Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Theme: Owls
Grade Level: 3
Day 1
Section 1: Central Focus
Question Prompts Question Responses
Central Focus: Comprehension
The Essential Literacy Strategy (ELS) being Using key details to infer the main idea.
taught (This will remain constant) Asking how the key details connect and what
the author wants us to know about the text
to infer the main idea.
Prerequisite Skills Needed to teach ELS decoding, finding the main idea in the first or
(utilize the standards, and attend to what the last sentence in simple texts (when clearly
students need to have learned in prior grades stated in the text), vocabulary
to be ready to learn the ELS)
NYS CCLS Grade 3 Standard being addressed 3R2: determine a theme or central idea and
explain how it is supported by key details;
summarize portions of a text (RI&RL)
Section 2: Justification
Question Prompts Question Responses
APA Style text citation Mason, A., & Ogle, N. G. (2004). Owls.
Toronto: Kids Can Press.
Text Genre (fiction, informational, poetry, etc) Informational, Nonfiction
a) Explain with detail, how the chosen text The text chosen for day 1 supports the
supports the teaching & learning of the teaching and learning of the Central Focus
stated Central Focus and Essential and Essential literacy strategy in the following
Literacy Strategy for comprehension of ways. First, this text is relatively short and
text. broken up into sections by titles, which
separates the text into smaller chunks and
makes it easier for students to find the main
idea with a small amount of text. Additionally,
the text is written on a level that is easily
decoded by many third graders so decoding
will not get in the way of students’
comprehension, especially during partner
work on the last paragraph. This makes the
text well suited for an introductory lesson.
Second, the author has written the text in
such a way that gives many clear supporting
details in each section to support the main
idea. However, the main idea is not stated
clearly in the first sentence and is more
difficult to find. It requires that the reader
infer the main idea, which supports the
teaching of the essential literacy strategy in
this introductory lesson. This supports the
Central Focus of comprehension because
understanding the main focus, or main idea,
of a text is essential to understanding what a
text is about. Finding key details actively
engages the reader to think about how these
ideas fit together to help the reader infer the
main idea and understand what the central
focus of what they read was. Therefore, these
factors will allow for all three parts of the
gradual release of responsibility framework
(Pearson & Gallagher, 1983) to be addressed
within the context of this first lesson.
Thereby, providing the students with multiple
opportunities to apply this strategy with
similar sections of text with which they will be
successful, teachers will provide initial
scaffolding then release responsibility to
students as we lessen our scaffolds until the
students can independently infer the main
idea by day 3.
b) Describe with detail, your reasoning The following reasons influenced my decision
behind utilizing this text as the first, to utilize this text for the first introductory
second or third text in the three-day lesson. First, this text is relatively short and
sequence. Make sure that you are clear. broken up into sections by titles, which
separates the text into smaller chunks and
makes it easier for students to find the main
idea with a small amount of text.
Additionally, the text is written on a level that
is easily decoded by many third graders so
decoding and difficult vocabulary will not get
in the way of students’ comprehension.
Second, each paragraph in the text contains
simple sentences that clearly state key
details, rarely including details that do not tie
into the main idea. This makes it easier for
students to infer the main idea. For example,
in the first paragraph each sentence clearly
relates to the main idea that owlets depend
on their parents for food. Each sentence even
clearly contains the word food and helps
students to start with simple, clear sentences
and paragraphs to infer the main idea.
Therefore, using this text as the initial text
allows for effective teacher modeling and
student practice with the Essential Literacy
Strategy. Consequently, the students should
be able to move on to more independent and
less scaffolded work with this Essential
Literacy Strategy by days two and three of
this lesson sequence. Therefore, the students
will be gradually moved towards
independence in the use of the Essential
Literacy Strategy.
b) During Reading Stopping Point #1 & pg. Shared Reading (Holdaway, 1979)
# What are YOUR students doing at this
stopping point?(include citation of
researcher & year from the resources
provided in class)
c) During Reading Stopping Point #1- image of page
Graphic Organizer (used for each stopping point) Here is what the graphic organizer will
look like after stopping point one:
d) During Reading Stopping Point #1: TEACHER TALK: “This morning 3rd grade readers as I
“Teacher Talk”- what will you actually say read-aloud our shared reading text, I am going to be
modeling for you how I am determining what the
in this instructional stopping point.
author’s passage is about, this is called the main idea.
Provide your “think-aloud” verbiage and/or As I read-aloud, I will be looking for statements that
the directions to implement the indicated the author makes that lead me to the overall idea of
during reading activity. Be detailed! I the passage. These are the key details or supporting
should be able to visualize the lesson. details that will help me to infer the main idea. Infer
means that I use the key details in the text and their
connections with each other to decide what
statement I can make that is supported by all of the
supporting details I find. I will be asking myself,
“What does the author want me to know after
reading this?” in order to uncover the main idea of
the reading. This strategy will help me to locate the
key details which answer the question and help
uncover the main idea. T o do this, I will be sharing my
thinking with you as I make sense of the text. I will
read each paragraph and then stop and share my
thinking. So, let’s begin!”
DIRECTIONS: Read aloud the paragraph sentence by
sentence and fill in the graphic organizer provided
above, listing the key details as they are identified
and saying the following…
TEACHER TALK: Ok, while I am reading, I want to keep
in mind things that the author says that might lead
me to find out what the overall passage means. I
want to look for the key details that tell me the main
idea. Hmm, in this first sentence I am seeing the word
owlet. The owlets stay with their mother, while their
father brings them food. So, the author must want
me to remember that an owlet must be a baby owl. I
can tell that they are still very young because they
can not get food for themselves. I am noticing that
the first detail in the text tells me that mother owls
stay in the nest and father owls leave the nest to find
food. I will write this detail on my graphic organizer
under “key detail”. Writing the key details from the
text in a graphic organizer will help me to organize
the details I find so it is easier to infer the main idea
at the end. I remember that both owlet and father
were on our exclusion chart. Now I know that there is
a relationship between them. I will put a checkmark
next to them on the exclusion chart. I remember that
the phrase “catch food” is also on the list. I wasn’t
quite sure if or how this word was related to the
other words, but now I see that these words are
related because the father owl catches food for the
owlet. I will put a checkmark next to it on the list too.
I am thinking that I will find out more about the
owlets’ food in the rest of this paragraph, but I am
not sure so I will keep reading to find out.
In the next sentence, I find out that the parents of the
owlets tear or rip the food into smaller pieces for the
baby owls. I am going to ask myself, “what does the
author want me to know,” and “what is important
about that sentence?” I think he wants me to know
that when owlets are young their food has to be
ripped into many pieces. This may be an important
key idea for me to remember for later. This is another
detail that will help me find my main idea. I will write
this on my graphic organizer in the next blank box
labeled “key detail.” This detail also related to owlets’
food. I wonder if my main idea will be about the
owlet’s food, but I still don’t know for sure. I will
move on to my next sentence to see what else the
text tells me.
The first part of the third sentence tells me the detail
that owlets grow quickly. I notice that the word
“grow” is on my list, but the word “quickly” is not.
The owlets definitely grow so I am going to put a
checkmark next to this word. The word slowly is on
the list too. I thought that it was related before I read,
but now I don’t think so. The owls actually grow
quickly. I will cross out the word slowly on the
exclusion list. This detail does not seem to be related
to food, but I will still write “the owlets grow quickly”
in my graphic organizer as a key detail. It might
connect more when I finish reading.
The rest of this sentence tells me that the mother
needs to leave the nest to help catch food for the
owlets because they are older. I will write this in my
graphic organizer as a key detail. Oh, now I see how
the first part of the sentence connects. I can infer
that the owls are growing quickly so they need more
food, and the mother has to leave the nest with the
father to find more food. That makes sense. Looking
back at my exclusion list, I notice which words I have
not seen in the text yet. Only the word
“independent” is left. I know that independent means
to do something on your own. The owlets do not get
food on their own. The text says that owlets’ parents
still need to catch food for them even though they
are growing. That makes me think the owlets are not
independent. I will cross out this word on the
exclusion list because it is not related.
Now that we found which words are connected, let’s
take a look at the details on my graphic organizer and
do the same thing. I ask myself, “What does the
author want me to know in this whole paragraph?”
To figure this out I ask myself, “How are all these
details connected?” Well, I already noticed that all
the details have to do with how the owlets get their
food. We know that the parents leave the nest to
catch food for the owlets and cut it up into small
pieces. So I think that the owlets rely on their parents
to get them food. Because all of my details connect
to this idea, I can infer that it is the main idea of the
paragraph. After I read the paragraph, the author
wants me to know that owlets rely on their parents
for food. I will complete my graphic organizer and fill
that in underneath the “main idea”.
d) Describe how the During Reading This during reading activity utilizes several strategies
Stopping Point #1 chosen supports the working in tandem to support the central focus of
comprehension. First, the text is read-aloud through
teaching and learning of the stated
a shared reading (Holdaway,1979) so that students
Central Focus and Essential Literacy can focus on listening, following along with the text
Strategy for comprehension of text. as it is read-aloud, and comprehending without the
cognitive demand of decoding. The second strategy
being implemented is the use of a
“think-aloud”(Davey, 1983) as a means of modeling
to the students how the teacher is thinking about the
text, and applying the Essential Literacy Strategy of
Using key details to infer the main idea and asking
how the key details connect and what the author
wants us to know about the text to infer the main
idea. This therefore leads to better comprehension of
the text, which is the Central Focus of the lesson.
Thirdly, the strategy of using a graphic organizer
(Manoli & Papadopoulou, 2012) is a visual
representation strategy that helps students see the
connections and relationships between the key
details and main idea and also allows them to
organize their ideas. Finally, referring to the Exclusion
Brainstorming activity (Tompkins,2013) allows for
opportunities to apply the strategy through
modeling, and noting the correct information on the
chart. These words provide students with a scaffold
that helps them focus on the key details that will lead
them to inferring the main idea of each paragraph.
Exclusion Brainstorming focuses on how words are
connected, or the relationship between words.
Students can use these relationships to support their
inference of the main idea. Therefore, this also
supports the Central Focus of comprehension and
provides practice with the Essential Literacy Strategy.
Additionally, the strategies listed above will allow for
the beginning of the gradual release of responsibility
framework, modeling, (Pearson & Gallagher, 1983) to
be addressed within this stopping point.
During Reading Stopping Point #2
a) During Reading Stopping Point #2 & pg. Shared Reading (Holdaway, 1979) with modeling
#. What are YOU doing at this stopping through a Think-aloud (Davey, 1983); connecting to
Exclusion Brainstorming (Tompkins,
point? (include citation of researcher &
2013)referencing/completing the Gradual Release of
year from the resources provided in class) Responsibility (Pearson & Gallagher, 1983); Graphic
Organizer (Manoli & Papadopoulou, 2012)
b) During Reading Stopping Point #2 & pg. Shared Reading (Holdaway, 1979);
# What are YOUR students doing at this
stopping point?(include citation of Exclusion Brainstorming (Tompkins, 2013); Graphic
researcher & year from the resources Organizer (Manoli & Papadopoulou, 2012)
provided in class)
c) During Reading Stopping Point #2- image of page
e) During Reading Stopping Point #2: DIRECTIONS: Have the students fill in their own
Teacher Talk - what will you actually say in graphic organizers along with you. Read aloud the
paragraph sentence by sentence and fill in the key
this instructional stopping point. Provide
details as they are identified, saying the following…
your “think-aloud” verbiage and/or the TEACHER TALK: As I read this paragraph, I am again
directions to implement the indicated looking at the details in the paragraph and how they
during reading activity. connect to infer my main idea. So, as I read, we will
write down the details on a new graphic organizer.
This time you will write the details down with me in
your own graphic organizer. After reading the first
sentence, I remembered that down is on my exclusion
brainstorm list. Did you circle that word? I did
because I didn’t know that down means owlet
feathers. When I circled it on my list, I didn’t think it
was connected because I was thinking about it in a
different way. I was thinking that the word down
meant a direction, like I look down at the floor. Now I
understand how down is connected to owlets. Let’s
all put a checkmark next to it. Looking at other words
on my list, I see that fluffy and warm are also there. I
can tell that these words are connected because the
text tells me that fluffy describes the feathers, or
down, that keep the owlets warm. Let’s put
checkmarks next to fluffy and warm. This key idea
tells me that owlets grow down, also called fluffy
feathers, to keep keep them warm. Let’s write this on
our graphic organizer.
As I read the next sentence, I think by looking at this
key idea that as the owlets grow their feathers
become longer. Should we write this down in our
graphic organizer? Yes, we should because it is a key
detail will need for later. It will help us infer our main
idea. Hmm. They seem to be talking a lot about
feathers. I wonder if this will lead me to the main idea.
Let’s keep reading.
In the third sentence, I ask myself “what is important
about this sentence?” This will tell us our key detail.
We find out that owlets hop away from the nest. The
text tells us that they do this because they need to
stretch and flap their wings. Let’s write this down in
our graphic organizer. Notice how I don’t have to
write the details down word for word on my
organizer, but they have the same idea. Are hop and
stretch on our exclusion list? This sentence shows
me that they connect. What should we do? Yes, we
should put checks to show the connection. What
word is left on our chart? I see that the word fur is
still left on the list. I think I will skim the paragraph to
see if it says the word fur anywhere. Do you see the
word fur in this paragraph? No, you’re right. It’s not
there. Because I know that owlets have feathers and
the text doesn’t say that they have fur anywhere, we
can cross out fur on our list. It is not related. At first I
thought it might have been related and maybe you
did too because fluffy is sometimes related to the
word fur. In this case it is not.
Now that we know how our words connect what
about our details, what do we have to do now? Yes,
we have to use our chart to figure out how the details
connect.
So these details seem to all have something to do
with feathers. Do you think I can say that the main
idea is “owls have feathers”? Well saying this doesn’t
connect very well with the details. The details start by
saying the owls have down, then they grow to larger
feathers. So, this tells me that the author wanted me
to know that they not only have feathers but the
author shows me how their feathers grow as they get
older. The main idea has to connect to all of the
details that is why “how owls’ feathers grow” is a
better option for our main idea. Let’s complete this in
our graphic organizer.
c) Describe how the During Reading This during reading activity utilizes several strategies
Stopping Point #2 chosen supports the working in tandem to support the central focus of
comprehension. First, the text is read-aloud through
teaching and learning of the stated
a shared reading (Holdaway,1979) so that students
Central Focus and Essential Literacy can focus on listening, following along with the text
Strategy for comprehension of text. as it is read-aloud, and comprehending without the
cognitive demand of decoding. The second strategy
being implemented is the use of a
“think-aloud”(Davey, 1983) as a means of modeling
to the students how the teacher is thinking about the
text, and applying the Essential Literacy Strategy of
using key details to infer the main idea and asking
how the key details connect and what the author
wants us to know about the text to infer the main
idea. This therefore leads to better comprehension of
the text, which is the Central Focus of the lesson. The
third strategy of using a graphic organizer (Manoli &
Papadopoulou, 2012) is a visual representation
strategy that helps students see the connections and
relationships between the key details and main idea
and also allows them to organize their ideas. The last
strategy is referring to the Exclusion Brainstorming
activity (Tompkins,2013) allows for opportunities to
apply the strategy through modeling, and noting the
correct information on the chart. These words
provide students with a scaffold that helps them
focus on the key details that will lead them to
inferring the main idea of each paragraph. Exclusion
brainstorming focuses on how words are connected,
or the relationship between words. Students can use
these relationships to support their inference of the
main idea.
therefore this also supports the Central Focus of
comprehension and provides practice with the
Essential Literacy Strategy. Finally, the strategies
listed above will allow for the first two parts of the
gradual release of responsibility framework(Pearson &
Gallagher, 1983) to be addressed within this stopping
point.
During Reading Stopping Point #3
a) During Reading Stopping Point #3 & pg. Shared Reading (Holdaway, 1979) with modeling
#. What are YOU doing at this stopping through a Think-aloud (Davey, 1983); connecting to
Exclusion Brainstorming (Tompkins,
point? (include citation of researcher &
2013)referencing/completing the Gradual Release of
year from the resources provided in class) Responsibility (Pearson & Gallagher, 1983); Graphic
Organizer (Manoli & Papadopoulou, 2012)
b) During Reading Stopping Point #3 & pg. Shared Reading (Holdaway, 1979)
# What are YOUR students doing at this Connecting to Exclusion Brainstorming (Tompkins,
2013); Graphic Organizer (Manoli & Papadopoulou,
stopping point?(include citation of
2012)
researcher & year from the resources
provided in class)
c) During Reading Stopping Point #3- image of page
f) During Reading Stopping Point #3: DIRECTIONS: Read paragraph to find
Teacher Talk - what will you actually say in connections between exclusion chart and
text.
this instructional stopping point. Provide
Let’s read this paragraph together, and find the
your “think-aloud” verbiage and/or the connecting words on our exclusion list. The first
directions to implement the indicated sentence has the words parents and tempting.
during reading activity. Parents tempt owlets out of the nest. Hmm, I circled
the work tempt in my exclusion list because I wasn’t
quite sure what it meant. I now think it means that
the owls parents are bribing the owlets out of the
nest with food because I know that if my mom made
me breakfast in the morning, it would make me want
to get out of my bed, just like an owlet. The text
shows that these words, parents and tempting,
connect. Let’s put a check next to these words. The
second sentence has which words on our exclusion
list? That’s right. It has the words practice, flying,
hunting, and need help. The owlets practice flying
and hunting, but they still need help to find food.
Therefore, these words all connect. Are there any
words on the list are not associated with the
paragraph? Yes, the author does not talk about
treetops anywhere. Because it is not in the text, we
can say that it does not relate. Let’s cross it off on
our exclusion list.
Directions: We learned a lot about owls today! Fill in the blanks in the paragraph frame
below with the correct words using the exclusion brainstorm list as a reference.
Baby owls are called__________. They grow ______ feathers, also called ________. The
Owlets grow _______, and soon the mother also needs to leave the nest to nest to help
______ ______ for them. When they are ready the parents teach the owls to fly by
_______ them out of the nest to ______ their wings. When they get older, the owlets
begin to practice _______ and ________, but they still need their parents’ ______ to find
food.
Completed activity
Baby owls are called__Owlets________. They grow _fluffy___ feathers, also called
__down______. The Owlets grow __quickly_____, and soon the mother also needs to
leave the nest to nest to help __catch____ _food_____ for them. When they are ready
the parents teach the owls to fly by __tempting_____ them out of the nest to
__stretch____ their wings.When they get older, the owlets begin to practice
__flying_____ and __hunting______, but they still need their parents’ _help_____ to find
food.
Directions:
1. Read the whole paragraph.
2. Read line by line looking for key details, asking “what is important about this sentence?” and fill in
the graphic organizer.
3. Ask “What does the author want me to know in the whole paragraph” and “how are these details
connected?” to infer the main idea of the passage and fill in the graphic organizer.
Completed assessment
e) Develop & Include a copy of the assessment checklist that you will use to assess the level
of student learning demonstrated in the Post-Reading Assessment in the space below:
Exit Ticket Assessment Checklist Day one
Was the student able to: Y N
KD MI
f) Describe with sufficient details, what your next instructional steps will be for each of the
following groups of students based upon the results of your assessment measure:
i. Students whose assessment results demonstrate a strong need for a dditional
instruction on the essential literacy strategy.
i. For those students who demonstrated difficulty with determining the key details, in a small
group mini-lesson we will use short passages and the graphic organizer from day 1 think aloud and
assessment to practice finding the most important information in the paragraph.
ii. For those students who demonstrated difficulty inferring the main idea, in a small group
mini-lesson we will work with a few sets of lists of key details (3-4), given in the format of the graphic
organizer from day 1, which students will use to practice connecting key details to find the main idea.
Students will practice asking, “How are these details connected?”
ii. Students whose assessment results demonstrate a strong need for a dvanced
instruction on the essential literacy strategy.
i. For students who demonstrated a high level of proficiency with the Essential Learning Strategy with
this short text, in the context of a small group mini-lesson we will introduce how to utilize the
essential literacy strategy with longer, more complex pieces of text. Additionally, we will also introduce
to this group how not every sentence has important information that ties into the main idea and it can
be more hidden throughout the text.