Learn About the Practice Guide

GETTING TO KNOW THE PRACTICE GUIDE

The recommendations and their associated teaching strategies (see box below) have been shown to improve reading comprehension among students in kindergarten through 3rd grade. The research base for the Practice Guide was identified through a comprehensive search for studies that evaluated practices designed to improve reading comprehension for beginning readers.  You can read about some of the seminal studies that formed the basis of the Practice Guide's recommendations in the appendix of this module.

Read the Review of Recommendations on page 1 of the Practice Guide or below.

Learn About the Toolkit

TOOLKIT AND PROFESSIONAL LEARNING OVERVIEW

Professional Learning Modules

There are five professional learning modules in the toolkit. Each module reviews specific recommendations and teaching strategies from the Practice Guide and offers activities and resources you can use in your lessons. Further, each module builds upon information from prior modules, so it is intended for you to engage in the modules in order. As described in the video, the modules focus on the following content:

Watch the Module Overview video to learn more about the toolkit and the structure and activities of the professional learning modules.

Key points of the video include that the toolkit:

• highlights five evidence-based recommendations that have been shown to improve reading comprehension for K–3 students,
• is sequenced to last from 17 to 26 weeks across the school year,
• is structured thematically and provides information on each recommendation at least two times,
• follows an inquiry cycle with both asynchronous and synchronous learning activities, and
• offers opportunities for both individual and team learning.

Assess Your Current Practice

TEACHER SELF-REFLECTION

Complete the Teacher Self-Reflection (1 MB)

FROM SUMMARY TO ACTION: SETTING IMPLEMENTATION GOALS

ADDITIONAL TOOLS TO SUPPORT IMPLEMENTATION

There are two additional tools to support your implementation goals, Lesson Reflection and Lesson Observation tools.

Each module will provide a Lesson Reflection (644 KB) tool to help you reflect on your lesson and the strategy(ies) you tried in your classroom. You will draw from evidence of student learning and the notes you recorded as you taught the lesson.

In addition, you can schedule a classroom visit from your toolkit facilitator to provide feedback on the teaching strategies you tried. The Lesson Observation (964 KB) tool is linked here. As an alternate approach, a designated peer could observe lessons and provide feedback.

Observations by your toolkit facilitator or peer are not to be used for any evaluative purpose or as part of any formal feedback on your teaching. Instead, the observations are meant to provide you with additional information and support to help you integrate the recommendations and teaching strategies into your lessons.

After an observation, be sure to schedule a debrief with your facilitator or peer to discuss their feedback. Use the feedback to help you refine your practice and update your implementation goals.

Teacher Study Group

PREPARE FOR THE INTRODUCTORY TSG

The main purpose of the Introductory TSG is to begin to learn together through ongoing reflection and inquiry. Team members should expect to be interactive and collaborative. It is helpful to be explicit about what you value in collaborative settings and the supports you need to be successful in those settings.

I am ready for the Introductory TSG…

• I have downloaded or bookmarked the Improving Reading Comprehension in K–3 Practice Guide.
• I have read the Introduction and Learn About sections of this module.
• I have completed the Teacher Self-Reflection and identified topics I feel are areas of existing, progressing, or emerging strengths.
• I have located and downloaded (or printed) the Personal Action Plan template.

INTRODUCTORY TSG

Module Conclusion and Resources

This concludes the Introductory Module. Revisit sections of the module as needed to help orient yourself to the toolkit's structure and resources. Key terms, resources from the module, and additional information on the What Works Clearinghouse are provided below.

KEY TERMS FROM THE TOOLKIT

Term	Definition
Practice Guide	Practice Guide refers specifically to the WWC Practice Guide, Improving Reading Comprehension In Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade.
Recommendations	Five specific recommendations made in the Practice Guide.
Teaching Strategies	Strategies included in the Practice Guide for carrying out the five recommendations.
Teacher Self-Reflection	Self-assessment that teachers complete during the introductory module.
Teacher Module	Within this toolkit, the five Practice Guide recommendations are organized into four teacher learning modules. Each module contains asynchronous work and synchronous Teacher Study Groups.
Participant Workbook	Organizes and guides the asynchronous work and used in conjunction with the Practice Guide.
Asynchronous Work	Materials and activities to learn about evidence-based strategies that teachers complete outside of Teacher Study Groups.
Teacher Study Group	Collaborative meetings that happen once in the Introductory Module and twice in modules 1–4. During modules 1–4, the first TSG meeting is focused on planning and the second meeting is focused on reflecting and refining the use of the Practice Guide recommendations and teaching strategies.
Personal Action Plan	A plan each teacher will create to set measurable implementation goals as they work through each module.
Group Action Plan	A plan created in the TSG from the Introductory Module that guides the work of the team of teachers.

RESOURCES FROM THE MODULE

Video: Module Overview

Teacher Self-Reflection (1 MB)

Personal Action Plan (1 MB)

Lesson Reflection (644 KB)

Lesson Observation (964 KB)

Group Action Plan (656 KB)

Additional Information on What Works Clearinghouse

What Works Clearinghouse Home

What is the WWC? (Infographic)

How can the WWC Practice Guides Help Teachers? (Infographic)

Learn About the Recommendations

In this section, you will interact with key concepts from the two Practice Guide recommendations this module focuses on. You will learn information about each of the recommendations and how to use them to establish engaging and motivating contexts for reading comprehension. You will learn about how to implement the recommendations through teaching strategies and suggested student and teacher actions. As you engage with the content of this section, you will also identify teaching strategies you can try in your classroom to help deepen your learning about the recommendations. This will prepare you for the Planning Teacher Study Group.

As you engage with the activities in the Learn About section, consider how your learning aligns with the learning objectives you wanted to work on.

FOCAL RECOMMENDATIONS

Guidance for selecting high-quality texts (Recommendation 4) is a critical aspect of integrating comprehension strategies and text structure instruction into lesson plans. Accordingly, some of those elements on selecting high-quality texts are also woven throughout Modules 2 and 3.

Recommendation 5: Establish an engaging and motivating context in which to teach reading comprehension.

There are four teaching strategies in the Practice Guide that support creating and maintaining an engaging and motivating context in which to teach reading comprehension. This module focuses on the following three strategies:

• Help students discover the purpose and benefits of reading.
• Create opportunities for students to see themselves as successful readers.
• Give students reading choices.

Recommendation 4: Select texts purposefully to support comprehension development.

There are four teaching strategies that support purposeful text selection. This module focuses on two of them:

• Teach reading comprehension with multiple genres of text.
• Choose texts of high quality with richness and depth of ideas and information.

The recommendations in the Practice Guide are provided with a level of evidence (i.e., strong, moderate, and minimal) based on WWC evidence standards. Recommendations with higher evidence ratings are based on studies with strong causal and generalizable evidence. Please see the Improving Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade Practice Guide and Introductory Module for information on the evidence-base for these recommendations.

Throughout this Learn About section, you will dive deeply into these two focal recommendations to learn about them and their application to establishing an engaging and motivating classroom environment. Each recommendation section will include highlights from the Practice Guide. You will read excerpts from the Practice Guide and watch a video that further explains the Practice Guide content. Throughout this section, you will engage in reflection questions and checks for understanding.

For each recommendation, you will also find "Try it" prompts. These prompts give suggestions for how to integrate teaching strategies from a recommendation into upcoming lessons. They provide ideas to help you more quickly and easily try using these strategies within your existing lesson plans. Later in the module, you will draw from these "Try it" experiences to engage in more formal lesson planning before and during the Planning TSG.

Engaging and Motivating Context for Teaching Reading Comprehension

HEAR FROM AN EXPERT

Watch as Practice Guide panelist, Dr. Nell Duke, describes ways to create motivating and engaging environments to support reading comprehension.

As noted in the video, several classroom practices influence reading motivation and engagement. Teachers can select challenging texts and tasks that students will be successful with when provided appropriate support. Students also need a purpose for reading. Teachers can provide opportunities to read texts that feel relevant to students. Understanding that the information in the text will have a valuable or worthwhile impact influences reading motivation and engagement. Teachers can create opportunities for students to collaborate with peers such as reading in pairs or participating in small or large group discussions. Finally, teachers can provide students with constrained choices over what they read such as selecting from a few options that each relate to the same theme or topic.

After reading about how to help students see themselves as successful readers, answer the following question.

To help students discover the purpose and benefits of reading, below are some suggested student and teacher actions. The tools and supports are for you to download and use in your planning and instruction.

Teacher Actions	Tools and Supports
Model reading aloud from signs or notices posted around the school and classroom for upcoming events and activities. Explain how you or students could use the information you learned from the sign or notice to help you take an action like attend an event or participate in an activity.	Scavenger Hunt Template (702 KB) for students to use on a routine basis to look for new signs/notices posted around the school or classroom
Create a classroom that gives reading a prominent role by posting student work, written directions, and other information that students read in their daily routine. For younger students, pair pictures with text. Create a comfortable and inviting classroom library or literacy center. Explain to students that this classroom space is dedicated to reading. Model reading aloud in the classroom library or literacy center. Ask students questions like, "What do you enjoy about reading in our literacy center? What could we add to make our classroom library a more enjoyable place to read?" Establish a daily or weekly schedule for students to read in the library or literacy center.	Pictures of classrooms that give reading a prominent role Example Classrooms (281 KB)
Develop hands-on activities that help students pull out key ideas or themes of a narrative or informational texts. For example, for a narrative text, choose a few scenes or pages in the text that will be engaging for students to act out. Read a text excerpt from one of these scenes or pages with the students. Point out important events and actions. Brainstorm ideas for how students could act out these important events and actions. Next, prompt students to choose one scene or page from the preselected options. Working in pairs or small groups, have students identify the important events and actions from their text selection. Encourage them to create props or puppets to act out the scene. Help students practice acting out the scene before they present it to the class.	Examples of Hands-On Activities (26 KB)
Ask students about their interests and what topics they would like to read about in books. Ask students what their favorite books are. When reading a new text, relate it to other texts that students have already read and enjoyed. Choose books on a variety of topics to display in the classroom. Ask students to choose a book that interests them from the selection displayed. Note the book that each student chooses. Identify additional books on similar topics to include in the classroom library or future lessons, or other books by the same author.	Identifying Relevant Texts (1 MB)

When teachers provide consistent opportunities for students to see themselves as successful readers, they support an engaging and motivating classroom environment for teaching reading comprehension.

Below are some suggested teacher actions to help students see themselves as successful readers. The tools and supports are for you to download and use in your planning and instruction.

Teacher Actions	Tools and Supports
Clearly express high expectations for students.	Tipsheet: Phrases for a motivating classroom environment (34 KB)
Focus on growth and learning. Remind students that mistakes and difficult tasks are opportunities to learn. Encourage students to try despite the challenges.
Provide in-the-moment supports by asking "why" and "how" questions when students are struggling to comprehend a text.
Support students in setting and monitoring progress toward reading comprehension goals, such as using comprehension strategies, answering questions about a text, or completing a graphic organizer about a text.
Provide frequent and specific praise when students complete a challenging task or acquire a new skill.
Break the text into sections and ask students to check in with a peer or the teacher to go over any points of confusion before moving on.

The table below gives examples of ways to provide students with choices. As you review the examples, identify new opportunities to provide your students with a choice in reading.

Teacher Actions	Classroom Example	Type of Choice
Give students a choice in reading by themselves or with a partner.	Students decide if they want to read to themselves, read with a friend, or read with a stuffed animal.	Students choose how they read.
Give students a choice in where they read.	Students decide if they want to read in the literacy center, on the carpet, in a comfortable chair, or at their desk or a table.	Students choose how they read.
Select a variety of texts on a similar topic or theme. Allow students to choose which text to read from the selected texts.	Students choose which text to read from a selection of texts about different habitats.	Students choose what they read.
Help students find topics that interest them during reading activities. Listen to students' questions and point them to a text that could help answer those questions.	A student expresses interest in lizards and snakes. The teacher guides the student to a text about reptiles.	Students choose what they read.
Give students choices in how they respond to a text after reading.	Students choose an important moment in a text and recreate that moment in a medium of their choice such as drawing, painting, or building from classroom materials.	Students choose how to respond to what they read.

Tip for Differentiation
Providing a reduced number of choices for younger students can help them learn how to make choices and stay on task.

Now that you have learned more about the key concepts for giving students reading choices included in this module for Recommendation 5, refer back to your Teacher Self-Reflection (1 MB). Review how often you currently use the following strategies described in Recommendation 5. Think about which one(s) you want to try to use more often.

Choosing High-Quality Texts

The Practice Guide recommends teaching reading comprehension with high-quality texts from multiple genres. The two broad text categories, Literary and Informational, contain several genres each. Students should have experience and exposure to several genres within each text category.

Literary Text Genres	Tools & Supports
Fiction Literary Nonfiction Poetry Historical Fiction Fables Autobiographies	Text Genres Index (1 MB) to categorize the texts used in your lessons.
Informational Text Genres
Expository Writing Procedural Texts Arguments for or Against a Position News Articles

To help you practice choosing texts of high quality, explore the book lists below to identify texts that align with the grade level you teach and the topics that interest your students.

Book Lists to Explore for Ideas

Choice Book Lists sponsored by the International Reading Association and the Children's Book Council:

• Children's Choices List
• Teachers' Choices List

Award-Winning and Recommended Books sponsored by the American Library Association, Association for Library Service to Children:

• ALSC Lists

After reading about the two categories of text that teachers should use to teach reading comprehension, try categorizing various genres in the appropriate category.

The table below gives examples of rich content and depths of ideas and information. As you review the examples, consider texts that you have already introduced to your students that offer richness and depth.

High-Quality Text Characteristic	Example	Tools & Supports
Rich literary content	The main character in a literary text experiences meaningful change or transformation that is evident to the reader through the text.	Anatomy of a Literary Text tool (609 KB) Anatomy of an Informational Text tool (607 KB)
Rich informational content	The accurate and compelling details in an informational text engage the reader in understanding a significant historical event.
Strong organization	The sequential organization of the text supports the readers' understanding of the ideas in the text. Some examples include: (a) clear sequence of events, such as the lifecycle of a seed to a plant; (b) comparison, such as comparing living and nonliving things; or (c) cause and effects of a natural phenomenon, such as the water cycle.
Variation in word choice	An informational text about forests uses a variety of relevant vocabulary (e.g., timber, grove, woods).
Variation in sentence structure	A literary text includes realistic dialogue for a variety of characters.

After reading about choosing texts of high quality to support reading comprehension, answer the following question.

Now that you have learned more about the key concepts in the module for selecting texts purposefully to support comprehension development, refer back to your Teacher Self-Reflection (1 MB). Review how often you currently use the following 2 strategies described in Recommendation 4. Think about which one(s) you want to try to use more often.

See the Recommendations in Action

Recommendation 4: Select texts purposefully to support reading comprehension.

• Teach reading comprehension with multiple genres of text.
• Choose texts of high quality with richness and depth of ideas and information.

As you engage with the activities to see the recommendations in action, consider how you can implement these recommendations and strategies into your own teaching. Use the prompts from the activities to deepen your understanding of the recommendations and to prepare for the Planning TSG which is focused on lesson planning to include specific teaching strategies you want to use more in your classroom.

Practitioner Interview Video

The teachers in the video describe how they set up their classrooms and establish routines to engage students in reading and support their independence. The practitioners offer strategies that have worked for them in their contexts. These strategies are consistent with, but may or may not be specifically mentioned in, the Practice Guide.

CLASSROOM CASE STUDY (OPTIONAL)

This case presents how the teacher, Mrs. Jimenez, uses strategies to support an engaging and motivating context as students use questioning to support their understanding of narrative text. As part of her instruction, Mrs. Jimenez gathers brief writing samples as evidence of student learning to assess students' application of a comprehension strategy and help her plan future lessons.

ROADBLOCKS AND SOLUTIONS

Roadblock 5.3. Teachers need more resources to offer the range of choices that may appeal to students, or they may believe that content standards do not allow them to offer such choices.

Considerations and potential solutions

• If the concern is about content standards, a teacher can follow up a lesson—on a particular strategy or text, for example—by allowing students to read a text they choose on their own, or choose other activities, such as reading to a peer.
• Look for high-quality text resources online that you could make available to your students.
• Leverage your school or a nearby public library as a resource to offer further diverse texts to your students.
• Allow students to use the school and your classroom library as a resource to select books of their choice.
• Ask colleagues for permission to borrow texts of varying topics to support students' interests, engagement, as well as your instructional goals and purposes.

Explore additional roadblocks and suggested approaches that the Practice Guide panel identified for the recommendations in this module:

For Recommendation 4, see page 33 of the Practice Guide.

For Recommendation 5, see page 38 of the Practice Guide.

Plan

In this section, you will engage in more formal lesson planning for integrating the recommendations and teaching strategies into your existing lessons. As you engage with the activities in this section, consider any reflections you had from the "Try it" prompts and identify places in your lessons where you can add more focus on establishing an engaging and motivating context for teaching reading comprehension.

The Plan section of this module contains resources to help prepare you to integrate the recommendations and teaching strategies into a lesson. It also has materials that will help you prepare for and participate in the Planning TSG.

IMPLEMENTATION GOAL

PREPARE FOR THE PLANNING TSG

To support your integration of the recommendations and teaching strategies into your lessons, use the Module 1 Lesson Planning Tool (676 KB). As many schools require specific lesson plan templates, this tool is designed to be a companion to any lesson plan template. Its purpose is to help you integrate the recommendations and teaching strategies into your lessons so that you can identify which strategies you will use, how, and when. This tool focuses on Recommendations 4 and 5 and the strategies discussed in this module. Complete as much of the tool as you can, so that you are well-prepared to work with your colleagues. There is space to record questions for your study group team at the bottom. It is okay to leave some prompts incomplete, since you can use time during the Planning TSG to fully develop your ideas.

The resources linked below provide more supports for planning:

• Check out this video on establishing motivating context and encouraging text discussions.
• Check out this video on providing students with choice.
• Check out this Instructional Planner: Selecting Text for Teaching Comprehension Strategies (190 KB).

As you develop your lesson plan, consider how you might document your students' responses and reactions as you implement the teaching strategies in this module. For example, you could note their comments in your attempts to help them discover the purpose and benefits of reading, see themselves as successful readers, or as they take advantage of the choices you're providing. You will need to bring your observations about student learning to the Refining TSG.

Use the checklist below to confirm you are ready for the Planning TSG.

I am ready for the Planning TSG…

• I have identified what upcoming lesson(s) would be best for trying out the practices I identified above.
• I have considered how I could document evidence of students' responses to the teaching strategies in this module. 
• I have reviewed the applicable sections of the Improving Reading Comprehension in K–3 Practice Guide.
• I have completed a draft of the Module 1 Lesson Planning Tool.

PLANNING TSG

If there are particular aspects of the recommendations and teaching strategies you want to discuss, or if there are specific questions you want to share ahead of time, be sure to reach out to your facilitator.

Here is a list of what you need to bring to the Planning TSG:

• Practice Guide (print or digital format)
• Reflections and questions you have from this module, including your reflections on anything you tried from the Try it! prompts
• Your Personal Action Plan and implementation goal for Module 1
• Your draft Planning Tool

Apply

Reflect

After you reflect, revisit your Personal Action Plan and implementation goal for Module 1. Check your progress against your goals and revise and adjust, as necessary.

Refine

I am ready for the Refining TSG…

• I have tried out at least one teaching strategy.
• I have documented students' responses to the teaching strategies that I can discuss with my colleagues.
• I have been observed during one of my practice lessons. (optional)
• I have discussed the observation with the observer. (if applicable)
• I have completed the Lesson Reflection.
• I have revisited my Personal Action Plan and checked my progress against my implementation goal for Module 1.

Refining TSG

If there are particular aspects of the recommendations and teaching strategies or evidence of student learning you want to discuss, or if there are specific questions you want to share ahead of time, be sure to reach out to your facilitator.  
Here is a list of what you need to bring to the Refining TSG:

• Practice Guide (print or digital format)
• Reflections and questions you have related to trying out the recommendations and strategies in this module
• Your Action Plan and implementation goal for Module 1
• Your Lesson Reflection

Module Conclusion and Resources

This concludes Module 1. Revisit sections of the module as needed to help you integrate these strategies into your teaching. Resources from the module and additional resources related to the module topics are provided below.

Resources

Teacher Self-Reflection (1 MB)

Video: What are some ways to motivate and engage students in reading?

Scavenger Hunt Template (702 KB)

Example Classrooms (281 KB)

Hands-On Activities (26 KB)

Identifying Relevant Texts (1 MB)

Phrases for a motivating classroom environment (34 KB)

Text Genres Index (1 MB)

Anatomy of a Literary Text tool (609 KB)

Anatomy of an Informational Text tool (607 KB)

Video: Engaging students in reading

Second-Grade Case Study (675 KB)

Personal Action Plan (1 MB) template

Module 1 Lesson Planning Tool (676 KB)

Lesson Reflection (644 KB)

Additional Resources

Children's Choices List

Teachers' Choices List

ALSC Lists

Check out this video on establishing motivating context and encouraging text discussions.

Check out this video on providing students with choice.

Check out this Instructional Planner: Selecting Text for Teaching Comprehension Strategies (190 KB).

Learn About the Recommendations

In this section, you will interact with key concepts from the three Practice Guide recommendations this module focuses on. You will learn information about each of the recommendations and how to use them with narrative texts. You will learn about how to implement the recommendations through teaching strategies and suggested student and teacher actions. As you engage with the content of this section, you will also identify teaching strategies you can try in your classroom to help deepen your learning about the recommendations. This will help prepare you for the Planning Teacher Study Group.

As you engage with the activities in the Learn About section, consider how your learning aligns with the learning objectives you wanted to work on.

FOCAL RECOMMENDATIONS

Recommendation 1: Teach students how to use reading comprehension strategies.

There are three teaching strategies in the Practice Guide that support reading comprehension strategies. This module focuses on the following two strategies:

• Teach students how to use several research-based reading comprehension strategies.
• Teach reading comprehension strategies by using a gradual release of responsibility.

Recommendation 2: Teach students to identify and use the text's organizational structure to comprehend, learn, and remember content.

There are two teaching strategies about using texts' organizational structure. This module focuses on one strategy:

• Explain how to identify and connect the parts of narrative texts.

Recommendation 3: Guide students through focused, high-quality discussion on the meaning of text.

There are four teaching strategies that help students comprehend the text through discussion. This module focuses on the following two strategies:

• Structure the discussion to complement the text, the instructional purpose, and the readers' ability and grade level.
• Develop discussion questions that require students to think deeply about text.

The recommendations in the Practice Guide are provided with a level of evidence (i.e., strong, moderate, and minimal) based on WWC evidence standards. Recommendations with higher evidence ratings are based on studies with strong causal and generalizable evidence. Please see the Improving Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade Practice Guide and Introductory Module for information on the evidence-base for these recommendations.

Throughout this Learn About section you will dive deeply into each of these three focal recommendations to learn about them and their application with narrative texts. Each recommendation section will include highlights from the Practice Guide and the teaching strategies to carry out the recommendations. You will read excerpts from the Practice Guide and watch videos that further explain the Practice Guide content. Throughout this section you will engage in reflection questions and checks for understanding.

For each recommendation you will also find "Try it" prompts. These prompts give suggestions for how to integrate teaching strategies from a recommendation into upcoming lessons. They provide ideas to help you more quickly and easily try using these strategies within your existing lesson plans. Later in the module you will draw from these "Try it" experiences to engage in more formal lesson planning before and during the Planning TSG.

Teaching Reading Comprehension Strategies

For each teaching strategy you will learn about how the Practice Guide describes it. You will also learn about suggested teacher actions related to the teaching strategy, and, where applicable, the suggested student actions.

There are six evidence-based strategies in the Practice Guide that improve reading comprehension in the primary grades:

• Activating Prior Knowledge or Predicting
• Questioning
• Visualizing
• Monitoring, Clarifying, and Fixing Up
• Inferencing
• Summarizing/Retelling

Teachers model and teach students how the reading comprehension strategies can help them as readers and how experienced readers use these strategies effectively. In the descriptions of the reading comprehension strategies below you will see examples of teacher actions to support student use of the strategies including the use of activities, questions, and prompts.

Because all the reading comprehension strategies can be applied to understanding both narrative and informational texts, this toolkit divides the strategies across Modules 2 and 3. This module includes descriptions and resources for the reading comprehension strategies of Activating Prior Knowledge/Predicting, Visualizing, and Summarizing/Retelling. Not only do these three comprehension strategies pair well with narrative text, focusing on three strategies in this module and three in the next module allows for more focused opportunities to learn and practice how to support students in using these strategies.

Read the descriptions and watch the videos below for each evidence-based reading comprehension strategy. Identify a strategy (or multiple strategies) you would like to focus on and watch the corresponding video to learn more about it.

Activating Prior Knowledge and Predicting: Teach students to connect new learning to what they already know and to use clues in the text to make predictions. To help students use this comprehension strategy, below are some suggested student and teacher actions. The tools and supports are for you to download and use in your planning and instruction.

Student Actions	Teacher Actions	Tools and Supports
Look for clues	Help students find clues, such as pictures, that can help them predict what might happen in the story. Ask students questions like, "What does this picture make you think of? What do you think might happen in the story based on what you see in this picture?"	Student handout of reminders to help them activate knowledge and make predictions (156 KB) Question prompts to use with students to activate prior knowledge (141 KB) Student handout for making and checking predictions (35 KB)
Activate prior knowledge	Help students draw from their knowledge, memory, or experience to predict what might happen in the story. Ask students questions like, "What does this remind you of? With that in mind, what do you think might happen next?" Pull out a main idea from the text and ask students a question that relates the idea to their experience. Ask them to predict whether a similar experience might occur in the text.
Make predictions	Ask students what they think might happen in a story and record their prediction. Provide a table or graphic organizer for them to record their predictions. Have them explain how they decided on their prediction.
Check predictions	Encourage students to review their predictions as they read to see if they were accurate. Use the table or graphic organizer with their recorded predictions and go back to it to check the accuracy of their predictions.
Reflect on how this helps think about the meaning of what you read	Ask students questions like, "How did making predictions help you think about what you were reading? How did activating your prior knowledge help you think about the meaning of what you were reading?"

Visualizing: Help students visualize what is described in the text. To help students use this comprehension strategy, below are some suggested student and teacher actions. The tools and supports are for you to download and use in your planning and instruction.

Student Actions	Teacher Actions	Tools and Supports
Make pictures in your mind as you read	Point out visually descriptive language in stories. Provide prompts to ask students what they picture in their mind when they hear or read that language. Place a picture depicting a scene in front of students and ask them to examine it. Remove the picture and ask students to visualize and describe what they saw. Read a sentence and describe what you see to the students. Choose sections from the text and ask students to practice visualizing and discussing what they see.	Student handout of reminders to help them visualize (146 KB)
Reflect on how this helps you better understand the story	Ask students questions like, "How did visualizing help you remember what you read?"

Summarizing and Retelling: Teach students to summarize the main points of what they read. To help students use this comprehension strategy, below are some suggested student and teacher actions. The tools and supports are for you to download and use in your planning and instruction.

Student Actions	Teacher Actions	Tools and Supports
Summarize/retell what happened in the story	Read a short narrative paragraph aloud. Model summarizing the key ideas in the paragraph in 1-2 sentences. Read another paragraph. Ask students to say the key ideas in the text in his or her own words to a partner or a teacher. If a student has trouble doing this, ask questions such as "What is the big idea?" or "How could we describe the important events in our own words?" Provide students with sentence stems or prompts to support summarizing/retelling of the main points of a story.	Student handout of reminders to help them summarize/retell (166 KB) Sentence prompts to use with students to help them summarize/retell (205 KB) Summarizing Graphic Organizer (533 KB)
Reflect on how this helps you remember and think about what you read	Ask students how summarizing the story helped them think about and remember what they read.

As you work with teaching your students to use these three reading comprehension strategies, use the "Try it" prompt below to guide you in trying one or more of the strategies out with different narrative texts in your classroom.

HEAR FROM AN EXPERT

Watch as Practice Guide panelist, Dr. Timothy Shanahan, provides suggestions to the commonly asked question, "What should teachers consider when selecting a narrative text?"

To help students be able to use comprehension strategies effectively, they need modeling and support. This can be done with a gradual release of responsibility for using the strategy from the teacher to the students. The Practice Guide recommends that reading comprehension strategy instruction incorporate some or all of the following steps to gradually release responsibility from the teacher to students:

• The teacher explicitly describes the strategy.
• The teacher models the strategy or has a student model the strategy.
• The teacher and students use the strategy collaboratively.
• The teacher provides guided practice of the strategy.
• The students use the strategy independently.

This model is further illustrated in Figure 1 on page 15 of the Practice Guide. It demonstrates the changes in responsibility between teacher and student when using the gradual release model. Figure 1 also provides a classroom example around student use of the reading comprehension strategy, Activating Prior Knowledge/Predicting. The table below describes the teacher actions in the example that support gradual release.

Task	Teacher Actions	Classroom Example
Describe	The teacher gives a definition of prediction and encourages students to use it while they are reading to think about what might come next.	"Predicting is making guesses about what will come next in the text you are reading. Make predictions often when you read by stopping and thinking about what might come next."
Model	The teacher talks students through how to use the picture on the cover of the book to predict what the story is about.	"I am going to predict using the cover of this book. I see a picture of an owl wearing pajamas and carrying a candle. I predict that this story is going to be about this owl, and that it is going to take place at night."
Collaborative Use	As they read, the teacher and the students stop and think about what could happen next in the story and why they think that. Both the teacher and the students make predictions.	"I want you to make predictions with me. Each of us should stop and think about what might happen next….Okay, now, let's hear what you think and why."
Guided Practice	The teacher provides an activity for students to help guide them in making predictions. After reading a certain page the teacher gives them to read, the students stop and write down their prediction. After they read the next page, they revisit the accuracy of their prediction or if they need to read more to determine that. This helps the students get into the practice of making and checking their predictions.	"I have given you a list of pages in the book you are reading. After you read a page on the list, make a prediction and write it down. After you read the next page on the list, check off whether your prediction happened, will not happen, or still might happen."
Independent Use	Instead of giving students the pages to read to make predictions, the teacher encourages the students to stop and check their predictions and make new ones every two pages. This builds their confidence in using the strategy on their own.	"For now, you should stop every two pages, evaluate the predictions you have made, and then make some new ones for the next two pages."

As you teach lessons, consider how you can use the gradual release model of describing a strategy, modeling the strategy, collaboratively using the strategy, guided practice to help students try out the strategy, and then student independent use of the strategy. This Gradual Release Planning Template (608 KB) can help plan for gradually releasing responsibility to students.

Now that you have learned more about the key concepts included in this module for Recommendation 1, refer back to your Teacher Self-Reflection (1 MB). Review how often you currently use the two teaching strategies described in this module for Recommendation 1. Think about which one(s) you want to try to use more often.

Identifying and Using Narrative Text Structure

There is evidence that students comprehend and remember content better when they are taught to recognize the structure of a text. The structure can help students extract and construct meaning while reading.

Understanding the texts' organizational structure can help students distinguish between major and minor events and predict how a story may unfold.

WHAT IS A NARRATIVE TEXT?

Narrative texts portray a story, or sequence of related fictional or nonfictional events involving individuals or fictional characters. In elementary grades, narrative texts can include historical fiction, fables, and autobiographies.

WHAT ARE THE KEY ELEMENTS OF STRUCTURE IN A NARRATIVE TEXT?

Element	Description	Example of Story Element
Characters	who the story was about	A girl named Little Red Riding Hood, her Grandmother, and the wolf
Setting	where and when the story happened	The forest and Grandmother's cabin, during the day
Goal	what the main character was trying to do	Little Red Riding Hood set out to deliver a basket of food to her sick Grandmother
Problem	why the main character took certain actions	Little Red Riding Hood was not aware that the wolf had eaten Grandmother
Plot or Action	what happened to the main character or what they did to try and solve a problem	She met the wolf on her way to Grandmother's, and the wolf pretended to be Grandmother
Resolution	how the problem was solved and how the story ended	A nearby hunter rescued Little Red Riding Hood and her Grandmother from the wolf
Themes	general lessons or ideas	You shouldn't talk to strangers

These key elements outlined in the Practice Guide can be taught to students in stages. For example, with younger students and/or less developed readers, teachers could focus on instructing students to identify just the characters, setting, and plot. Additional elements could be gradually introduced while reinforcing elements that already have been taught.

TIPS FOR TEACHING NARRATIVE TEXT STRUCTURE

• In some stories there are multiple events, so remind students that sometimes they must identify the same structural element in a story more than once. 
• You can adapt text structure instruction for younger and/or less developed readers by simplifying the structural elements you instruct students to identify.
• As students progress in their understanding of narrative text structure and their ability to construct meaning from a story, encourage students to use a wider variety of structural elements such as multiple conflicts and subplots.

To help students learn how to identify and connect the parts of narrative texts, below are some suggested student and teacher actions. The tools and supports are for you to download and use in your planning and instruction.

Student Actions	Teacher Actions	Tools and Supports
Identify the key parts of a story	Share a tool, such as a graphic organizer or mnemonic device, to pull out the key elements of a narrative text with students. Explain what the tool is, how to use it, and why the tool is useful for identifying the key parts of a story. Help students practice identifying story elements by making up their own stories, illustrating parts of a story, or participating in a dramatic retelling of the story. When introducing a new element of narrative text, begin with familiar text or stories, such as ones that you have read together in class. With younger students, ask simple questions such as when and where the story took place, who the characters were, and what happened in the beginning, middle, and end of the story.	Story element chart (39 KB) Graphic organizers to help students identify key parts of stories (741 KB)
Reflect on how this helps you remember and think about what you read	Ask students how identifying parts of the story helped them think about and remember what they read.

Now that you have learned more about the key concepts included in this module for Recommendation 2, refer back to your Teacher Self-Reflection (1 MB). Review how often you currently use the teaching strategy described in Recommendation 2. Think about whether you want to try to use it more often.

High-Quality Discussions

Engaging students in high-quality discussions about texts requires intentional planning to select texts that will interest students, identify the goals of the discussion, develop different types of discussion questions to prompt students to think deeply about text, and help students at all different reading levels to thoughtfully explore text.

When planning for high-quality discussions you want to select texts that students will want to discuss. Ask yourself if the story will be of interest to your students, if the content will engage them, and if it will provide a valuable learning experience. Texts that feature either a character who faces a conflict or a real-world problem that presents a dilemma give students an opportunity to discuss different perspectives about the issues the character is facing.

You also want to select texts that provide an appropriate level of difficulty for your students. You will want to consider the:

• word decodability – extent to which the text contains words that students cannot yet identify by sight alone
• sentence complexity – extent to which sentence structure varies from simple to more difficult, such as containing multiple clauses
• text organization – how the information within a text is organized, such as sequence, compare/contrast, cause/effect, etc.
• clarity of formatting – refers to the layout of print on a page
• amount of abstract or complex content that is present

Refer back to Module 1 for more information about purposefully selecting texts, drawing from Recommendation 4 of the Practice Guide.

KEY POINT

Guiding students through high-quality discussions takes intentional planning about the text, the goals of the discussion, the questions you will use, and the supports you will offer to students at different reading levels.

Adapted from: https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/reading/whatmeasure.asp

Categories of Reading Comprehension
Locate and Recall	Students locate or recall information from what they read. Students may identify explicitly stated main ideas or they may focus on specific elements of a story.
Integrate and Interpret	Students integrate and interpret what they read, making comparisons, explaining character motivation, or examining relations of ideas across the text.
Critique and Evaluate	Students critique or evaluate what they read, critically viewing the text by examining it from numerous perspectives or evaluating the overall text quality or the effectiveness of particular aspects of the text.

These categories describe the kinds of thinking that underlie reading comprehension and can be used to develop discussion questions. To structure the discussion to complement the text, the instructional purpose, and the readers' ability and grade level, below are some suggested student and teacher actions. The tools and supports are for you to download and use in your planning and instruction.

Student Actions	Teacher Actions	Tools and Supports
Locate and Recall	Identify multiple opportunities within a text you are using in class to stop and ask discussion questions that will prompt students to locate and recall information from what they read (or for younger students, heard) such as the main idea or main characters. For younger students, at different points during a read aloud, you could pause and ask students to discuss what is happening in the story and what they think it is about. Model for students how to find different story elements that would help them answer discussion questions. For example, if a discussion question asks about where the main character lived and what role that played in the story, show students how you look for information in the text about the setting in different parts of the story.	Student handout to compare and contrast characters (624 KB) Student handout "You Be the Judge" to critique and evaluate aspects of stories (120 KB)
Integrate and Interpret	Identify opportunities throughout a text you are using in class to ask discussion questions that help students integrate and interpret what they read (or for younger students, heard). Craft discussion questions that will prompt students to interpret what is happening in the story based on their own experience, their knowledge, or other parts of the text. Develop discussion questions that help students pull ideas from various parts of the text, compare and contrast characters or events in a story, and/or think about alternative story lines.
Critique and Evaluate	Identify multiple opportunities within a text you are using in class to ask discussion questions that encourage students to critique and evaluate what they read from multiple perspectives (or for younger students, heard). This could include opportunities to judge how well the story does something such as resolves a problem, shares a lesson, or describes a character. Model for students how to refer to the text to support their opinions. For example, if you assert that the story provides conflicting details about the main character, then point to parts of the story that you see as in conflict with each other and ask students for their opinion.

To help students develop a deeper understanding of what they read, discussions must go beyond asking and answering surface-level questions to a more thorough exploration of the meaning of a text. Asking students higher-order questions can help them think about what the text means, not just what it says. These types of questions ask students to wonder "why," "how," and "what if." Higher-order questions can be developed from the three categories of comprehension: locate and recall, integrate and interpret, and critique and evaluate. Using these categories will help you ask students for more than their opinion ("Did you like the story?") and more about the meaning of the story.

When you plan for a discussion using higher-order questions, there are several things to consider such as:

• Which questions are best to ask before, during, or after reading?
• Which questions are best after students have read the story more than once?
• Where in the text (a particular page or picture) should a question be asked?
• How will the grade level of my students influence how I introduce discussion questions? Younger students may need more teacher supports to be able to engage in discussion with higher-order questions such as adapting questions to their grade level and modeling how to think about and answer the questions.

To develop discussion questions that require students to think deeply about text, below are some suggested student and teacher actions. The tools and supports are for you to download and use in your planning and instruction.

Student Actions	Teacher Actions	Tools and Supports
Consider why something happened in a story	Identify what you want students to reflect on about a text to help them deepen their understanding of the text. This includes information in the text that is directly stated, as well as implied. Draft a set of questions to help students think about why something happened in a story, drawing from the categories of comprehension.	Sample questions aligned with the categories of comprehension (53 KB)
Reflect on "how" something connects and/or "what if" something happened to think deeply about a story	To help students think deeply about what the text means, guide them to ask "how" and "what if" questions. These could include questions about how parts of the story connect, how the story is similar to other stories they have read, or how the characters felt and why. It could also include questions to help students imagine and extend the story, like what would they do if they were the author, or what might happen to the characters if there was a sequel to the story.

Key Point
Students in kindergarten and first grade may need more supports to engage in discussions with higher-order questions. Teachers can adapt questions to the grade level and model how to think about the questions. For more information on adapting for younger students, please see page 26 of the Practice Guide.

After reading about the three categories of comprehension, try categorizing some sample discussion questions.

Now that you have learned more about the key concepts included in this module for Recommendation 3, refer back to your Teacher Self-Reflection (1 MB). Review how often you currently use the two teaching strategies described in this module for Recommendation 3. Think about which one(s) you want to try to use more often.

See the Recommendations in Action

Recommendation 2: Teach students to identify and use the text's organizational structure to comprehend, learn, and remember content.

• Explain how to identify and connect the parts of narrative texts.

Recommendation 3: Teach students to identify and use the text's organizational structure to comprehend, learn, and remember content.

• Structure the discussion to complement the text, the instructional purpose, and the readers' ability and grade level.
• Develop discussion questions that require students to think deeply about text.

As you engage with the activities to see the recommendations in action, consider how you can implement these recommendations and strategies into your own teaching. Use the prompts from the activities to deepen your understanding of the recommendations and to prepare for the Planning TSG which is focused on lesson planning to include specific teaching strategies you want to use more in your classroom.

EVIDENCE OF STUDENT LEARNING

CLASSROOM INSTRUCTION VIDEOS

Video: Teaching summarizing with narrative texts in first grade

In this video, Lorena Dominguez and her first grade students engage in summarizing narrative texts.

Watch how Ms. Dominguez uses the text's organizational structure and the elements of a narrative to help students create a summary that captures key details and helps students understand and remember what they read.

For these lessons, the teacher selected two narrative texts to align with the themes of bravery and courage. As you watch the video, notice how Ms. Dominguez carefully scaffolds her instruction on summarizing. She provides a gradual release of responsibility from direct instruction and modeling to gradually providing more independence in practicing and applying the comprehension strategy.

Video: Teaching summarizing with narrative texts in third grade

In this video, Theresa Malone and her third grade students utilize the comprehension strategy of summarizing in preparation for comparing two narrative texts.

For these lessons, the teacher selected two narrative texts about pets, a topic about which her students have background knowledge and interest. In the video, you will see how Ms. Malone first reviews the purpose and comprehension strategy of summarizing. The class uses an organizer Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then (SWBST) to create their summaries. This instructional practice helps students identify the elements of a narrative text as described under Recommendation 2. Ms. Malone provides a gradual release of responsibility from direct instruction and modeling to providing opportunities for practicing more independence as students apply the strategy while reading the second text with a partner. Students use their summaries to compare the main characters in each narrative.

CLASSROOM CASE STUDY (OPTIONAL)

ROADBLOCKS AND SOLUTIONS

High-quality reading comprehension strategy instruction may help students learn other skills outlined in state and local standards.

What is the difference between teaching reading comprehension skills and strategies? The box below provides more information.

Roadblock 1.3. Students bring to the classroom a wide variety of abilities in reading and reading comprehension, so adapting reading comprehension strategy instruction to an individual student is a challenge.

Considerations and potential solutions:

Working with small groups of students with similar needs and skills can help you provide targeted support. Some students, when you are using a gradual release of responsibility, may need you to model using the reading comprehension strategy you are trying to get them to use independently more than once. Other students may need more time with you providing guided practice. As you may have noticed in the classroom videos in this module, the teachers worked closely with a small group of students while other students worked with partners. This allowed the teachers to provide more customized support to students.

Try reading a smaller section of text together so students can practice using the reading comprehension strategies on a smaller scale. This can support students' use of the strategies and their understanding of the text. You may have done this during the "Try it" prompts with the three reading comprehension strategies introduced in this module.

Explore additional roadblocks and suggested approaches that the Practice Guide panel identified for the recommendations in this module:

For Recommendation 1, see page 16 of the Practice Guide.

For Recommendation 2, see pages 21–22 of the Practice Guide.

For Recommendation 3, see page 29 of the Practice Guide.

Plan

In this section, you will engage in more formal lesson planning for integrating the recommendations and teaching strategies into your existing lessons. As you engage with the activities in this section, consider any reflections you had from the "Try it" prompts and identify places in your lessons where you can add more focus on establishing an engaging and motivating context for teaching reading comprehension.

The Plan section of this module contains resources to help prepare you to integrate the recommendations and teaching strategies into a lesson. It also has materials that will help you prepare for and participate in the Planning TSG.

IMPLEMENTATION GOAL

PREPARE FOR THE PLANNING TSG

Complete as much of the tool as you can, focusing on using Recommendations 1, 2, and 3 and the strategies discussed in this module with narrative text, so that you are well-prepared to work with your colleagues. There is space to record questions for your study group team at the bottom. It is okay to leave some prompts incomplete, since you can use time during the Planning TSG to fully develop your ideas. Please see the Example of Completed Planning Tool for Module 2 (132 KB) for an example of how one might complete the Planning Tool for narrative text.

The resources linked below provide more supports for planning:

• Check out this Instructional Planner: Selecting Text for Teaching Comprehension Strategies (190 KB).
• Check out this video or this Illustration of Gradual Release of Responsibility Model (360 KB).

As you develop your lesson plan, consider what evidence of student learning you are going to collect and when in the lesson you will collect it. You will need to bring it to the Refining TSG.

Consider the type of data you are going to collect and how many students you will collect it from to keep your data collection and analysis manageable. For example, if you were using a tool like the Oral Retelling Evidence of Learning Tool: Stories (541 KB), you may want to focus on three to six students to focus on and gather data from. On the other hand, if you were using students' graphic organizers or written summaries, you may want to collect and review that information from most, if not all, students. Depending on your implementation goal and what you want to reflect on, you may choose to focus on evidence from some of your students who struggle with reading comprehension. Or, you may decide to focus on students at a variety of levels. You could even randomly select which students to focus on.

Use the checklist below to confirm you are ready for the Planning TSG.

I am ready for the Planning TSG…

• I have identified teaching strategies that I'd like to include in my lessons.
• I have identified what upcoming lesson(s) would be best for trying out the teaching strategies I identified.
• I have identified narrative texts to use during these lessons.
• I have considered how I will collect evidence of student learning during the lessons.
• I have reviewed the applicable sections of the Improving Reading Comprehension in K–3 Practice Guide.
• I have updated the Personal Action Plan with an implementation goal for Module 2.
• I have completed a draft of the Planning Tool related to the content of this module.
• I have reviewed the Example of Completed Planning Tool for Narrative Text.

PLANNING TSG

If there are particular aspects of the recommendations and teaching strategies you want to discuss, or if there are specific questions you want to share ahead of time, be sure to reach out to your facilitator.

Here is a list of what you need to bring to the Planning TSG:

• Practice Guide (print or digital format)
• Reflections and questions you have from this module, including your reflections on anything you tried from the "Try it" prompts
• Your Personal Action Plan and implementation goal for Module 2
• Your draft Planning Tool

Apply

Reflect

Refine

I am ready for the Refining TSG…

• I have tried out at least one teaching strategy.
• I have documented students' responses to the teaching strategies that I can discuss with my colleagues.
• I have been observed during one of my practice lessons. (optional)
• I have discussed the observation with the observer. (if applicable)
• I have completed the Lesson Reflection.
• I have revisited my Personal Action Plan and checked my progress against my implementation goal for Module 2.

Refining TSG

If there are particular aspects of the recommendations and teaching strategies or evidence of student learning you want to discuss, or if there are specific questions you want to share ahead of time, be sure to reach out to your facilitator.

Here is a list of what you need to bring to the Refining TSG:

• Practice Guide (print or digital format)
• Reflections and questions you have related to trying out the recommendations and strategies in this module
• Your Action Plan and implementation goal for Module 2
• Your Lesson Reflection

Module Conclusion and Resources

This concludes Module 2. Revisit sections of the module as needed to help you integrate these strategies into your teaching. Resources from the module and additional resources related to the module topics are provided below.

Resources

Video: Why do we guide students to read stories?

Teacher Self-Reflection (1 MB)

Video: Activating Prior Knowledge/Predicting

Student handout of reminders to help them activate knowledge and make predictions (156 KB)

Question prompts to use with students to activate prior knowledge (141 KB)

Student handout for making and checking predictions (35 KB)

Video: Visualizing

Student handout of reminders to help them visualize (146 KB)

Video: Summarizing/Retelling

Student handout of reminders to help them summarize/retell (166 KB)

Sentence prompts to use with students to help them summarize/retell (205 KB)

Summarizing Graphic Organizer (533 KB)

Video: What should teachers consider when selecting a narrative text?

Gradual Release Planning Template (608 KB)

Story element chart (39 KB)

Graphic organizers to help students identify key parts of stories (741 KB)

Student handout to compare and contrast characters (624 KB)

Student handout "You Be the Judge" to critique and evaluate aspects of stories (120 KB)

Sample questions aligned with the categories of comprehension (53 KB)

Classroom Video 1 Student Handout (592 KB)

Video: Teaching summarizing with narrative texts in first grade

Classroom Video 2 Student Handout (523 KB)

Video: Teaching summarizing with narrative texts in third grade

Kindergarten Case Study (789 KB)

Oral Retelling Evidence of Learning Tool: Stories (541 KB)

Personal Action Plan (1 MB) template

Planning Tool for Module 2 (1 MB)

Example of Completed Planning Tool for Module 2 (132 KB)

Lesson Reflection (644 KB)

Additional Resources

Check out this Instructional Planner: Selecting Text for Teaching Comprehension Strategies (190 KB).

Check out this Illustration of Gradual Release of Responsibility Model (360 KB).

Learn About the Recommendations

In this section, you will interact with key concepts from the three Practice Guide recommendations this module focuses on. You will learn information about each of the recommendations and how to use them with informational texts. As you engage with the content of this section, you will also identify practices you can try in your classroom to help deepen your learning about the recommendations. This will prepare you for the next section where you will learn how to use the evidence-based practices through classroom-based examples.

As you engage with the activities in the Learn About section, consider how your learning aligns with the learning objectives you wanted to work on.

FOCAL RECOMMENDATIONS

Recommendation 1: Teach students how to use reading comprehension strategies.
There are three teaching strategies in the Practice Guide that support reading comprehension strategies. This module focuses on the following two strategies:

• Teach students how to use several research-based reading comprehension strategies.
• Teach reading comprehension strategies by using a gradual release of responsibility.

Recommendation 2: Teach students to identify and use the text's organizational structure to comprehend, learn, and remember content.

There are two teaching strategies about using texts' organizational structure. This module focuses on informational text structure:

• Provide instruction on common structures of informational text.

Recommendation 4: Select texts purposefully to support comprehension development.

There are four teaching strategies that support purposeful text selection. This module focuses on two of them:

• Choose texts with word recognition and comprehension difficulty appropriate for the students' reading ability and the instructional activity.
• Use texts that support the purpose of instruction.

The recommendations in the Practice Guide are provided with a level of evidence (i.e., strong, moderate, and minimal) based on WWC evidence standards. Recommendations with higher evidence ratings are based on studies with strong causal and generalizable evidence. Please see the Improving Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade Practice Guide and Introductory Module for information on the evidence-base for these recommendations.

Throughout this section you will dive deeply into each of these three focal recommendations to learn about them and their application with informational texts. Each recommendation section will include highlights from the Practice Guide. You will read excerpts from the Practice Guide and watch videos that further explain the Practice Guide content. Throughout this section you will engage in reflection questions and checks for understanding.

For each recommendation you will also find "Try it" prompts. These prompts give suggestions for how to integrate parts of a recommendation into upcoming lessons. They provide ideas to help you more quickly and easily try using these practices within your existing lesson plans. Later in the module you will draw from these "Try it" experiences to engage in more formal lesson planning before and during the Planning TSG.

Teaching Reading Comprehension Strategies

For each teaching strategy you will learn about how the Practice Guide describes it. You will also learn about suggested teacher actions related to the teaching strategy, and, where applicable, the suggested student actions.

There are six evidence-based strategies in the Practice Guide that improve reading comprehension in the primary grades:

1. Activating Prior Knowledge or Predicting
2. Questioning
3. Visualizing
4. Monitoring, Clarifying, and Fixing Up
5. Inferencing
6. Summarizing/Retelling

Teachers model and teach students how the reading comprehension strategies can help them as readers and how experienced readers use these strategies effectively. In the descriptions of the reading comprehension strategies below you will see examples of teacher actions to support student use of the strategies including the use of activities, questions, and prompts.

Because all the reading comprehension strategies can be applied to understanding both narrative and informational texts, this toolkit divides the strategies across Modules 2 and 3. This module includes descriptions and resources for the reading comprehension strategies of Questioning, Monitoring, Clarifying, and Fixing Up, and Inferencing. Not only do these three comprehension strategies pair well with informational text, focusing on three strategies in this module and three in the prior module allows for more focused opportunities to learn and practice how to support students in using these strategies.

Read the descriptions and watch the videos below for each evidence-based reading comprehension strategy. Identify a strategy (or multiple strategies) you would like to focus on and watch the corresponding video to learn more about it.

Questioning: To help students use this comprehension strategy, below are some suggested student and teacher actions. The tools and supports are for you to download and use in your planning and instruction.

Student Actions	Teacher Actions	Tools and Supports
Ask yourself "why" questions then try to answer them.	Help students ask themselves questions about the text. Model asking yourself the question, "Why does this make sense?" after encountering a new fact or idea in an informational text.	Student Questioning handout (262 KB) Question index cards (44 KB) Teacher prompts when using Questioning (821 KB)
Explain the answer in your own words.	Help students explain or elaborate on their answers in their own words by asking them, "Can you say more about why that makes sense to you?" Help students draw from what they already know about the topic to connect with the new information.
Reflect on how this helps you better understand the text.	Ask students questions like, "How did asking yourself questions help you think about what you were reading?"

Monitoring, Clarifying, and Fixing Up: To help students use this comprehension strategy, below are some suggested student and teacher actions. The tools and supports are for you to download and use in your planning and instruction.

Student Actions	Teacher Actions	Tools and Supports
Monitor your reading comprehension by noting parts of the text that you understand and the parts that you don't understand.	Help students monitor their understanding as they read text. Ask students to mark parts of the text they do or do not understand using symbols ("" or "?") or marking the text, such as using underlining. Students can also identify parts of text they think is important, where they've learned something new, or parts that they enjoy.	Student Monitoring handout (178 KB) Student Fixing Up handout (232 KB) Teacher handout with Monitoring, Clarifying, and Fixing Up prompts (301 KB)
Try to figure out why you don't understand that part of the text.	Ask students to identify "why" they are not understanding by asking questions like, "Are you having trouble with a big word?" "Are you confused by an idea?" "Are you confused by the whole sentence (or page)?" Help students to choose an appropriate "fix-up" strategy.
When you don't understand what you are reading, make adjustments.	Help students clarify their understanding by using "fix-up" strategy such as rereading, using their background knowledge, or by asking questions like, "What should happen next?" or "What is wrong in the picture?"
Reflect on how this helps think about the meaning of what you read.	Ask students questions like, "How did monitoring help you think about what you were reading? How did fixing up what you didn't understand help you think about the meaning of what you were reading?"

Inferencing: Using the inferencing strategy while reading is similar to activating prior knowledge and making predictions. In both strategies, students use clues from the text and relate them to what they already know. The key difference is that when we use inferencing, we are drawing a conclusion about what we have already read. When we activate prior knowledge to make predictions, we are using what we know to make a guess about what will happen next, or what we haven't read yet.

In informational text, inferencing helps students learn new information from text by connecting it to their previous experiences or knowledge. With texts from content areas, such as science, students may need teacher guidance to connect to what they know.

Student Actions	Teacher Actions	Tools and Supports
Look for clues while you read.	Help students find clues, such as pictures or key words, that can help them understand the text. Ask students questions like, "What are some clues about what is happening? What clues do you see in this picture?"	Student Inferencing handout (267 KB) Student handout for making and checking inferences (608 KB) Teacher handout with Inferencing prompts (142 KB)
Note or write down what you already know.	Identify key words in a sample passage of text and explain what students can learn about the passage from those words. Help students draw from their knowledge, memory, or experience to explain a part of the text. Ask students questions like, "What do we already know about this (topic, key word, or part of the text) that the author hasn't said? What does this remind you of?"
Make an inference based on what you know.	Model making an inference based on what you know using the sentence stem below. Ask students how they would explain what is happening based on what clues and what they know. Use a sentence stem such as, "Based on the fact that ___, and what I know about ___, I infer that ____." Provide a table or graphic organizer for them to record their inference.
Review inferences.	Encourage students to review their inferences as they read further to see if there is any new information to support them. Use the table or graphic organizer with their recorded inferences and go back to it to review and update, as appropriate.
Reflect on how this helps think about the meaning of what you read.	Ask students questions like, "How did making inferences help you think about what you were reading? How did drawing from what you already know help you think about the meaning of what you were reading?"
Look for clues while you read.	Help students find clues, such as pictures or key words, that can help them understand the text. Ask students questions like, "What are some clues about what is happening? What clues do you see in this picture?"

As you work with teaching your students to use these three reading comprehension strategies, use the "Try it" prompt below to guide you in trying one or more of the strategies out with different narrative texts in your classroom.

Reading comprehension strategy instruction aims to enable students to consciously apply the strategies to make sense of texts. Whether taught individually or in related clusters, the goal is to equip students with several strategies so that they can learn to use them effectively and also to learn when to use each strategy.

Teachers less experienced with comprehension strategy instruction might consider first trying a single-strategy approach. Teachers opting for a multiple-strategy approach should choose the approach that best fits their experience and instructional materials.

A multiple-strategy approach may be more challenging for students at first; however, students get to practice using strategies in combination from the start.

The Practice Guide summarizes four examples of multiple-strategy approaches:

1. Reciprocal Teaching
2. Transactional Strategy Instruction
3. Informed Strategies for Learning
4. Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction

Each multiple-strategy format is briefly summarized in the section below. Handouts, which outline the steps to applying each multiple-strategy approach in greater detail, are provided under Tools and Supports.

While it is important for students to learn to choose from and use multiple strategies, it is advisable not to mix-and-match among multiple-strategy approaches (e.g., Reciprocal Teaching, Transactional Strategy Instruction, etc.) throughout the year to avoid confusing students.

With any multiple-strategy approach, teachers should follow the steps for gradually releasing responsibility to students, as outlined in the Practice Guide and covered in Module 2.

Multiple-Strategy Format	Summary with Steps	Tools and Supports
Reciprocal Teaching	Reciprocal Teaching involves students taking turns teaching each other about a text by predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing. Here are the basic steps: Introduce the reasons for reading comprehension strategies. Introduce the three core principles of Reciprocal Teaching. Choose texts to use. Introduce the four comprehension strategies. Model the four comprehension strategies. Divide students into groups of 4 and assign each member one of the four comprehension strategies using reading comprehension strategy cards. Have students take turns teaching each other using their assigned strategy. Monitor and provide feedback. Repeat and rotate.	Student Comprehension Strategy Cards (38 KB) Teacher Reciprocal Teaching handout (720 KB)
Transactional Strategy Instruction	Transactional Strategy Instruction (TSI) guides students to use different strategies before, during, and after reading. Here are the basic steps: Introduce the reasons for reading comprehension strategies. Introduce the reading comprehension strategies using a display or bulletin board with each strategy. Model each reading comprehension strategy. Provide opportunities for students to practice using the strategies in small groups or independently. Monitor and provide feedback. Repeat.	Teacher Transactional Strategy Instruction handout (693 KB)
Informed Strategies for Learning	Informed Strategies for Learning involves teachers explaining and modeling several reading comprehension strategies to improve understanding of text. Here are the basic steps: Introduce the reasons for reading comprehension. Introduce the reading comprehension strategies using a display or bulletin board with each strategy. Choose a text. Introduce the reading comprehension strategy you are going to model. Model each reading comprehension strategy. Divide students into small groups and provide opportunities for students to practice two or three pre-selected strategies. Monitor. Summarize together. Reflect together. Repeat.	Teacher Informed Strategies for Learning handout (722 KB)
Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction	Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) helps students learn about a concept, typically a scientific subject, while exploring nonfiction texts. Here are the basic steps: Select a topic to teach. Map out a timeframe for a sequence of lessons. Gather a collection of nonfiction books about the topic. Introduce the topic to students. Have students read or participate in a shared read-aloud of the nonfiction books about the concept. Model each reading comprehension strategy for students, introducing one strategy each week. Provide opportunities for students to collaborate with others. Provide opportunities for students to share what they have learned about the topic. Repeat.	Teacher Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction handout (51 KB)

Additional Resources

Check out this video on Reciprocal Teaching, an instructional approach to student-led discussions of text, or this video on using multiple techniques focused on questioning.

As a reminder, an overview and illustration of the Gradual Release of Responsibility model was provided in Module 2 and is revisited again in Module 4. Additional guidance on having students lead small-group discussions is provided in Module 4.

Now that you have learned more about the key concepts included in this module for Recommendation 1, refer back to your Teacher Self-Reflection (1 MB). Review how often you currently use the two teaching strategies described in this module for Recommendation 1. Think about which one(s) you want to try to use more often.

Identifying and Using Informational Text Structure

There is evidence that students comprehend and remember content better when they are taught to recognize the structure of a text. Learning the structures of informational text can help students better understand and recall key points while reading.

WHAT IS INFORMATIONAL TEXT?

Informational texts include expository writing, pieces that argue in favor of one position or another, and procedural texts and documents. In the elementary grades, informational texts are often short books or texts about topics, such as animals, people, or science topics. In later grades, informational texts may also include other formats, such as news articles, speeches, and timelines.

WHAT ARE SOME COMMON STRUCTURES OF INFORMATIONAL TEXT?

Informational texts present information in a structured manner, but understanding this structure can be challenging for students. This is where text structure comes in. It refers to the way an author organizes the main body of an informational text.

Explicitly teaching students about different text structures equips them with the tools to identify them while reading. Understanding the structure allows students to anticipate what information will come next and monitor their comprehension.

By recognizing the text structure used by an author, students can focus their attention on key concepts and relationships within the text. This enables them to identify the most important information and gain a solid understanding of the topic.

The table below lists five common structures of informational text: description; sequence; problem and solution; cause and effect; and compare and contrast.

Structure	Description	Example	Common Clue Words
Description	What something looks, feels, smells, sounds, tastes like, or is composed of	Characteristics of a hurricane
Sequence	When or in what order things happen	A storm becomes a hurricane	First, then, next, after, later, finally
Problem and Solution	What went wrong and how it was or could be fixed	Hurricane Katrina destroyed homes and stores, so groups like the Red Cross had to bring food and medicine from other parts of the US	Because, in order to, so that, trouble if, problem
Cause and Effect	How one event leads to another	What happened to the people who lived in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina	Because, therefore, cause, effect, so
Compare and Contrast	How things are alike and different	How hurricanes are the same as or different from tornadoes	Both, alike, unalike, but, however, than

Teachers should tell students to not rely only on clue words to identify structure because those words may not always be present. Further, teachers should share with students that informational texts can follow other structures in addition to the ones described here.

TIPS FOR TEACHING INFORMATIONAL TEXT STRUCTURE

• Use familiar ideas or topics when teaching students about the structure of informational text.
• Use text with clear, easy-to-recognize examples when initially teaching a new structure.
• Ask students to work collaboratively to organize information from a text using a graphic tool (e.g., concept map, Venn diagram, fishbone chart, and sequence diagram or flow chart).
• Teach students clue words for different structures (e.g., alike, unlike, both, but, however) and ask them to identify them in a passage.
• Use questions with leading clue words to help students identify the structure (e.g., "What was the cause?"). Once students can more comfortably identify the structure, ask more complex questions that do not contain clue words ("How did the author organize the information in this passage?").

To help students learn how to identify and use common structures of informational text to understand what they read, below are some suggested student and teacher actions. The tools and supports are for you to download and use in your planning and instruction.

Student Actions	Teacher Actions	Tools and Supports
Identify the structure of informational text	Pick an idea or topic that is familiar to your students. When choosing a text, select one that is a clear, easy-to-recognize example of a common structure, for example "compare and contrast." Emphasize the importance of first identifying the text structure. With younger students, introduce the text structure of the text you will use.	Student handout: Common Informational Structures (217 KB) Graphic organizers to help students organize information in common informational structures (720 KB) Sequencing Success Criteria tool (904 KB)
Look for clue words to help identify the structure.	Give students a list of common clue words used with that structure. For example, for compare and contrast, share the clue words: both, alike, unlike, but, however, than.
Organize the information in the text by using its structure.	Help students practice organizing the information from the text that is consistent with the corresponding structure. For example, with compare and contrast texts, students can organize facts using a Venn diagram or T-chart (alike, shared, unlike).

Teachers should provide opportunities for students to use their text structure knowledge to read and comprehend increasingly challenging texts, including those that incorporate multiple structures, cover unfamiliar content, or diverge from the most common structures.

Now that you have learned more about the key concepts included in this module for Recommendation 2, refer back to your Teacher Self-Reflection (1 MB). Review how often you currently use the teaching strategy described in Recommendation 2. Think about whether you want to try to use it more often.

Choosing High-Quality Texts

As the Practice Guide says, "There is no such thing as 'one-size-fits-all' when it comes to selecting a text for teaching reading comprehension." When you select texts for your students, it is important to consider both text difficulty and how it supports your instructional goals.

The Practice Guide identifies two aspects of text difficulty:

• Textual and Linguistic Demands
• Content Demands

Textual and linguistic demands include the decodability of words or whether the phonic elements of the words follow regular decoding rules which are appropriate for the grade level of the students. Textual and linguistic demands also include the complexity of the sentences (e.g., short sentences with basic structure versus longer sentences using a variety of sentence structures), the organization of the text (e.g., how information is organized), and the clarity of the formatting (e.g., highlighting or emphasis for important key words or phrases). 

Content demands refers to how complex, abstract, or subtle the information is in the text. Some information in the texts may be unfamiliar or difficult for students to understand, making it less useful for comprehension instruction.

It is important to consider both textual and content demands when choosing texts. The Practice Guide panel notes that a text that is easy to decode may be difficult for students to understand. Conversely, a conceptually simple text may not be easy to decode.

Teacher Actions	Additional Details
Consider whether the textual and linguistic demands of the text are appropriate for students and lesson.	Review the decodability of the words in the text and evaluate whether the majority of words are decodable for your students.
Consider whether the content demands of the text are appropriate for students and lesson.	Review the complexity of the sentence structures in the text and evaluate whether the structures are appropriate or confusing for your students.
Support students as they engage with texts of varying complexity.	Review the organization of the text and evaluate whether the organization is appropriate for the instructional activity.

In addition to the complexity of the words and sentences, you should also consider the purpose of the lesson and how the text will be used. The table below gives examples of purposes of reading comprehension instruction and tips for selecting texts to support each activity. As you review the examples, consider texts that you have already introduced to your students that offer opportunities to revisit.

* While the focus of this module is on informational text, the teaching strategies apply to both informational and narrative texts. We have included a parallel resource to use with narrative texts.

Purpose of Instruction	Tips for Selecting Informational Texts	Tools & Supports
Introducing students to the Questioning strategy	Select a text that lends itself to asking questions, such as one with an intriguing title or about a topic somewhat unfamiliar to your students.	Anatomy of an Informational Text – Part 2 (606 KB) Anatomy of a Narrative Text – Part 2* (543 KB) Page 3 of this Instructional Planner: Selecting Text for Teaching Comprehension Strategies (190 KB) includes features to consider when choosing informational text for strategy instruction.
Introducing students to the Monitoring, Clarifying, and Fixing Up strategy	Select a text that is organized or could be organized into short segments. Use the breaks to pause for monitoring and fixing up, if necessary.
Introducing students to the Inferencing strategy	Select a text that has detailed pictures with some words. Detailed pictures with small amounts of text can be useful for modeling inferring and introducing the concept. As students become more familiar with using the Inference strategy, practice this with students using more rigorous texts.
Text structure instruction with informational text	Select a text about a familiar topic with a structure that is easy to recognize. Add texts of increasing complexity or less familiar topics.
Building students' depth of understanding or background knowledge on a topic	Select a text about a topic that is somewhat unfamiliar to your students. Avoid texts that only reinforce a student's knowledge of sound-letter relationships, as they are more suitable for practicing decoding and word recognition.
Developing students' ability to engage deep discussions about a text.	Select a text that is organized or could be organized into short segments. Use the breaks to pause for asking discussion questions or practicing a comprehension strategy.

Now that you have learned more about the key concepts for selecting texts purposefully to support comprehension development, refer back to your Teacher Self-Reflection (1 MB). Review how often you currently use the two teaching strategies described in this module for Recommendation 4. Think about which one(s) you want to try to use more often.

See the Recommendations in Action

Recommendation 2: Teach students to identify and use the text's organizational structure to comprehend, learn, and remember content.

• Provide instruction on common structures of informational texts.

Recommendation 4: Select texts purposefully to support comprehension development.

• Choose texts with word recognition and comprehension difficulty appropriate for the students' reading ability and the instructional activity.
• Use texts that support the purpose of instruction.

As you engage with the activities to see the recommendations in action, consider how you can implement these recommendations and strategies into your own teaching. Use the prompts from the activities to deepen your understanding of the recommendations and to prepare for the Planning TSG which is focused on lesson planning to include specific teaching strategies you want to use more in your classroom.

EVIDENCE OF STUDENT LEARNING

CLASSROOM INSTRUCTION VIDEOS

Ms. Dominguez also utilizes Recommendation 2: Teach students to identify and use the text's organizational structure to comprehend, learn, and remember content, to help students know when to pause and reflect on what they have read.

As you watch the video, notice how Ms. Dominguez carefully scaffolds her instruction on questioning. She provides a gradual release of responsibility from direct instruction and modeling to gradually providing more independence in practicing and applying the comprehension strategy.

Video: Teaching questioning with informational texts in third grade

In this video, you'll see Theresa Malone engage her third grade students in using questioning to better comprehend and learn from informational text. Questioning is one of the six comprehension strategies highlighted under Recommendation 1: Teach students how to use reading comprehension strategies. The instruction utilizes a single, focal question: What is the author telling us? to deepen and extend their learning.

Ms. Malone encourages text discussion (Recommendation 3) using the focal question and three response stems to support the students' deeper analysis of the text. She asks follow-up questions in whole class and small group settings to encourage and facilitate student discussion. Over the two days of instruction, Ms. Malone provides a gradual release of responsibility from direct instruction and modeling to progressively providing more independence as students apply the strategy while reading and discussing the second text with a partner.

CLASSROOM CASE STUDY (OPTIONAL)

ROADBLOCKS AND SOLUTIONS

Roadblock 2.2. Students can apply text structure knowledge in classroom assignments but may not do so independently or with more complex texts.

Considerations and potential solutions:

• Encourage students to pay attention to text structure across a wide variety of reading experiences.
• Provide a reminder of the value of structure just as reading is about to begin.
• Encourage students to bring texts whose structure they cannot figure out.
• Integrate the idea of text structure beyond Reading, and into other content areas to demonstrate its applicability broadly and continually reiterate the ways it helps readers understand texts.
• Ensure students are successful at each step of gradual release of responsibility. 
• Practice the strategy as a whole class and establish checkpoints where students must articulate their understanding. Determine where things may be unclear, then fix up any misunderstandings as a class.
• Walk around while students are partnering and determine students' understanding by listening and asking questions to gauge their conceptual understanding and/or identify where you may need to reteach.
• Provide several quick opportunities to assess individual understanding. Identify patterns and pull small groups accordingly to support individual students. 
• Provide structural support initially, such as anchor charts, and allow students to use them. Remove them as they gain more comfort and understanding in identifying text structures.
• Offer opportunities for students to be successful independently, with simpler texts where you can continually monitor their readiness.
• Learn from the students. Review their responses, but when they are correct or unclear, ask them to identify where they misunderstood. This can help you understand how to refine your instruction.

Explore additional roadblocks and suggested approaches that the Practice Guide panel identified for the recommendations in this module:

For Recommendation 1, see page 16 of the Practice Guide.

For Recommendation 2, see pages 21–22 of the Practice Guide.

For Recommendation 4, see page 33 of the Practice Guide.

Plan

In this section, you will engage in more formal lesson planning for integrating the recommendations and teaching strategies into your existing lessons. As you engage with the activities in this section, consider any reflections you had from the "Try it" prompts and identify places in your lessons where you can add more focus on establishing an engaging and motivating context for teaching reading comprehension.

The Plan section of this module contains resources to help prepare you to integrate the recommendations and teaching strategies into a lesson. It also has materials that will help you prepare for and participate in the Planning TSG.

PAUSE AND IDENTIFY

IMPLEMENTATION GOAL

PREPARE FOR THE PLANNING TSG

Complete as much of the tool as you can, focusing on using Recommendations 1, 2, and 4 and the strategies discussed in this module with narrative text, so that you are well-prepared to work with your colleagues. There is space to record questions for your study group team at the bottom. It is okay to leave some prompts incomplete, since you can use time during the Planning TSG to fully develop your ideas. Please see the Example of Completed Planning Tool for Module 3 (154 KB) for an example of how one might complete the Planning Tool for informational text.

As you develop your lesson plan, consider what evidence of student learning you are going to collect and when in the lesson you will collect it. You will need to bring it to the Refining TSG.

Consider the type of data you are going to collect and how many students you will collect it from to keep your data collection and analysis manageable. For example, if you were using a tool like the Sequencing Success Criteria tool (904 KB), you may want to focus on three to six students to focus on and gather data from. On the other hand, if you were using students' graphic organizers or written summaries, you may want to collect and review that information from most, if not all, students. Depending on your implementation goal and what you want to reflect on, you may choose to focus on evidence from some of your students who struggle with reading comprehension. Or, you may decide to focus on students at a variety of levels. You could even randomly select which students to focus on.

Use the checklist below to confirm you are ready for the Planning TSG.

I am ready for the Planning TSG…

• I have identified teaching strategies that I'd like to include in my lessons.
• I have identified what upcoming lesson(s) would be best for trying out the teaching strategies I identified.
• I have identified informational texts to use during these lessons.
• I have considered how I will collect evidence of student learning during the lessons.
• I have reviewed the applicable sections of the Improving Reading Comprehension in K–3 Practice Guide.
• I have updated the Personal Action Plan with an implementation goal for Module 3.
• I have completed a draft of the Planning Tool related to the content of this module.
• I have reviewed the Example of Completed Planning Tool for Informational Text.

PLANNING TSG

If there are particular aspects of the recommendations and teaching strategies you want to discuss, or if there are specific questions you want to share ahead of time, be sure to reach out to your facilitator.

Here is a list of what you need to bring to the Planning TSG:

• Practice Guide (print or digital format)
• Reflections and questions you have from this module, including your reflections on anything you tried from the "Try it" prompts
• Your Personal Action Plan and implementation goal for Module 3
• Your draft Planning Tool

Apply

Reflect

Refine

Refining TSG

If there are particular aspects of the recommendations and teaching strategies or evidence of student learning you want to discuss, or if there are specific questions you want to share ahead of time, be sure to reach out to your facilitator.

Here is a list of what you need to bring to the Refining TSG:

• Practice Guide (print or digital format)
• Reflections and questions you have related to trying out the recommendations and strategies in this module
• Your Action Plan and implementation goal for Module 3
• Your Lesson Reflection

Module Conclusion and Resources

This concludes Module 3. Revisit sections of the module as needed to help you integrate these strategies into your teaching. Resources from the module and additional resources related to the module topics are provided below.

Resources

Video: What are some key considerations in teaching reading comprehension with informational text?

Teacher Self-Reflection (1 MB)

Video: Questioning

Student Questioning handout (262 KB)

Question index cards (44 KB)

Teacher prompts when using Questioning (821 KB)

Video: Monitoring, Clarifying, and Fixing Up

Student Monitoring handout (178 KB)

Student Fixing Up handout (232 KB)

Teacher handout with Monitoring, Clarifying, and Fixing Up prompts (301 KB)

Video: Inferencing

Student Inferencing handout (267 KB)

Student handout for making and checking inferences (608 KB)

Teacher handout with Inferencing prompts (142 KB)

Student Comprehension Strategy Cards (38 KB)

Teacher Reciprocal Teaching handout (720 KB)

Teacher Transactional Strategy Instruction handout (693 KB)

Teacher Informed Strategies for Learning handout (722 KB)

Teacher Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction handout (51 KB)

Student handout: Common Informational Structures (217 KB)

Graphic organizers to help students organize information in common informational structures (720 KB)

Sequencing Success Criteria tool (904 KB)

Anatomy of an Informational Text – Part 2 (606 KB)

Anatomy of a Narrative Text – Part 2* (543 KB)

Video: Teaching Questioning with Informational Texts in First Grade

Video: Teaching Questioning with Informational Texts in Third Grade

First Grade Case Study (820 KB)

Personal Action Plan (1 MB)

Planning Tool for Module 3 (663 KB)

Example of Completed Planning Tool for Module 3 (154 KB)

Lesson Reflection (644 KB)

Additional Resources

Page 3 of this Instructional Planner: Selecting Text for Teaching Comprehension Strategies (190 KB) includes features to consider when choosing Informational text for strategy instruction.

Learn About the Recommendations

In this section, you will interact with key concepts from the three Practice Guide recommendations this module focuses on. You will learn information about each of the recommendations and how to use them to release responsibility to your students and help them move towards becoming independent readers. You will learn about how to implement the recommendations through teaching strategies and suggested student and teacher actions. As you engage with the content of this section, you will also identify teaching strategies you can try in your classroom to help deepen your learning about the recommendations. This will help prepare you for the Planning Teacher Study Group.

As you engage with the activities in the Learn About section, consider how your learning aligns with the learning objectives you wanted to work on.

FOCAL RECOMMENDATIONS

Recommendation 1: Teach students how to use reading comprehension strategies.

There are three teaching strategies in the Practice Guide that support reading comprehension strategies. In this module we will focus on one strategy:

• Teach reading comprehension strategies by using a gradual release of responsibility.

Recommendation 3: Guide students through focused, high-quality discussion on the meaning of text.
There are four teaching strategies that help students comprehend the text through discussion. This module focuses on two of them:

• Ask follow-up questions to encourage and facilitate discussion.
• Have students lead structured small-group discussions.

Recommendation 5: Establish an engaging and motivating context in which to teach reading comprehension.

There are four teaching strategies in the Practice Guide that support creating and maintaining an engaging and motivating context in which to teach reading comprehension. This module focuses on the following two strategies:

• Create opportunities for students to see themselves as successful readers.
• Give students the opportunity to learn by collaborating with their peers.

The recommendations in the Practice Guide are provided with a level of evidence (i.e., strong, moderate, and minimal) based on WWC evidence standards. Recommendations with higher evidence ratings are based on studies with strong causal and generalizable evidence. Please see the Improving Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade Practice Guide and Introductory Module for information on the evidence-base for these recommendations.

Throughout this Learn About section, you will dive deeply into these two focal recommendations to learn about them and their application to establishing an engaging and motivating classroom environment. Each recommendation section will include highlights from the Practice Guide. You will read excerpts from the Practice Guide and watch a video that further explains the Practice Guide content. Throughout this section, you will engage in reflection questions and checks for understanding.

For each recommendation, you will also find "Try it" prompts. These prompts give suggestions for how to integrate teaching strategies from a recommendation into upcoming lessons. They provide ideas to help you more quickly and easily try using these strategies within your existing lesson plans. Later in the module, you will draw from these "Try it" experiences to engage in more formal lesson planning before and during the Planning TSG.

Gradual Release with Evidence-Based Comprehension Strategies

As we covered in Module 2, teachers can use a gradual release of responsibility model to help students learn to use reading comprehension strategies effectively. The Practice Guide recommends that reading comprehension strategy instruction incorporate some or all of the following steps to gradually release responsibility from the teacher to students:

1. The teacher explicitly describes the strategy.
2. The teacher models the strategy or has a student model the strategy.
3. The teacher and students use the strategy collaboratively.
4. The teacher provides guided practice of the strategy.
5. The students use the strategy independently.

This model is further illustrated in Figure 1 on page 15 of the Practice Guide. It demonstrates the changes in responsibility between teacher and student when using the gradual release model. Figure 1 also provides a classroom example around student use of the reading comprehension strategy, Activating Prior Knowledge/Predicting. The table below describes the teacher actions in the example that support gradual release.

As students become more comfortable with the cycle of gradual release and with a particular comprehension strategy, you can focus on providing increased opportunities to engage in the later stages of the cycle—guided practice and independent use.

The earlier stages of the gradual release cycle provide the supports students need to increase their ownership for applying a reading comprehension strategy over time. Increasing student responsibility for using reading strategies independently allows students to become more confident readers.

Opportunities for independent use can include both (a) opportunities for students to work individually as well as (b) opportunities for students to work as pairs or small groups with their peers. You can provide students with physical reminders of when and how to use the reading comprehension strategy to support independence. Resources and examples to support student independent use of the reading comprehension strategies are provided below.

HEAR FROM AN EXPERT

Watch as Dr. Tim Shanahan describes the "gradual release of responsibility" instructional approach to reading instruction.

As noted in the video, the gradual release model is designed for students to be able to apply reading comprehension strategies independently of the teacher. At the beginning of the gradual release progression, the teacher has more responsibility for explaining and modeling how a reading comprehension strategy is used. In the middle stages of gradual release, students have ample opportunities to practice applying a strategy with support and guidance from their teacher. The opportunity to practice the reading strategy multiple times with the teacher as a guide or coach is important for increasing students' ability to apply a strategy effectively. Over time, the teacher has less of the responsibility and withdraws support until students are able to apply the reading comprehension without support in the final independent use stage of the model.

As students gain independence in their use of multiple reading comprehension strategies over time, the gradual release model can also be used to teach students how to use strategies in combination while reading a text to support comprehension. Modeling how to choose the right reading comprehension strategy for different sections of the text, and offering students guided practice in alternating between the use of different strategies, can help students develop a "tool box" of different strategies for independent use. For example, when learning theme, a more abstract component of narrative text structure, students can use multiple comprehension strategies (Drawing Inferences; Monitoring, Clarifying, and Fixing Up; and Visualizing) while reading to help them identify the story's theme.

In the table below focusing on the later stages of the gradual release cycle, see how the teacher in the Classroom Example uses collaboration with peers and independent activities to support student agency and mastery with the Monitoring, Clarifying, and Fixing Up reading comprehension strategy.

Gradual Release Step	Teacher Actions	Classroom Example	Tools and Supports
Guided Practice	The teacher pairs students with a partner and provides a text for student pairs to read together. The teacher prompts the class to pause periodically and check their understanding of information with their partner by asking their partner to explain the part of the text they don't understand. The teacher facilitates a class discussion to guide students to accurate "fixing up" or clarifications of information in the text.	"I want you to practice pausing to monitor your understanding of a text with a partner. You and your partner will read the text together. I will ask you to pause and re-read a part of the text. You and your partner will discuss what information is clear and what information you have questions about. I will ask you to share a question you have about the text with the class, and we will discuss it together."	Student Monitoring, Clarifying, Fixing Up handout (160 KB)
Independent Use	The teacher encourages the students to read independently and stop and check their understanding of the text every two pages. The teacher encourages students to summarize key information in their own words and identify information that is unclear or confusing. This builds their confidence in using the Monitoring, Clarifying, and Fixing Up strategy on their own.	"For now, you should stop every two pages and check your understanding of what you are reading by listing an important idea in the text and information or words you are unsure or unclear about."	Pausing to Monitor for Understanding Student Handout (530 KB)

As you teach lessons, consider how you can use the gradual release model to move students towards greater independence over time. Students become more familiar with a reading strategy when they have multiple opportunities to use the strategy collaboratively, with guidance or coaching from the teacher. This Gradual Release Planning template (530 KB), focused on guided practice and independent use, can help you plan for the later stages of a gradual release of responsibility to students. It is intended to be used with strategies that you have sufficiently described, modeled, and collaboratively used with your students in previous lessons.

Now that you have learned more about the key concepts included in this module for Recommendation 1, refer back to your Reflection on Current Practice. Review how often you currently use the teaching strategy described in this module for Recommendation 1.

Facilitating High-Quality Discussions

When facilitating discussions with students, in addition to developing discussion questions that require students to think deeply about text (see Module 2), you want to design follow-up questions that help students construct meaning through discussion. Follow-up questions should provide a model for thinking and talking about the text and its meaning. They should also help students construct and support their opinions with text evidence.

Teaching students to use the text to justify their answers can look different for students as they grow and develop. For example, younger students and/or less developed readers can point to illustrations or pictures in the text. As students advance, they can gradually begin to recall and identify specific events or passages in the text.

Initial and follow-up questions should resemble a collaborative, process-oriented approach to discussions. In this module, the teacher and students co-construct meaning from a text instead of a traditional cycle of teacher question, single student response, and teacher evaluation of student response followed by a new unrelated question by the teacher to another student. Follow-up questions should help deepen the discussion between students with teacher support.

Recommended discussion follow-up questions from the Practice Guide:

• What makes you say that?
• What happened in the book that makes you think that?
• Can you explain what you meant when you said _______?
• Do you agree with what __________ said? Why or why not?
• How does what you said connect with what _______ already said?
• Let's see if what we read provides us with any information that can resolve _______'s and __________'s disagreement.
• What does the author say about that?

Effective use of follow-up questions and a collaborative discussion process takes practice and can be difficult for students at first. When introducing this approach, consider a three-step cyclical process of modeling, guiding, and prompting with follow-up questions to deepen discussions.

Teacher Actions	Additional Details
Model the format of a collaborative discussion	Describe what a collaborative discussion is as you model it with students. Emphasize that students should engage in discussion with each other and that you will help lead the discussion by offering follow-up questions to help students expand on their answers about the text and think about the meaning of the text.
Guide students in responding to questions using the text	Help students stay focused on both the meaning of the text and the discussion question. Encourage them to use the text as evidence to support their points.
Remind and prompt students to talk to one another	Students may want to only respond to the teacher. Redirect and support them in talking to each other. For example, ask another student if they agree with another student's answer. Prompt them to engage with each other and ask each other questions about why they think something or if they have a different perspective.
Cycle back to steps 1–3 as needed	Model parts of the collaborative discussion format where students are confused or struggling. Provide supports such as follow-up question stems, guidance to help students respond to other students' answers positively, and clarification of student answers to help move the discussion forward. Provide reminders and supports to help students improve their collaborative discussion skills.

PREPARING FOR PEER-LED DISCUSSIONS

To engage in successful peer-led small-group discussions, students will need extensive modeling and practice. Provide modeling and support to help students grow their discussion skills. For example, ask students to clarify what they mean, whether they agree with a prior statement, or whether there is more to add before moving on to the next topic. Discussions should be brief in the beginning and progressively become longer as students become more experienced and are better at directing their own discussions.

Prepare students for the group work by introducing the entire activity, rules, and guidelines before they start working. Below is a table of tools that can help teachers support students in participating fully and fairly.

Teacher Actions	Tools and Supports
Provide students with discussion guidelines—rules that remind them of appropriate behavior for peer-led discussions. Tip: Picture clues can be helpful for younger students and/or less developed readers.	Group Roles and Responsibilities Sheet (146 KB) Student Sentence Stems for Peer-Led Discussions (555 KB)
Decide on a guideline for sharing talk time. For example, no one can talk more than three times before everyone has a chance to talk. Use a tangible support, like plastic chips, to help students keep track of how many times they have spoken (they can turn in a chip each time they talk).
Set aside time to have students prepare for the discussion. For example, provide students sticky notes with symbols to mark sections of text they want to discuss, including sections they really liked, sections they were confused by, or sections they think are important and they want to remember and/or discuss with others.
Model how to use "wait time" after asking questions to give everyone a chance to think before calling on someone to respond. When students are the ones asking questions of each other, provide a stopwatch or tell the student who is asking a question to count silently in their head before having peers respond.
Give students a set of questions about the text to reflect on and ask them to draw a picture or write in a journal. Or, explain to them that their journal entry should include thinking about the content, questions, or concerns that they want to discuss with their peers.

KEY REMINDER

Provide continued scaffolding and practice to support students' progress in learning how to moderate their own discussions. This is a skill that takes time to learn.

Now that you have learned more about the key concepts included in this module for Recommendation 3, refer back to your Teacher Self-Reflection (1 MB). Review how often you currently use the teaching strategies described in Recommendation 3. Think about whether you want to try to use it more often.

Providing Opportunities for Peer Collaboration in an Engaging and Motivating Context

It is important for teachers to provide consistent opportunities for students to see themselves as successful readers. In Module 1, you were provided with five suggested teacher actions to help students see themselves as successful readers. This section will focus more specifically on applying two of the teacher actions to collaborative work with peers. These examples show how to provide students with practice and support to be able to engage in peer-led collaborations.

Teacher Actions	Supports for Peer-Led Collaboration
Break the text into sections and ask students to check in with the teacher or a peer to go over any points of confusion before moving on.	Model how to respond to questions for students. Reinforce the value in asking questions about text, and how to approach different types of questions.
	Set up practice sessions with peers using questions about a text that you prepared in advance. Reinforce appropriate and effective peer responses and collaboration.
	Provide supports that students can reference when they work to address confusion such as sentence stems and reminders on how to use comprehension strategies and text structure.
Support students in setting and monitoring progress toward goals. Provide frequent and specific praise when students complete a challenging task or acquire a new skill.	Encourage peer groups to identify goals and monitor their progress toward attaining those goals.
	Model how to provide specific praise. Encourage students to provide each other with specific praise and feedback.

Supporting students in setting and monitoring goals can boost students' confidence, which the Practice Guide panel believes increases students' intrinsic motivation to read.

PROCESS FOR SETTING AND MONITORING GOALS

Process Step	Explanation
Work with students to set goals.	Teach students how to identify goals. Provide sample goals and discuss the characteristics of a goal.
Support students in monitoring their progress toward their goals.	Teach students how to monitor their progress. Provide structure for timing and templates to track progress and monitor growth. Tool: Templates for Monitoring Progress (154 KB)
Provide frequent, positive feedback on their performance and growth.	Check in with students frequently to provide positive feedback. Feedback can be provided orally, or in writing.

General praise lets students know they did well but does not provide enough information on what they did well. Specific praise provides enough information for students to identify the academic behavior or skill they were successful in. Modeling this for students helps them also use specific praise with their peers during collaborative discussions.

EXAMPLES OF GENERAL AND SPECIFIC PRAISE

General Praise	Specific Praise
Great job!	Great job identifying the characters and settings in the story we just read.
Nice work!	Nice work in your small group discussing each of the predictions group members made.
You did great!	You did great in identifying the correct clue words to help you identify the structure of the information text we are reading.

There are a variety of ways for students to engage in collaborative learning. These opportunities can be simple or more elaborate. Regardless of the task, it's important to ensure that all students in a group are able to work together to complete the task you gave them. To help students engage in productive collaboration with their peers, set up conditions where students are provided with a role that they perceive as valuable, and motivate students to help their peers learn rather than simply giving their peers the answer.

The table below provides examples of collaborative learning opportunities that you can use in your classroom and tools to support the experience.

SAMPLE PEER COLLABORATION ACTIVITIES

Activity	Tips	Related Tool(s)
Pair students to read a story and talk about what they read.	Provide specific prompts and timing to guide the activity of talking about what students read.	Preparing for Student-Paired Reading Activities (67 KB) Partner Talk Using Narrative Prompts (538 KB) Interesting Facts for Informational Text Note-taking Tool (28 KB) Reading Together as Partners Guide (951 KB)
Pair students to talk about a story they have already read.	Provide specific steps and prompts such as retell the story, identify the main characters, or describe the story settings. For younger students, provide cutouts or puppets to help support retelling or identification of characters.
Pair students to learn interesting facts from informational texts.	As needed, provide guidance about where to look in the text and turn-taking as they share.
Group students to use how-to texts to perform a simple task.	Model strategies for students to use when reading the text and provide guidance on taking turns to perform the task.
Pair students to read texts together who have complementary strength and need profiles.	Provide guidance to students on how to provide constructive support to their peers and options for alternating reading paragraphs or pages.
Group students to perform a scripted version of a story they have read, create their own dramatization of a story, or to write a new story.	Allow groups to select their "product" and/or group member(s). Provide props or additional materials for students to use.

HEAR FROM AN EXPERT

Watch as Dr. Nell Duke describes a variety of ways to approach student-led and teacher-led small groups for reading comprehension, including grouping students by specific assessed needs and complementary strengths and needs.

In this video, Dr. Nell Duke describes how to use small groups for teaching reading comprehension. She describes how:

• Both student-led and teacher-led groups are effective.
• Student-led small groups can focus on comprehension strategies as well as subject-matter content.
• Teacher-led small groups can provide students with differentiated opportunities to practice applying reading comprehension strategies and understanding text structure.

Now that you have learned more about the key concepts included in this module for Recommendation 5, refer back to your Teacher Self-Reflection (1 MB). Review how often you currently use these two teaching strategies described in Recommendation 5. Think about which one(s) you want to try to use more often.

See the Recommendations in Action

Recommendation 5: Establish an engaging and motivating context in which to teach reading comprehension.

• Create opportunities for students to see themselves as successful readers.
• Give students the opportunity to learn by collaborating with their peers.

As you engage with the activities to see the recommendations in action, consider how you can implement these recommendations and strategies into your own teaching. Use the prompts from the activities to deepen your understanding of the recommendations and to prepare for the Planning TSG which is focused on lesson planning to include specific teaching strategies you want to use more in your classroom.

PRACTITIONER INTERVIEW VIDEO

Video: Supporting Students to Use Comprehension Strategies Independently

In this video, two teachers, two literacy coaches, and a district leader from Dysart School District in Arizona describe how they support students to become more independent readers. The practitioners offer strategies that have worked for them in their contexts. These strategies are consistent with but may or may not be specifically mentioned in the Practice Guide. The practitioners responded to the following questions:

• In what ways do you support students to become independent readers?
• What do you do to support students' use of comprehension strategies on their own while they are reading? How do you support them to use more than one strategy at a time, and when they need it (versus when they are told to use it)?
• What do you do when you think you've taught a strategy, but you observe that students aren't using it in partner or independent work? How do you use small groups to support students who need additional support?

CLASSROOM CASE STUDY (OPTIONAL)

ROADBLOCKS AND SOLUTIONS

Roadblock 5.1. When I put students in learning groups, they get off task.

Considerations and potential solutions:

• Apply a gradual release of responsibility before allowing student groups to work independently. This will help students be ready to engage in productive group work.
• Monitor groups to help them stay on task.
• Make sure students understand the purpose of the discussion.
• Establish structures for students to assume various roles in groups (e.g., facilitator, notetaker). Remind and support students in their roles when discussing the text.
• Positively, and consistently, reinforce ideal student group efforts that model desired group behavior. Specifically name behaviors so that other groups are clear on what behavior is expected.
• Assign a task that groups should complete by the end of their time together. For example, have groups complete a graphic organizer, develop a summary statement, or design a visual.
• Offer incentives that encourage groups to stay on task such as "group focus credits" that could be used for five minutes of free reading, or opportunities to play a literacy game.

Explore additional roadblocks and suggested approaches that the Practice Guide panel identified for the recommendations in this module:

For Recommendation 1, see page 16 of the Practice Guide.

For Recommendation 3, see page 29 of the Practice Guide.

For Recommendation 5, see page 38 of the Practice Guide.

Plan

In this section, you will engage in more formal lesson planning for integrating the recommendations and teaching strategies into your existing lessons. As you engage with the activities in this section, consider any reflections you had from the "Try it" prompts and identify places in your lessons where you can add more focus on establishing an engaging and motivating context for teaching reading comprehension.

The Plan section of this module contains resources to help prepare you to integrate the recommendations and teaching strategies into a lesson. It also has materials that will help you prepare for and participate in the Planning TSG.

PAUSE AND IDENTIFY

IMPLEMENTATION GOAL

PREPARE FOR THE PLANNING TSG

Complete as much of the tool as you can using Recommendations 1, 3, and 5 and the strategies discussed in this module, so that you are well-prepared to work with your colleagues. There is space to record questions for your study group team at the bottom. It is okay to leave some prompts incomplete, since you can use time during the Planning TSG to fully develop your ideas.  Please see the Example of Completed Planning Tool for Module 4 (197 KB) for an example of how one might complete the Planning Tool for informational text.

The resources linked below provide more supports for planning:

• Check out this video or this Teacher Self-Assessment: Gradual Release of Responsibility Tool (279 KB).
• Check out this video on student-led discussion using literature circles or this video on Reciprocal Teaching, an instructional approach to student-led discussions of text. You can access the Second Grade Literature Circles Lesson Plan and Materials (829 KB) for more support.
• Check out this video on partner sharing and collaboration about text.

As you develop your lesson plan, consider what evidence of student learning you are going to collect and when in the lesson you will collect it. You will need to bring it to the Refining TSG. Consider the type of data you are going to collect and how many students you will collect it from to keep your data collection and analysis manageable. You may want to focus on three to six students and gather detailed data from them. Or you may want to collect and review brief work samples from most, if not all, students.

Depending on your implementation goal and what you want to reflect on, you may choose to focus on evidence from some of your students who struggle with reading comprehension. Or, you may decide to focus on students at a variety of levels. You could even randomly select which students to focus on.

Use the checklist below to confirm you are ready for the Planning TSG.

I am ready for the Planning TSG…

• I have identified teaching strategies that I'd like to include in my lessons.
• I have identified what upcoming lesson(s) would be best for trying out the teaching strategies I identified.
• I have identified narrative or informational texts to use during these lessons.
• I have considered how I will collect evidence of student learning during the lessons.
• I have reviewed the applicable sections of the Improving Reading Comprehension in K–3 Practice Guide.
• I have updated the Personal Action Plan with an implementation goal for Module 4.
• I have completed a draft of the Planning Tool related to the content of this module.
• I have reviewed the Example of Completed Planning Tool for Module 4.

PLANNING TSG

If there are particular aspects of the recommendations and teaching strategies you want to discuss, or if there are specific questions you want to share ahead of time, be sure to reach out to your facilitator.

Here is a list of what you need to bring to the Planning TSG:

• Practice Guide (print or digital format)
• Reflections and questions you have from this module, including your reflections on anything you tried from the "Try it" prompts
• Your Personal Action Plan and implementation goal for Module 4
• Your draft Planning Tool

Apply

Reflect

Refine

Refining TSG

If there are particular aspects of the recommendations and teaching strategies or evidence of student learning you want to discuss, or if there are specific questions you want to share ahead of time, be sure to reach out to your facilitator.

Here is a list of what you need to bring to the Refining TSG:

• Practice Guide (print or digital format)
• Reflections and questions you have related to trying out the recommendations and strategies in this module
• Your Action Plan and implementation goal for Module 4
• Your Lesson Reflection

Toolkit Closure and Resources from the Module

This concludes Module 4. Revisit sections of the module as needed to help you integrate these strategies into your teaching. Resources from the module and additional resources related to the module topics are provided below.

Resources

Teacher Self-Reflection (1 MB)

Video: How do you support students using a gradual release of responsibility?

Student Monitoring, Clarifying, Fixing Up handout (160 KB)

Pausing to Monitor for Understanding Student Handout (530 KB)

Gradual Release Planning template (530 KB)

Discussion Guidelines (127 KB)

Sticky Notes for Discussion Preparation (50 KB)

Group Roles and Responsibilities Sheet (146 KB)

Student Sentence Stems for Peer-Led Discussions (555 KB)

Templates for Monitoring Progress (154 KB)

Preparing for Student-Paired Reading Activities (67 KB)

Partner Talk Using Narrative Prompts (538 KB)

Interesting Facts for Informational Text Note-taking Tool (28 KB)

Reading Together as Partners Guide (951 KB)

Video: When should teachers use small groups in teaching reading comprehension?

Video: Supporting Students to Use Comprehension Strategies Independently

Grade 3 Case Study (671 KB)

Personal Action Plan (1 MB)

Planning Tool for Module 4 (1 MB)

Example of Completed Planning Tool for Module 4 (197 KB)

Lesson Reflection (644 KB)

Additional Resources

Check out this video or this Teacher Self-Assessment: Gradual Release of Responsibility Tool (279 KB).

Check out this video on student-led discussion using literature circles or this video on Reciprocal Teaching, an instructional approach to student-led discussions of text. You can access the Second Grade Literature Circles Lesson Plan and Materials (829 KB) for more support.

Check out this video on partner sharing and collaboration about text.

Getting Started

FACILITATOR LEARNING GOALS

By the end of this module, facilitators will be able to:

• Describe the roles and responsibilities of the facilitator, teachers, and school leaders in the toolkit experience.
• Reflect on their strengths and areas of growth as a facilitator.
• Identify next steps to set the team up for success.

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Implementing the toolkit is a community process. Below are the main roles and responsibilities of the facilitator, teachers, and school leaders.

Role	Responsibilities
Facilitator	The facilitator is an educator who, in addition to participating in the learning experiences, facilitates the Teacher Study Groups and observes teachers on the team. The facilitator is also the liaison and lead communicator with the school leader.
Teachers	Kindergarten through third grade teachers who engage in asynchronous learning modules, participate in Teacher Study Groups, try new practices in their classrooms, and open their classrooms for observations.
School Leaders	School leaders ensure the facilitator and teachers have time to collaborate and serve as a resource if needed.

Effective Facilitation

An essential component of the facilitator's job is to increase teacher engagement and minimize obstacles towards participation. The facilitator supports teachers throughout the toolkit experience.

Directions. Read the facilitation guidelines below. As you read, think about what your strengths and areas of growth might be. Complete the activity at the end.

Prepares Effectively

• Prepares for learning: Reads all facilitation materials in advance of the Teacher Study Groups. Prepares any materials, questions, and supports in advance.

Creates a Community of Learners

• Invites participation: Establishes an environment that is welcoming and collaborative, takes an interest in individuals, values participants' expertise, and is knowledgeable about the needs of adult learners and the contexts in which teachers work.
• Promotes equitable participation: Facilitates and achieves a balance of voices being heard.
• Deepens participation: Fosters a professional conversation that is rigorous, holding ideas and interpretations out for scrutiny while honoring individuals' perspectives and experiences.

Fosters Inquiry

• Models an inquiry stance: Helps participants internalize inquiry by posing open-ended questions about texts, classroom practices, and student work. Probes beyond initial responses to help participants consider new perspectives and examine processes.
• Supports reflection: Helps participants make connections between themselves as readers and students as readers. Helps participants translate learning from asynchronous modules to classroom implications.

Draws on Knowledge about Reading Comprehension

• Draws on an understanding of the Practice Guide recommendations: Has examined the Practice Guide recommendations and refers to them when providing guidance to teachers.
• Helps participants see and examine their own theories of learning and literacy: Assists participants to surface and examine theories of learning and literacy while helping them explore the sources of their current knowledge.

Provides Support

• Helps participants use formative assessment to plan: Enables teachers to make meaningful instructional decisions based on formative assessment and classroom learning artifacts.
• Supports planning for classroom implementation: Helps participants incorporate recommendations from the Practice Guide into their practice.
• Helps team planning: Supports teams' use of protocols that include sharing student work and engaging in inquiries around professional readings and resources.

Engages in Reflection

• As a facilitator: Uses formative assessment, such as close listening to teachers and lesson observations, to reflect on the Teacher Study Groups and participants' needs so as to optimize the plan for the subsequent Teacher Study Groups.
• As an individual: Takes time to reflect on individual facilitation, sets goals for continual growth, and uses resources provided to reach goals.

Think about your comfort with each of the facilitation guidelines as they were described. Indicate if each is currently a strength or a growth area for you as a facilitator.

Topic	Strength or Growth?
Preparation
Creating Community
Fostering Inquiry
Knowledge of Reading Comprehension
Providing Support
Engaging in Reflection

SETTING UP THE TEAM FOR SUCCESS

You are guiding your team of teachers through the toolkit experience. Teams need support in both how they work together and with practical logistics. This Facilitator Module provides tools, resources, and initial steps to help you support the team.

SCHEDULING THE PROFESSIONAL LEARNING MODULES

The toolkit is designed for flexible implementation over 17-26 weeks, as described in the Toolkit Facilitation Guide. The toolkit's Teacher Professional Learning Modules require approximately 1-2 hours each week for participating teachers. This includes time for teachers to work through each of the modules and engage in Teacher Study Group (TSG) meetings.

Some tips for successful scheduling are:

• Add the TSG meetings to the calendar in advance of the launch of the toolkit.
• Make sure that all participants are aware of the time commitment and can attend TSG meetings regularly.
• When possible, use existing collaboration times for the regular TSG meetings.

Additionally, during each module teachers may choose to get feedback on their lessons through a classroom observation tool. These classroom observations can be completed by the facilitator, peers, school leader, or video recorded. Setting up a system and a schedule for observations in advance helps ensure that these will happen. The third facilitator module will provide guidance on how to support this process.

Directions: Review the next steps

Next Steps

• Review your school calendar. Map out when each module will take place. Identify the number of weeks of toolkit implementation that will best fit your school's schedule.
• Identify times for your TSG to meet.
  • If you don't have regularly scheduled times available, who do you need to talk to find time on the calendar?
• Check in with your school leader to make sure you have the supports necessary to convene your group.
• Communicate with your team to ensure they are aware of the participation expectations and timelines.
  • Think about the best way for team communication. Email? Text? Other method?
• Clarify processes for conducting observations. Identify if observations will be completed by the facilitator and/or shared among peers or school leader. If peers will observe each other, consider if they will work through Facilitator Module 3 to prepare them to observe or if you will provide them with an overview and resources to successfully engage in peer observations.

Personalize your next steps by adding actions you will take. Include the dates for completion.

Click here to complete your next steps using the My Actions tool (602 KB)

My Actions	By When	Notes
Example – I will talk to my principal about using one of grade level meetings per month for the Teacher Study Group	August 15th	We will use one meeting for the TSG, now I will remind the time and change the calendar invitation.

ACCESSING AND ORGANIZING TOOLKIT MATERIALS

The toolkit has many pieces. Teachers may have questions about what they need and where to find materials. One of your jobs as a facilitator is to be a resource to the teachers you are guiding through this experience and make sure they have what they need to try out new practices in their classroom. This means you must understand the components of the toolkit and how to access the resources.

This is an opportunity to review what is included in the toolkit, where it can be found in the teacher learning experience, and organize your materials as a facilitator.

Practice Guide

WWC Practice Guide: Improving Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade is the core reference text for this learning experience.

Teacher Professional Learning Modules

There are four content modules plus an Introductory Module. Each module includes asynchronous learning and preparation for the Teacher Study Groups.

Facilitator Guide

The Facilitator Guide is a step-by-step planning guide for each module.

Family/Caregiver Resources

Short activities designed to help families and caregivers carry out the recommended practices described in the Practice Guide.

Getting Organized

Think about how you will best organize your materials. This could include having hardcopies, bookmarking resources, or adding to your school's digital drive. The goal is that as a facilitator you have what you need and can help teachers find what they need.

	Location	Personal Organization (add to drive, link to website, print, other?)
WWC Practice Guide
Teacher Introductory Module
Teacher Module 1
Teacher Module 2
Teacher Module 3
Teacher Module 4
Facilitator Guide
Family/Caregiver Resources

Tools and Resources for Facilitating Teacher Study Groups

LEADING A TEAM

In addition to understanding the learning arc of the toolkit, facilitators also lead teams through the experience. Teams may consist of teachers in the same grade level and/or across grade bands. Some of the team may be familiar with working together and others may be less so. This section provides ideas and tools for building connection and structures that minimize obstacles and boost engagement.

Setting working agreements is a key step to supporting your team. These community agreements include a variety of topics— from how you work together, to logistics like deciding to use email or text messages for communication, to naming your guiding principles for collaboration. Additionally, you will want to make sure you create a living document with your norms that you can revisit throughout the learning experience.

This handout on Creating Working Agreements for Teams (561 KB) will help you identify steps that work best for your team. Consider the size of the team, if and how the teachers have collaborated before, and how the resource aligns with other ways of working at your school. Which parts will you bring to your Teacher Study Groups? What adaptations might you make?

LEADING TEACHER STUDY GROUPS

Each teacher module includes TSGs to support teacher learning and use of the toolkit. The Introductory Module has one TSG and the other modules have two TSGs. Detailed agendas are included in the Facilitator Guide.

Some facilitators will have lots of experience working with adults and others might feel more comfortable and competent working with students. The section below provides resources to support you as you lead your peers. It is an opportunity to learn more about adult learning theory and strengthen techniques to use as you prepare to facilitate your peers.

Review the resources to deepen your understanding of adult learning and your role as a facilitator.

1. Criteria for Successful Adult Facilitation (PDF)
2. Unpacking Facilitation Goals (34 KB)
3. Facilitator Tips and Tricks (71 KB)

WANT TO LEARN MORE?

Check out these additional resources about effective professional learning for teachers:

Digital Professional Learning for K-12 teachers PDF

Listen to a podcast on 7 Habits that Transform Professional Development

READINESS CHECK

I am ready to move to the next Facilitator Module:

• I have worked with the school leader and teachers to identify our toolkit implementation schedule.
• I have organized the materials needed to lead the process (e.g., WWC Practice Guide, toolkit materials, Facilitator Guide) in a way that works for me.
• I have identified my current areas of strength and growth as a facilitator.
• I have identified next steps to support toolkit implementation.

Note: You will revisit these readiness statements at the end of Facilitator Module 3 to assess your readiness to support implementation of the toolkit learning experience.

Getting Started

FACILITATOR LEARNING GOALS

By the end of this module, facilitators will be able to:

• Describe the function and purpose of the Teacher Self-Reflection Tool.
• Select tools and resources to support the initial Group Action Plan tasks during the Teacher Study Group (TSG).
• Support teachers through ongoing goal setting and progress monitoring.

REFLECTION

Read the quote:

Read and Reflect:

Think about a previous professional learning experience where you have "determined your own goals" or where "commitment skyrocketed." Reflect on the critical factors or conditions that created success in this previous experience. How can you support your teachers to set their own goals and build agency throughout this learning experience?

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES FOR THE TEACHER SELF-REFLECTION AND GROUP ACTION PLAN

During the Teacher Introductory Module, all participants will complete the Teacher Self-Reflection (1 MB) and begin the Group Action Plan (656 KB). The Group Action Plan is a tool that teachers will use throughout the learning experience during Teacher Study Groups.

Below are the main roles and responsibilities for ensuring the team is prepared to set the foundation for the toolkit.

Role	Responsibilities
Facilitator	Preview and complete the Teacher Self-Reflection to be a resource to your team. Plan the first Teacher Study Group. Lead Group Action Planning during the Teacher Study Group.
Teachers	Complete the Teacher Self-Reflection. Contribute to the Group Action Plan.
School Leaders	School leaders will ensure the facilitator and teachers have time to take the Teacher Self-Reflection and meet to discuss.

Teacher Self-Reflection

WHY ARE WE STARTING WITH SELF-REFLECTION?

Self-reflection can help teachers reflect on their practice and consider their strengths and areas of growth. Teachers can refer back to their initial self-reflection as they learn about evidence-based strategies and deepen their use of them in the classroom. Teachers will be able to revise and update their reflection as they move through the toolkit's modules.

The Teacher Self-Reflection tool is not meant to serve as a test of knowledge or an evaluation of teaching performance. It is a reflective exercise meant to guide future learning and practice.

WHAT IS THE TEACHER SELF-REFLECTION?

The Teacher Self-Reflection (1 MB) is a tool that helps teachers reflect and assess their current practices related to evidence-based K-3 reading comprehension instruction. Teachers will self-evaluate their current use of the recommendations and teaching strategies described in the WWC Practice Guide. They will also record if their use of the strategies is existing, progressing, or emerging in order to identify areas they would like to learn more about and inform their action planning and goal setting. Some teachers may identify their use of all strategies as existing. Those teachers can use the tool to note where they would like to further strengthen their practice.

Within the self-reflection, the recommendations and strategies are organized as they are presented in the four Professional Learning Modules. For the initial assessment, teachers will complete all four sections.

The reflection is completed individually as one of the first exercises of the toolkit in the Introductory Module. Teachers will revisit their initial reflection at the beginning and end of each module and can revise it to reflect their current use of strategies. Ongoing reflections is key to writing implementation goals for each module.

It is important for you as facilitator to be familiar with the Teacher Self-Reflection tool. Complete the Teacher Self-Reflection now. Teachers will complete the Teacher Self-Reflection in the Introductory Module.

HOW CAN FACILITATORS SUPPORT TEACHERS' USE OF THE TEACHER SELF-REFLECTION?

There are several ways for facilitators to support teachers:

• Encourage teachers to complete the reflection prior to the first Teacher Study Group (and provide time to do this if needed).
• Answer teachers' questions about the Teacher Self-Reflection tool and how to connect it to their goal setting for each module.
• Set aside time in the initial TSG during the Introductory Module to discuss teachers' responses to the Teacher Self-Reflection.
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Action Plans

ACTION PLANS — SETTING A TEAM PURPOSE

Teachers want learning that is relevant and applicable. The toolkit is full of resources for teachers to use in their classrooms. Through group and personal action planning, teachers will think about how to apply their learning throughout the toolkit experience.

There are two different Action Planning documents:

1. Group Action Plan (656 KB)
2. Personal Action Plan (1 MB)

You will use the Group Action Plan (656 KB) in the first TSG to collectively write and capture a group purpose statement. While the Teacher Self-Reflection will give individual teachers insight into their own ideas and practices, your job as a facilitator is to help your team build a collective purpose. What does your team want to accomplish? Why is improving reading comprehension important to your team?

The purpose statement is the beginning of the Group Action Plan. The Group Action Plan is a living document.

Setting a team purpose is one way of making the learning and work relevant to your team. For some teams writing a purpose statement will be straightforward. Your teachers know the "why" and can articulate why they want to use evidence-based recommendations for improving reading comprehension. For other teams, this learning experience may feel like it is mandatory and they have little agency. Most teams will be somewhere in between.

Where might your team be?

As noted in the Facilitator Guide for the Teacher Introductory Module, to develop the group purpose statement you will invite teachers to individually write what they hope the group accomplishes and then you will combine the statements. To support your team in doing this, select one or more of the following strategies:

• Ask your team to take a strengths-based approach – what are the strengths that this team brings? How can the team leverage those strengths to improve reading comprehension instruction at our school?
• The strength of the whole is more powerful than each individual part, and so collective buy-in and commitment is important. Use the purpose building activity to help teachers see where they fit in the process both as a group and an individual.
• Explore data and make relevant data-informed decisions about the goal for the group, drawing from and aligning with school-level goals.
• Establish a means of reaching an agreement (i.e., voting, consensus) on the group purpose statement that the team sees as fair and acceptable.

The goals for each module are more specific and designed to support teachers to narrow down an implementation goal for each module. This will happen in the "Plan" section of each module.

When teachers write these goals, they will also identify some of the supports they need. This could involve a classroom visit with feedback from you or one of their peers. The next facilitator module will provide you with more resources to be able to support classroom observations.

Helping your team set individualized goals can help with motivation and buy-in. As a facilitator, you may need to orchestrate a shift from a compliance mindset towards an inquiry stance.

Teachers will use the following frame to write the implementation goals for each module:

My goal is to (add in measurable objective) by (add in time).

I will accomplish this goal by (list steps).

I will know I met this goal when (list how you measure your progress).

Accomplishing this goal will result in (add in result or benefit).

The implementation goals will help teachers commit to using the evidence-based practices they are learning about. They can be a way for teachers to monitor how they are applying their new learning and moving towards improving reading comprehension.

Before writing implementation goals teachers will complete a series of learning activities and "Try It" practices. The implementation goal is where the teacher consolidates their learning and focuses their attention before planning a lesson.

As a facilitator, it will be important to support teachers to write authentic implementation goals, ones they are committed to trying in their classrooms. Teachers will complete their Personal Action Plans during their independent work for each module. During the Planning Teacher Study Group, they will refer to their Personal Action Plan to support their lesson planning.

Your role as a facilitator is to help teachers set meaningful goals. You will serve as a support for implementing goals and a thought partner for feedback on those goals.

Consider the following approaches to support your team in setting personal goals. Select one or more to use with your team.

• Emphasize the importance of goal setting in the process of learning. Generic goals are not based on needs or interests, and therefore will not motivate teachers to strive to achieve them. Name this for teachers and ask questions about what they are seeing in their classroom and what they are curious about doing differently.
• Refer teachers back to their Teacher Self-Reflection, especially those who are struggling to come up with goals that are meaningful. The Teacher Self-Reflection can help teachers uncover areas for growth and illuminate areas to create meaningful goals around.
• Encourage teachers to connect their goals with classroom data. Data can provide concrete evidence and can shape data-informed decision making that helps give meaning and shape to learning and development goals.
• If a teacher is struggling to set personal goals, determine if this is related to a resource issue (i.e., tools, insight, guidance, etc.), a confidence issue (i.e., if they know action needs to occur, but are unsure if they can accomplish it), or a complacency issue (i.e., something needs to change, but the way things are is better than something new, unknown, or unfamiliar); knowing these things will help determine what additional support they may need from you, as the facilitator.

SUPPORTING TEACHERS IN THEIR LEARNING EXPERIENCE

What does the research say about teachers as learners? Or how can I get my team onboard with this learning experience?

The Learning Accelerator, an organization that produces open resources, networks, and tools for educators, conducted an extensive review of the research (Rabbitt, Finegan, & Kellogg, 2019) about the design of learning experiences for working teachers and found that professional learning experiences for these teachers should:

• leverage past experiences as resources for new learning;
• allow for choice in learning opportunities based on interest and motivation as well as specific classroom experiences and needs;
• center reflection and inquiry in the learning and development process;
• be flexible with the timing and nature of tasks informed by the competing demands on time, and responsive to the realities of teacher personal and professional schedules;
• have a clear and realistic understanding of workload.

In-service teachers, as opposed to novices, bring an existing "teaching body of knowledge" and experiences that shape current practices and beliefs, so professional learning efforts must seek to leverage and, as appropriate, adjust or reframe. This means that:

• Effective professional learning must activate prior knowledge.
• Changes in existing teacher practice are strongly tied to knowledge as well as beliefs about how new approaches will lead to improved outcomes in their classrooms. Effective professional development must address the need for change connected to a clear theory for how successful implementation will meet that need, which requires provision of both new mental models as well as actionable strategies.
• In some cases, to do this well, professional development experiences must surface misconceptions and connections to challenge and alter core frames of reference that already exist. One such mechanism for doing so is critical reflection.

As you support teachers through the toolkit modules and Teacher Study Groups, consider how you are incorporating these concepts into your work with teachers. The toolkit is designed to reflect these principles as well, so additional supports that you provide will help further teachers' learning.

Supporting Teachers

1. Based on what you know, what strengths might each teacher you are supporting bring to the toolkit learning experience?
2. What specific supports might you need to put in place?
3. What can you do to increase a sense of belonging in the Teacher Study Group?

READINESS CHECK

I am ready to move to the next facilitator module

• I have previewed and completed the Teacher Self-Reflection tool.
• I can describe the connection between the Teacher Self-Reflection tool and the toolkit learning experience.
• I selected an approach for creating the group purpose statement.
• I have reviewed the Group Action Plan and the Personal Action Plan.

Note: You will revisit these readiness statements at the end of Facilitator Module 3 to assess your readiness to support implementation of the toolkit learning experience.

Getting Started

FACILITATOR LEARNING GOALS

By the end of this module, facilitators will be able to:

• Describe the function and purpose of the observation tool.
• Select tools and resources to support classroom visits at the school site.
• Create a plan for implementing classroom visits.
• Assess facilitator readiness to implement the toolkit.

REFLECTION

Think back to times you have been observed teaching in your classroom by others:

What concerns did you have about being observed?

How did the observer make you comfortable, or not?

How have observations helped you grow as a professional?

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES FOR THE CLASSROOM VISITS

Classroom visits will happen over the course of the teacher modules. Ideally, each teacher will be visited at least twice by you, or a peer or school leader, during the toolkit learning experience.

Below are the main roles and responsibilities for classroom visits to support the implementation of the evidence-based recommendations to improve reading comprehension.

Role	Responsibilities
Facilitator or Peer Observer	Schedule classroom visits that include a pre- and post-visit conversation. Visit classrooms (or review video of classroom instruction), share observations with the participating teachers.
Teachers whose lessons are observed	Sign up for classroom visit slots. Share classroom visit focus with facilitator or peer observer in advance of the visit. Share reflections after the visits during the post-visit conversation with the observer and, if time allows, with peers during the Teacher Study Groups.
School Leaders	School leaders will ensure the facilitator and teachers have time to participate in classroom visits.

Classroom Visits

The goal of the toolkit is to support teachers as they bring evidence-based strategies to improve reading comprehension into their classroom. Throughout the teacher modules, teachers can "try out" new ideas and strategies. In each module, teachers progress through the cycle of Learn, Plan, Apply, Reflect, and Refine. Classroom visits occur during the Apply section and are an additional support for teacher reflection and refinement.

Classroom visits have 3 parts:

1. Pre-visit conversation
2. Classroom visit with Observation Tool
3. Post-visit conversation

PRE-VISIT CONVERSATION

During the Planning Teacher Study Group of each module, all teachers will plan to implement recommendations and aligned strategies from the Practice Guide in their classroom. Teachers who will be participating in classroom visits will also identify what they would like you, the observer, to focus on during the classroom visit.

As an observer, it is helpful to have the teacher identify the focus—this helps increase engagement and agency while reducing anxiety. It will also help you give specific and requested feedback to the teacher. Before the observation, schedule a time to discuss the focus of the classroom visit with the teacher.

There are two main goals of the pre-visit and planning conversation. The first is to build trust and connection. The second is to understand the lesson that the teacher will teach and what they would like you to look for during your visit.

Build Trust and Connections

• Make the process as clear and transparent as possible.
• Seek to understand how the teacher feels about observations in general.
• Trust comes also from credibility—show yourself to be a resource to your colleagues.

Prepare for the Visit Together

• Share the Lesson Observation Tool (964 KB) and discuss the tool and its contents, ensuring the teacher has an opportunity to ask questions.
• Ask the teacher to clarify the focus for the observation and connect it to their Personal Action Plan and professional goals. Specifically, ask the teacher to identify one recommendation they would like to focus on for the observation.
• Ask the teacher to prepare the cover page from the Observation Tool. Provide help and support as needed.
• Assure the teacher that the visit only captures a snapshot of their classroom instruction. Remind the teacher that the observation is for learning purposes and does not have any evaluative component to it.
• Schedule a date and time for the observation. If the teacher is recording their teaching and sharing it with you instead, confirm the date and time of the lesson they will record and when they will send you a recording to review.
• Confirm the time and date for a post-visit discussion.

Resources for Pre-Visit Conversation

Planning a Pre-Visit Conversation (532 KB)

Steps To Building Trust (33 KB)

CLASSROOM VISITS WITH OBSERVATION TOOL

Classrooms are dynamic places with lots of action happening at one time. Visiting a classroom and noticing the nuance of teacher and student interactions is a skill to hone and practice. The Lesson Observation Tool (964 KB) can help you organize your time during an observation.

Notice the structure and text features. There is one page for each of the five recommendations.

For each recommendation there is a teacher indicator—what you will hope to see the teacher doing as well as a student indicator. Additionally, you will see a section titled "present during the observation." This will help you look for evidence that supports the recommendations. Finally, there is a place to capture your overall notes.

Please remember, when observing a teacher, you will likely focus on one recommendation. You will not use the entire tool in a single observation. Make sure the teacher you are visiting knows that you are only using the section of the tool related to the recommendation that they selected as a focal point in the pre-visit conversation.

Capturing your notes and observations using the tool takes practice. Try out the tool on the classroom videos from Module 2 of the Teacher Professional Learning Modules.

Practice using the Lesson Observation Tool

Watch the Classroom Video 1: Teaching Summarizing with Narrative Text in First Grade from Teacher Module 2.

While you are watching, complete the Lesson Observation Tool (964 KB) focused on Recommendation 2: Teach students how to identify and use the text's organizational structure to comprehend, learn, and remember content.

Watch Classroom Video 2: Teaching Summarizing with Narrative Text in Third Grade from Teacher Module 2.

While you are watching, complete the Lesson Observation Tool (964 KB) focused on Recommendation 1: Teach students how to use reading comprehension strategies.

POST-VISIT CONVERSATION

After visiting the classroom, writing your notes, and completing the summary page of the Lesson Observation tool, you will engage in a post-visit conversation with the teacher. This conversation is time to be a thought partner, listen to the teacher's reflections, and share insights from your visit.

The teacher may also want to complete the cover page and summary portions of the Observation Tool as part of their reflection process.

Remember that you are only discussing one section of the tool. It is important to keep the conversation focused on the tool. After sharing your observations and brainstorming solutions to challenges that occur, a teacher may want to adjust their Action Plan or implementation goal.

Use the resources below to support a conversation that is not evaluative. The sentence stems can help frame your conversation in a way that is inquiry-oriented:

• Facilitative Coaching Stems (PDF)
• General Coaching Stems (PDF)

Planning and preparing before a post-visit conversation can help build trust as well as help you be a better thought partner. The planning guide below is a resource to help you before the post-visit conversation.

• Post-Visit Planning Prompts (585 KB)

Classroom Visit Logistics

Classroom visits can be difficult to coordinate. Preparing and planning in advance can help ensure that classroom visits take place. Unlike evaluations, these visits are intended as a support for teachers in the process of learning and trying new practices. Ideally, each teacher will have two classroom observation visits over the four Toolkit Teacher Professional Learning Modules.

If you are an instructional coach and already visit classrooms, build these toolkit observations into your existing schedule.

If you are a classroom teacher, the schedule may be more challenging. If you have your own classroom, make sure to talk to your school leadership about making time for the observations. You may also want to consider having teachers video record their classrooms if finding release time for visits is a barrier.

When can you observe?

Day	Availability
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday

TRACK CLASSROOM VISITS

Ideally, each teacher will be observed twice during the toolkit experience. This generally means that you will visit each teacher in two of the four content modules. While advanced planning can be helpful, it is important to leave room for flexibility as well. Be ready to visit a classroom if a teacher is excited and wants your insights or if a teacher is looking for extra support. The Classroom Visit Tracker is a simple chart for keeping track of which teachers have been observed across the content modules. Use the chart as a sign-up tool or a way to track observations.

Classroom Visit Tracker (528 KB)

Note: During a module when a teacher is not observed, the observation tool can be used by the teacher as a self-reflection tool.

READINESS CHECK

I am ready to support teachers in the toolkit learning experience…

• I have worked with the school leader and teachers to identify our toolkit implementation schedule.
• I have organized the materials needed to lead the process (e.g., WWC Practice Guide, Toolkit materials, Facilitator Guide) in a way that works for me.
• I have identified my current areas of strength and growth as a facilitator.
• I have identified next steps to support toolkit implementation.
• I have previewed and completed the Teacher Self-Reflection tool.
• I can describe the connection between the Teacher Self-Reflection tool and the toolkit learning experience.
• I selected an approach for creating the group purpose statement.
• I have reviewed the Group Action Plan and the Personal Action Plan.
• I am prepared to frame classroom observation visits as a collaborative support to the toolkit learning experience.
• I have practiced using the observation tool with classroom videos from the toolkit.
• I am prepared to lead pre-visit observation discussions.
• I am prepared to lead post-visit observation discussions.
• I have identified potential times to conduct classroom observations that fit within my schedule.

Note: If you are not yet ready to support implementation of the toolkit, revisit the Facilitator Modules and tools to prepare yourself for your role. If you are ready to support implementation of the toolkit, start working through the Introductory Teacher Learning Module and corresponding Facilitator Guide.

Planning Templates

ASSESSMENT OF SCHOOLWIDE COMPREHENSION INSTRUCTION

Assessment of Schoolwide Comprehension Instruction (1 MB)

The Assessment of Schoolwide Comprehension Instruction can be completed by the school leader, or by the school leader and toolkit facilitator together. This tool is designed to assess and monitor the extent to which teachers, in aggregate, use the teaching strategies of the Practice Guide in their instructional practice. Completing the Assessment of Schoolwide Comprehension Instruction tool may take up to 30 minutes. It can be completed at the beginning of the year prior to toolkit implementation, and again throughout the year to monitor progress.

READINESS AND START-UP CHECKLISTS

Readiness and Start-Up Checklists (1 MB)

The purpose of the Toolkit Readiness Checklist is to assess the resources and structures that are necessary for toolkit implementation. The Toolkit Readiness Checklist should be completed prior to implementing the toolkit. It may take 30 to 60 minutes to complete.

The Start-Up Checklist is intended to be used by both school leaders and toolkit facilitators as a means to identify and track specific action steps, responsible staff, and timelines to get started with the toolkit. The Start-Up Checklist should be completed prior to implementing the toolkit. It may take 30 to 60 minutes to complete.

The Start-Up tasks should be completed one to two weeks before teachers begin the Professional Learning Modules.

Facilitation Tools

GROUP ACTION PLAN

Group Action Plan (656 KB)

FACILITATING TEACHER PROFESSIONAL LEARNING MODULES

Module 1 Facilitation Guide (694 KB)

Module 2 Facilitation Guide (93 KB)

Module 3 Facilitation Guide (897 KB)

IMPLEMENTATION CHECKLIST

Readiness and Start-Up Checklists (1 MB)

LESSON OBSERVATION TOOL

Lesson Observation (964 KB)

Resources for Toolkit Success

Resources for Toolkit Success (68 KB)

Teacher Tools and Templates

The tools listed on this page are all included in the Introductory Module found in the Teacher PD tab.

TEACHER SELF-REFLECTION

Teacher Self-Reflection (1 MB)

PERSONAL ACTION PLAN

Personal Action Plan (1 MB)

GROUP ACTION PLAN

Group Action Plan (656 KB)

LESSON OBSERVATION

Lesson Observation (964 KB)

LESSON REFLECTION

Lesson Reflection (644 KB)

Planning Templates

ASSESSMENT OF SCHOOLWIDE COMPREHENSION INSTRUCTION

Assessment of Schoolwide Comprehension Instruction Assessment of Schoolwide Comprehension Instruction (1 MB)

The Assessment of Schoolwide Comprehension Instruction can be completed by the school leader, or by the school leader and toolkit facilitator together. This tool is designed to assess and monitor the extent to which teachers, in aggregate, use the teaching strategies of the Practice Guide in their instructional practice. Completing the Assessment of Schoolwide Comprehension Instruction tool may take up to 30 minutes. It can be completed at the beginning of the year prior to toolkit implementation, and again throughout the year to monitor progress.

READINESS AND START-UP CHECKLISTS

Readiness and Start-Up Checklists Readiness and Start-Up Checklists (1 MB)

The purpose of the Toolkit Readiness Checklist is to assess the resources and structures that are necessary for toolkit implementation. The Toolkit Readiness Checklist should be completed prior to implementing the toolkit. It may take 30 to 60 minutes to complete.

The Start-Up Checklist is intended to be used by both school leaders and toolkit facilitators as a means to identify and track specific action steps, responsible staff, and timelines to get started with the toolkit. The Start-Up Checklist should be completed prior to implementing the toolkit. It may take 30 to 60 minutes to complete.

The Start-Up tasks should be completed one to two weeks before teachers begin the Professional Learning Modules.

Facilitation Tools

GROUP ACTION PLAN

Group Action Plan (656 KB)

FACILITATING TEACHER PROFESSIONAL LEARNING MODULES

Module 1 Facilitation Guide (694 KB)

Module 2 Facilitation Guide (93 KB)

Module 3 Facilitation Guide (897 KB)

IMPLEMENTATION CHECKLIST

Readiness and Start-Up Checklists (1 MB)

LESSON OBSERVATION TOOL

Lesson Observation (964 KB)

Resources for Toolkit Success

Resources for Toolkit Success (68 KB)

Teacher Tools and Templates

The tools listed on this page are all included in the Introductory Module found in the Teacher PD tab.

TEACHER SELF-REFLECTION

Teacher Self-Reflection (1 MB)

PERSONAL ACTION PLAN

Personal Action Plan (1 MB)

GROUP ACTION PLAN

Group Action Plan (656 KB)

LESSON OBSERVATION

Lesson Observation (964 KB)

LESSON REFLECTION

Lesson Reflection (644 KB)