A Content Comprehension Program that teaches students to 1 A Content Comprehension Program that teaches students to 1. Take content-area texts apart so they really know the subject matter 2. Take standardized test questions apart so they know what is being asked of them 3. Develop the thinking key to long-term academic achievement Unlike programs that offer test-taking tricks or take an answer-by-answer approach to test practice, CDRC gives students a core set of thinking strategies they can apply to all kinds of questions. There are Five steps to student success

Step 1: Read the Content-Area Text Students read a Math, Science, or Social Studies chapter book.

Step 1: Read the Content-Area Text Students read a Math, Science, or Social Studies chapter book. This is the Table of Contents of the Read & Achieve Teacher’s Guide for Snap, Crackle and Flow- a 4th grade text Notice how the 5 chapters of this book are divided into 3 sections, or chunks of information. Each of these chunks includes the same parts: Open-Book Questions Vocabulary in Context Core Science Concepts (presented) Closed-Book Questions Core Science Concepts summary for each section Each chunk would take two 50 minute class periods to complete. The Core Science Concepts align with the content standards in many states. As the teacher is deciding which Read & Achieve book or chapter section to have students read, she can look at the concepts listed here to help her decide. The program is flexible; students can dip in and out of texts by sections; they do not have to read the books from beginning to end in order to meet the goals of the program.

Step 2: Practice locating, connecting, and interpreting facts in the text Students practice text-dependent reading to answer questions, which helps them learn and remember content. The Student Practice Book pages look exactly like this but without the answers. The questions featured on these pages are the Comprehension Through Deductive Reasoning, or CTDR questions for the 3 levels. The questions are taken from the actual CTDR question card for this title. The two “Find It” questions are level 1 CTDR questions, the one “Look Closer” question is a Level 2 question, and the two “Prove It” questions are level 3 questions. The fact that students will work together in this open-book section of the product will “bring along” those students who may be struggling to understand the text, the questions, or the thinking that it takes to find the proof and evidence as they find the answers together.

Step 3: Use context clues to determine word meaning Students use text to define key vocabulary words. Locate direct definitions Use context clues to figure out words In the next section of the booklet, Vocabulary in Context, the students are still working with an open book collaboratively or in pairs as they answer the questions on each page.

Step 4: Discuss main ideas and find supporting facts in the text Students discuss “Big Ideas” with the teacher, creating a “mental filing system” for content information. The Core Science Concepts, or Big Ideas, of Science are taught in the next section. The purpose of this section is to have the students justify these Big Ideas with text passages that contain supporting details from the text. You might ask: Why is the student not finding the Big Ideas instead of the supporting details? There are two reasons: 1. TIME—You will see when we get to the Implementation Guide that the pacing of the program is tight, and to build in time for the students to actually determine the Big Ideas would take too much teacher demonstration/preparation time. 2. DIFFICULTY—By providing the supporting details, students are consistently successful in completing the “Big Idea” model. To provide the Big Ideas is a difficult task for many students, but this way, they see the appropriate model every time for transfer.

Step 5: Answer closed-book questions like those on standardized content tests Students answer 3 levels of closed-book questions that resemble actual standardized content test questions. Students must remember, understand, and apply content learning. The icon at the top left corner of page 10 indicates that this is the Closed-Book section. It consists of three types of questions that emulate questions that are found on content tests. You’ll see the definitions for these types of questions in the margins. • Recall questions require students to remember information about certain concepts that they have learned about from reading the book. • Applications questions require students to take the concepts they have learned from the book and apply them to real-life situations. • “Think About It” questions are the hardest of all; they require the students to interpret the question carefully and think at higher levels based on the concepts they have learned before formulating an answer.

Teacher Support: Core Concept List On the back cover of the Teacher’s Guide, there is a comprehensive listing of all of the Science Concepts from the Read & Achieve program. By having them all listed in one place, teachers can select text titles to use by concepts within this content area. The text the students are using is highlighted in gray. Even though the book we used in this training was a Science text and all of the Science concepts were listed on the back cover of the TG for this book, this section includes all of the Core Concepts for all 50 of the Read & Achieve titles for all 3 content areas—Science, Social Studies, and Math. This is the comprehensive program list teachers can use to select titles based upon content area and concept.

Teacher Support: Lesson Approach The lesson on page 5 shows a possible pacing plan for a “chunk,” or section, that teachers may want to follow. This page will give teachers a step-by-step approach to take to present the 2-day lesson. These pages give teachers the “how-to” instruction for modeling or demonstrating to students, the best terminology to use to help students understand and answer each question type, to define vocabulary in context, and to support Big Ideas with the best passages from the text.

Teacher Support: Assessment Rubric The back cover of the Guide features a rubric that can be used for student assessment. A copy of this cover may be made for each student if teachers want to keep a record as they assess student responses on an on-going basis. This assessment can be very useful for students working collaboratively to improve the quality of their answers.