Reading Comprehension
Unit Plan
By Gregory Saur
Spring 2012
Unit: Reading Comprehension
Topic: Reading Passages
Subject/Course: English
Designer: Saur
Teaching Date: 3/12-3/20
Grade Level: 8
Unit Overview:
Day 1-Introduce Paragraph Shrinking
Day 2-Practice Paragraph Shrinking (Review and then read passage
together)
Day 3-Introduce Pre-reading strategies (Brainstorming & Visual Aids
before reading)
Day 4-Students will watch power point on South Africa and read a
passage about South Africa before answering questions about the main idea.
Day 5-Students will select a topic of interest and create their own
visual presentation based on the information they know about the topic, what they
want to learn about the topic, and what they think the reading passage will teach
them about the topic.
Day 6-Students will present their presentation to the class and read
the passage related to their topic
Day 1
Lesson Topic
Paragraph Shrinking
(P.S.)
Day 2
Day 3
Practice P.S.
Pre-reading
Day 4
Day 5
South Africa
Create own Visual
Aids
Day 6
Present Visual Aids
Embedded Strategies
Shrink paragraphs by pausing after reading, tell
the main subject of paragraph and what is most
import, and then tell the idea of the paragraph in
10 words or less
Practice P.S.
Brainstorm (activate prior knowledge) on a topic
and view pictures on topic before reading about
topic (visual aids)
Pre-reading: Visual aids
Pre-reading: Visual aids/brainstorming—
students look up pictures and write what they
know about topic
Students present their visual aids & share
brainstorming
Unit Objectives:
SOL Objectives:
8.5 Students will read and analyze a variety of narrative forms
b) Describe inferred main ideas or themes, using evidence from the text to
support.
e) Compare and contrast authors’ styles
8.6 Students will read, comprehend and analyze a variety of informational sources
a) Draw on background knowledge and knowledge of text structure to
understand selections
c) Analyze the author’s use of text structure and word choice
d) Analyze details for relevance and accuracy
e) Read and follow instructions to complete and assigned task
f) Summarize and critique text
g) Evaluate and synthesize information to apply in written and oral
presentations
h) Draw conclusions based on explicit and implied information
Outcome Objectives:
-Students will be exposed to a variety of text and be able to comprehend the main
ideas.
-Students will be able to read text and answer questions about the main idea and
support details.
-Students will be able to decide author’s purpose of writing and make inferences
about the main ideas
-Students will develop strategies to activate prior knowledge before reading and be
able to use strategies while reading to better understand text.
-Students will be able to follow directions to create a presentation for the class that
involves reading different text on the Internet and decide if it is relevant to an
assigned topic.
Unit Assessment
Reading passages have been selected to include questions at the end.
Passages completed will be graded for accuracy. Also, during the teaching, students
will be assessed informally through observations and questions to see if they have
understanding. The final part of the unit is a presentation that will be graded based
on following directions and completion.
Unit Plan Reflection
As a Special Education student teacher at New Horizon’s Newport Academy,
an alternative school for students with ED/BD, it is difficult to teach core subjects
since the students are very diverse in their academic performance. This is
particularly true in the 8th grade where there are 8 students enrolled, but less than
half of them show up on a given day. Of these students, only two are present on a
consistent basis (4-5 days a week), and not one is on the same learning level. This
unit of reading comprehension is designed to reach all the students at their level and
expose them to reading different texts and finding understanding in their reading.
To achieve this, the focus was on, at first, developing a strategy to understand text
and then strategies to encourage and inspire reading. Both strategies seemed to be
lacking in the class. The unit began the week after the 8th grade reading and writing
SOL tests where many of the students complained of struggling reading the text.
What helped me develop this unit was the content I am learning in the Content Area
of Reading graduate level class at the College of William & Mary.
In this class, taught by James Beers (a very good man with a wealth of
knowledge), it was learned how reading is more than decoding words (Lecture,
2/2012). Reading involves understanding the text—finding the meaning behind the
words. It goes beyond the surface of decoding (Lecture, 2/2012). In order for this
to happen, the reader must activate prior knowledge and then be able to organize
and structure the information being read using memory and mental scaffolding
(Lecture, 2/2012). It becomes a process that involves translating print into spoken
words while gathering meaning from the print (Lecture, 2/2012). To do this
requires many sub-skills working together at the same time; it becomes almost a
guessing game between the reader and the author (Lecture, 2/2012). Since this is
an active process, it requires energy and can tire a reader (Lecture, 2/2012). Put in
this context, it is not surprising that many students with low academics do not enjoy
reading and try to avoid the process. It can be very difficult task that requires
discipline, focus, motivation, and hard work. Students not taught properly will find
this too daunting to even consider. This is especially true if other challenges are
added to the mix, such as cultural or linguistic differences in the classroom.
In Newport Academy, the students come from different school systems in the
area, such as York County, Newport News, Williamsburg, Gloucester, and Hampton.
Some of these areas are urban, some are rural, and others are in between. These
different areas, or course, have different cultures, which the students bring with
them. A great example of this is dialects. Some of the students speak with what is
often called an “African-American” dialect that uses different terms and vocabulary.
Pronunciation, grammar, and semantic rules are all different than that of what is
known as “standard English”. While some people believe this signifies as deficit in
language, others see different dialects as being equal (Lecture, 2/2012). I have to
agree with the latter, which is called the sociolinguistic approach (Lecture, 2/2012).
The 8th grade students at Newport Academy have a different dialect than I do, but all
are very intelligent and speak in a language that is fluent (probably more so) as
mine and just as complex. I cannot understand when they rap and they cannot
understand when I tell them to focus on English and do their work. This does not
mean that one of us has a superior language and/or culture. It just means our
beliefs and cultural norms differ. One reason why the students have different norms
could be related to their socioeconomic level, peer influences, and ethnicity. These
factors are related to dialect differences (Lecture, 2/2012) and may cause other
obstacles to doing well in academics.
It is no secret that almost all the students in the class have been in trouble
with the law and some have been locked away for some time. Some have a very
unstable home life and have peers frequently in trouble with the law. Their
ethnicity is different than mine and may cause them to feel separated from my
teaching. Despite these differences, all are capable learners. The unit was designed
to take all of this into account and give them the opportunity to use what they have
to learn better reading skills.
As a new teacher, who has never taught reading or English to anybody
before, I had to decide on where to start the unit. I had a week to prepare. During
that week, I watched the students take their 8th grade reading and writing SOLs and
knew they struggled. Immediately this inspired me to teach a quick, simple reading
strategy. Doing some research, I decided to focus on Paragraph Shrinking.
Paragraph Shrinking is the strategy of pausing after every paragraph to summarize
for meaning (CORE, 2012). It involves first finding the subject of the paragraph
(CORE, 2012). The next step is to identify what is most important about the subject
(CORE, 2012). Finally, the reader should break down the paragraph in a short
sentence or phrase in 10 words or less (CORE, 2012). While this sounded great, I
immediately found a problem. The students had no interest in reading long
passages (over a paragraph) and probably found the task overwhelming. This made
me change the unit. I still taught paragraph shrinking at the beginning, because I
wanted to introduce this skill and then practice it throughout the unit. However, the
next part involved activating prior knowledge.
In the Content Area Reading class, pre-reading is very important because it
activates prior knowledge and readies the reader to engage in text (Lecture,
3/2012). Brainstorming and visual aids before reading are two great examples. I
knew the students may find interest in these strategies, so focused on them.
Brainstorming was first and then I shared an example of visual aids with a power
point. After this, the students were given the opportunity to do their own visual aid
by selecting a topic and creating a presentation. Along with this presentation, the
students had to include all the information they knew about the topic, what they
wanted to know, and what they thought they would learn. This was my covert way
of adding brainstorming without making it part of the assignment. In the end, the
students presented their visual aids. What hopefully this unit accomplished was
making reading more manageable for the students by giving them strategies on
comprehension. To be honest, some classes were a struggle, but at the end, the
students were definitely proud of their presentations. Associating pride with
reading is a good outcome, no matter what else the students got from the unit.
Teaching is a challenge, regardless of the class and students being taught.
For this particular class and teacher, the challengers were greatly magnified. New
Horizon’s Newport Academy has a very diverse population with only one thing in
common: they get in trouble with authority a lot. For the 8th graders, another
problem was that they missed school frequently. During the unit, there was never a
day where the entire class was present. It took a lot of reviewing at the beginning of
each class to have every student at least have a chance at learning the material. This
seemed to encourage the students who attended every class to lose interest. It is
hard to gain the interest of an 8th grade student once it is lost…especially when
teaching English. The main challenge in teaching this unit is making sure the
students are assessed beforehand. Their strengths, abilities, and weaknesses
should be known so the appropriate level passage and teaching can meet their
needs. Assessing is very important—informal and formal. At the same time, the
unit can be very rewarding. At the beginning, the students were not interested in
the unit at all. However, once the South Africa power point was shown, they were
very engaged. This led to the students working very hard on their own
presentations, which led to success in the end. As a teacher I may use this unit
again. It will be easy to keep the basic structure, but change the topics and level of
reading to match any grade and population of students.
Beers, James. (2012). Lecture. Great Reading Content Area Instructor, R11. College
of William & Mary.
Honig, B., Diamond, L. & Gutlohn, L. (2008). CORE. Consortium on Reading
Excellence, Inc., CA.