If your student is in 6th grade and has difficulty with reading skills, don't worry. Many students with special education services find this to be a difficult year academically, especially if they need extra help. That's why we've put together this blog post full of goals and strategies for teaching reading and writing skills to 6th-grade students. So keep reading to learn more!
Key Takeaways:
Cite Text Evidence: Middle school students must learn to find and accurately cite text evidence to support their analyses, a skill crucial for deeper comprehension, critical thinking, and effective research.
Determine Word Meanings: Understanding words and phrases in context, including figurative and technical language, is essential for clearer communication, text comprehension, and engagement with diverse content.
Identify Main Ideas: Students should develop the ability to pinpoint the central ideas of texts, providing focused summaries that lead to better understanding, writing skills, and improved test performance.
Support with Accommodations: Providing accommodations like level-appropriate texts, text-to-speech programs, and graphic organizers ensures struggling readers receive the tools they need for growth.
It can be tough to know what reading goals to include in your student's IEP once they reach middle school.
You may feel like you're starting from scratch now because grade level reading fluency was a significant focus in elementary school, but now that your student is expected to read more complex texts, you may feel lost in goal-setting.
So keep reading to learn more! Some appropriate goals for your student might be:
To increase their ability to read and comprehend texts at or above their grade level by X number of months.
To improve their vocabulary skills by learning new words and using them correctly in writing and conversation.
To be able to write clear and concise essays that include an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion.
To edit their own writing for grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors before turning in any assignments.
If you're not sure where to start when it comes to setting these sorts of goals, don't worry. We've got you covered with some tips and strategies that you can use to help your student improve their reading and writing skills. Check them out below!
Reading Fluency Stops at Elementary School
It is a common misconception that reading fluency is the most important priority for students in middle school. However, this isn't the case. While fluency is certainly important, other skills take precedence in these years. TeachTastic believes the most important priority for middle school students is grade-level growth.
Importance of Grade-Level Growth
Research supports prioritizing grade-level growth due to several reasons:
Complex Texts and Ideas: Students must grapple with more challenging content, developing critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
Building on Prior Knowledge: Growth at grade level allows students to efficiently and effectively build upon their existing knowledge.
Preparation for Future Academic Challenges: This approach readies students for the rigors of high school and college.
In short, prioritizing grade-level growth should be the main focus for middle school students.
Supporting Lower Readers in Middle School
There are several accommodations that can support lower-level readers:
Provide Appropriate-Level Texts: Make sure to use texts suitable for students' reading levels to avoid overwhelming them.
Use Text-to-Speech Programs: These programs help struggling readers keep up with classmates.
Offer Support and Scaffolding: Tools like graphic organizers, sentence starters, and word banks can aid comprehension.
Create Practice Opportunities: Frequent practice improves reading skills.
Key Reading Skills for Middle School
To focus on the top reading priorities, middle school students should hone these three key skills:
Citing Text Evidence: Find and use specific details from the text to support answers, crucial for essays and tests.
Determining the Main Idea: Identify the most important information in a text and summarize it clearly.
Analyzing Key Details: Understand how details contribute to the text's meaning and the author's intent.
Citing Text Evidence
One of the most important goals for all middle school students is to be able to cite evidence from informational texts and literature. This skill is essential to understanding and analyzing what they read. Citing evidence requires students to identify relevant passages, quote accurately, and provide a context for their quotes. Furthermore, citing text evidence helps to develop critical thinking and research skills. Students will be better prepared to succeed in high school, college, and beyond by learning to cite text evidence.
Target IEP Goal
Standards Base: Cite textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly, and inferences are drawn from the text.
IEP Goal: By (date), when given a grade-level informational text and a claim about the text, the student will cite text evidence to support the text explicitly, improving reading literacy skills from 0/10 work samples out of ten consecutive trials to 8/10 work samples in ten consecutive trials.
There are many benefits to citing text evidence, but here are three of the most important:
1. Citing text evidence helps students to develop critical thinking skills. When students are asked to cite evidence from a text, they must first identify the relevant information. They then must determine how that information supports their argument or understanding of the text. This process helps students to think more deeply about what they are reading and develop their interpretations of the text.
2. Citing text evidence helps students to develop research skills. To effectively cite text evidence, students need to be able to locate relevant information in a text. This requires skimming and scanning techniques and effectively using search engines and other research tools. By learning how to find and use relevant information from texts, students will be better prepared for future research assignments.
3. Citing text evidence helps students to improve their writing. When students learn to cite text evidence, they also learn to incorporate information from sources into their writing. This is an important skill for success in high school and college. Furthermore, by incorporating text information into their writing, students can make their arguments more convincing and their essays better.
Many strategies can be used to help students learn to cite text evidence. The following are three of the most effective:
Explicit Instruction: One way to help students learn to cite text evidence is to provide explicit instruction. This can be done through modeling, scaffolding, and practice. When providing explicit instruction, it is important to model how to cite text evidence and provide opportunities for students to practice citing evidence with support. For example, take a look at the following sentence:
"The author describes the character as 'lonely and misunderstood.'"
To model how to cite text evidence for this sentence, you could say something like, "The word 'lonely' shows that the character is feeling isolated. I know this because it is quoted directly from the text." You could then provide an opportunity for students to practice citing evidence by asking them to find and cite evidence from the text that supports the idea that the character is feeling isolated.
Graphic Organizers: Graphic organizers can be used to help students organize their thoughts and identify relevant information when citing text evidence. There are many different types of graphic organizers, but some of the most effective include Venn diagrams, T-charts, and story maps. These graphic organizers can be used before, during, or after reading to help students identify and organize relevant information.
Text-Marking Activities: Text-marking activities are a great way to help students identify relevant information in a text. To do a text-marking activity, students must highlight or underline key information in the text. This is a great way to help students focus on the most important information and make it easier for them to find when they need to cite it. For example, take a look at the following sentence:
"The author describes the character as 'lonely and misunderstood.'"
A text-marking activity for this sentence might involve highlighting the word "lonely" and underlining the phrase "misunderstood." This will help students identify these words and phrases as important when looking for evidence to support their claims.
These are just a few of the many strategies that can be used to help students learn to cite text evidence.
Finally, citing text evidence allows them to support their ideas and opinions with concrete evidence. It also leads to improved reading comprehension skills. When students can cite text evidence, they demonstrate comprehension and understand what they have read. This important comprehension skill will help them with all academic skills.
Determining the Meaning of Words in Text
The second most important IEP goal for students is to be able to determine the meaning of words and phrases in text. This includes understanding figurative language, such as similes and metaphors. It also includes understanding vocabulary words that are specific to a particular subject area, such as science or social studies.
Target IEP Goal
Standards Base: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, connotative, and technical meanings.
IEP Goal: By (date), when given grade-level informational text on (topic) the student will determine the meaning of words in text by finding context clues within the text, improving reading literacy skills from 0/10 work samples out of ten consecutive trials to 8/10 work samples in ten consecutive trials.
There are many benefits to determining word means, but here are three of the most important:
1. Understanding the meaning of words and phrases in text allows students to better understand what they are reading. When students can determine the meaning of words, they are more likely to comprehend the text as a whole. In other words, they are less likely to get lost or confused while reading.
2. Understanding the meaning of words and phrases in text allows students to better communicate their understanding of the text. When students can explain the meaning of words and phrases, they are more likely to be able to explain their understanding of the text to others. This important communication skill will help them in all academic areas.
3. Understanding the meaning of words and phrases in text allows students to better connect with the text. When students can relate to the words and phrases in a text, they are more likely to be engaged with the text and want to read it. This important reading comprehension skill will help them in all academic areas.
To determine the meaning of words in text, students need to be able to use context clues. Context clues are words or phrases that surround a difficult word and can help students determine its meaning. There are four main types of context clues:
Definition/restatement context clues: These are when the author defines or restates the meaning of a word or phrase in the text.
Example: The alligator is a large reptile that lives in swamps and rivers.
Inference context clues: These are when the author gives information that can help you infer the meaning of a word or phrase.
Example: After studying all night, I was exhausted.
Synonym/antonym context clues: These are when the author uses a word that has the same or opposite meaning as the word you are trying to determine.
Example: The class went on a field trip to the zoo, where they saw many animals, including lions and tigers.
Determining the Main Idea
Determining the main idea is a fundamental reading comprehension skill that students must learn to be successful readers. The ability to determine the main idea is also important for writing. Good writers include the main idea, so the reader knows what the piece is about.
Target IEP Goal
Standards Base: Determine a central idea of a text and how it is conveyed through particular details; provide a summary of the text distinct from personal opinions or judgments.
IEP Goal: By (date), when given grade-level informational text on (topic) the student will determine the main or central idea, improving reading literacy skills from 0/10 work samples out of ten consecutive trials to 8/10 work samples in ten consecutive trials.
There are many benefits to determining, but here are three of the most important:
1. When students can determine the main idea, they can better understand what they read. This is because the main idea is like a road map that tells the reader where the text is going. Therefore, if students can identify the main idea, they will be less likely to get lost while reading.
2. Another important benefit of knowing how to determine the main idea is that it helps students when they are writing. As we mentioned, good writers include the main idea so that readers know what the piece is about. If students can identify the main idea of a text, they will be better able to write about it. They will also be less likely to include irrelevant information in their writing.
3. Finally, determining the main idea is important for test taking. Many standardized tests, such as the SBA and ACT, include questions asking students to determine a passage's main idea. If students can identify the main idea, they will be better able to answer these questions.
There are several strategies that students can use to determine the main idea of a text. In this section, we will discuss three of the most common:
identifying the main idea in the first sentence
summarizing the text
identifying the author's purpose for writing
Let's take a closer look at each of these strategies.
Identifying the Main Idea in the First Sentence: One strategy students can use to determine the main idea is to identify it in the first sentence. This is often possible because the main idea is usually stated explicitly in the opening sentence. For example, take a look at the following sentence:
"The most important thing for a good education is to have well-qualified teachers."
In this sentence, the main idea is stated explicitly. The author says that having well-qualified teachers is the most important thing for a good education. So, if we were asked to determine the main idea of this sentence, we would say that it is "having well-qualified teachers is the most important thing for a good education."
Now, let's look at another example:
"To be a successful student, you need to be able to manage your time wisely."
This sentence also states the main idea explicitly. The author says that managing your time wisely is necessary for being a successful student. So, the main idea of this sentence would be "being able to manage your time wisely is necessary for being a successful student."
As you can see, when the main idea is stated explicitly in the first sentence, it can be easy to determine. However, this is not always the case. Sometimes, the main idea is implied or not stated directly. We must use other strategies to determine the main idea when this happens.
Summarizing the Text: Another strategy that students can use to determine the main idea is to summarize the text. This can be done by reading the entire text and then writing a brief summary that includes the most important information. For example, let's say we are trying to determine the main idea of the following paragraph:
"The most important thing for a good education is to have well-qualified teachers. To be a successful student, you need to manage your time wisely. These are just two of the many important things for students to learn to be successful in school."
After reading the paragraph, we could write a summary that looks like this:
"There are many things that are important for students to learn to be successful in school, such as having well-qualified teachers and being able to manage their time wisely."
As you can see, our summary includes the two most important pieces of information from the paragraph. It states that many things are important for students to learn, and it lists two of those things. So, if we were asked to determine the paragraph's main idea, we would say that "there are many things that are important for students to learn to be successful in school."
Identifying the Author's Purpose for Writing: Another way to determine the main idea of a text is to identify the author's purpose for writing. This can be done by asking yourself why the author wrote the text. There are four possible reasons why an author would write something:
to inform
to persuade
to entertain
to express themselves
If the author's purpose is to inform, then the text's main idea will be to provide information. For example, if we are trying to determine the main idea of an article about global warming, we would say it is "to provide information about global warming."
If the author's purpose is to persuade, then the text's main idea will be to convince the reader to believe something. For example, if we are trying to determine the main idea of an advertisement for a new car, we would say it is "to convince the reader to buy a new car."
If the author's purpose is to entertain, then the text's main idea will be to amuse or entertain the reader. So, for example, if we are trying to determine the main idea of a joke, we would say that it is "to make the reader laugh."
If the author's purpose is to express themselves, then the text's main idea will be to share the author's thoughts or feelings. For example, if we are trying to determine the main idea of a poem, we would say that it is "to express the author's thoughts or feelings."
As you can see, there are many ways to determine the main idea of a text. The most important thing is to choose the strategy that makes the most sense for the text you are reading.
To help students reach these goals, we have put together a list of activities and resources that can be used in the classroom. These activities and resources are designed to help students increase their reading comprehension skills and improve their ability to determine main idea.
Activities: One activity that can help students determine the main idea is "I Spy." In this activity, students read through a short passage and then identify the main idea. To do this, they scan the passage for keywords and phrases that indicate what it is about. Once they have found these keywords and phrases, they use them to form a sentence that states the passage's main idea.
Another activity that can be used to help students determine the main idea is called "Main Idea Scavenger Hunt." In this activity, students read through a variety of passages and identify the main idea of each one. To do this, they look for keywords and phrases that indicate what the passage is about. Once they have found these keywords and phrases, they use them to form a sentence that states the passage's main idea.
Resources: One resource that can be used to help students determine the main idea is a graphic organizer. Graphic organizers are great tools for helping students organize information and identify key details. There are many different types of graphic organizers, so be sure to choose one that will work best for your students.
Another resource that can be used to help students determine the main idea is the main idea worksheet. Main idea worksheets are great resources for practicing identifying a passage's main idea. These worksheets can be used as practice at home or in the classroom.
We hope you find these activities and resources helpful. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us. We would be happy to help you in any.
Being able to identify and locate relevant information in a text
Determining the main idea or central theme of a text
Analyzing the author's use of language and structure.
In conclusion, citing text evidence effectively is vital for building compelling arguments and reinforcing key ideas in student writing. By understanding how to introduce, contextualize, and connect textual evidence, students can confidently develop their analytical skills and enhance their writing quality. I encourage educators to guide their students through these practices and offer constructive feedback to help them grow. Together, let's empower our students to become proficient writers who can thoughtfully analyze and communicate their ideas.
Our next blog post sneak peek
5 IEP Goals and Teaching Strategies to Help Students Master Key Ideas
Good readers strive to achieve a deep level of understanding when they read. Unlike surface level reading, which involves simply decoding words on a page, deep level reading requires readers to make connections and draw inferences in order to fully comprehend the text.
One of the best ways to achieve deep level reading is to focus on finding the main idea and supporting details. The main idea is the most important piece of information in a text, and supporting details help to explain and elaborate on the main idea. Readers should ask themselves what the text is mostly about to find the main idea. Once they have identified the main idea, they can look for details supporting it.
Asking questions about the text can also be helpful in identifying both the main idea and supporting details. Good readers are not afraid to ask themselves questions as they read; instead, they see it as an opportunity to deepen their understanding. By taking the time to find the main idea and related details, readers can ensure that they are getting the most out of what they read... read more
