[lg330]

Hello, state testing is coming up and I need help with a reading activity for the students to do. We have stories and questions that go with them for the students to answer, but just going over them is getting boring. I've tried to play a few games with them, and they like that, but I need something that will reinforce going back into the passage and finding/underlining their answers, because that is something they seem to forget about or ignore. Any suggestions for a good activity that can reinforce this? Thanks!

Our state provides anchor sets. These are answers to questions that are scored. I provided these to students and had them guess the score. They worked in partners and checked them and then voted. After reviewing these they worked with their partners to score their papers together. They had to underline each part that was worth a point (evidence). It is very empowering to the kids to see what answers are considered passing and what constitutes a complete answer.

I've also had kids take practice tests and then work in groups of 4 to score tests. They had to underline the evidence with a felt pen. These papers were then given back to the original student, who could read over and determine if the score placed on their paper was correct. Most seemed to enjoy this activity.

[Miss Meg]

The last post mentionped using felt pens to underline where in the passage answers came from, and my idea is similar. I give each student a highlighter and a pen. The students use the highlighters to highlight the answers to questions that come directly from the text: detail questions, sequencing questions, etc. For questions that require students to use inferencing skills, I have the students underline (with the pens) the part of the passage where the general idea is located.The students love using the highlighters (novelty) and using the two different pens helped them see that answers may be directly in the passage or may require them to infer. I don't know if this is what you were looking for, but I hope it helps!

[noclue]

I think going back and underlining is the hardest strategy that I have had to teach!!
Some of the kids are just so lazy they don't feel like re-reading to find the answer, and believe it or not, I had one kid actually say..."Isn't that cheating, to go back and find the answer?"

Anyway, I got so frustrated last year that I started giving treats to the people that underlined. Then, of course, everyone underlined everything just to get a treat. So, Inot only had them underline, but they had to write the question number next to it.

IT worked to some degree, but as always, the higher level students were usually the ones who underlined all of the time. Hope these suggestions help!!