In this Quick Clip teacher video, our partners at Smekens Education explain how to introduce students to the idea of the Reading Voice and the Thinking Voice. Because reading does not include any visible product, there is no way to know what’s going on inside students' heads until they share their thinking. Consequently, teachers must work diligently to make the reading process concrete and visible. An effective way to do this is to explain that readers listen to multiple “voices.” These include the Reading Voice and the Thinking Voice. 

Duration: 5:01

In this Quick Clip teacher video, our partners at Smekens Education explain how to teach students that making an inference is a result of a process. It requires reading a text, noting specific details, and then putting those details together to achieve a new understanding. In other words, inferences are not created in a vacuum.

Duration: 7:29

In this Quick Clip teacher video, our partners at Smekens Education explain how to teach students to distinguish evidence versus just a detail. When asked to cite evidence for their thinking, many students simply pluck out miscellaneous words and phrases from the text thinking they are citing evidence. However, often these details are just that—details. They are not evidence. 

Duration: 2:50

In this Quick Clip teacher video, our partners at Smekens Education explain how to teach students to both highlight and annotate a text while reading it. These additional notes made during reading will remind the reader of his thoughts, questions, and connections after reading. This combination of marking what is important and why it is important is the secret to strong annotations and deeper comprehension. This goes beyond teaching students to simply highlight important ideas, now they are learning to why-light. 

Duration: 3:00

In this Quick Clip teacher video, our partners at Smekens Education explain how to teach students to restate the question in a constructed response. Without restating part of the question, there is no context for the answer. It’s out of the blue. If a student writes I think he is because he didn’t know, the scorer is clueless as to the “he” and what “he didn’t know.” Teaching students how to incorporate a couple of key words from the original question provides context for the answer and evidence to follow. 

Duration: 2:34

In this Quick Clip teacher video, our partners at Smekens Education explain how to teach students to balance evidence and elaboration in reading responses. After reading multiple texts on a standardized assessment, students are asked to synthesize ideas and generate a long, extended response. Each idea or reason needs to be developed into its own paragraph with supporting details from the text. This combination of information is essential.

Duration: 3:37

In this Quick Clip teacher video, our partners at Smekens Education explain how to teach students to end a constructed response with an explanation. It’s important to note that students are not actually explaining their evidence in this last sentence. They are explaining their overall thinking or answer. If the answer and evidence seem disjointed, the last sentence can clarify the writer’s thinking. This often results in an “Oh, now I see what you mean!” response from the reader. 

Duration: 5:38

In this Quick Clip teacher video, our partners at Smekens Education explain how to teach students to organize information collected from sources. Utilizing information from sources is a common expectation across the K-12 spectrum. And while many teachers spend ample time teaching students to identify and cite credible sources, organizing the information collected is an assumed skill. It’s important to teach students how to track what specific information came from which particular source.

Duration: 3:52

In this Quick Clip teacher video, our partners at Smekens Education explain how to teach students to synthesize and cite evidence from multiple sources. Synthesizing information from many sources is a common component within large-scale research writing projects. However, students need to be able to execute this same process during a simulated research task performed within a single testing session on a standardized reading assessment. Such simulated research tasks require students to read multiple texts and write an extended response citing evidence from all (or most) of the texts provided.

Duration: 2:38

In this Quick Clip teacher video, our partners at Smekens Education explain how to teach students the difference between a summary and a synthesis. In a synthesis, students have to extend their thinking to create or formulate a new idea using what they have learned across multiple sources. 

Duration: 5:19

In this Quick Clip teacher video, our partners at Smekens Education explain how to give students practice with short research-writing tasks. Rather than executing every step of the research process, within a simulated experience, some of the steps are abbreviated or “faked.” This faster pace allows the teacher to execute multiple shorter research-writing tasks and/or focus the instructional time on the more important parts. 

Duration: 4:59

In this Quick Clip teacher video, our partners at Smekens Education explain how to prepare kids to decode prompts. A key part of preparing kids to decode prompts includes includes equipping kids with the skills and habits to read and interpret writing prompts accurately and independently.

Students need to be able to read a prompt, identify the academic vocabulary, and interpret those words to understand the requirements of the specific task.

Duration: 7:30

In this Quick Clip teacher video, our partners at Smekens Education explain how to teach students to rework the prompt to serve as an introduction. An extended reading response requires a three- to five-paragraph essay. This merits a longer introductory paragraph that identifies the purpose, addresses the topic, and includes a thesis statement. You can show students how to build an introduction using the sentences of the original prompt.

Duration: 6:09

In this Quick Clip teacher video, our partners at Smekens Education explain how to teach students to use T-chart graphic organizers to organize information into causes and effects, problems and solutions, and pros versus cons. 

Duration: 3:56

In this Quick Clip teacher video, our partners at Smekens Education explain how to teach students several ways to craft informative conclusions. The standards require students to provide a concluding statement that follows the presented information. This typically includes restating a topic sentence or thesis statement. However, it is not necessary to summarize the entire body of reasons just to beef up the conclusion. There are several more powerful pieces to a concluding paragraph than a rehashing of the middle.

Duration: 3:23