English Language Arts and Reading.4.7.G

The student is expected to

discuss specific ideas in the text that are important to the meaning.

TEKS Talk image

Knowledge and Skills Statement

Response skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts. The student responds to an increasingly challenging variety of sources that are read, heard, or viewed.

After reading a text and discussing the meaning of the text, provide students with index cards that name events from the text. Have students work in small groups to sort cards into the categories Important and Not Important. Then have students discuss each detail as it relates to the meaning of the text and justify why the detail is important or not.

Notes:

  • Provide students with the main idea on a graphic organizer.
  • Challenge more advanced students to find three supporting details for the main idea from the text.
     

Further Explanation

This assessment example requires students to determine whether specific ideas in a text are important or not important to the meaning. A teacher should be able to determine from this activity whether students are proficient in the more concrete skill of determining whether specific ideas are important or not. The teacher can then build on this activity by asking students to independently identify ideas students believe to be important and discuss why they are important.

Students should be provided opportunities to have a dialogue about the connections between specific ideas in the text and how they contribute to meaning. Hearing other points of view and sharing their own can help students confirm their own connections and inferences, consider the complexities of an idea, or determine if they have misinterpreted information and should revisit the text to establish a better understanding.
Students are expected to identify and talk about the ideas in the text that best represent its overall stated or implied meaning. If students truly understand the meaning of the text, they should be able to determine what parts of the text express ideas that would convey this meaning to someone wanting to know what the text was about.

Research

Barth, A. E., & Elleman, A. (2017). Evaluating the impact of a multistrategy inference intervention for middle-grade struggling readers. Language, Speech, & Hearing Services in Schools, 48(1), 31+. Retrieved from https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A490475287/PROF?u=tea&sid=PROF&xid=85a8099a

Summary: This study examines the effectiveness of multiple inference intervention strategies that were designed to increase inference-making and reading comprehension for struggling readers. The study focused on using text clues, activities and integrating prior knowledge, understanding character and author's purpose, and responding to inference questions. Details and lesson examples are available in the Appendix.