“Okay, students, highlight (or underline) what’s important as you read!” ---
Is this the extent of your highlighting instruction? Well, the problem is that oftentimes, students don’t know what’s important. So they highlight everything, or nothing, or useless things.
To know what’s important, students have to have a purpose for reading. Help students set a purpose for reading ahead of time. Often, we give them the purpose for reading in class (“Read this and answer these questions.” “Read this and look for the differences between...” “Read this to find out how so-and-so responded to…”). On the EOG -- and if you think about it, most often in the real world – students will need to set their own purpose for reading. Model this and help them practice this in the next few weeks. This will determine what they highlight or underline, it will give them a little more motivation to continue reading, and it will improve comprehension.
Some possible purposes for reading an EOG passage:
· For a Math word problem, the purpose might always be the same. You probably have a routine for them. For example: “Underline the information given to you. Highlight the information you need to find out.”
· For Reading selections:
o After making prediction(s) based on the title, headings, etc. à
see if the prediction(s) is correct.
o After asking a question before reading based on the title/skimming à
look for answers to your question(s).
o After thinking about what you already know about the topic à
see what new and interesting information you can learn.
o With fiction, a good purpose might be to à
look for conflict and look for details about the characters and/or significant events/choices made by the characters.
Is this the extent of your highlighting instruction? Well, the problem is that oftentimes, students don’t know what’s important. So they highlight everything, or nothing, or useless things.
To know what’s important, students have to have a purpose for reading. Help students set a purpose for reading ahead of time. Often, we give them the purpose for reading in class (“Read this and answer these questions.” “Read this and look for the differences between...” “Read this to find out how so-and-so responded to…”). On the EOG -- and if you think about it, most often in the real world – students will need to set their own purpose for reading. Model this and help them practice this in the next few weeks. This will determine what they highlight or underline, it will give them a little more motivation to continue reading, and it will improve comprehension.
Some possible purposes for reading an EOG passage:
· For a Math word problem, the purpose might always be the same. You probably have a routine for them. For example: “Underline the information given to you. Highlight the information you need to find out.”
· For Reading selections:
o After making prediction(s) based on the title, headings, etc. à
see if the prediction(s) is correct.
o After asking a question before reading based on the title/skimming à
look for answers to your question(s).
o After thinking about what you already know about the topic à
see what new and interesting information you can learn.
o With fiction, a good purpose might be to à
look for conflict and look for details about the characters and/or significant events/choices made by the characters.
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