accurate information.

Ask Questions
Curiosity is at the heart of teaching and learning. Questions spur curious minds
to investigate. Questions open the doors to understanding the world. We have
to mine them with a pickax! When readers meet new information, they brim
with questions. As we try to answer our questions, we discover new information
and gain knowledge. Questions can spur further research and inquiry. Instead
of demanding answers all the time, we need to teach kids to ask thoughtful
and insightful questions. After all, if we hope to develop critical thinkers, we

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6 Tools for Teaching Comprehension: The Intermediate Comprehension Toolkit

must teach our kids to think about and question what they listen to, read, and
view. Asking questions enriches the learning experience and leads to deeper
understanding. Questioning is the strategy that propels learners forward.

Infer and Visualize

Inferring is the bedrock of understanding. It involves taking what you know—your
background knowledge—and merging it with clues in the text to come up with ideas
and information that aren’t explicitly stated. Typically, skillful writers do not spill
information on to the page for all to plainly see. They leak the information slowly,
one idea at a time, enabling the reader to make reasonable inferences. Inferential

thinking helps readers to figure out unfamiliar words, draw conclusions, develop
interpretations, make predictions, surface themes, and even create mental images.
Visualizing is sort of a first cousin to inferring. When readers visualize, they
construct meaning by creating mental images, seeing, hearing, tasting, touching,
and even smelling in their imaginations. Visualizing is quite like inferring with
a picture in your mind. When students infer and visualize as they listen, read,
and view, they respond with joy, glee, or sometimes even dread. Inferring and
visualizing enable kids to get a deeper, more robust reading of the text.

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 The Six Key Comprehension Strategies 7

Determine Importance
For too many years, we have asked kids to pick out “the main idea” without
showing them how and explaining why. What we determine to be important in text
depends on our purpose for reading it. When we read nonfiction, we are reading
to learn and remember information. Once kids know how to merge their thinking
with the information, it’s time to figure out what makes sense to remember. We
can’t possibly remember every fact or piece of information we read or hear, nor
should we. We need to focus on important information and merge it with what
we already know to expand our understanding of a topic. We sort and sift rich
details from important information to answer questions and arrive at big ideas. We
identify details that support larger concepts. We ask kids to distinguish between
what they think is important and what the writer most wants readers to take away
from text. We teach kids a way to use information to develop a line of thinking as
they read, surfacing and focusing their attention on important ideas in the text.

Summarize and Synthesize

Synthesizing information nudges readers to see the bigger picture as they read.
When synthesizing information or ideas, readers use a variety of strategies—
including asking questions, inferring, and determining importance—to construct
meaning. It’s not enough for readers to simply recall or restate the facts.
Thoughtful readers integrate the new information with their existing knowledge
to come to a more complete understanding of the text. As readers encounter new
information, their thinking evolves. They merge the new information with what
they already know and construct meaning as they go. As they distill nonfiction
text into a few important ideas, they may develop a new perspective or an
original insight.

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 Six Effective Teaching Practices for Fostering Comprehension 17

The Gradual Release of Responsibility in Toolkit

Gradual Release of Responsibility

CONNECT AND ENGAGE
Before we begin to model a strategy, we capture our kids’ enthusiasm
and activate their prior knowledge. We share a compelling image, a lively
video, an interesting title, some content knowledge, or a personal story
to get them excited about what’s to come. And we have them turn and
talk about their own experience and what they think they might already
know about a topic at hand.

MODELING
As literacy teachers, we open up our own cognitive process to show kids
how we read, sharing both our successes as readers and how we handle
challenges along the way. We model instruction by thinking out loud,
reading aloud interactively, and conducting shared readings.

GUIDED PRACTICE
Much of our teaching and learning in the Active Literacy Classroom
occurs during guided practice. We invite kids to turn and talk throughout
the lesson so that they have a better shot at understanding. Guided
practice allows us to respond to the kids while they practice up close to
us, and we scaffold our instruction to meet their needs.

COLLABORATIVE PRACTICE
During collaborative practice, kids work in pairs or small groups
throughout the room to read, draw, write, and talk together as we move
around and confer with individuals or small groups.

INDEPENDENT PRACTICE
The ultimate goal of instruction in the Active Literacy Classroom is to
move kids toward independence. We want all kids to become confident,
capable, agentive readers and thinkers who initiate further learning. So
we allow plenty of classroom time for kids to read, write, and practice the
strategies on their own as we confer, assess, and coach.

SHARING THE LEARNING

As a community, we share informally throughout the entire GRR process.
Kids turn and talk briefly during our minilessons. They share their
thoughts with partners and small groups during guided and collaborative
practice. And they always come back together at the end to share more
formally, teaching their classmates and responding to each other’s ideas.
(adapted from Gallagher and Pearson 1983, Fielding and Pearson 1994)

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36 Tools for Teaching Comprehension: The Intermediate Comprehension Toolkit

Inquiry Framework
Inquiry units develop content literacy skills by supporting an in-depth investigation
of a topic with thinking strategies from Toolkit lessons. This overview shows how the
four-phase learning sequence—Immerse, Investigate, Coalesce, Take Public—works.

I Immerse

Teachers Students Toolkit Links Assessment

• Plan instruction and • Read, write, talk, Lesson 1: Follow Your Evidence that
teach with central listen, observe Inner Conversation students:
concepts and focus in small groups, teaches how to notice
questions in mind partners, large and leave tracks of • Engage with the
groups, and thinking on Post-its topic and build
• Gather and organize independently background
materials (trade Lesson 5: Merge Your knowledge
books, picture books, • Turn and talk Thinking with New
articles, photographs in response to Learning demonstrates • Figure out words
videos, websites) instruction marking Post-its with an in context and
L for “new learning” and build vocabulary
• Engage kids • Get engaged and asking questions about and concepts
in interactive develop familiarity the new information
read-alouds with the topic • Read, think about,
Lesson 6: Connect the record, and share
• Model personal • Acquire vocabulary New to the Known new information
responses, and concepts has students activate
demonstrate and build background • Wonder about
strategy use, and • Access background knowledge about a topic the information
share thinking knowledge and using a two-column form and think about
react to information lingering questions
• Demonstrate leaving with questions, Lesson 10: Infer the
tracks of thinking connections, Meaning of Unfamiliar • Stop, think, and
and note taking and the like Words provides react while reading
opportunities to learn
• Immerse kids in • Read picture/ new words in context,
picture book clubs trade books and build a word wall, make a
record information, picture dictionary, and/or
questions, and keep track of new words
responses on a four-column form

Lessons 16 and 17:

Spotlight New Thinking
and Record Important
Ideas show how to
create an FQR (Facts/
Questions/Responses)
chart to merge thinking
with new information

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 Six Effective Teaching Practices for Fostering Comprehension 37

II Investigate

Teachers Students Toolkit Links Assessment

• Model reading and • Read, write, talk, Lesson 3: Read, Write, Evidence that
thinking with texts and think about and Talk has students read students:
that focus on unit- information text, respond to it in writing,
of-study concepts and share with each other • Read and select
• Read to find important
• Demonstrate the answers to Lesson 4: Follow the Text information
how to ask and their questions Signposts teaches kids to
answer questions use text features, maps, • Respond through
• Read, gather, charts, URLs, etc., to gain note taking, text
• Demonstrate a and respond to and record information coding, and
variety of techniques information that sharing with
to access information interests them Lesson 7: Question the Text each other
and respond to it coaches kids in stopping to
• Use evidence ask and record questions when • Ask and answer
°° coding text to and information reading, then notice whether thoughtful
hold thinking to distinguish or not they are answered questions
between reader’s
°° note taking thinking and Lesson 8: Read to Discover • Distinguish
author’s thinking Answers teaches kids to search reader’s ideas
°° using text features for answers to questions in from the author’s
to gain information • Practice all of the the text and record them
above strategies • Read with a
°° leaving tracks and techniques Lesson 14: Read with a question in mind
of thinking on in large groups, Question in Mind prompts
Post-its and in small kids to ask questions, look for
response forms groups, with information to infer the answers,
partners, and and record the information
• Develop focus independently
questions and Lesson 15: Wrap Your Mind
read with a • Develop Around the Big Ideas provides
question in mind questions opportunities for students
and read to to use text evidence to infer
address them themes and bigger ideas

Lessons 18 and 19: Target Key

Information and Determine
What to Remember help kids
code the text with thinking and
identify important information

Lesson 20: Distinguish Your

Thinking from the Author’s
teaches kids to distinguish the
difference between what the
reader thinks is important and
what the author most wants
the reader to take away and
to record what they discover

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38 Tools for Teaching Comprehension: The Intermediate Comprehension Toolkit

III Coalesce

Teachers Students Toolkit Links Assessment

Model instruction to: • Develop • Lesson 19: Determine Evidence that

questions What to Remember helps students:
• Develop focus and read to kids separate interesting
questions and answer them but ancillary details from • Find details
read with a more salient information, to support a
question in mind • Use text jotting down the important bigger idea
evidence to infer information in the margins
• Gather details and the answers to • Infer big ideas
text evidence that questions that • Lesson 21: Construct Main and answers
support bigger ideas aren’t answered Ideas from Supporting to questions
Details provides practice
• Infer answers to • Seek out in creating a Topic/ • Pare down the
questions that aren’t additional Detail/Response chart to information to
answered in the text sources to support big ideas with get the gist
address information from the text
• Read to get the gist unanswered • Synthesize
questions • Lesson 22: Read, Think, information
• Write a summary and React guides kids and gain new
response • Use evidence to record information insight through
and details and personal thoughts a response
to support on a two-column form
big ideas
• Lesson 23: Think Beyond
• Read to get the Text helps kids
the gist move from facts to ideas,
writing down the factual
• Write summary information and thinking
responses to about the implications
summarize and
synthesize the • Lesson 24: Read to Get
information the Gist asks kids to record
they’ve learned the gist (big idea) and add
their own thinking to it

• Lesson 26: Read, Write,

and Reflect has students
create a summary response
to extend thinking and
write a summary of the
factual information, merging
their thinking with it

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 Six Effective Teaching Practices for Fostering Comprehension 39

IV Take Public

Teachers Students Toolkit Links Assessment

• Establish the expectations for sharing • Create • “Share the Evidence that
projects that Learning” students:
• Suggest ways kids might share their learning demonstrate and “Reflect
and take it public. Possibilities include their and Assess” • Know
but are not limited to the following: learning and sections of information
understanding, each Toolkit well enough
°° Summary Responses—Short responses (one to share with
or two pages) that merge the information either those lesson
learned with the writer’s thinking suggested and teach
by teachers each other
°° Teaching posters—Posters that summarize or those
learning and teach new information they think of • Understand
through writing and illustrations themselves their learning
process and
°° First-person journals, diaries, and • Become can articulate
letters—Accounts, written from one and share it
teachers as
person’s perspective that weave together
they take their
information and historical narrative
thinking public
°° Picture books—Informational and share
books and narrative nonfiction that their new
teach about a certain topic knowledge
with others
°° Question Webs—Group webs
where kids collaborate to answer • Articulate
related questions about a topic their learning
Newspaper, Magazine, and Online Articles— process and
°° reflect on it
Journalistic accounts that summarize
information, including the bigger ideas
• Discover and
°° Essays—Written pieces about consider new
ideas, issues, and perspectives questions
spurred by
°° Videos—Media projects that sharing with
synthesize the information each other
°° Wikis—Online multimedia platforms
for sharing writing, voice, and art

°° PowerPoint slides—Digital capsules of

information for oral presentations

°° Digital books—Online informational or

narrative summaries on a specific topic

°° Poetry anthologies—Collections of
poems and illustrations that demonstrate
learning about a specific topic
• Respond to students’ projects, evaluating
both kids’ understanding and their ability to
communicate that understanding to others

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40 Tools for Teaching Comprehension: The Intermediate Comprehension Toolkit

Once we have introduced and given kids time to practice using comprehension
strategies like questioning and inferring, they build on their strategic knowledge
to address more sophisticated concepts and complex ideas in their inquiries. The
twenty lessons in Content Literacy provide more robust tasks for kids as they move
through an inquiry unit, including opportunities to
• debate significant issues
• consider various perspectives in historic events
• read primary sources closely and infer the meaning of arcane language
• discern cause and effect in scientific phenomena
• synthesize information across a variety of media and resources.

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 Implementing and Sustaining Toolkit
Comprehension Instruction

Toolkit comprehension strategies are the foundation of reading and learning for
understanding. We implement Toolkit practices at every grade level and across
the curriculum. We build a common language for comprehension beginning with
our youngest kids. The strategies kids learn from working with Toolkit help them
develop Active Literacy skills they can use within any discipline.

TEACH TOOLKIT IN EVERY GRADE

Toolkit is all about teaching the reader, not merely the reading. The lessons are, in
fact, practices to be done many times across a variety of disciplines and grade levels.
The lessons change in their level of sophistication and the demands of the text,
depending on the experience and background knowledge of each of our students.
Asking questions can look very different in third grade from the way it might in sixth
grade. But we remember that strategy use is cumulative. So we typically teach all of
the lessons each year with every grade level. We vary the text and content to reflect
the appropriate grade level, developmental challenges, and curriculum demands.
Ultimately, our goal is always for kids to internalize these strategies in a way that they 41

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42 Tools for Teaching Comprehension: The Intermediate Comprehension Toolkit

can call them up when needed as they read and research independently. The “Lesson
Frame” near the beginning of each lesson is designed to support using these practices
flexibly with your own text, content, and teaching goals. The frames include generic
teaching language and teaching moves that you can adapt with any text or content.

LOOK ACROSS THE WHOLE YEAR

The goal of comprehension instruction is to build a repertoire of thinking and
learning strategies over time. To avoid confusion, we teach specific strategies so
kids know what it means ask questions, make inferences, and synthesize when
they read. We focus on one strategy for a short period of time and then move on
to another. But our overall purpose is the fluid, seamless, and integrated use of
all six strategies. We want kids to spontaneously and flexibly choose and use the
strategies that will help them read their way into full comprehension.

SCHEDULE YOUR LESSONS

We designed The Intermediate Comprehension Toolkit with flexibility in mind so
that your kids’ learning needs and interests—not “the almighty schedule”—can
drive instruction. We have outlined the following Sample Weekly Schedule simply
to provide ideas for your own planning and discussion. And, of course, Toolkit
lessons are cumulative, so as we introduce and launch new lessons, we make sure
kids continue to use those strategies they already have under their belts.

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 Six Effective Teaching Practices for Fostering Comprehension 43

Since our goal is to enable students to use the comprehension strategies

independently across a range of texts in their own reading as well as across the
curriculum, we recommend giving kids chances to apply what they have learned
to real-world reading. You’ll note that this weekly schedule reflects this option.
In addition, once we complete instruction in a strategy, we provide explicit
opportunities for kids to use the strategy in their own self-selected text, in magazines
and newspapers, in entirely new genres, and throughout content area inquiries.

Sample Weekly Schedule

Instruction: Whole-Group, Text Options
Small-Group, and Individual
Conferences

Day 1 Dedicate a long block of time to Intermediate Toolkit interactive read-aloud

move through modeling, guided with article or trade book
Toolkit Lesson practice, collaborative or indepen- • Article, book, or infographic for
Launch dent practice, and the share session. shared reading
• Selection from basal anthology
• Your own text

Day 2 Teach a minilesson to review ITK lesson text OR small-group guided-

the Toolkit strategy. reading book OR basal selection OR content
Minilesson area resource
and Practice
Provide texts for kids’ practice. • In reader’s workshop: self-selected text
• In a balanced literacy program: leveled text
After a brief minilesson, gather small,
flexible, needs-based groups of kids • In a basal program: basal or leveled text
who need more instruction or clarifi- • In a content area topic study: related
cation based on their work and their resources
participation from the previous day. • Any text you or the children choose

Move around the room conferring

with individuals about the strategy
lesson and the text they are reading.

Days 3, 4 Continue brief minilesson review Toolkit lesson text or any text you select
and 5 each day based on kids’ learning
needs and your assessment of
Minilessons their work from Days 1 and 2.
and Practice
Provide texts for kids’ practice. • In reader’s workshop: self-selected text
• In a balanced literacy program: leveled text
Meet with any pairs or groups that
• In a basal program: basal or leveled text
need added support.
• In a content area topic study: related
Move about the room conferring resources
with individuals as needed. • Any text you or the children choose

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44 Tools for Teaching Comprehension: The Intermediate Comprehension Toolkit

STAY FLEXIBLE
When it comes to implementing Toolkit comprehension instruction, flexibility is
our mantra! Toolkit is a resource not a program. While we have placed the lessons
in a suggested order, what is most important is that your kids’ learning needs
drive your instruction. To us, the idea of sequence is mainly one of language being
introduced and used. The first time you introduce Toolkit, it is helpful to do the

lessons in order so you will understand how they build on one another. After you
have experience with Toolkit, you may choose to teach the lessons in an order that
is based on your students’ needs.
But we do begin with the Monitoring Comprehension lessons. Monitoring
comprehension is much more than a strategy. It is a thinking disposition that
enables readers to keep track of their thinking and understanding and to be aware of
their reading process. It is this awareness that allows readers to make connections,
ask questions, or draw inferences that result in understanding, so monitoring
comprehension is the foundation on which all strategies are built. It is difficult to
be strategic if we are unaware or not paying to attention to thinking when reading.
We strongly suggest, therefore, that you either introduce or review the monitoring
comprehension strategy before you jump into one of the other Toolkit strategy books.
Another thought. A few lessons do work well in order, often because they
were designed as two-day, two-part experiences. For example, if you introduce

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 Six Effective Teaching Practices for Fostering Comprehension 45

annotation with Determine Importance Lesson 18, it makes sense to move directly
to Lesson 19, where kids sort and sift that information, separating interesting
details from important ideas.
If you know your kids well and are clear about your purpose for teaching,
you can use Toolkit quite flexibly, dipping in and out of the strategy books and
focusing on the specific strategies that your students most need to learn at a
particular point. So, if your students are experienced in activating and connecting
new information to what they already know, they may not need to go through the
lessons in that strategy book. On the other hand, if your kids need more practice
with a particular strategy, you might want to teach the lessons in that strategy book
and provide lots of extra practice to support them as they read. The same goes for
the lessons in Content Literacy. For example in Lesson 16 we introduce debating.
But for kids to become proficient debaters, they would undoubtedly need more
time to research and practice debating various issues.
Most importantly, we don’t want you locked into a sequence. We do want you
empowered to meet your kids’ needs as developing thinkers, wherever they are.
The Toolkit lessons are not so much one-time lessons as ongoing practices. After
all, readers do not “discover their passion” only once! So we teach these practices
over time, in many different contexts, with many different texts.

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46 Tools for Teaching Comprehension: The Intermediate Comprehension Toolkit

The Comprehension Toolkit

Research Base
The pedagogy and practices of The Comprehension Toolkit are grounded in more
than thirty years of comprehension research. The following are key principles that
provide a foundation for Toolkit lessons.

Research Principle #1
Proficient readers use a repertoire of strategies to construct
meaning from text.
What the Research Says:
The comprehension strategies that are the foundation of the The Comprehension
Toolkit are those used by active, thoughtful readers as they construct meaning from
text. Pearson, Roehler, Dole, and Duffy (1992) and Duke, Pearson, Strachan, and
Billman (2011) summarized studies that reported that explicit instruction in the
following strategies improves students’ understanding of what they read.
Proficient readers
• search for connections between what they know and the new information
in the text.
• ask questions of themselves, the author, and the text.
• draw inferences during and after reading.
• distinguish between important and less important ideas in a text.
• synthesize information within and across texts.
• monitor understanding and repair faulty comprehension.
• visualize and create mental images of ideas in the text.

What The Comprehension Toolkit Does

As their titles suggest, each of the strategy books in The Comprehension Toolkit
focuses on a research-based active-reading strategy: Monitor Comprehension,
Activate & Connect, Ask Questions, Infer & Visualize, Determine Importance, and
Summarize & Synthesize.
The lessons in each strategy book zero in on a variety of ways to use strategies
as tools. They are a means to understand and think more deeply about the ideas
and information in the text, not an end in themselves. The strategies build on one
another to give kids multifaceted ways to construct meaning. As kids approach new
texts, visuals and media, they practice other dimension of the strategy in a variety of
different purposes and contexts.

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 Six Effective Teaching Practices for Fostering Comprehension 47

Research Principle #2
Teaching multiple strategies in an authentic context
improves comprehension.
What the Research Says:
A research review by Wilkinson and Son (2011, 364) found that reading research
has “evolved from classroom-based studies of single-strategy instruction, to studies
of teaching small repertoires of strategies, to studies of teaching these repertoires
of strategies in more flexible ways.”
Transactional strategy instruction, first described by Pressley (2002) and Guthrie
(2003), teaches students a “package,” or repertoire, of strategies that they apply
flexibly according to the demands of the reading tasks and texts they encounter.
This is very different from the one-strategy-at-a-time approach in which the
emphasis is on “teaching the strategy” rather than on students using a combination
of strategies to build knowledge and construct meaning.

What The Comprehension Toolkit Does

Each of the strategy books in The Comprehension Toolkit focuses on developing
multiple aspects of a single strategy—but not to the exclusion of other strategies.
The emphasis is on guiding and responding to the kids’ own efforts to get meaning
from a real nonfiction text—from trade books, childrens’ magazines, and other
texts that kids are likely to encounter or consult in the course of learning about
their world.
Content Literacy: Lessons and Texts for Comprehension Across the Curriculum
includes lessons and practices that focus on multiple strategies, teaching students
thinking and learning routines that incorporate simultaneous use of several strategies,
which students apply flexibly according to the demands of texts and tasks.
Discipline-based comprehension instruction focuses on integrating strategic
practices with learning in science, social studies and other content areas to build
knowledge.
The work of P. David Pearson and others at the University of California at
Berkeley (Cervetti et al. 2007) and John Guthrie, Allan Wigfield, and Kathleen
Perencevich (2004) demonstrate that combining science exploration and
experiences with comprehension instruction is a powerful way to increase
students’ acquisition of science content knowledge.
Pearson, Moje, and Greenleaf (2010) suggest that “Without systematic attention
to reading and writing in subjects like science and history, students will leave
schools with an impoverished sense of what it means to use the tools of literacy for
learning or even to reason within various disciplines.”

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48 Tools for Teaching Comprehension: The Intermediate Comprehension Toolkit

Cervetti, Jaynes, and Hiebert (2009, 95) cite evidence that when students read
to learn, they build and develop their content knowledge. As students build their
knowledge through reading, they create a foundation that in turn supports ongoing
thinking, learning, and understanding. In addition, past research (Allington and
Johnston 2002) from extensive studies of fourth-grade classrooms illustrates
that comprehension instruction is most effective when taught in the context of a
challenging and engaging multisource, multigenre, interdisciplinary curriculum.

What The Comprehension Toolkit and Content Literacy Do:

Toolkit practices focus on knowledge-building in several different content areas
and disciplines and emphasize generic teaching language and teaching moves
that teachers adapt to their own content topics and goals for student learning.
Lessons in Content Literacy teach students practices with interdisciplinary
learning: synthesizing ideas across multiple sources in media, inferring different
perspectives, discerning cause and effect relationships, and comparing and
contrasting historical events.

Research Principle #3
Explicit instruction within the Gradual Release
of Responsibility model is effective in teaching
comprehension strategies.
What the Research Says:
In a research review, Pearson and Gallagher (1983) found not only that strategy
use and monitoring were characteristic of more mature and better readers but also
that one model of instruction—a Gradual Release of Responsibility model that
emphasized modeling, guided practice, independent practice, and feedback—was
effective in training students to summarize an expository passage, ask questions
about it, detect difficult portions, and make predictions about following passages.
They also found that with explicit instruction, students eventually assumed the
responsibility for monitoring these tasks themselves.

What The Comprehension Toolkit Does

The Comprehension Toolkit lessons follow a consistent but flexible teaching
approach that begins with intensive teacher modeling and guidance and gradually
turns the lesson over to the kids.

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 Six Effective Teaching Practices for Fostering Comprehension 49

CONNECT & ENGAGE opens the lesson by tapping into the kids’ background
knowledge and natural curiosity to get them engaged in the lesson.
During MODEL, the teacher thinks out loud about his or her use of strategies with
the text that the group is working with.
During GUIDE, the teacher leads students to try out the strategy, noting how
students have or have not grasped the lesson goals. Assessing whether students are
ready to try the practice on their own informs the teacher about reinforcement or
reteaching that might be necessary.
During guided practice, students share their ideas about the text before
beginning to COLLABORATE with peers or work independently (PRACTICE
INDEPENDENTLY) to read the text on their own or with a student partner.
Finally, they come back together as a whole group and SHARE THE LEARNING.
Over time, students learn to apply strategies to foster understanding on their own,
throughout the day and across the curriculum.

Research Principle #4
An active learning environment in which curious kids
collaboratively read, write, talk, investigate, and create
promotes comprehension.
What the Research Says:
For two decades, Fred Newmann and his colleagues have been studying “authentic
instruction”—instruction that is highly engaging and interactive and that connects
to students’ real lives—and the impact of such instruction on customary measures
of schooling, including the high-stakes standardized test scores. In two studies of
Chicago public school students, the researchers found that when teachers offered
less didactic and more interactive experiences, scores on the Iowa Test of Basic
Skills rose significantly among a large cross-section of students (Newmann, Bryk,
and Nagaoka 2001; Smith, Lee, and Newmann 2001). Joseph Durlak and colleagues
conducted a meta-analysis of 217 studies on general social skills training showing
that kids who are directly taught how to be friendly and supportive saw 11% gains
in both course grades and test scores, as well as greater in-class cooperation, fewer
discipline problems, less emotional stress, and better attitudes toward school
in general (Durlak et al. 2011). Curiosity matters too. Recent research shows
that kids are even more curious than previously thought, engaging in “curiosity

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50 Tools for Teaching Comprehension: The Intermediate Comprehension Toolkit

sequences,” or information-seeking questions with follow-ups, as early as age two

and a half (Harris 2013). However, these sequences were far lower in classrooms
than at home (Engel 2011).
These studies confirm what reading researchers have observed for decades:
engaged kids learn more. Allington and Johnston’s (2002) purposeful talk, Perkins’s
(1992) culture of thinking, and Palincsar and Brown’s (1984) reciprocal teaching
all emphasize that intensive, robust, collaborative instruction makes a significant
difference in children’s learning, engagement, and understanding.

What The Comprehension Toolkit Does

In every Primary and Intermediate Toolkit lesson, either Stephanie Harvey or Anne
Goudvis has demonstrated the ways they engage students’ minds and hearts with
texts and ideas. Immersed in talk—with each other and with Steph or Anne—kids
record notes, respond, build on each other’s thoughts, and become genuinely engaged
with texts and ideas. Kids are encouraged to ask questions and do research to address
them, to work collaboratively and share their learning with each other. The lessons in
Toolkit are a window into the active learning environment that is every teacher’s goal.

REFERENCES FOR THE RESEARCH BASE

Allington, Richard L., and Peter H. Johnston. 2002. Reading to Learn: Lessons from Exemplary
Fourth-Grade Classrooms. New York: Guilford.
Cervetti, Gina N., Carolyn A. Jaynes, and Elfrieda H. Hiebert. 2009. “Increasing Opportunities
to Acquire Knowledge Through Reading. In Reading More, Reading Better: Solving Problems
in the Teaching of Literacy, edited by Elfrieda H. Hiebert, 79–100. New York: Guilford.
Cervetti, Gina N., P. David Pearson, Jacqueline Barber, Elfrieda Hiebert, and Marco Bravo. 2007.
“Integrating Literacy and Science: The Research We Have, the Research We Need.” In Shaping
Literacy Achievement: Research We Have, Research We Need, edited by Michael Pressley,
Alison K. Billman, Kristen H. Perry, Kelley E. Reffit, and Julia Moorhead Reynolds, 157–174.
New York: Guilford.
Duke, Nell K., P. David Pearson, Stephanie L. Strachan, and Alison K. Billman. 2011. “Essential
Elements of Fostering and Teaching Reading Comprehension.” In What Research Has to Say
About Reading Instruction. 4th ed., edited by S. Jay Samuels and Alan E. Farstrup. Newark,
DE: International Reading Association.
Durlak, Joseph, Roger P. Weissberg, Allison B. Dymnicki, Rebecca D. Taylor, and Kristin B.
Schellinger. 2011. “The Impact of Enhancing Students’ Social and Emotional Learning: A
Meta-Analyisis of School-Based Universal Interventions.” Child Development 82 (1):405–32.
Engel, Susan. 2011. “Children’s Need to Know: Curiosity in Schools.” Harvard Educational
Review 81 (4):625–45 .

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 Six Effective Teaching Practices for Fostering Comprehension 51

Guthrie, John T. 2003. “Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction: Practices of Teaching Reading

for Understanding.” In Rethinking Reading Comprehension, edited by Anne Polselli Sweet and
Catherine E. Snow. New York: Guilford.
Guthrie, John T., Allan Wigfield, and Kathleen C. Perencevich, eds. 2004. Motivating Reading
Comprehension: Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Harris, Paul A. 2013. Trusting What You Are Told: How Children Learn from Others. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Newmann, Fred M., Anthony S. Bryk, and Jenny Nagaoka. 2001. Authentic Intellectual Work
and Standardized Tests: Conflict or Coexistence? Chicago, IL: Consortium on Chicago School
Research.
Palincsar, Annemarie Sullivan, and Ann L. Brown. 1984. “Reciprocal Teaching of
Comprehension-Fostering and Comprehension-Monitoring Activities.” Cognition and
Instruction 1(2): 117–175.
Pearson, P. David, and Margaret C. Gallagher. 1983. “The Instruction of Reading
Comprehension.” Contemporary Educational Psychology 8:317–345.
Pearson, P. David, Laura R. Roehler, Janice A. Dole, Gerald G. Duffy. 1992. “Developing
Expertise in Reading Comprehension: What Should Be Taught and How Should It Be
Taught?” In What Research Has to Say About Reading Instruction. 2nd ed., edited by Alan E.
Farstrup and S. Jay Samuels. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.
Pearson, P. David, Elizabeth Moje, and Cynthia Greenleaf. 2010. “Literacy and Science: Each in
the Service of the Other. Science 328 (5977):459–463. doi: 10.1126/science.1182595.
Perkins, David. 1992. Smart Schools: Better Thinking and Learning for Every Child. New York:
Free Press.
Pianta, Robert C., Jay Belsky, Renate Houts, and Fred Morrison. 2007. “Opportunities to Learn
in America’s Elementary Classrooms.” Science 315 (5820):1795–1796.
Pressley, Michael. 2002. Reading Instruction That Works: The Case for Balanced Teaching. 2nd ed.
New York: Guilford.
Smith, Julia B., Valerie E. Lee, and Fred M. Newmann. 2001. Instruction and Achievement in
Chicago Elementary Schools. Chicago, IL: Consortium on Chicago School Research.
Wilkinson, Ian A. G., and Eun Hye Son. 2011. “A Dialogic Turn in Research on Learning and
Teaching to Comprehend.” In Handbook of Reading Research, edited by Michael L. Kamil, P.
David Pearson, Elizabeth Birr Moje, and Peter P. Afflerbach. New York: Routledge.

for sample use only, for more information, visit Digital Sampler, Page 32
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52 Tools for Teaching Comprehension: The Intermediate Comprehension Toolkit

WORKS CITED
Davey, Beth. 1983. “Think Aloud: Modeling the Process of Reading Comprehension,” Journal of
Reading 27:44–47.
Durlak, Joseph, Roger P. Weissberg, Allison B. Dymnicki, Rebecca D. Taylor, and Kriston B.
Schellinger. 2011. “The Impact of Enhancing Students’ Social and Emotional Learning: A
Meta-Analysis of School-Based Universal Interventions.” Child Development 82 (1): 405–432.
Daniels, Harvey, ed. 2011. Comprehension Going Forward: Where We Are and What’s Next.
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Fielding, Linda and P. David Pearson. 1994. “Reading Comprehension: What Works?”
Educational Leadership 51.5:62–67.
Goudvis, Anne, Stephanie Harvey, Brad Buhrow, and Anne Upczak-Garcia. 2012. Scaffolding
The Comprehension Toolkit for English Language Learners. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Harvey, Stephanie and Anne Goudvis. 2007. Strategies That Work: Teaching Comprehension for
Understanding and Engagement. Portland, ME: Stenhouse.
Harvey, Stephanie and Anne Goudvis. 2007. Toolkit Texts: Short Nonfiction for Guided and
Independent Practice. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Harvey, Stephanie, Anne Goudvis, and Judy Wallis. 2010. Comprehension Intervention: Small-
Group Lessons for The Comprehension Toolkit. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Harwayne, Shelley. 2000. Lifetime Guarantees: Toward Ambitious Literacy Teaching. Portsmouth,
NH: Heinemann.
Johnston, Peter. 2004. Choice Words; How Our Language Affects Children’s Learning. Portland,
ME: Stenhouse.
Johnston, Peter. 2012. Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives. Portland, ME: Stenhouse.
National Reading Panel. 2000. The Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to
Read. Washington, DC: National Reading Panel.
Paterson, Katherine. 1995. A Sense of Wonder: On Reading and Writing Books for Children. New
York: Penguin.
Pearson, P. David. 2006. Keynote presentation. National Geographic Literacy Conference.
Washington, DC.
Perkins, David. 1992. Smart Schools: Better Thinking and Learning for Every Child. New York:
Free Press.
Ritchhart, Ron, Mark Church, and Karen Morrison. 2011. Making Thinking Visible: How to
Promote Engagement, Understanding, and Independence for All Learners. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass.
Tishman, Shari, David N. Perkins, and Eileen Jay. 1995. The Thinking Classroom: Learning and
Teaching in a Culture of Thinking. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Trelease, Jim. 2006. The Read-Aloud Handbook, 6th ed. New York: Penguin.
Wong, Harry K. and Rosemary T. Wong. 2001. The First Days of School: How to Be an Effective
Teacher. Mountain View, CA: Harry K. Wong.

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 STRATEGY 4

Infer & Visualize

Inferring is the bedrock of understanding. Inferring involves drawing a
conclusion or making an interpretation from information that is not explicitly
Lessons
In the Toolkit, we emphasize
stated in the text. Writers do not usually spill information onto the page for all reading to explore and learn
to plainly see. They leak the information slowly, one idea at a time, to allow the about the world. In this Strategy
reader to make reasonable inferences and mental images. Inferential thinking Book, the lessons for inferring
meaning are:
helps readers to make predictions, surface themes, and draw conclusions.
When reading nonfiction, readers may have to crack open language to get at Lesson 10 
the meaning of unfamiliar vocabulary and concepts. Often answers to questions 10 page 6
Infer the Meaning of
Unfamiliar Words:
must be inferred. Use context clues to
Kids need to know that inferring is not merely guessing. Inferring requires unpack vocabulary
that readers merge their background knowledge with clues in the text to come
up with an idea that isn’t written down in the text. When readers infer, they use 11 Lesson 11  page 22
Infer With Text Clues:
implicit information to create meaning. Inferring with nonfiction involves using Draw conclusions from
evidence from the text and features to visualize and draw conclusions about the text evidence
information and to synthesize big ideas. Lesson 12 
12 page 38
Tackle the Meaning of
Language: Infer beyond
the literal meaning
Language to Launch
Lesson 13 
Infer Meaning 13 page 50
Crack Open Features:
For the past few lessons, we have focused on the questioning strategy. We’ve Infer the meaning of
noticed how our questions can actually lead to better understanding. One thing subheads and titles
we’ve discovered is that as we ask questions when we read, we often want to find Lesson 14 
the answers. Inferential thinking can help us do that. For the next few lessons, we 14 page 64
Read With a Question
are going to work on a new strategy that builds on the questioning strategy. It’s in Mind: Infer to answer
your questions
called inferring, and it is at the heart of reading. Anyone here know what it means
Lesson 15 
to infer? Turn and talk about that for a minute. 15 page 78
Wrap Your Mind Around
[Kids come up with a range of responses and I continue.] the Big Ideas: Use text
Inferring involves taking information from the text and merging it with our evidence to infer themes
own thinking to come up with an idea that is not explicitly written in the text. We
infer to predict outcomes when we read. We infer to surface themes. And we infer Strategy
to answer questions that are not answered in the text. We base our infer­ences on
text evidence—that’s what makes inferring different from guessing. We use text
Support
evidence to support our inferences, mental images, and conclusions. Strategy Wrap-up 94
Assessment Checklist 95
Annotated Rubric 96
Thinksheets 97

Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the Library of Congress.

Infer and Visualize ISBN: 978-0-325-06191-7

The Intermediate Comprehension Toolkit ISBN: 0-978-325-06184-9

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Copyright © 2005, 2016 by
20 19 18 17 16 EBM 1 2 3 4 5 Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis

Strategy 4: Infer & Visualize

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 4 big picture

Lesson Text Matters Goals & Assessment

The ideal teaching text for We want students to:

10 this lesson… ||merge their background
|| contains words likely to be knowledge with text clues to
Infer the Meaning unfamiliar to most kids
does not define these
make an inference (BK+TC=I).
use the context to infer the
of Unfamiliar
|| ||
unfamiliar words meaning of unfamiliar words.

Words includes
|| context clues that
nudge readers to infer
visualize
||
meaning.
from features to infer

Use context clues to unpack

Example: “Titanic” use
|| new vocabulary in a
vocabulary sentence to demonstrate
understanding.

The ideal teaching text for We want students to:

11 this lesson… ||use background knowledge
|| is about a topic that may be and text clues to make a
Infer with somewhat familiar reasonable inference and draw
a conclusion.
Text Clues has
|| plenty of well-supported
but unstated information that read
|| with a question in mind.
Draw conclusions kids can infer use
|| the facts to infer an
from text evidence lends
|| itself to reading to answer to a specific question.
answer an essential question
Example: “Titanic”

The ideal teaching texts for We want students to:

12 this lesson are poems that… ||use the context and
|| are short but complex enough background knowledge to
Tackle the to encourage deep reading infer meaning from the poem’s
words, lines, and phrases.
Meaning of
present
|| ideas or emotions
that are ambiguous and gain
|| an understanding of
Language intrigue kids how to move beyond a literal
interpretation using the
provide
|| opportunities to think
Infer beyond the literal deeply about and interpret the strategy of inferring.
meaning poetic language articulate
|| their understanding
Example: “Moon” and “Secrets” by sharing their inferences,
questions, and interpretations
of the poem’s deeper meaning.

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  BIG PICTURE

Language of Inferring

I’m thinking that…

Preteach, Reteach,
Extend

Scaffolding:
➙ Additional Resources for
Preteaching, Reteaching, and
Extending Strategies

Preteaching: Scaffolding The

page 53, Lesson 10: Infer the ComprehensionToolkit for English
Meaning of Unfamiliar Words Language Learners
This information makes Reteaching: Comprehension
me think… Intervention: Small-Group Lessons
Small-Group: for The ComprehensionToolkit
page 98, Session 10a: Use Context
to Infer Word Meanings Extending: Connecting
Maybe… Comprehension & Technology:
page 103, Session 10b: Use New Adapt and Extend Toolkit Practices
Vocabulary
Maybe it means…

It seems to me…
Scaffolding:
page 57, Lesson 11: Infer with
Perhaps… Text Clues

Small-Group:
Probably… page 107, Session 11a: Gather
Text Evidence
page 112, Session 11b: Draw
That’s probably why…what… and Support Conclusions
how…
Technology:
page 145, Lesson 15: Infer
From the text clues, I can with Visual Cues
conclude… page 153, Lesson 16: Infer
To access Toolkit’s
with Media Cues online resources:
The evidence suggests…
Scaffolding:
page 63, Lesson 12: Tackle instructions removed
the Meaning of Language for sampler

Register your product by entering the

Small-Group: code ITKCL.
page 117, Session 12: Infer
You will need to have your copy
the Meaning of Poems
of Toolkit with you to complete
registration.

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product it will appear in the list of
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 4 big picture

Lesson Text Matters Goals & Assessment

The ideal teaching text for this We want students to:

13 lesson contains… ||understand the purpose of
||plentiful titles and subheads subheads and titles.

Crack Open examples

|| of both standard and
inferential headings
use
|| their background
knowledge to infer the
Features Example: “Mexico” meanings of inferential
subheads and titles.
Infer the meaning of subheads
distinguish
|| between standard
and titles and inferential subheads
and titles.

The ideal teaching text for this We want students to:

14 lesson is… ||ask authentic questions.
||about an exciting topic that read to find the answers
Read with a
||
kids want to know about to their questions through

Question in Mind highly

|| illustrated in order to
capture immediate interest
inferring.
discuss
|| the strategies
Infer to answer your questions full
|| of text and photographs/ we used to answer their
illustrations that inspire kids questions.
to learn and wonder about new
information
Example: The Top of the World:
Climbing Mount Everest

The ideal teaching text for this We want students to:

15 lesson… ||understand the difference
is historical fiction with between plot and theme.
Wrap Your
||
factual information, a clear recognize
|| that we look at
Mind Around narrative, and a variety of
themes
words, actions, events, ideas,
and pictures in the text to infer
the Big Ideas tells
|| a story with emotional themes.
impact and issues to discuss support their themes with
Use text evidence and debate
||
evidence from the text.
to infer themes
Example: Cheyenne Again

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  BIG PICTURE

Language of Inferring

I’m thinking that…

Preteach, Reteach,
Extend

Scaffolding:
➙ Additional Resources for
Preteaching, Reteaching, and
Extending Strategies

Preteaching: Scaffolding The

page 67, Lesson 13: Crack Open ComprehensionToolkit for English
Features Language Learners
This information makes Reteaching: Comprehension
me think… Intervention: Small-Group Lessons
Small-Group: for The ComprehensionToolkit
page 122, Session 13: Infer the
Meaning of Subheads Extending: Connecting
Maybe… Comprehension & Technology:
Adapt and Extend Toolkit Practices

Maybe it means…

It seems to me… Scaffolding:

page 73, Lesson 14: Read with
a Question in Mind
Perhaps…

Small-Group:
Probably… page 127, Session 14: Infer Answers
to Authentic Questions

That’s probably why…what…

how…

From the text clues, I can

conclude…
To access Toolkit’s
Scaffolding: online resources:
The evidence suggests… page 79, Lesson 15: Wrap Your
Mind Around the Big Ideas instructions removed
for sampler
Small-Group:
page 132, Session 15a: Infer
Themes from Text Evidence
page 137, Session 15b: Support You will need to have your copy
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LESSON

10 Infer the Meaning of

Unfamiliar Words

text matters resources | materials

Here readers are explicitly taught to combine their Lesson Text
background knowledge with text clues to derive Kids Discover “Titanic” pages 2, 3, and 4 [See Keep Reading!
meaning, so they can use the context to infer word A Source Book of Short Text, pages 20–22.]
meanings more effectively. We pick up any book or Classroom Supplies
article of interest, fiction or nonfiction, and scan for •• Anchor Chart with four columns labeled Word, Inferred
useful and potentially unknown words; these are Meaning, Clues, and Sentence

opportunities for figuring out word meanings. Student Supplies

•• Clipboard with Word/Inferred Meaning/Clues/Sentence
form [See Strategy Book 4, page 97, or the downloadable
resources at www.comprehensiontoolkit.com.]
•• Copy of the “Titanic” article
•• Pencil

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  LESSON 10 OVERVIEW
Use context clues to
unpack vocabulary

why | what
Inferring is at the heart of reading. Writers don’t spill information onto
the page; they leak it slowly, leaving clues along the way to keep the
reader engaged in the act of constructing meaning. Inferring involves
taking what we know and merging it with clues in the text to come up
with information that isn’t explicitly stated there. Inferring is the strategy
readers need to figure out the meaning of unfamiliar words. To help
readers understand what it means to infer, we teach a literacy equation,
BK (Background Knowledge) + TC (Text Clues) = I (an Inference).
Readers can use the equation to crack the meaning of unfamiliar words.
In this lesson, we teach kids to use context and features to visualize and
infer the meaning of unknown vocabulary.

how | gradual release

of responsibility
Connect & Engage
 Explain inferring.
 Teach an equation for inferring to make inferring concrete and to
support kids as they try to make their own inferences.
 Explain how to use the strategy of inferring to figure out unfamiliar
words in context.

Model
Model how to infer the meaning of unfamiliar words and use a form to help
||
kids understand and remember the meanings.

Guide
Support kids as they read and infer the meaning of unfamiliar words.
||
Explain how readers use the features to visualize and infer meaning.
|| goals |
Introduce and explain the idea of Word Keepers.
||
assessment
Collaborate We want students to:
Have kids work together in pairs to read through the text and practice
||
merge their background
||
inferring the meaning of words as they fill in their charts. knowledge with text clues to make
Give away another word to remind kids what it means to be a Word Keeper.
|| an inference (BK+TC=I).

Share the Learning use context to infer the meaning of

||
unfamiliar words.
Invite kids to share their four-column forms with new words and concepts
||
visualize from features to infer
||
and explain the process for figuring them out.
meaning.
use new vocabulary in a sentence
||
to demonstrate understanding.

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 10 frame Infer the Meaning of Unfamiliar Words
Use context clues to unpack vocabulary

Use this Lesson Frame to teach students to infer the meanings of unfamiliar
words using background knowledge and text clues.

Teaching Moves Teaching Language

Connect & Engage

Explain inferring. Does anyone know what it means to infer? Turn and talk about that.
||

Inferring involves taking information from the text and merging it with our own
||
thinking to come up with an idea that the author hasn’t actually written.
We infer in many ways, like to figure out the meaning of unfamiliar words. Today I will
||
model how I infer the meaning of a vocabulary word I don’t know using context clues.
Teach an equation for inferring You know about math equations. Well, here is a literacy equation that will help us to
||
to make inferring concrete and infer. We think about what we already know and merge our background knowledge
to support kids as they try to with the clues in the text in order to infer the meaning of a word or phrase, like this:
make their own inferences. BK+TC=I.
If our inference doesn’t seem reasonable, we can gather more clues and more
||
information. If we ignore the clues in the text, we are really just guessing. Remember
to think about whether your inference makes sense.
Explain how to use the strategy As I read today, I will show you what I do when I come to a word I don’t know.
||
of inferring to figure out First, I need to think about what I do know and then also consider the context for that
||
unfamiliar words in context. word. I need to read the words and sentences that come before and after the word
because they will help me to infer the meaning.

Model
Model how to infer the meaning I am going to model for you how I infer meanings of words as I read from this article.
||
of unfamiliar words and use a I have a chart with four columns labeled Word, Inferred Meaning, Text Clues, and
form to help kids understand Sentence.
and remember the meanings. As I read, I am going to record unfamiliar words in the first column and then write
||
what I infer the word means in the second column. In the third column, I will write
down what clues helped me infer the meaning. When I have a solid idea of what the
word means, I will write a brief sentence using the word in the fourth column.
One of the reasons we write the word in a sentence is that if we can do that, we
||
probably understand the meaning of the word.
As I read this sentence, I see a word that I am not sure about, so I need to consider
||
clues to help me infer the meaning.
Thinking back to our equation, BK +TC = I, I will use my background knowledge and
||
merge it with text clues to infer the meaning and fill in the form.
Can you see how I used the context of the sentence to find clues to the meaning of
||
the word? Turn to each other and talk about that.

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  LESSON 10 FRAME

In this lesson, we demonstrate the basic Teaching Moves and Teaching Language
for Infer the Meaning of Unfamiliar Words with specific texts and kids.

Teaching Language Teaching Moves

Guide
You each have a copy of the text and the four-column form.
|| Support kids as they read and infer
Let’s try a page together. I’ll start reading. Hmmm, there’s a big word. Turn to each
|| the meaning of unfamiliar words.
other and talk about what you infer it means. Any ideas?
The features in nonfiction help us visualize and understand information better.
|| Explain how readers use
Visualizing is inferring from the picture in your mind. Visualizing helps us infer the features to visualize
meaning. and infer meaning.
Let’s fill in the chart together and you can fill in the form on your clipboard.
|| Support kids as they read and infer
Now that we have written the word, the inferred meaning, and the clue that helped us
|| the meaning of unfamiliar words.
infer, let’s try writing a sentence together.
Word Keepers love words and care for them. Each time we learn a new word
|| Introduce and explain the
together, we will need a Word Keeper who will keep track of its meaning for us. Who idea of Word Keepers.
would like to be the Word Keeper for…?

Practice Independently
I am going to hand each of you a page or two of an article to read, talk about, and
|| Have kids work together in pairs
practice using context clues to infer the meaning of unfamiliar words. to read through the text and
OK, take moment to peruse the article. What does it mean to peruse?
|| practice inferring the meaning of
words as they fill in their charts.
After you have looked over the article, you can begin reading sections to each other.
||
When you come to a word you aren’t sure about, you can add it to the form. Don’t
forget to think about our equation: BK + TC = I. Give away another word to
remind kids what it means
I love the word . . . because . . .! Who wants to be the Word Keeper for . . .?
||
to be a Word Keeper.

Share the Learning

It’s time to finish up your reading, writing, and thinking and come to the sharing
|| Invite kids to share their four-
circle. You can share a word that you didn’t understand and then describe how you column forms with new words
inferred the meaning. And you may share a sentence that you wrote, along with some and concepts and explain the
interesting content. process for figuring them out.
Now I am going to give each of you a blank vocabulary
||
form to keep track of and figure out unfamiliar words
when you read on your own. Great job. Thanks so much.
reflect | assess
Did your students:
merge their background knowledge with text clues to
||
make an inference (BK+TC=I)?
use context to infer the meaning of unfamiliar words?
||
visualize from features to infer meaning?
||
use new vocabulary in a sentence to demonstrate
||
understanding?
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 10 in action

_____________
______________
____________
____________
_________ Date
____________
____________
____________
____________
____________
____________ Sent ence
Name ____________
Clue s
© 2005, 2016 by
Portsmouth, NH:

Lesson Text
ning
Infer red Mea
Wor d
Stephanie Harvey
Heinemann. This

When we teach kids how we use context clues to infer the meaning of
and Anne Goudvi
page may be

words, we choose text that features some vocabulary we suspect will

photocopied for
s from The Compr

be unfamiliar to them. This gives them an opportunity to infer the

classroom use
ehension Toolkit.

image meaning of new words. We also make sure that the text does not define
only.

removed the words immediately after featuring them, as is frequently the case in
for textbooks, because then students wouldn’t need to infer the meaning.
sampler Although the Titanic article contains limited text and is accessible
to most readers, its vocabulary presents rich opportunities for
97

inferring word meanings. Abstract nouns like humility and arrogance

stimulate great discussions and vivid words like colossus give readers
a chance to infer complex meanings from a wide context. Plus, these
word meanings are fun to talk about! They engage kids as both
readers and writers.

Kids Discover “Titanic,” 2005.

Teaching Moves Teaching Language

Connect & Engage

Explain inferring. I love it when you’re all gathered up here close and personal with your clipboards
ready to think, read, and write. For the past few lessons, we have been focused
on the questioning strategy. We’ve been thinking about the questions we have
as we read, and we’ve noticed how our questions can actually lead to better
understanding. For the next few lessons, we are going to work on a new strategy
that builds on the questioning strategy. It’s called inferring, and it is at the heart of
reading. We frequently answer our own questions by making an inference. Does
anyone know what it means to infer? Turn and talk about that for a minute. [Kids
come up with a range of responses and then I continue.]
When writers write, they don’t spill information onto the page. They leak it
slowly so readers can draw their own conclusions. In fact, that’s one of the things
that makes reading so interesting. The reader has to figure things out. Readers
need to pay close attention to the clues in the text to make an inference. When
we think about what we already know and then carefully consider the clues in the
text, we can draw a conclusion or make an inference.
Inferring involves taking information from the text and merging it with our
own thinking to come up with an idea that the author hasn’t actually written.
We use inferring in many ways. For instance, we infer to figure out the meaning
of unfamiliar words. In today’s lesson, I will model how I infer the meaning of

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  LESSON 10 IN ACTION

unfamiliar vocabulary words and how I use context clues to crack the words. Is
this making sense? Turn and talk about your thinking. [Kids talk.]
Let me show you an equation. You know about math equations. Well, this is Teach an equation for inferring
a literacy equation to help us infer! To infer the meaning of a word or phrase, we to make inferring concrete and
think about what we already know and merge our background knowledge with to support kids as they try to
clues in the text, like this: make their own inferences.

BK (Background Knowledge) + TC
(Text Clues) = I (Inference): BK+TC=I
[I write the equation on the chart.]
Cool, huh?
If our inference doesn’t seem
reasonable or make sense, we
can gather more clues and more
information to make a more reasonable
inference. If we ignore the clues in the
text, we are really just guessing. The
more text clues we have, the better
our inference is likely to be. And we
can’t forget to check our background
knowledge, because if the inference
doesn’t make sense, it might be because
our BK is off the mark.
Today, I have brought a magazine
article about the Titanic. We’re going to
read and talk about the Titanic tragedy
over the next two lessons. How many of
you know something about the Titanic?
Turn to each other and talk about what you know about this terrible tragedy.
[Kids talk to each other and I listen in. After a minute, I ask them to share. They
share a variety of responses, most of which reflect that the Titanic hit an iceberg
and sank and that many people died.]
Such a terribly sad story. Over the next few days, we are going to learn much Explain how to use the strategy
more about this event. As we read more about the Titanic, I am anticipating that of inferring to figure out
we will meet some unfamiliar words and concepts, so I thought it would be useful unfamiliar words in context.

to work on inferring in vocabulary. Turn and talk to each other for a moment
about what you do s a reader when you come across a word you don’t understand.
[Kids talk and then share out.]
As I read a bit of this today, I’ll probably come across some new words. When
that happens, I am going to show you how I use the strategy of inferring to figure
out the meaning of unknown words. When I come to a word I don’t know, I
need to think about what I already know about that word, as well as consider the
context. I need to read the words and sentences that come before and after the
word because they will help me to infer the meaning. And I need to think about
our equation. Let me give you an example of how it works.

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 LESSON 10 IN ACTION

Model
Model how to infer the meaning OK, I am going to model for you how I infer the meanings of words as I read
of unfamiliar words and to use some of this Titanic article from Kids Discover. I have a chart with four columns
a form to help kids understand labeled Word, Inferred Meaning, Text Clues, and Sentence.
and remember the meanings.
As I read, I am going to record unfamiliar words in the first column and then
write what I infer the word means in the second column. In the third column, I
will write down what clues helped me to infer the meaning of the word. When I
have a solid idea of what the word means, I will write a brief sentence using the
word in the fourth column. One of the reasons we write the word in a sentence is
that if we can do that, we probably understand its meaning. Writing the word in
a sentence demonstrates our understanding. Let’s see what we can infer. First I’ll
model, and then you will have a chance. Let me read a couple of paragraphs.

“Iceberg! Right Ahead!”

By the time these words rang out on the RMS Titanic, it was too late. The
warning came at 11:40 p.m. on the clear, cold night of April 14, 1912, in the icy
seas of the North Atlantic. Within 40 seconds, the ship’s starboard (right)
side was raked below the waterline by the submerged spur of an iceberg.
Less than three hours later, the Titanic sank beneath the water. At least
1,523 of its roughly 2,228 passengers and crew were dead or dying.

Had the Titanic missed the iceberg that Sunday, it may have simply been
remembered as one of the largest, most luxurious ocean liners of its time.
Yet so much went wrong that the Titanic has become a symbol for disaster.
The great ship’s story is a drama with a little of everything: heroism and
fear, humility and arrogance, wealth and poverty, life and death.

Turn and talk about what you just heard. Wow, so sad. If only it had missed
that iceberg, this terrible tragedy would have been averted. In the next few days,
we are going to use the Titanic story to get into themes, which will be really
interesting for you. But before we focus on the big ideas, I thought we had better
practice how to infer the meaning of words so we don’t get stuck when we come
to one we don't know.
As I read this last sentence, I see a word I am not quite sure about, humility,
so I need to consider clues to help me infer the meaning. The first thing I
notice is that the writer has paired some words together in that sentence—
heroism and fear, wealth and poverty, life and death, humility and arrogance. I
know the meaning of most of these words. And I know that wealth and poverty
and life and death are opposites.
Thinking back to our equation, BK+TC=I, I’m going to try to use my
background knowledge and merge it with text clues to infer the meaning of
the word humility. I know the meaning of the word arrogance. People who are
arrogant are full of self-importance. They seem to think they are better than

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  LESSON 10 IN ACTION

other people. So I can infer what humility is by

considering that it is the opposite of arrogance.
People with humility probably don’t think they are Inferred Text
better than other people. Someone with humility is Word Meaning Clues Sentence
“humble.” Is this making some sense? Can you see
how I inferred the meaning of the word humility by humility being the She accepted
using the context of the sentence? Turn to each other humble opposite the award
and talk about that. of with humility
OK, I will write humility in the first column. In arrogance and grace.
the second column, under Inferred Meaning, I will
write “being humble.” Someone who is humble is not
full of self-importance. In the third column, under
Text Clues, I will write “the opposite of arrogance.”
By using context, I can infer that humility is the
opposite of arrogance since the other pairs of words
were opposites. And now I’ll try a sentence: “She
accepted the award with humility and grace.” I
wrote that because when someone who is humble
is honored, they probably wouldn’t brag about it and act like they’re hot stuff. Is
this making some sense? Good, let’s move on.

Guide
You each have a copy of the text and the four-column form. Support kids as they read and infer
Let’s try the next page. I’ll read the title: “Building a Colossus.” Hmmm, there’s the meaning of unfamiliar words.
a big word, colossus. Skim the text and the pictures, and then turn to each other
and talk about what you infer it means.
Any ideas? Clark?

Clark: It means huge.

Good thinking. Do you all agree? What clues did you use to infer that colossus
meant “huge”?

Clark: I looked at the picture of those huge propellers next to the people. They
were giant-sized, and I got a good idea of how huge the Titanic really was.

Jeanine: The diagram on the bottom of the page showed how much bigger the
Titanic was than other ships.

You were able to infer the meaning of colossus without even reading. You used Explain how readers use
the features as clues to help you infer the meaning of the word. Remember when the ­features to visualize
we used text features to help guide our reading earlier? Well, we can infer from and infer meaning.

text features as well as the words. The features in nonfiction help us visualize and

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 LESSON 10 IN ACTION

understand information better. These images—the propellers and the diagram—

help create a picture in your mind of the gigantic size of the Titanic. The features
in nonfiction often use comparison to help us visualize size or shape. Visualizing
like this helps us to infer meaning. Visualizing is inferring from the picture in your
mind. Such good thinking. Let’s all remember to use visualizing to help us infer.
OK, now as I fill in the the chart, you can fill in the form on your clipboard. I’ll
write the word colossus in the first column. What should we write in the Inferred
Meaning column?

Gavin: That it means gigantic.

That’s right, and we could write any synonym

Word Inferred Text Sentence
for gigantic, but I’ll write “giant” because colossus is
Meaning Clues
actually a noun. Colossal is the adjective. Write the
synonym in the second column. Now for the third
humility being the She accepted
humble opposite the award
column. What did we use for context clues?
of with humility
arrogance and grace. Jeanine: We used the photograph and the diagram. We
visualized.
colossus giant used Titanic was
features an 882 foot
That’s right. We used visualizing to infer. So I can
to visualize collosus,
put “used features” in that column. And you could jot
almost as long
down the exact features that helped you infer.
as four city
Now turn to a partner and try to come up with a
blocks.
sentence about the Titanic using the word colossus, and
then we’ll share some of your sentences. [Kids work
together to come up with a sentence and then share
some out.]
Your sentences sounded great. I’ll write one of them
on my chart, and you can write the same sentence or come up with one of your
own for the sentence column. [I write a sentence on the chart as they write one of
their own or copy mine.]
Introduce and explain the Look, our lesson today was on words and how you infer the meaning of
idea of Word Keepers. unfamiliar words. There are few things that literacy lovers care more about than
words. I am a wordsmith—a person who loves words. We need to pay special
attention to words and learn more of them.
You guys know what a zookeeper is, right? Well, just as a zookeeper cares for
animals and loves them, Word Keepers love words and care tremendously about
them. From now on, I am going to give words away to you. When you take that
word, you become its keeper and take care of that word just like a zookeeper takes
care of animals.
So who would like to be the Word Keeper for colossus? I will write it on a
Post-it and give it to you, and then you are responsible for keeping track of the
meaning of the word.

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  LESSON 10 IN ACTION

Okay, Sadie, what does colossus mean? TIP: Having Word Keepers in
your classroom is a great way to
Sadie: Gigantic, huge. get kids fired up about words and
grow their knowledge. We keep a
Good thinking. Does it mean gigantic or giant? In other words, is it a noun or pack of 3x3 Post-its in our pocket
an adjective? to give away words to kids. We
expect them to be responsible for
Sadie: It’s a noun, so I guess it means giant. the meaning, the spelling, and the
part of speech. Early in the year, we
give them words that we use again
Exactly. So I will give you this Post-it with the word on it. And now you are
and again in active literacy such as
responsible for remembering the meaning of the word colossus. You are the Word
Background Knowledge, Inference,
Keeper for colossus. You need to remember the meaning first and foremost,
and Synthesize. Later, we give them
because the meaning is the most important aspect of a word. But since you are
content words from topic studies and
the Word Keeper, you are also responsible for the spelling and for knowing the
unfamiliar words from literature.
part of speech, too. Word Keepers are great lovers of words, so they want to know Often, we reserve wall space for these
them inside out! words and kids put their Post-its of
If any of you forget the meaning of colossus, or anything else about the word, the words on the Word Keeper wall.
you can check with Sadie because she is the Word Keeper for colossus. I will This way, kids learn the words they
continue to give words away every day until everyone in the room is keeping keep, but they also learn many of
some words for the rest of us. Thanks. the words other kids are keeping.

Collaborate
Kids Discover is such a cool magazine. I am going to hand each of you a page or Have kids work together in pairs
two of the article to read, talk about, and practice in pairs the strategy we just to read through the text and
learned—using context clues to infer the meaning of unfamiliar words. practice inferring the meaning of
words as they fill in their charts.
OK, take a minute to peruse your article. What do you think it means to peruse?

Henry: To read it over. To examine it.

Good thinking! I love the word peruse because it is a word that has to do with
reading, a literacy word. I love that! Henry, how would you like to be the Word
Keeper for peruse?

Henry: OK.

I will write it on this Post-it and give it to you. What does it mean again,
Henry?

Henry: To look over the text.

Exactly. And what part of speech is it?

Henry: I think it’s a verb.

Lesson 10: Infer the Meaning of Unfamiliar Words

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 LESSON 10 IN ACTION

Give away another word to It sure is. I’ll jot down the part of speech on the Post-it, too. And take a good
remind kids what it means look at it tonight, because you never know, I may just ask you how to spell it
to be a Word Keeper.
tomorrow since you are the Word Keeper.
So if any of you need help remembering anything about the word peruse, you
can check with Henry.
If, while you are perusing the article, you come to a word that you are not
sure about, you can add it to the form. Don’t forget to think about our equation
BK+TC=I. It helps to talk to each other about the unfamiliar word. Jot down
your inference. Remember to write down the clues that helped you figure out
the meaning, as well as a sentence to demonstrate that you understand the word.
Go ahead. Happy reading! [Kids spend about 15 minutes reading through the
article in pairs as I move about and listen in on their conversations.]

Share the Learning

Invite kids to share their four- Finish up your reading, writing, and thinking and come on up to the sharing circle.
column forms with new words You can share a word or concept that you didn’t understand and then share
and concepts and explain the how you inferred the meaning. Share a sentence you wrote, too. And of course
process for figuring them out.
you are always free to share some interesting content along with your word.
[Kids volunteer to share. They hold up their forms and share some words they
weren’t sure of and talk about how they used the context to infer the meaning.
They also share sentences they wrote with their partners, and they comment on the
content as well since they are all quite fired up about the Titanic.]
We are going to keep working on inferring for the next week or two. Tomorrow
we are going to continue inferring with the Titanic. The Titanic lends itself to
practicing inferring because there are so many unanswered questions about it.
We have to infer the answers when they are not explicitly stated in the text.
In the meantime, I am going to give each of you another copy of this
vocabulary form to keep with you when you read on your own. You can use it to
keep track of and figure out unfamiliar words. If, on occasion, you discover that
you really can’t infer the meaning, ask someone what the word means. That can
often help. And, when all else fails, you can always use a dictionary, of course, but
inferring is much more efficient. Right now I’ll collect your forms and take a look
at them. Great job. Thanks so much.

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 reflect | assess 10

reflect | assess
In assessing student work from this lesson, we check for several things. reflect | assess
We review the four-column forms to see: Did your students:
||if they made reasonable inferences about word meaning. merge their background
||
if they considered the clues that led them to infer the meaning. knowledge with text clues to make
2
||
an inference (BK+TC=I)?
if they wrote sentences that demonstrated understanding.
||
use context to infer the meaning of
||
We also assess our students’ understanding by listening to their unfamiliar words?
discussions throughout this lesson and throughout the sharing piece. visualize from features to infer
||
meaning?
The work samples for all the lessons in Strategy Book 4 can be saved use new vocabulary in a sentence
||
to show kids inferring in increasingly sophisticated ways, from figuring to demonstrate understanding?

out word meaning in this lesson to inferring themes in Lesson 15.

adapt | differentiate
This lesson was done with fifth graders but can be tailored to any level.
To follow up, encourage students to keep, or continue to keep, a new-word glossary
using either a version of the four-column chart in this lesson, a vocabulary notebook
or reading journal, or a digital list.
Additional Resources
In Lesson 10: Infer the Meaning of Unfamiliar Words (page 53), Scaffolding The
Comprehension Toolkit for English Language Learners previews the lesson’s
visual features to build background for the “Titanic” article, as well as previewing the
lesson’s four-column form.
Two sessions in Comprehension Intervention: Small-Group Lessons for The
Comprehension Toolkit target word-meaning strategies: Session 10a: Use Context
to Infer Word Meanings (page 98) and Session 10b: Use New Vocabulary (page 103).

Lesson 10: Infer the Meaning of Unfamiliar Words

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 LESSON 10 REFLECT | ASSESS

1  aylor was able to infer the meaning and describe the clues that helped in
T
each unfamiliar word that he came across. He even noted in the Text Clues
column that the word hypothermia was actually defined in the story. Each
of his sentences demonstrates a clear understanding of the words.

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  LESSON 10 REFLECT | ASSESS

2  ayleigh also was able to infer the meaning of the unfamiliar words she came across.
K
She found helpful clues to lead her to infer their meanings—the overstuffed chairs and
thick carpets for opulent and the pictures of the rooms, as well as the text description,
to understand the word accommodations. Her sentences demonstrated terrific
understanding. Although she has written a very thoughtful sentence and definition
for society, this was not the precise meaning of the word in the text. Kayleigh was
relying on her background knowledge of the word society, and she showed a good
understanding of the most common definition of the word. In this case, however,
the text was referring to the notion of high society, wealth, and position. Multiple
meanings throw up barriers to cracking unfamiliar vocabulary, which is one reason
we need to teach the strategy of inferring meaning in context. I would point out to
Kayleigh that she has a great definition of society in general. But I would take her
back to the text to show her another meaning of the word as it is used in the text.

Lesson 10: Infer the Meaning of Unfamiliar Words

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 LESSON 10 REFLECT | ASSESS

3 Jane did an excellent job of using inferential thinking and context clues to figure out
the meaning of words. She provided solid evidence for her definitions in the Text
Clues column and mentioned that she read on to better understand the meaning
of the word opulent. She got the accurate meaning of the word society as it is used
in the text, but then her sentence reflected the more common, general meaning
of the word. This is not surprising, as multiple meanings trip readers up.

In fact, many kids had trouble with the definition of society used in the text. So
this provides a great teaching opportunity. I would begin the next day’s lesson
with a review of some of the words, and I would include a discussion of the word
society and talk about the multiple meanings of the word, noting how it is used
in the text as well as the more common definition. I would then focus the general
discussion on multiple meanings to help kids become more aware of these.

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  LESSON 10 REFLECT | ASSESS

Lesson 10: Infer the Meaning of Unfamiliar Words

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Infer & Visualize
Strategy Wrap-up
Creating an Anchor Chart to Capture What
We Learned About Infer and Visualize

Teaching Language
Now that we have done some lessons on inferring when we read, let’s take a look
back at what we have learned. We can co-construct an Anchor Chart about this
strategy that will serve as a visual reminder to help us infer. The Inferring Anchor
Chart can help guide us as we continue thinking about how to use inferring to
help us understand what we read.
I’ll begin by sharing something important that I do
when I infer, and I will record it on the chart. When
I read, I think about what I know and merge it with
text clues to draw a reasonable conclusion, to make an What We Learned
inference. While I am jotting this down on the chart, About Inferring
turn to each other and talk about something you have We think about what we know and merge
learned about inferring that is important to think about it with text clues to draw a reasonable
when we read. Be sure say it in a way that makes sense conclusion.
to you.
We tie our predictions and inferences to
[Kids turn and talk.]
evidence in the text.
Let’s share some of your thoughts. [We want to
capture kids’ comments that show their understanding We use the context to infer the meaning of
of the strategy, as well as our lesson language, to guide unfamiliar words.
future teaching and learning.]
We use the text clues to infer the answers
to unanswered questions.

We use text evidence to infer themes and big

ideas in the text.

We use our background knowledge and text

clues to infer the meaning of features such
as subheads and titles.

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 Assessment Checklist for
Infer & Visualize
Work samples from the Infer & Visualize lessons supply ample evidence to show kids
inferring in a variety of contexts.

Expectations for Use the context to infer the meaning of unfamiliar words and concepts
||

student thinking Merge background knowledge with text clues to draw a reasonable conclusion
||
and learning Infer to interpret the deeper meaning of language
||

Use background knowledge and text clues to infer the meaning of subheads, titles,
||
and features
Infer the answers to unanswered questions
||

Infer to surface big ideas and themes supported by evidence from the text
||

Use inferential thinking to read critically

||

Questions you Do they use the context to infer the meaning of unfamiliar words and concepts?
||

can ask yourself Are they using their background knowledge and merging it with text clues to draw
||
to assess student conclusions?
understanding Do they use the context to interpret the meaning of language?
||

Are they inferring to understand a variety of text features?

||

Are they using text evidence to infer answers to questions that are not answered
||
in the text?
Are they surfacing themes and big ideas to arrive at a deeper understanding?
||

Questions Did I infer to figure out the meaning of new words?

||

students can ask Did I think about what I knew and merge it with the information?
||
themselves Did I find evidence in the text to support my inference?
||

Did I read between the lines to get the deeper meaning?

||

Did I use the text features to infer what the text was about?
||

Did I use text clues to infer the answers to questions when I couldn't find the answer
||
in the text?
Did I infer the themes from evidence and clues in the text?
||

Language of “I’m thinking that . . .”

||

inferring “This information makes me think . . .”

||

“Maybe . . .”
||

“Maybe it means . . .”
||

“It seems to me . . .”
||

“Perhaps . . .”
||

“Probably . . .”
||

“That’s probably why . . . what . . . how . . .”

||

“From the text clues, I can conclude . . .”

||

“The evidence suggests . . .”

||

Strategy 4: Infer & Visualize

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 Annotated Rubric for Strategy Cluster 4:

70
Infer Meaning
ANNOTATED RUBRIC FOR STRATEGY 4: INFER & VISUALIZE

96
Name Date

Oral and/or Written Evidence Strong Evidence 3 Some Evidence 2 Little Evidence 1

The Comprehension
Uses the context to infer

The Intermediate
Toolkit
the meaning of unfamiliar
words and concepts

Merges background
knowledge with text clues
to draw conclusions

Comprehension Toolkit
Uses inferring to interpret
the deeper meaning of

© 2005,
language

© 2016
Portsmouth,
2005 by
Portsmouth,
NH:NH:
by Stephanie
Uses inferring/visualizing
to gain meaning from text

http://www.ComprehensionToolkit.com
features and visuals

Heinemann.
StephanieHarvey
Heinemann.
for sample use only, for more information, visit
Harvey
This
andand
Thispage
Anne
Anne
pagemay
Uses text evidence to infer

may be
Goudvis
the answers to questions

Goudvis
fromfrom
photocopied
be photocopied for
Uses text evidence to infer
big ideas and themes

The Comprehension
forclassroom
classroom
Digital Sampler, Page use
The Comprehension
57 only.
use only.
ToolkitToolkit.
Date ___________________________________________________

Sentence
Clues
Name _____________________________________________________________________________________________

Inferred Meaning
Word

© 2005, 2016 by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis from The Comprehension Toolkit.
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. This page may be photocopied for classroom use only.
Digital Sampler, Page 58
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Name ______________________________________________________________________________ Date ______________________________

Facts Inferences

© 2005, 2016 by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis from The Comprehension Toolkit.
98 The Intermediate Comprehension Toolkit Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. This page may be photocopied for classroom use only.
Digital Sampler, Page 59
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Name ______________________________________________________________________________ Date ______________________________

Evidence from the Text

Themes
(Words, Actions, Pictures, and Ideas)

© 2005, 2016 by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis from The Comprehension Toolkit.
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. This page may be photocopied for classroom use only.
Digital Sampler, Page 60
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 The Comprehension
Toolkit
T lki Stephanie Harvey | Anne Goudvis
INTERMEDIATE

Keep Reading!
A Source Book of Short Text

Copyright © 2005, 2016 by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis

All rights reserved.
The authors and publisher wish to thank those who have
generously given permission to reprint borrowed material.
Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the
Library of Congress.
Keep Reading! A Source Book of Short Text
ISBN: 978-0-325-06187-0
The Intermediate Comprehension Toolkit
361 Hanover Street
ISBN: 0-978-325-06184-9
Portsmouth, NH 03801-3912
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper www.heinemann.com
20 19 18 17 16 EBM 1 2 3 4 5 Offices and agents throughout the world
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 Lesson Texts

“Stealing Beauty” .............................................. 4 “At Home in the Arctic” ................................. 42

by Hannah Beech in TIME Magazine in National Geographic for Kids
“UNICEF and You” ......................................... 12 “One If by Land, Two If by Sea” .................... 47
by Jackie Wlodarczak from A History of US: Colonies to Countries
in TIME for Kids Extra (Vol 3), by Joy Hakim
“Saving Their Native Language” .................. 14 “Can Kids Stop Kids From Smoking?” ......... 54
by Martha Pickerill in TIME for Kids by Ritu Upadhyay in TIME for Kids
“Tigers Roar Back” ......................................... 15 “Western Roundup” ....................................... 55
by Laura Girardi in TIME for Kids by Kathryn R. Hoffman in TIME for Kids
“Testing, Testing” ........................................... 16 “Turn It Off!” ................................................... 56
by Elizabeth Sirius in TIME for Kids by Kathryn R. Hoffman in TIME for Kids
“Lightning” ...................................................... 17 “One Bad Bug” ................................................ 57
by Stephen Kramer by Claudia Wallis in TIME for Kids
in Carolrhoda Books, Inc. “Big Talkers”.................................................... 58
“Summer of the Shark” ................................. 18 by Peter Winkler
by Laura Girardi in TIME for Kids in National Geographic for Kids
“The Eagle Has Landed” ............................... 19 “Maya” .............................................................. 64
by the Madison Press Ltd., by Stella Sands in Kids Discover
from “First on the Moon,” “Garana’s Story” .............................................. 74
a Hyperion/Madison Press Book by Kent Page
“Titanic”........................................................... 20 in National Geographic Explorer
by Sean Price in Kids Discover “The Many Faces of Masks” ........................... 80
Titanic reproduction tickets .......................... 32 in National Geographic for Kids
“Titanic: Past and Present, Part Three” ....... 33 “Hard At Work” .............................................. 84
by Edward S. Kamuda by Ritu Upadhyay in TIME for Kids
from The Titanic Historical Society website “The Comeback Humpbacks” ....................... 86
“Moon” and “Secrets” .................................... 36 in National Geographic for Kids
from Space Songs by Myra Cohn Livingston
“Mexico” .......................................................... 38
by Kevin Supples
in National Geographic Reading Expeditions
“Understanding Electricity ............................ 40
by Stephen M. Tomecek Short Text
in National Geographic Reading Expeditions For the list of Short Text Titles, see page 91.

To access Toolkit’s online resources:

1 Go to www.comprehensiontoolkit.com and click ...

instructions removed
for sampler

The Comprehension Toolkit

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 Keep Reading! Introduction

We’ve gathered all the exemplary text that accompanies or extends each lesson into one
handy reproducible book for you. In Keep Reading!, you’ll find two kinds of text:

Lesson Text
Each of the twenty-six lessons is built around an engaging exemplary text that we’ve
tested in classrooms across the country and can guarantee students find engaging. When
you introduce kids to the Toolkit strategies, it’s important that you use text that naturally
appeals to kids and will almost certainly captivate them. As you introduce the lessons,
you’ll find it helpful to have the text up on a screen so your kids can easily follow along
with you. See www.comprehensiontoolkit.com for versions of the Keep Reading! lesson
texts you can project. Note that not all of the lesson text is included in Keep Reading!;
for example, some of the lessons are built on picture books which you may find in your
classroom or school library; if not, consider purchasing the optional Trade Book Pack.
The Lesson Texts include text written and designed especially for kids, including kids
magazine articles, an Internet article, two poems, two excerpts from a nonfiction series
and a U.S. History chapter. “Stealing Beauty,” an article from TIME Magazine, is the one
exception, as it is written with adults in mind. We chose “Stealing Beauty” to demonstrate
how we use Toolkit strategies in our own reading process.

Nonfiction Short Text

We typically use short nonfiction text to introduce kids to strategic reading because it’s
inherently interesting and engaging even to the most reluctant readers. Additionally, short
text presents a complete set of thoughts and ideas and doesn’t take long to read. The
teachers with whom we work immediately recognize the value of our short nonfiction
text and they want to know where they can get their hands on some, too. Truth is we’re
always on the lookout for engaging short text we can share with kids; indeed, we’ve been
known to tear fun, lively essays from airplane magazines. However, you don’t have to fly
to get good short text. We make it easier for you and supply you with Nonfiction Short
Text, a text pack of 42 short pieces specially written for the Toolkit about a range of topics
we chose, knowing they would appeal to kids—everything from Lance Armstrong to
the greenhouse effect. Note we’ve organized the Short Text thematically and by reading
challenge. Nearly every thematic grouping includes stories that are easy to read and others
that offer a greater challenge. Who knows? As you enjoy these with your students, perhaps
they’ll be inspired to write their own “Shorts.”

Keep Reading! Introduction

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 Keep Reading!
Short Text Titles and Reading Level Designations

Ancient History Natural Wonders

* The First Olympics ........................................ 92 * Real Giants ....................................................116
** Buried Alive! ................................................... 93 ** The Power of Niagara Falls........................117

American History Blood

* The Great Depression: * What’s Your Type? .......................................118
Mired in Poverty ............................................ 94 ** Your Circulatory System ............................119
** Riding the Rails to Hope .............................. 95
* Navajo Code Talkers ..................................... 96 Music
** Japanese-American Internment ................. 97 * Gypsy Musician............................................120
* The Passion of Cesar Chavez ...................... 98 ** Music with a Cause .....................................121
** Boycott for Change ....................................... 99 Visual Art
* The History of Photography .....................122
Advertising
* The Case Against Soda...............................100 ** Flemish Painters: Artistic Survivors ........123
** Influential Advertising................................101 Sports/Bike Racing
* The Tour de France .....................................124
Economics
* How Much Is Enough? ...............................102 ** Racing for Life ..............................................125
** The Money Game........................................103 Biographies
* Oscar Schindler ...........................................126
Aliens
* Alien Cover-Up? ..........................................104 * The Importance of Hard Work ................127
** Seeing Aliens.................................................105 ** On the Wings of a Dream ..........................128
** The Life of Frida Kahlo...............................129
Magic
* Magic Women ..............................................106 More challenging topics
** A Master Magician......................................107 *** September 11, 2001 ..................................130
*** How Computers Work ...............................131
Animals: Horses *** The Greenhouse Effect...............................132
* A Beloved Loser ...........................................108 *** Ozone Hole ...................................................133
** Horse Behavior .............................................109 *** The Textile Industry....................................134
Animals: Pets
* A Pet Iguana ..................................................110
** The Popularity of Pets ................................111

Insects KEY:
* Making Honey ..............................................112 * Most Accessible text
** The Super Ant ..............................................113 ** More Challenging Text
*** Most Challenging Text—Good selections for
Extreme Weather teachers to model their own reading process
* Naming Hurricanes.....................................114 and for readers who want and need more of
** Hurricane Hunters ......................................115 a challenge.

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 Stephanie Harvey | Anne Goudvis The Comprehension
Toolkit
INTERMEDIATE

Content Literacy
Lessons and Texts for Comprehension Across the Curriculum

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ITK_CLL_FM.indd i 2/18/16 11:54 AM

 Table of Contents
Tornado!

use only.
reproduced for classroom
The word tornado

). This page may be

comes from a
combination of the
Spanish words tronada
(thunderstorm) and
tornar (to turn).

(Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann

/HIP
© Warren Faidley/Corbis

e Comprehension Toolkit
to
What is a tornado? ng from a thunderstorm
dark, cloudy air extendi
rotating column of tion, with wind speeds
A tornado is a violent, cause tremendous destruc
violent tornadoes can stay on the ground for
the ground. The most as a mile across and

from The Intermediat

miles per hour. They may be as large of about 100 miles per hour and
up to 300 have wind speeds
tornadoes, however, es are always very dangero
us
dozens of miles. Most er their size, tornado
feet across. Whatev like toys.
are only 200 to 300 and throw cars around
buildings, uproot trees,
and can destroy large

Harvey and Anne Goudvis

How do tornadoes form?by severe thunderstorms in the early spring
ed
Tornadoes are generat from the Gulf of Mexico
moist air moving north
and summer. Warm, Canada.
moving south from
runs into cool, dry air
masses meet, they
When these two air

© 2016 by Stephanie
of towering clouds,
create a storm front st and
The stronge
rain, and lightning.
storms are called
longest-lived thunder
air in the supercell
supercells. The cold
high into the air
lifts the warmer air
winds make the
while the opposing
Sometimes the
clouds begin to rotate.
smaller, tightly
rotating supercell creates
look like funnels.
rotating columns that
can descend to the ground
These funnels
as tornadoes.

!” (1 of 1)
282 Lesson 8: “Tornado

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi

Keep the Big Ideas in Mind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

1 Synthesize details to get the big picture

Distinguish Between Complex and Simple Ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

2 Think about real-life problems

Make Sense of Infographics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

3 Read text closely to get the big idea

Infer from Infographics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

4 View closely to analyze graphics and discern complexity

Notice Contradictory Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

5 Research conflicting facts to resolve contradictions

Use Parallel Annotation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

6 Synthesize important information and jot down thinking

Attend to Signal Words and Phrases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

7 Recognize these cues and understand their purposes

8 Analyze information to discern causes and effects

Identify Issues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

9 Synthesize information to explore complex ideas

Collaborate to Learn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

10 Jigsaw to synthesize and discuss big ideas

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 R U 2 Plugged In? There is more than
Different
only.

Voices

only.
be reproduced for classroom use

by Joe Bubar one side to every story.

be reproduced for classroom use

Imagine that you could hear
the voices of Birmingham
by Anna Gratz Cockerille
in May 1963. This is what illustrated by Mark Mitchell
they might have said.
NH: Heinemann). This page may

NH: Heinemann). This page may

LUCILLE LYONS: STUDENT PROTESTOR
My heart is fluttering in my chest.
All around
me kids chatter nervously. Many look
around
my age, 14, but a lot are younger, too.

©Hero Images/Getty Images

Comprehension Toolkit (Portsmouth,

This

Comprehension Toolkit (Portsmouth,

morning we met at the 16th Street
Baptist
Church. Before we marched right
into the
area with all of the whites-only stores,
I talked
American kids, on average, spend to one of my classmates from school.
nearly seven hours a day
staring at screens. Find out what “You skipping school today, too?”
effects that can have. he asked.
I nodded yes.

O
Anne Goudvis from The Intermediate

n a typical day, 9-year-

Countless other kids in the “You scared?” he asked.

Anne Goudvis from The Intermediate

old Leslie Santos spends The problem is that many
U.S. also spend much of their free I nodded again.
hours after school playing kids spend a lot more time on
time plugged in to devices with
games on her iPad or watching these devices than they should. The “Me too.”
screens. That has many adults
videos on her laptop. She also American Academy of Pediatrics Now we’re looking across the street.
worried that screens may be
(AAP) recommends that kids limit
We
regularly does her homework see firemen standing there with hoses,
taking over kids’ lives. aimed
while watching her favorite TV their screen time to no more than
right at us. Suddenly, water explodes
shows. The fourth-grader from two hours a day. But on average, from the
Screen Overload nozzles. Some kids fall down. Others
Los Angeles, California, says she American kids spend about seven sit right
© 2016 by Stephanie Harvey and

© 2016 by Stephanie Harvey and

Computers, TVs, video-game down in the street. The firemen turn
can’t imagine her life without these hours a day in front of screens. up their
systems, smartphones—in today’s
screens. According to the AAP, all that hoses even higher. I press myself against
world, it’s nearly impossible to the
“I would be bored all day,” extra screen time can be bad for side of a building to keep from getting
avoid screens. In many ways, swept
Leslie says. your health. Some experts think away. Water beats my back and shoulders
they make our lives easier. and
kids who use screens for excessive
Phones and computers connect pins me against the building. It feels
amounts of time can even become like I’m
Words to Know us with friends or help us do being punched and kicked. The water
addicted to them. tears
research for school. In fact, my sweater. I’ll be bruised and in big
moderation (mod-uhr-AY-shuhn)
some health experts say relaxing trouble
noun. a reasonable limit or amount Digital Distractions when I get home, but I know I’m doing
excessive (ek-SEHS-ihv) adjective.
by watching TV or playing the
Being surrounded by screens can right thing.
more than is necessary or normal Candy Crush Saga is fine in
make it hard to focus on one task.
moderation.
In a study last year, researchers From Appleseeds, October 2013.
©
permission. All Cricket Media materialby Carus Publishing Company. Reproduced with
From Junior Scholastic, April 14, Cricket Media, and/or various authors is copyrighted by Carus Publishing Company, d/b/a
2014. Copyright © 2014 by
Scholastic Inc. Used by permission of material without permission is and illustrators. Any commercial
of Scholastic Inc. use or distribution
strictly prohibited. Please visit www.cricketmedia.co
Lesson 17: “R U 2 Plugged In?” info/licensing2 for licensing and
www.cricketmedia.com for subscriptions. m/
(1 of 2) 347 Lesson 14: “Different Voices”
(1 of 3) 323

Explore Concepts in Multiple Media. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

11 Synthesize information from video, text, and graphics

Read Complex Text Closely . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

12 Focus on what you know; ask questions to infer and understand

Immerse Yourself in Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

13 Explore images and text to understand historical events

Recognize Perspectives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

14 Understand different points of view

Form an Educated Opinion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

15 Discern the difference between an opinion and an informed opinion

Debate an Issue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

16 Use evidence to support your claim

Examine Evidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

17 Evaluate the credibility of sources

Recognize Persuasion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

18 Identify purpose and evaluate evidence

Ask Questions to Read Critically. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236

19 Use the Definition/Consequence/Action question framework

Interview an Expert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250

20 Question an author

Resources Table of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

Resources begin on page 270

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 Content Literacy: Lesson Titles and Lesson Texts
LESSON TEXT ALTERNATIVE TEXTS
1. Keep the Big Ideas in Surprising Sharks by Nicola Nonfiction texts that encourage kids to stop, think, and react to
Mind: Synthesize details Davies (Candlewick Press, information as well as synthesize the details into big ideas should
to get the big picture 2003) • grab kids’ interest from the get-go
• contain a lot of interesting facts, visuals, and text features that beg
them to interact
• include details that come together in support of a bigger idea

2. Distinguish Between Surprising Sharks by Nicola To help kids distinguish between simple and complex ideas, choose text
Complex and Simple Davies (Candlewick Press, that has
Ideas: Think about real- 2003) • some relatively simple ideas
life problems • some bigger, more complex ideas

3. Make Sense of “Fin-Win Situation,” United When first teaching kids to get information from infographics, choose
Infographics: Read text Airlines Hemispheres one that
closely to get the big idea magazine (January 2012) • focuses on an engaging topic that most kids know a bit about and are
interested in: sharks, black holes, endangered species, texting while
driving, etc.
• has a navigable and appealing design
• presents the information clearly

4. Infer from “Fin-Win Situation,” United This lesson focuses on the graphic elements in infographics, so look for
Infographics: View Airlines Hemispheres infographics that
closely to analyze magazine (January 2012) • convey a lot of information
graphics and discern • require close scrutiny to access that information
complexity • represent a complex idea or problem

5. Notice Contradictory “Fin-Win Situation,” United To teach kids how to handle discrepancies, select
Information: Research Airlines Hemispheres • at least two texts or sources on the same topic
conflicting facts to magazine (January, 2012) • sources that contain conflicting facts about the topic
resolve contradictions Surprising Sharks by Nicola
Davies. (Candlewick Press,
2003)

6. Use Parallel “You Can Grow Your When launching the parallel annotation practice, choose text that
Annotation: Synthesize Intelligence,” Mindset • is likely to spur a lot of questions, connections, and reactions
important information Works, Inc. (2002–2014) • has information worth remembering
and jot down thinking

7. Attend to Signal “What’s on the Menu? For a lesson on signal words, choose a text that
Words and Phrases: School Lunch Gets a • has an abundance of signal words and signal phrases
Recognize these cues Makeover” by Heather • uses signal words and phrases in common but varied ways (signaling
and understand their Anderson. (2015) sequence, emphasis, contrast, transition, etc.)
purposes

8. Organize Your “Tornado!” by David Texts for this lesson—videos, photographs, articles, etc.—should
Thinking: Analyze Johnson. (2015) • be about a topic that can be explained or understood in terms of
information to discern “Tornado Damage—the cause and effect
causes and effects F-Scale” (www.spc.noaa • clearly depict several cause-and-effect relationships
.gov)

9. Identify Issues: “The Matchless Girl of For this lesson, choose texts that
Synthesize information Matches” from Real Kids, • define a clear issue or set of issues
to explore complex ideas Real Stories, Real Change by • highlight issues that are compelling or of immediate concern to kids
Garth Sundem. (Free Spirit • provide enough detail to encourage kids to explore many facets of
Publishing, 2010) complex issues

vi Content Literacy: Lesson Titles and Lesson Texts

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 LESSON TEXT ALTERNATIVE TEXTS
10. Collaborate to Learn: “The Power of Speech” Effective text for this lesson
Jigsaw to synthesize from Speak Out (National • begins with an overview of a specific topic
and discuss big ideas Geographic Ladders series) • has at least three following sections (generally headed with
subheads) that share specific examples on the topic

11. Explore Concepts “Meltdown: Antarctic ice For this lesson, choose
in Multiple Media: is melting faster than ever • video and text on a shared topic that depict a significant event with
Synthesize information before” by David Johnson clear consequences
from video, text, and (2015) • media that present interesting, timely information
graphics • images that illustrate key concepts and ideas

12. Read Complex Text A transcription of the Primary source documents are perfect for this lesson. Choose
Closely: Focus on what Mayflower Compact documents that are
you know; ask questions • extremely important to a topic under study
to infer and understand • about big ideas related to that topic
• relatively short

13. Immerse Yourself “Why the Children of Look for texts and images that
in Sources: Explore Birmingham Marched” by • depict actual events
images and text to Cynthia Levinson. From • are vivid and compelling
understand historical Kids Fight for Civil Rights • strike a personal chord in the reader
events (Appleseeds, October 2013)

14. Recognize “Different Voices” by Anna To encourage kids to understand that different people view the same
Perspectives: Gratz Cockerille. From event or phenomenon in different ways, choose
Understand different Kids Fight for Civil Rights • multiple accounts of the same event or phenomenon
points of view (Appleseeds, October 2013) • texts that represent different points of view or perspectives about the
same topic

15. Form an Educated “Animals Can!” and “The Choose text that
Opinion: Discern the Navy Marine Mammal • is about a topic that kids are likely to have strong opinions about
difference between an Program” from Lend Me a • has an issue, idea, or problem that has two sides
opinion and an informed Paw (National Geographic • provides credible evidence for both sides
opinion Ladders series)

16. Debate an Issue: Use “The Navy Marine Mammal Ideally, texts that support a debate should relate to
evidence to support your Program” from Lend Me a • an issue, idea, or problem that has two definitive sides
claim Paw (National Geographic • credible evidence for both sides
Ladders series) • most importantly, an issue most kids care deeply about

17. Examine Evidence: “R U 2 Plugged In?” The text for evaluating sources should
Evaluate the credibility Scholastic News (April 28, • discuss a specific issue or problem that engages kids
of sources 2014) • include information based on research or from experts and other
credible sources
• prompt kids to examine or reexamine an issue

18. Recognize “The Elephant in the Room,” For this lesson, choose a text
Persuasion: Identify a World Wildlife Foundation • that takes a clear point of view
purpose and evaluate infographic • whose purpose is persuasive
evidence

19. Ask Questions to “Where Your Electronics Go Text for this lesson needs to feature a problem or issue that
Read Critically: to Die,” Junior Scholastic • can be clearly defined
Use the Definition/ (April 2014) • has obvious consequences (usually negative)
Consequence/Action • is relevant enough that kids might be inspired to take action to
question framework solve it
20. Interview an Expert: The Journey That Saved To launch author interviews, choose a text that is
Question an author Curious George by Louise • substantive and engaging
Borden (HMH Books for • by a contemporary author with a website or other available
Young Readers, 2006) biographical information

Content Literacy: Lesson Titles and Lesson Texts

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 Introduction

You can’t help but ask questions and wonder in a room that is filled to bursting
with great text, stirring images, engaging artifacts, magnifying glasses, Erector sets,
and so forth. Content-rich classrooms make wondering irresistible. Stimulating
environments fuel kids’ natural curiosity. Teachers who create classrooms like
this instill in their students a disposition to explore, investigate, read on, and learn
more about the real world. The real world is rich, fascinating, and compelling, and,
because kids are living in it, let’s replicate it in the content literacy classroom.
David Pearson suggests a simple motto that says it all when it comes to content
literacy: READ IT, WRITE IT, TALK IT, DO IT! (Pearson, Moje, and Greenleaf
2010). And he’s talking about across the day, across the curriculum, and across
the year. This active process is a hallmark of effective, engaging content teaching
and learning. In content-rich classrooms, kids are asking questions, inferring,
discussing, debating, inquiring, making things, and generating new ideas.
Content literacy practices must be thinking and learning intensive, so say no
less than the President and Fellows of Harvard College (2007). To build intrigue,
knowledge, and understanding, students read, learn about, and interact with the
questions, mysteries, controversies, discoveries, events, issues, and drama that are
the real stuff of content learning.
In this twenty-first-century information age, researchers highlight the
importance of content literacy—reading and understanding in a variety of
disciplines. Pearson et al. (2010) go so far as to say the following:
“Without systematic attention to reading and writing in subjects like science and
history, students will leave schools with an impoverished sense of what it means
to use the tools of literacy for learning or even to reason within various disciplines.”

In recent years, content has taken a back seat on the curricular bandwagon.
Kids have spent more than a decade reading to answer story questions or fill in
test-prep bubbles and blanks while at the same time science and social studies
slid off the radar screen. But not in literacy-rich classrooms, where reading and
writing are not about reading and writing in general but rather about reading

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 and writing to build knowledge. We don’t read simply to amass information or,
as teachers, to cram information into kids’ heads. Instead, we read to tackle real
problems, explore authentic issues, and puzzle through ideas to make sense of
the world. Gina Cervetti, Carolyn Jaynes, and Elfrieda Hiebert (2009) say simply,
“Kids should be learning real things for real reasons as they read.”

Comprehension at the Core

We don’t save teaching comprehension just for the literacy block. We teach
comprehension strategies across the curriculum so kids can learn, understand,
and remember the content. In fact, content literacy is about laying down a
foundation of thinking strategies and then merging the content with them in
science, social studies, and any other subject areas. The amount of information we
are bombarded with every day requires that we have strategies to reason through
it to decide what’s worth learning and remembering.
We live in the information age, but we are not sure that kids understand
the difference between information and knowledge. If we don’t think about
information, it is merely information in, information out—or garbage in, garbage
out. However, if we do think about it, we have a good shot at turning information
into knowledge. And no one can do the thinking for us; we have to construct
meaning ourselves.
Art Costa reminds us that we can’t teach kids to think because humans are
born thinking (Costa 2008). But to prepare them for living in the twenty-first
century, we can and must teach them to
• Be aware of their thinking
• Think strategically
• Recognize the power of their own thinking

We’d like to see this graphic shared with kids in classrooms around the world
because it sends the message that the power of learning and understanding

From Scaffolding the Comprehension

Toolkit for English Language Learners by
Anne Goudvis, Stephanie Harvey, Brad
Buhrow, and Ann Upczak-Garcia, 2012,
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

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 resides between their ears. Kids need to do the thinking, but it is our respon-
sibility to share a repertoire of strategies so kids learn how to think about the
information in a way that promotes learning, understanding, and remembering.
Years ago, reading researchers identified a collection of strategies that proficient
readers use to construct meaning when they read, listen, and view (Dole et al.
1991). Much of our work, including the lessons and practices in this book, is
grounded in and builds on this body of research. We believe readers need to
• Monitor comprehension
• Activate and connect to background knowledge
• Ask questions
• Infer and visualize meaning
• Determine importance
• Summarize and synthesize
Once students have had explicit instruction in these thinking strategies and
have learned how to use them independently and flexibly, we engage them in
lessons that rely on a repertoire of strategies for understanding. For instance,
we’ve noticed when asking questions, we immediately attempt to infer an answer.
When synthesizing information, we rely on myriad strategies to come up with the
big picture.
In this book, the content literacy lessons integrate a variety of strategies and
provide for a more robust experience across disciplines. For example when kids
read complex primary sources, they focus on their background knowledge, ask
questions and draw inferences to gain insight. When they debate an issue, they find
the most important evidence to support their claim. When considering an historic
event, they read, question, and synthesize different perspectives to come to a more
complete understanding of the time period. They synthesize information across
multiple media sources to infer central scientific concepts and issues.
In classrooms that foster a strategic spirit, reading, writing, and thinking
occur in an environment rich with text talk, discussion, debate, and purposeful
collaboration. Reading and writing are not ends in themselves. They truly are a
means to an end, so students can acquire and actively use knowledge to build
understanding and gain insight.

Building Knowledge Across the Curriculum

Too often content literacy, or “reading in the content areas,” has been viewed as
memorizing an endless stream of facts and dates—or answering end-of-chapter
questions. No wonder kids often report that social studies is the most boring
part of the day. Who wouldn’t be bored slogging through a textbook the size of
an encyclopedia? Sometimes science is no better when it’s all about filling in lab
reports or memorizing formulas.
How unfortunate. We believe it is the content that is seductive! We have never
met a student we can’t engage in something in the real world. We’ve watched as
kids marvel at a praying mantis gnawing on a honeybee, wonder about the nature

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 of black holes, or empathize with a Civil War soldier their age, who had to fight
against his brother.
In reviews of the research, Cervetti and colleagues (Cervetti and Hiebert
2009; Cervetti, Jaynes, and Hiebert 2015) argue persuasively that “knowledge
building is the next frontier in reading education” because “evidence is beginning
to demonstrate that reading instruction is more potent when it builds and then
capitalizes upon the development of content knowledge.” This is a reciprocal
process. As students build their knowledge through reading, they create a
foundation that in turn supports ongoing thinking, learning, and understanding.

Knowledge

Activating Building
Knowledge Knowledge

Comprehension

Researchers emphasize the knowledge-building side of this figure, which

underscores the idea that when we comprehend, we add to and enhance our
store of knowledge. So above all, comprehension is a knowledge-building
activity. In turn, as we continue to learn about and comprehend the world, our
comprehension is strengthened by existing and new knowledge. “Knowledge from
this perspective does not refer to a litany of facts, but rather to the discipline based
conceptual understandings . . . [which] engage students in becoming experts on
the world around them” (Cervetti et al. 2009). So “knowledge begets knowledge.”
The more content knowledge we have, the more likely we are to grow it.

The Comprehension Continuum

We have long advocated for explicit comprehension instruction—in Strategies
That Work (Harvey and Goudvis 2007), in our Primary Comprehension Toolkit
(Harvey and Goudvis 2008, 2016b), and in our Intermediate Comprehension
Toolkit (Harvey and Goudvis 2005, 2016a). Acquiring and actively using
knowledge is of paramount importance, particularly in this era of twenty-first-
century learning. But as Costa (2008) says, the acquisition of knowledge is
only the beginning. “The deeper [the] knowledge one has, the more analytical,
experimental and creative one’s thought processes.” (23)
Acquiring knowledge is a powerful jumping-off point. As Costa suggests,
content literacy is all about what kids do with their new knowledge—how they
make sense of it and use it in their daily lives. To explore the multiple ways that
knowledge and experience interact, it is helpful to think about the many different

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 purposes of comprehension—a continuum of understanding that runs the gamut
from answering literal questions to actively using knowledge. This continuum,
which first appeared in Comprehension and Collaboration, includes five compre-
hension processes and the teaching language that matches each (Harvey and
Daniels 2011, 2015).
The five comprehension processes are the following:
Answering Literal Questions Answering literal questions is the least sophis-
ticated practice of comprehension. Students may demonstrate that they can recall
information, but simply skimming and scanning to find the answers to questions
at the end of a paragraph or a chapter does not guarantee understanding. It goes
without saying that literal understanding is an important foundation of knowledge
acquisition and use, but practices that begin and end with literal questions, be
they from the textbook or the teacher, are unlikely to lead readers to a deep
understanding and do little to engage the reader in learning.
Retelling Retelling involves short-term recall and recounting a sequence of
events. We recognize that retelling is a foundational skill for learners and that it is
more sophisticated than answering literal questions, but retelling in and of itself
does not demonstrate understanding.
Merging Thinking with Content True comprehension begins when we
merge thinking with content. Here’s where kids use thinking strategies so that
understanding takes root—engaging and connecting, questioning, inferring,
visualizing, determining importance, and synthesizing information. These
strategies facilitate kids’ active engagement with their reading and provide them
with an arsenal of tactics to construct meaning.
Acquiring Knowledge Once readers begin to consciously merge their
thinking with the content, they are able to turn that information into knowledge.
Integrating content and comprehension instruction means that “strategies . . . help
students make sense of the content, and the content gives meaning and purpose
to the strategies” (Wilkinson and Son 2011).
Actively Using Knowledge Understanding strategies and having the
disposition to use them encourages students to take an active rather than a
passive stance towards learning. We can integrate our knowledge and actively
apply it to experiences, situations, and circumstances in our daily lives. In this
way, we come to realize the power of our own thinking. We may come to care
about what we learn and apply that knowledge in practical, authentic ways.
Knowledge undergirds informed decisions about how to behave, persuade, and
act in the real world.

Content Matters
Research (Anderson and Pearson 1984) has long supported the strong relation-
ship between background knowledge and school learning. Nothing colors our

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ITK_CLL_FM.indd xiii
Comprehension Continuum
Answers Literal Retells Merges Thinking Acquires Actively Uses
Questions with Content Knowledge Knowledge

Answering literal ques- Retelling shows that Real understanding takes Once learners have With new insights and
tions shows that learners learners can organize root when learners merge merged their thinking with understandings, learners
can skim and scan for thoughts sequentially and their thinking with the the content, they can can actively use knowl-
answers, pick one out that put them into their own content by connecting, begin to acquire knowl- edge and apply what they
matches the question, and words. Shows short-term inferring, questioning, edge and insight. They have learned to the expe-
have short-term recall. recall of events in a narra- determining importance, can learn, understand, riences, situations, and
Only demonstrates tive and bits of information synthesizing, and reacting and remember. circumstances at hand
surface understanding. in nonfiction. to information. Shows more robust to expand understanding
Does not, in and of Understanding begins understanding. and even take action.
itself, demonstrate here. Understanding used for
understanding. problem solving and
acting.

Teacher Language Teacher Language Teacher Language Teacher Language Teacher Language

What is...? Tell me what happened. What do you think? What did you learn that What do you want to do

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Where did...? Tell me what this was What did you learn? you think is important to about this?

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about. remember? Why do you want to take
Who was...? What does this remind
Retell what you read. you of? Why does it matter? action?
How did...?
What comes first, second, What do you wonder? What do you think the Is there a way you can get
How many...? author most wants you involved?
third? What do you visualize? to get out of this? How do you think you can
When did...? What do you infer? What evidence can you help?
What is this mostly about? cite to make your claim? How would you convince
What makes you say/think What do you think are others of your point of
that? some big ideas here? view?
How did you come up with What difference does it What is your plan?
that? make? How might you engage

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Introduction
What, if anything, confuses Say more about that. the help of others?
you?

xiii

2/18/16 11:55 AM
 learning and understanding more than what we bring to it, especially in content
reading. David Perkins advocates for the power of knowledge, suggesting that
“knowledge does not just sit there. It functions richly in people’s lives so they can
learn about and deal with the world” (Perkins 1992). After all, what is education
for if it isn’t about learning and understanding the world?
Unfortunately, rather than tackling real stuff in disciplines such as economics,
history, and ecology, schools seem to feel obligated to cover a “mile-wide,
inch-deep, one-size-fits-all” curriculum that is of little to no use outside of the
classroom. Too often textbooks become the default curriculum. When they do,
Diane Ravitch (2010) notes that students get “boring, abbreviated pap in the
history textbook that reduces stirring events, colorful personalities and riveting
controversies to . . . a few leaden paragraphs” (237). From our perspective,
nothing could be more inside out and backward. It is reading about fascinating
events, ideas, and issues that motivates kids to read more and better.
History and science, more than many subjects, demand that students have a
context for their learning. In history, students need to understand the essential
ideas that emerge within a larger time span. Science understanding is built upon
knowledge of certain vocabulary and concepts that provide a foundation for
further understanding.
The lessons and practices in this book were created to give kids the tools they
need to read the complex text they come across when reading in the content
areas. We hear a lot about complexity these days, particularly complex text.
Complexity is not merely about dense text, Lexile level, or technical vocabulary.
Complexity is about ideas, not merely words. Complexity resides in issues and
problems with multiple perspectives that can be presented in myriad ways.
The reader’s background knowledge—prior knowledge and experience—is the
greatest factor in whether a text is complex or not. In fact, complexity is in the eye
(or mind) of the beholder.
One of the main reasons we teach strategies is to hurdle the background
knowledge gap. The more complex the text, the more strategic the reader needs
to be. In content reading, we are apt to encounter unfamiliar information and new
ideas, so inferring, activating background knowledge, and questioning all help
readers overcome the background knowledge gap. As David Pearson (2006) so
aptly says, “Today’s new knowledge is tomorrow’s background knowledge.”
Reading, writing, and thinking across disciplines promotes literacy in the
broadest sense of the term. We’d argue that life in the twenty-first century
demands that kids build their knowledge store about the world so that they read,
listen, and view with a critical eye and a skeptical stance. They mustn’t swallow
whole everything they read, view, and hear. They need to be ready, willing, and
eager to engage in dialogue at school, at home, and, someday, at work. Above all,
they must continually ask questions to become informed, engaged, thoughtful
citizens. Eleanor Roosevelt punctuates the point: “Every effort must be made to
teach the young to use their own minds. For one thing is certain, if they don’t make
up their own minds, someone will do it for them” (Roosevelt, in Beane 2005).

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 About This Resource
The lessons in this Content Literacy resource are designed to build on the original
lessons in The Comprehension Toolkit. Each of the original Toolkit lessons zeroed
in on one of six proficient reader strategies listed in this introduction (page x).
We designed several lessons for each strategy to help kids fully understand how
to use the strategy in their reading. Although kids were asking questions during
inferring lessons and making connections during synthesizing lessons, the
purpose of the lessons was to give kids a clear and in-depth understanding of each
individual strategy.
The lessons and practices in Content Literacy are designed to teach kids to use
a repertoire of strategies to further their thinking and actively use knowledge.
It is our belief that kids are more able to read and think flexibly and recursively
when they have an in-depth understanding of the foundational comprehension
strategies we teach in The Comprehension Toolkit. When kids have had time
to practice and use comprehension strategies extensively in their own reading,
the strategies become tools for further understanding. Kids internalize these
comprehension strategies to the point where they exhibit a strategic disposition
using “thinking strategies in response to thinking and learning challenges”
(Tishman, Perkins, and Jay 1994).

Comprehension Across the Curriculum

Content Literacy lessons engage kids in analysis, synthesis, critical reading, and
thinking across the curriculum. The lessons are not defined by strategy but
instead integrate several strategies. Kids use inferential thinking and questioning
to analyze climate change in Antarctica based on scientific data. They gather
information, synthesize it, and debate whether or not to use marine mammals in
the military. They read and analyze arcane language in primary source documents
such as the Mayflower Compact. They create questions and determine
importance as they prepare to interview an author about her purpose for writing.
They learn the power of public speaking to persuade and inform through the likes
of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Sandra Day O’Connor.
All of these lessons and practices are grounded in science and social studies
and reflect some of the varied ways we think in different disciplines. So even
though you may not be studying colonial times, sharks, or climate change, the
thinking routines and processes that we teach are applicable to any of your
science or social studies topics and units. These lessons are content literacy
lessons; that is, they are designed to teach our kids ways to get the most out of
their nonfiction reading so they can build content knowledge and actively use it.

Comprehension Across Various Texts

We have included a wide variety of nonfiction texts to go along with this resource,
ranging from infographics to articles to trade books. The infographics and articles
are included in this book. The trade books are available from Heinemann in the

Introduction
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 Toolkit Trade Book Pack or wherever you ordinarily order books. We selected
these texts for their compelling content and diversity. They highlight bigger ideas,
central concepts, and key understandings in the disciplines of science and social
studies. Articles and texts about history focus on analyzing primary sources,
synthesizing different perspectives, inferring the essence of issues and problems,
etc. Science articles focus on cause-and-effect relationships, analyzing different
media sources to explore a concept, rethinking misconceptions, etc.
All of the content literacy lessons work with many different kinds of content-
related texts. Feel free to use the texts we chose to launch the practices if you like.
But know this: You can use any nonfiction text you choose to teach these lessons.
As a matter of fact, the most effective way to teach these content literacy lessons
is with your own texts, topics, and units. The “Lesson Frame” at the beginning
of each lesson includes only the lesson moves and some teaching language; the
topic-specific content has been stripped away. These frames are “cheat sheets” of
sorts to serve as a scaffold as you create your own lessons with your choice of text
and topic.

Collaborative Discussion for Content Learning

Throughout The Comprehension Toolkit lessons—the original lessons as well as
these content literacy lessons—our explicit instruction encourages collaborative
discussions for building community and constructing meaning. Reading and
thinking strategies support effective discussion and facilitate learning from text.
They provide a variety of entry points into the text and its ideas, leading to richer
conversations about it. Our discussions and conversations with the kids are
springboards to their independent thinking, learning, and decision-making.
In the Content Literacy lessons, you will notice extensive conversations
between teachers and kids and among the kids themselves. At every point in the
lesson, our teaching is responsive to what kids are thinking and saying. We’ve
included these dialogues to illustrate how kids internalize a common language of
comprehension to express their learning and understanding and how we respond
to it. Some of this common language relates to the processes that kids use to
grapple with meaning in the text, make sense of unfamiliar concepts, and work
out their thinking with each other. Other aspects of their language reflect their
deep interest and insight into the content under discussion.
We actively model our own curiosity about these topics, talking and thinking
aloud about them, so our kids adopt and adapt our teaching language as their
learning language. We have a purpose and plan in mind as we teach the lessons,
but it is the new insights and original perspectives kids bring that take our
conversations in important and unanticipated directions. The conversations you
facilitate with your kids will reflect the texts and content you are teaching at the
time. Our conversations in this resource are examples of how we engage kids in
discussion and weave their thinking into our lessons.
As we create and plan for content-rich classrooms, we keep the following
hallmarks in mind.

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 LESSON

19 Ask Questions to
Read Critically

text matters resources | materials

Text for this lesson needs to feature a problem or issue Lesson Text
that “WhereYour Electronics Go to Die,” Junior Scholastic
| can be clearly defined (It is helpful if the problem (April 2014) [See the back of this book or the downloadable
resources.]
appears in the title, so the reader can read with that
question in mind.) Classroom Supplies
• Thinksheet with sections labeled Definition Question,
| has obvious consequences (usually negative)
Consequence Question, and Action Question and two
| is relevant enough that kids might be inspired to take columns labeled Notes and Thinking [See the back of this
action to solve it book or the downloadable resources.]
Articles on problems like climate change, child labor, • Document camera or other means of projecting the
endangered species, and bullying, for example, are the Thinksheet
types of issues that lend themselves to this lesson. Once • Tablet or other device for online research (optional)
the problem has been defined, which generally occurs Student Supplies
in the text quite early on, the reader can focus on the • A copy of “WhereYour Electronics Go to Die”
consequence question and read with that in mind. Finally, • A copy of the Definition/Consequence/ActionThinksheet
if they get hooked on the issue, they may want to address
• Pencil or pen
the action question and think about what they can do.

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 | LESSON 19 OVERVIEW

Use the Definition/Consequence/

Action question framework

why | what
Teachers frequently ask how we get kids to go deeper, to read beyond the
surface level of the text. One of the most helpful frameworks for deeper
reading in the content areas is the Definition, Consequence, and Action
line of questioning (Harvey and Daniels 2015). This takes reading with a
question in mind to a deeper level. (See Infer & Visualize Lesson 14.)
When kids are reading nonfiction, particularly in science and social
studies, we can scaffold their critical reading by teaching them the
Definition/Consequence/Action Question framework. First, we ask readers
to ask a definition question, such as What is happening? What is this?,
which is generally answered explicitly in the text relatively early on. Once
they have answered the definition question, we ask them to address a
consequence question: Why does it matter? So what? The answer often
needs to be inferred. Finally, once they have addressed the consequence
question, they may care enough to act and think about an action question,
such as What can we do? How can we help? In conventional schooling, kids
may only be required to answer the definition question. The consequence
question leads readers to deepen thinking. Ultimately, the action question
nudges them to go beyond the text,
do some research, and act if they are so inclined.

Related Lessons: If students have worked through Infer & Visualize Lesson 14,
they are well prepared to tackle asking questions to read critically.

how |
gradual release
of responsibility
Connect / Engage
| Get kids thinking about the issue in the text.

Model goals |
| Preview the lesson.
| Introduce the Thinksheet and the definition and consequence questions.
assessment
We want students to:
| Read aloud the beginning of the article and model note taking.
| define an issue or problem by
Guide asking the definition question.
| Read on and discuss answers to the consequence question. | follow up the definition question
with the consequence question—
Collaborate / Practice Independently why does it matter.
| Confer with kids as they finish reading.
| think through and determine
Share the Learning ways to take action to correct the
problem.
| Create a web chart of kids’ ideas for taking action.

Lesson 19: Ask Questions to Read Critically

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 19 frame Ask Questions to Read Critically
Use the Definition/Consequence/Action question framework

Use this Lesson Frame with any issue-based text or situation to help students
define a problem, determine its impact, and think about taking action.

Teaching Moves Teaching Language

Connect / Engage
Get kids thinking about | I’m wondering about the issue in this text.
the issue in the text.
| What do you think? Turn and talk about that.

Model
Preview the lesson. | We’re going to look into this issue today.

| We’ll read the article and take notes in a two-column format. Remember that
information from the text goes in the left-hand Notes column, while any of our own
thinking goes in the right Thinking column. In addition to taking notes about the
article, we’ll use the new Definition/Consequence/Action question framework to help
us think about this issue.
Introduce the Thinksheet | The top of this form says Definition Question. The definition question tells us what is
and the definition and going on or what the issue is. I’m going to turn the issue into a question and write a
consequence questions. definition question. To understand what’s going on, I need to find the answer to that
question, so I’ll read with that question in mind. The definition question is usually
answered in the text; we’ll see.
| Now I’m going to think about another type of question, called the consequence
question. Turn to each other and talk. What is a consequence? A consequence is
something that happens as a result of an action. The consequence question has to
do with why it matters when something happens.
Read aloud the beginning | I’m going to jot down some important information in the left-hand Notes column and
of the article aloud and then add my thinking and/or a question in the right-hand Thinking column.
model note taking. | As I read on, it says . . . Aha! I think I get it now. I can answer the definition question.
I’ll put A for answer next to the spot where I answered the definition question. You go
ahead and do that too if you like.

238 The Intermediate Comprehension Toolkit: Content Literacy: Lessons and Texts for Comprehension Across the Curriculum
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 | LESSON 19 FRAME

Teaching Language Teaching Moves

Guide
| Now that we’ve answered the definition question, we can focus on the consequence Read on and discuss answers
question. Why does it matter if . . .? What are the consequences if . . .? to the consequence question.
| Just answering the definition question is not enough. Addressing the consequence
question lets us get a deeper, more complete understanding of the problem. We may
need to infer the answer.

Collaborate / Practice Independently

| Now it’s your turn. Go ahead and read the rest of the article with a partner. Confer with kids as they
| If you look at the bottom of the form, you’ll see a place for the action question. If we finish reading.
care enough about a problem or an issue and the consequences of that issue, we may
want to do something to change the situation or to help out in some way. You might
write the question, How can I help? in the Action Question space and perhaps jot
down some of the ways on the back of your paper.

Share the Learning

| OK, let’s come back together and address the action question. Anybody want to Create a web chart of kids’
help to try and solve this problem? Who’s got some suggestions about how we could ideas for taking action.
help?
| Let’s co-construct a web with ideas for how we could make a difference by
addressing this problem.

reflect | assess
Did your students:
| define an issue or problem by asking the
definition question?
| follow up the definition question with the
consequence question—why does it matter?
| think through and determine ways to take
action to correct the problem?

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 19 in action

WHERE YOUR Lesson Text

classroom use only.

Images/HIP
ELECTRONICS
GO TO DIE

©Ariel Skelley/Blend Images/Getty

“Where Your Electronics Go to Die” is a perfect fit for this lesson
This page may be reproduced for

by Layla Acaroglu because we can immediately turn that title into the definition question,
Old electronics often become toxic
What can you do to make sure your
trash around the world.
What happens to your used electronics? That question is answered
NH: Heinemann).

gadgets are recycled safely?

A
mericans replace their cell
phones, on average, every
Other people inhale the smoke
The European Union (E.U.) within a few paragraphs of the beginning of the article, which then takes
Comprehension Toolkit (Portsmouth,

from burned cell phones as

22 months, junking about 150 requires electronics companies
they separate different kinds
million of them every year. Ever to accept—for free—any of
wonder what happens to all
those old phones?
of plastics.
Exposure to these and other
substances can cause serious
their used products brought in
by customers for recycling. In us to the deeper question, Why does it matter where a bunch of old
Many of them end up in Japan, electronics manufacturers
health problems, especially to
countries like China, India, and
Ghana, where they’re piled up
children and pregnant women.
The World Health Organization
are required to establish their
own recycling facilities or hire
companies to recycle a range
electronic devices go? Kids learn a lot about the problem here and the
Anne Goudvis from The Intermediate

into mountains of electronic

says that even a low level of
waste (e-waste). Workers— of products, from computers
many of them kids—then burn
the gadgets so they can extract
exposure to lead, cadmium,
or mercury—all of which are
found in cell phones—can
and cell phones to TVs and air
conditioners.
consequences of the original question. Most want to take some action
metals, including copper, gold, About 180 countries and
cause irreversible damage to the
and silver. They sell the metals
to recycling merchants for only a
few dollars. That may not sound
nervous system. The chemicals
in e-waste can also damage the
the E.U. have ratified the Basel
Convention, an international
treaty that makes it illegal to
after learning about this problem.
environment when they seep
© 2016 by Stephanie Harvey and

like a lot of money to Americans, export toxic e-waste. The U.S. is

into the ground, water, or air.
but it can be enough to help the only industrialized nation
their families survive. that hasn’t ratified the treaty.
What Can We Do?
In India, young boys smash There are several things that
computer batteries with mallets
manufacturers, governments, Words to Know
to recover cadmium, a toxic
and consumers can do to European Union (n):
metal that covers their hands
make sure that e-waste is an economic and political partner-
and feet as they work. Women ship of 28 European nations
recycled safely.
bend over vats of hot, poisonous industrialized nation (n):
Some countries put the a country that has a highly
lead, “cooking” circuit boards so
burden of safe product developed economy and
they can remove slivers of gold.

From Junior Scholastic, April 14,

disposal on manufacturers. advanced technologies
"Where Do Your Electronics Go to Die?" from Junior Scholastic, April 14, 2014.
2014. Copyright © 2014 by
Scholastic Inc. Used by permission
of Scholastic Inc.
Lesson 19: “Where Your Electronics
Go to Die” (1 of 2) 351 Copyright © 2014 by Scholastic Inc. Used by permission of Scholastic Inc.

Teaching Moves Teaching Language

Connect / Engage
Get kids thinking about Look around the room. How many different types of electronic devices do you
the issue in the text. see in here? Turn and talk about what you see. [Kids mention desktop computer,
laptops, projection screens, tablets, a cell phone.] So many different types of
electronics, and that’s just here in this room! Think about all of the electronics
people might have in their homes or at their work: TVs, cell phones, DVD players,
etc. See those two old desktop computers in the back of the room? The principal
just mentioned that they’ll be replacing those with two new updated computers
soon. I’m wondering: Where do all of these old electronic devices go when they
break or get old? What do you think? Turn and talk about that. [Kids turn and talk
and then share out a few ideas. Most have not thought much about this.]

Model
Preview the lesson. We’re going to look into this issue today. We have this article titled “Where Your
Electronics Go to Die.” I think we may learn some surprising information when
we read it. And we may even want to do something about this issue after reading
about it. You never know.
We’ll read the article and take notes in a two-column format. Remember that
information from the text goes in the left-hand Notes column; any of our own
thinking goes in the right-hand Thinking column. If we run out of room, we’ll write
our notes on Post-its and stick them on the left or right. In addition to taking notes

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 | LESSON 19 IN ACTION

on the article, we’ll use the new Definition/Consequence/Action question framework

to help us think about this issue. I’m going to explain and then model it for you.
[I read aloud the title.] When we’re reading about an issue like this, we usually Introduce the Thinksheet
read because we’re interested and curious. This title made me wonder what and the definition and
happens to all of the electronics out there once they break or are used up. I hadn’t consequence questions.
thought about that much. Technology changes so fast that people always seem to
want the newest phone or the newest TV. Have you noticed that? [Kids nod.]
[I project the Definition/Consequence/Action Thinksheet.] The top of this form
says Definition Question. The definition question tells us what is going on or
what the issue is. Luckily, our title told us right away what the issue is. I’m going
to turn the issue into a question and write a definition question: What happens
to our used electronics? You can jot that down on your Thinksheet where it says
Definition Question. To understand what’s going on, I need to find the answer to
that question, so I’ll read with that question in mind. Once I get it answered, I’m
going to think about another type of question, called the consequence question.
Turn to each other and talk. What is a consequence? [Kids turn and talk.]

Gilbert: A consequence is what happens to you when you do something bad.

Ashley: Or good!

Exactly. A consequence is something that happens as a result of an action. The

consequence question has to do with why it matters when something happens. I’ll
show you as I read and annotate this article.
[I read aloud the first paragraph.] Whoa! 150 million cell phones get thrown Read aloud the beginning
out each year! I’m going to jot down 150 million cell phones thrown away each of the article aloud and
year in the left Notes column and then add my thinking and a question on the model note taking.
right. Shocking! Where in the world do they end up? [I model annotation on the
projected form.] I’ll read on. [I begin the second paragraph.] Hmm, those old phones
go to China, India, and Ghana where they become e-waste. I’ll write that in my
Notes column. [I do.] I’m thinking those countries have many poor people in them.
What is e-waste, I wonder? I’ll jot down these thoughts and questions in the
Thinking column.
When I look at the picture on page 7, I think I can figure out what e-waste
is. It’s all the broken-up stuff that used to be electronics. I’ll jot that down. I am
wondering why workers even want this stuff. [I read aloud the rest of the second
paragraph.] As I read on, it says that people burn the e-waste down into metals
that they can sell to make enough money to feed their families. Aha! I think I get
it now. I can answer the definition question: What happens to our used electronics?
They go to other countries where they are broken down or burned to get the
metals that are left over, so workers can sell the metal to provide for their families.
I’ll write A for answer next to the spot where I answered the definition question.
You go ahead and do that too if you like. Turn and talk about what you are
thinking about this issue so far. [Kids turn and talk.]

Lesson 19: Ask Questions to Read Critically 241

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 | LESSON 19 IN ACTION

Guide
Read on and discuss answers Now that we’ve answered the definition question, we can focus on the
to the consequence question. consequence question: Why does it matter what happens to these used electronics?
Jot down the consequence question in the blank. I’m going to read the last two
paragraphs in this section. [I read from In India to the ground, water, or air.]
Jot down important information in the Notes column and your thinking in the
Thinking column. [I give kids a few minutes to take notes.]
Now turn and talk about the consequence question: Why does it matter what
happens to these used electronics? Think about what we read. Share some thoughts
you wrote down. What are some consequences that happen when we export this
e-waste to other countries? [Kids turn and talk.]

Mason: E-waste is dangerous to people’s health.

Jacquin: Women and children are hurt the most.

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 | LESSON 19 IN ACTION

Sophia: It can be bad for the environment.

Good thinking, all of you. There are some very serious consequences that can
occur from exporting this e-waste to other countries. This is why we have to ask
the consequence question. Just answering the definition question is not enough.
Addressing the consequence question lets us get a deeper, more complete
understanding of the problem.

Collaborate / Practice Independently

Now it’s your turn. Go ahead and read the rest of the article with a partner. Start Confer with kids as they
at the section heading, “What Can We Do?” If you look at the bottom of the finish reading.
form, you’ll see a place for the action question. If we care enough about a problem
or an issue, we may want to do something to change the situation or to help out
in some way. This section may give you some ideas. You might write the question,
How can I help? in the Action Question space and perhaps jot down some of the
ways on the back of your paper.
Go ahead and read to learn more. Continue to fill in your Notes and Thinking
columns, and keep in mind some of the suggestions for taking action. By the
time you finish reading, you may want to take action. [Kids read the remainder of
the article, working with a partner, in a small group, or independently, while I move
about the room and confer with some.]
What are you thinking, Savannah?

Savannah: I read something that really makes me mad.

What’s that?

Savannah: Look. Here it says that the United States is the only industrialized
country that hasn’t signed a treaty that agrees to quit shipping e-waste out of
the country to other places. One hundred and eighty countries signed it, but
not the United States.

Interesting. What does that make you think about?

Savannah: It angers me. It even says that the reason they won’t sign is
because it is cheaper for the U.S. to ship e-waste overseas than to recycle it in
their own country. It’s irresponsible!

Good thinking. So maybe you should be thinking about the action question.
Caring about an issue and even getting angry about it often leads people to take
action. What could you do about this?

Savannah: I could write a letter to someone, the governor or somebody.

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 | LESSON 19 IN ACTION

I think that’s a good idea. When we share, we can find out if someone else is
interested in taking action by writing a letter about this. Then you all could start
by doing some research to find out who would be the best person or group to
write to about this problem.

Share the Learning

Create a web chart of kids’ OK, let’s come back together and address the action question. Anybody want
ideas for taking action. to help to try and solve this problem? [Quite a few kids nod.] Who’s got some
suggestions about how we could help? There were several in the text, and you
may have your own ideas. Let’s co-construct a web with ideas for how we could
make a difference by addressing
this problem. Savannah, I know
you had an idea. [Savannah enlists
several other kids to help her find
out whom to write to. Kids share
a range of possibilities, and I list
them on a web.]
How many of you were
surprised by this problem? [Most
raise their hands.] How many
of you think your family knows
about this problem? [Most shake
their heads no.] Well, one thing
you can do right away is educate
your family about this issue
when you get home tonight.
One way to take action is by
informing people and making
them aware of a problem they
might not have known about
before. That’s a great way to
begin to help out, along with
the many other ways you
came up with. Good job!

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 | LESSON 19 IN ACTION

Follow-Up
| Co-construct an Anchor Chart that shares some different types of generic TIP: An alternative approach
questions for each category. Here are several. Together come up with more for to this lesson might be to provide
each category. students with a Definition/
Consequence/Action Anchor Chart
for reference at the beginning of the
lesson instead of co-constructing the
chart at the end. In this case, supply
one or two of the prompts for each
Definition/Consequence/Action Questions question on the Thinksheet itself to
scaffold kids’ thinking. See the back
Definition Question
of this book or the downloadable
What is the problem? resources for a copy of this chart.
What’s the issue?
What is happening?
What is it?
What is going on?

Consequence Question
What are the consequences?
What effects does it have?
Why does it matter?
What difference does it make?
Why should I care?

Action Question
What are some ways to solve the problem?
What needs to happen to solve the problem?
What can I do to help?
How can I get involved?
What can I do about it?

| Teach the language of social action. Teach what advocacy and advocate mean (See
Content Literacy Lesson 18) and explain that there are different ways to advocate for
a cause. Share these ideas as ways to advocate:
• Awareness—educate others so they can learn
• Activism—do something specific to advocate for a cause
• Aid —contribute your own resources for a cause

Lesson 19: Ask Questions to Read Critically

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 19 reflect | assess

reflect | assess
goals | When reviewing the Thinksheets for this lesson, I look for evidence that

assessment | kids asked and understood the definition question and found out what
was happening.
Did your students: | kids asked the consequence question of why it matters once they
| define an issue or problem by answered the definition question.
asking the definition question?
| kids thought about how they could take action, make a difference, and
| follow up the definition question perhaps help.
with the consequence question—
why does it matter?
| think through and determine
ways to take action to correct the
adapt | differentiate
problem? This lesson was done with sixth grade, but we introduce this line of questioning
framework starting in third grade. We would scaffold throughout the entire process
with third graders, guiding them as they work in pairs to discuss a complex issue in an
article or video that answers the definition question and then explore why it matters.
With third graders, much of the information gathering to answer the consequence
question would occur through listening, viewing, discussing, and annotating.The
good news is that third graders are at an age when taking action about an injustice
or righting a wrong really fires them up. So we would read more and investigate the
issue further and then think about things we might be able to do to take action that
could make a difference.
Additionally, the sixth graders co-constructed the Taking Action web as a whole class
so that kids would hear others’ suggestions and see the wide range of possibilities to
take action and make a difference when it comes to e-waste.

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 | LESSON 19 REFLECT | ASSESS

Beck's
Thinksheet
continues on
the next page.

1 Beck’s Thinksheet shows a deep grasp of an understanding of

the issue as well as a beginning understanding of the Definition/
Consequence/Action framework for questioning. He puts only
factual information from the article in the Notes column and
a great deal of thinking, including questions, inferences, and
reactions, in the Thinking column. He has some thoughts about
why all this matters, which addresses the consequence question,
and he has an idea about how we might take some action.

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 | LESSON 19 REFLECT | ASSESS

Beck's
Thinksheet
page 2.

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 | LESSON 19 REFLECT | ASSESS

2 Javier has some great thinking on his Thinksheet. He answered the

definition question in the Notes column and did some good thinking,
including asking a thoughtful question in the Thinking column. I would
confer with him about some comments on the Notes side, where he added
his thinking rather than merely sticking to the text. He mentioned that we
are selfish, which is a great insight, but it belongs on the Thinking side, and
he also suggested that we all tell our parents, another great suggestion
but in the wrong column. This is a common misunderstanding when we
introduce the Thinksheet, so we are always on the lookout for this.

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 WHERE YOUR

©Ariel Skelley/Blend Images/Getty Images/HIP

© 2016 by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis from The Intermediate Comprehension Toolkit (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann). This page may be reproduced for classroom use only.

ELECTRONICS
GO TO DIE
by Layla Acaroglu

Old electronics often become toxic trash around the world.

What can you do to make sure your gadgets are recycled safely?

A mericans replace their cell

phones, on average, every
22 months, junking about 150
Other people inhale the smoke
from burned cell phones as
they separate different kinds
The European Union (E.U.)
requires electronics companies
to accept—for free—any of
million of them every year. Ever of plastics. their used products brought in
wonder what happens to all Exposure to these and other by customers for recycling. In
those old phones? substances can cause serious Japan, electronics manufacturers
Many of them end up in health problems, especially to are required to establish their
countries like China, India, and children and pregnant women. own recycling facilities or hire
Ghana, where they’re piled up The World Health Organization companies to recycle a range
into mountains of electronic says that even a low level of of products, from computers
waste (e-waste). Workers— exposure to lead, cadmium, and cell phones to TVs and air
many of them kids—then burn or mercury—all of which are conditioners.
the gadgets so they can extract found in cell phones—can About 180 countries and
metals, including copper, gold, cause irreversible damage to the the E.U. have ratified the Basel
and silver. They sell the metals nervous system. The chemicals Convention, an international
to recycling merchants for only a in e-waste can also damage the treaty that makes it illegal to
few dollars. That may not sound environment when they seep export toxic e-waste. The U.S. is
like a lot of money to Americans, into the ground, water, or air. the only industrialized nation
but it can be enough to help that hasn’t ratified the treaty.
their families survive. What Can We Do?
In India, young boys smash There are several things that
Words to Know
computer batteries with mallets manufacturers, governments,
to recover cadmium, a toxic and consumers can do to European Union (n):
an economic and political partner-
metal that covers their hands make sure that e-waste is ship of 28 European nations
and feet as they work. Women recycled safely. industrialized nation (n):
bend over vats of hot, poisonous Some countries put the a country that has a highly
developed economy and
lead, “cooking” circuit boards so burden of safe product advanced technologies
they can remove slivers of gold. disposal on manufacturers.

From Junior Scholastic, April 14, 2014. Copyright © 2014 by

Scholastic Inc. Used by permission of Scholastic Inc. Lesson 19: “Where Your Electronics Go to Die” (1 of 2)
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Opponents of the treaty say that certification programs
it’s cheaper for U.S. companies for e-waste recyclers. Many COUNTRIES THAT
RECEIVE THE
to ship e-waste overseas than to charities accept old cell phones
MOST E-WASTE*
safely recycle it at home. to donate to people who can’t
The Responsible Electronics afford new ones. CHINA
Recycling Act, which was re- Another option is to hold on
to gadgets longer and repair— INDIA
introduced in Congress last
summer, would make it illegal to rather than replace— broken or PAKISTAN
export toxic waste to developing outdated ones. In 2012, Ameri-
countries that have limited or no cans generated more than NIGERIA
safeguards. It would also require 9 million tons of e-waste—more GHANA
safer waste management in the than any other country. That’s up
U.S. The bill was first introduced from about 2 million tons in 2009. MALAYSIA
in 2011, and it continues to be “E-waste is the fastest-growing VIETNAM
debated in Congress. waste stream in the United
Finally, consumers can recycle States,” says Gene Green, a U.S. INDONESIA
the electronics they no longer Representative from Texas. It THAILAND
use. They can find certified “can pose serious environmental
recycling services through and health problems here and KENYA
e-Stewards, a Washington around the world when not
*Most e-waste is illegally shipped to other countries,
nonprofit organization that runs handled properly.” so specific data aren’t available.

From Junior Scholastic, April 14, 2014. Copyright © 2014 by

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 Name Date

Definition/Consequence/Action
Definition Question:
© 2016 by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis from The Intermediate Comprehension Toolkit (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann). This page may be reproduced for classroom use only.

Consequence Question:

Notes Thinking

Action Question:

Lesson 19: Definition/Consequence/Action Thinksheet (1 of 1)

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 Name Date

Definition/Consequence/Action Questions

© 2016 by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis from The Intermediate Comprehension Toolkit (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann). This page may be reproduced for classroom use only.
Definition Question What is the problem?

What’s the issue?

What is happening?
What is it?
What is going on?

Consequence Question What are the consequences?

What effects does it have?

Why does it matter?
What difference does it make?
Why should I care?

Action Question What are some ways to solve the problem?

What needs to happen to solve the problem?

What can I do to help?
How can I get involved?
What can I do about it?

354 Lesson 19: Definition/Consequence/Action Questions Chart (1 of 1) Digital Sampler, Page 96

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