Knowledge and Skills Statement
Read a text aloud and provide several options of possible controlling ideas of the text. Elicit a conversation in which students analyze each option and determine why each is or is not the controlling idea. Require students to provide text support for their responses.
Further Explanation
For this assessment, students examine different ideas from the text to determine the controlling idea. Students understand that informational texts use a controlling idea to guide the focus of the writing.
Research
1. Montelongo, J., Herter, R. J., Ansaldo, R., & Hatter, N. (2010). A lesson cycle for teaching expository reading and writing: this lesson cycle for expository texts uses direct instruction for teaching students to recognize cue words for text structures. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 53(8), 656+. Retrieved from https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A227011986/PROF?u=tea&sid=PROF&xid=593e4895
Summary: The authors present activities that teachers can use to provide middle school students with practice reading and writing expository texts. Students were taught to look at text structures to find the main idea, practicing deconstructing and reconstructing paragraphs using graphic organizers. Students learned to recognize signal words that correspond to structures such as cause-and-effect, compare and contrast, and problem and solution paragraphs. The results showed significant improvement in students' ability to locate the main idea.
2. Meyer, B. J., & Ray, M. N. (2011). Structure strategy interventions: increasing reading comprehension of expository text. International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education, 4(1), 127–152. Accessed online at https://eric.ed.gov/?q=expository+text&pr=on&ft=on&id=EJ1070453
Summary: In this literature review, researchers examine empirical studies designed to teach the structure strategy to increase reading comprehension of expository texts. Strategy interventions employ modeling, practice, and feedback to teach students how to use text structure strategically and eventually automatically. The analysis suggests that direct instruction, modeling, scaffolding, elaborated feedback, and adaptation of instruction to student performance are keys in teaching students to strategically use knowledge about text structure.