The middle school I am teaching in has been doing a yearly exam across all three grade levels that is called the Reading Comprehension Measurement (RCM). We created (and when I say we, I was actually a major part of it for the English classes this year) a test in which all students in each core class will read one article throughout the school. Sixth-eighth grade Language Arts all read one article, sixth-eighth grade math all reads an article, etc. Students then take a RCM test based on the article they read that determines their skills at inferencing, summarizing, vocabulary, and a few other key areas of reading. They will take the same test in each of those core content areas in 6th, 7th and 8th grade to determine their growth in reading skills from the beginning to the end of middle school.

The area where we determined that students in our school had the most weakness was with making inferences. For those who aren't familiar, it's basically when you encounter an unfamiliar word and are able to figure out what it means using context or prior knowledge.

The principal at our school has determined that from now on we have to work on inferencing with our students in all of the core classes. Every core teacher has to give him a copy of a short article they plan to use to teach inference each week and there is a graphic organizer we are teaching all students to use so they become familiar with a few proven methods of deciphering the meaning of unknown words.

I think that the idea is great, but neither I nor the other teachers at the school, are fully sold on the execution. While it makes sense to do this and help students to improve on their vocabulary, having them do it in 4 of their classes every week is a bit of a Herculean task. It's especially difficult for the math, science, and social studies teachers to find time in their lesson every week to work on inferences with students. It's not so difficult in my language arts class, because teaching vocabulary is part of our standard schedule anyways.

What I do like is the graphic organizer we are using. It's a very simple format of guess and check. They have to fill in unfamiliar words from the article, and then write down what clues are given as to the meaning of the word. We are teaching them to look for surrounding words or clues in context that might point them in the direction of the meaning. We are also teaching them to use their prior knowledge to look at parts of the word they are familiar with and to make connections to the word if they've heard it anywhere before. We are also teaching them to dissect larger words into smaller parts that are more familiar in order to try and come up with the meaning. Students then make a guess as to what the word or passage might mean based upon the clues. Finally we check together and see if the students' guesses match the actual meaning of the word.

I do think that it's good that we're building on a skill that they are obviously deficient in. We'll see in a few weeks how things progress and if students find it useful or not.

My student teaching right now is predominately in 6th grade Language Arts classrooms. In addition to these, I am in a 6th grade reading support class and a 7th-8th grade reading support class. I think that the strategies that my host teacher uses for reading support align perfectly with what we've been learning in this class. She really tries to give students those critical skills for reading that they missed somewhere along the way so they can keep up with the rest of their classmates in other classes such as Social Studies.

Two strategies that we really harped on from the beginning of the year are before reading strategies and during reading strategies.

Some of the before reading strategies we teach are:

Prior Knowledge
Preview
Predict

Some of the during reading strategies are:
Question
Clarify
Visualize


The basic concept is that we can't just glean all of the vital information we need from a text, especially informational text, by just skimming or doing a surface reading. We ask students to fill out graphic organizers using these reading strategies to really engage them with the text and make them think about what they are reading.

First students look at the text, the pictures, and the title (preview). Then they make a prediction of what they think the text or story might be about based on what they've seen. The third tool we use, prior knowledge, is probably the most crucial, because it's the tool that our students seem to lack the most. We have to ask pointed questions to assess what they already know about the topic, then use this to fill in any blanks in vocabulary and background knowledge that are necessary for understanding the reading.

During the reading we use strategies similar to those we used in class with the story about the groundhogs. We stop and have students ask questions about words, phrases, or concepts that are unfamiliar to them to clarify. We make them visualize particular scenes. We then have them question the how's and why's of the story.

While a lot of these seem like very basic skills, few students seem to use them, and this is not limited to the students in my support classes. One of the keys to being a good reader is being diligent, not lazy, and taking the time to think about reading. These are really skills that can be used in any of the content areas using questions and graphic organizers, and they work really well.

This is a phenomenal book for teaching text structures. For those who aren't familiar with text structure, it's basically the format that an author chooses to write a text in. Text structure is usually strongly tied to the purpose of the text being read. The different types of text structure are:

-Sequence/Chronological
-Cause & Effect
-Problem & Solution
-Descriptive
-Compare & Contrast

Historically questions addressing text structure have been very common on the MEAP assessment. We all know that the MEAP will be out the door in a few years, but text structure is not going to go away. If a student can identify the text structure of a piece of non-fiction it is very useful for them, because they can reliably use it to determine the author's purpose/purpose of the article.

This book, Teaching Text Structures: A Key to Nonfiction Reading Success, is one that we have been using in the reading support classes for 6th, 7th and 8th grade where I am student teaching. It has 100% research-based strategy lessons and has many copyable pieces of nonfiction that you can use when teaching student. Along with each article in the book is a corresponding graphic organizer that can be used to teach the article. For example, if you choose a compare and contrast text from this book, it may have a Venn Diagram with it that you can give to students that allows them to compare and contrast the different things talked about in the text. My class used an article from the book called "Koala Chaos" which outlined a controversy in Australia in which the government, conservations, and animal rights activists were in disagreement over how to handle the overpopulation of koalas on an island which was leading to destruction of the island's natural Eucalyptus Trees. The article comes with a graphic organizer that shows the problem, overpopulation of koalas, and lets students write in possible solutions and what repercussions might be involved with each. This was an example of problem and solution text structure.

I really like the book because it has so many tools for teaching and I think that the printable texts and graphic organizers can be helpful in building interactive lessons for students. Because it is nonfiction text and has a variety of different articles in it, the book could be a valuable resource for teachers of almost any subject.