This week I've been teaching structural patterns of nonfiction text. I used my own unit to introduce all five structures as well as resources from several other teachers!
Every day I introduced a new structure using one of my posters for the kids to refer to that include descriptions of each text structure, visuals, and key words.
Then, we completed a worksheet that allowed them to see a few examples of passages using the text structure of the day.
On the fifth day we completed a review packet and a paired passage so they could practice answering the kinds of questions that will be on our quarterly tests and SOL's at the end of the year.
Now that I have introduced all five structures, we are going to spend the next five days practicing identifying each of the structural patterns and reviewing NONSTOP until they have this skill down. One of my favorite ways to review a new reading skill is by using task cards. We'll be using these from Teaching With a Mountain View to review daily.
We are also using these task cards that come with bookmarks to help students remember what each structure is. Each card has a short paragraph on it and students select the correct text structure from four choices. It comes with an answer key which makes this activity easy to grade and use as a formative assessment! :)
I finally got around to conferring with readers this week! I think this is such an important thing to do because it helps keep my students accountable for actually reading during Read-To-Self time. Just knowing that I am going to check in on them to see how much they've read and ask them questions about the story puts a little bit of pressure on them to get it done! I'm using these free forms from Teaching to Inspire and they have been working out fabulously!
