Reading Units of Study – Grade 6

September

Readers Build Good Habits

(2 weeks)

·    Self monitor

·    Self correct

·    Build Stamina (read silently for enjoyment for extended periods)

·    Book Talk

·    Model thinking/jotting and post-it notes

·    Chart genres

·    Select literary texts on the basis of personal needs and interests

·    Read aloud from a variety of genres (use inflection and intonation appropriate to text read and audience)

Reading Survey

What do good readers do when they don’t understand?

How can we share our ideas about reading?

Writing About Reading (Janet Angelillo)

NYC Summer School Guide (Book Talk Questions)

Story Elements/Character Analysis

(2 weeks)

·    Use knowledge of story elements

·    Identify Themes using evidence from the text

·    Drawing Conclusions about characters

·    Identify types of conflict, protagonists, and antagonists

·    Identify the ways in which characters change and develop throughout the story

·    Interpret characters, plot, setting and theme using evidence from the text, with assistance

·    Identify the author’s point of view such as first person narrator and all knowing narrator, with assistance

·    Dialogue/Action/Thoughts I.(introduce) C.(cite) E.

 (explain) a character

·   IRR

How do characters change in a story?

How do good authors demonstrate change over time?

Revisiting the Reading Workshop by Barbara Orehovec

October

Determining Importance – Nonfiction

(2 weeks)

·          Identify main ideas and supporting details

·          Skim material to gain an overview of content or locate specific information

·          Use topic and concluding sentences to find main idea

·          Use text features to get clues about important ideas

·          Separate important ideas from interesting details

·          Identify missing, conflicting, unclear and irrelevant information

·          Evaluate information, ideas, opinions, and themes by identifying a central idea and supporting details

·          Modeling strategies

·          Evaluating graphs, charts, etc.

·          Highlight/Underline key words in titles, directions, topic/concluding sentences

·          Marginal Notes

·      IRR

·      Graphic organizers

·           

What are methods to determine main idea?

What key words do test makers use to ask for main idea?

Nonfiction Reading Workshop – National Geographic

Strategies that Work – Stephanie Harvey

Asking Questions - Nonfiction

(2 weeks)

·          Self monitor texts

·          Use detail to support position

·          Identify types of questions (main idea, inferring, recall…etc…)

·          Differentiate between open-ended and story-specific questions

·          Make, confirm, or revise predictions, with assistance

·  Interviews

·  SQR

·  Chart types of questions

·  Chart verbs that lead to open-ended questions (compare, show, connect, analyze…etc…)

·Feature Article

·Biographical sketch

What questions do good readers ask before/ during/after reading?

Nonfiction Reading Workshop – National Geographic

November

Asking Questions   Fiction

(2 weeks)

·          Characterization

·          Focus on details

·          Self monitor texts

·          Making predictions

·  Interview characters

·  Chart Open-ended questions

·IRR

·Character Biographies

·Write open-ended and story specific questions

What questions do good readers ask before/ during/after reading?

Teaching Reading in the Middle School by Laura Robb (pp128-129)

Making Comparisons and

Connections

(2 weeks)

·      Making Connections

·      Compare/contrast information about one topic from multiple sources

·      Recognize how new information is related to prior knowledge or experience

·      Identify social and cultural contexts and other characteristics of the time period to enhance understanding and appreciation of text, with assistance

·      Identify cultural and ethnic values and their impact on content with assistance

·      Identify different perspectives such as cultural, social, ethnic and historical on an issue presented in one or more than one text

·  Thinking Maps (double bubble, Venn diagram)

·  Chart key words that show comparison

·Essay

·IRR/Writer’s Notebook

How does a good reader connect what they read to personal experiences?

How does a good reader connect what they read to another text?

How does a good reader connect what they read to the world?

Nonfiction Reading Workshop – National Geographic

Strategies that Work by Stephanie Harvey

December

Making Inferences

(2 weeks)

·          Draw conclusions and make inferences

·          Apply thinking skills to interpret nonfiction texts (use text features)

·          Identify context clues

·          Use proof from text to support inferences

·          Identify missing or unclear information

·          Identify precise and vague language

·          Identify multiple levels of meaning

·          Picture prompts

·          Letter/Journal

How do readers “read between the lines?”

Nonfiction Reading Workshop – National Geographic

Strategies that Work by Stephanie Harvey

The No Nonsense Guide to Teaching Writing by Judy Davis and Sharon Hill (see Picture Book Study)

Synthesizing

(2 weeks)

·          Summarize/paraphrase

·          Condense, combine, and categorize new information for more than one source

·          Read, view and interpret texts

·          Use established and personal criteria to analyze and evaluate the quality of ideas and information in texts

·          Recognize how the author’s use of language creates images or feelings, with assistance

·          Debates and mock trials

·          Problem solution essay

How does a good reader interpret text?

How do good readers add meaning to what they read?

Nonfiction Reading Workshop – National Geographic

Strategies that Work by Stephanie Harvey

Bloom’s Taxonomy

January

Test Genre

(2 weeks)

·          Identify key words in directions/questions

·          Take marginal notes

·          Take notes and organize notes

·          Recognize that the same story/theme can be told in different genres

·          Evaluate quality of ideas and information

·          Chart key words

·          Thinking maps

·          Read Alouds

·          Strategies to answer and identify multiple choice questions (compare/contrast, sequence, and main idea)

·          Notes/thinking map for Read Aloud

·          ELA test

What key words allow readers to understand tricky test lingo?

What skills do I need to become an active listener?

February

March

April

May

June