Test Prep: Reading Boot Camp

It's Spring Break!  Time to re-charge, relax, and get ready for the 4th quarter!

When we return from break, we will have two weeks to refresh our students' memories before state testing begins.

My 6th grade team and I decided to host a Reading Boot Camp. There are 5 teachers and 5 days in the week.  So we are each taking one benchmark (standard) that the students need more work with based on the data and we will teach just that standard to all of the 6th grade classes in a rotation for one week.

So on Monday, I will have my own students but on Tuesday - Friday, I will have the other 4 teachers' students - a different set of students on each day.  So I will essentially teach the same lesson all week long.  That may seem a little like a broken record - but only to me - the students will truly benefit because they will get to hear a lesson presented by someone new and as a result, they are more likely to pay attention due to the novelty of a new teacher and a new room.  

I will be teaching non-fiction text structures.  Before I developed my plan, I really had to dissect the standard and how it is tested on our state test.  Essentially, students need to be able to use academic vocabulary such as analyze, contribute, and development in concert with the text structure to locate and trace the change in the information and ideas across multiple texts to gain insight and strengthen understanding.  

Sounds easy, right?  Sure....well maybe if it were simplified a bit:

The entrance/exit ticket will have 3 questions that must be answered using pencil only:

Next, I'll use my own video with matching Pixanotes® to go over each kind of text structure and its definition and signal words ...

Then I'll conduct the "vote with your feet" activity.  To run this activity, I plan to hang 5 text structure posters in 5 areas around my room.  Next, I will read a passage and ask the students to classify it into one of the 5 categories.  Then, I am going to ask them to "vote with their feet" and stand by the poster that they think is the correct classification.   Next, we'll discuss their choices and finally the answer.  It will be a great way to keep everyone involved and engaged!

Finally, I plan to have students re-visit the entrance ticket and change their answers based on their new knowledge.  

(Now you know why I was being particular with pencil! :)  )

So now my boot camp lesson is ready!  This lesson combined with the other four teachers' lessons should make for a great test prep review!

If you'd like to save time and get this ready-to-go non-fiction text structure test prep lesson with entrance/exit tickets, video, Pixanotes®, posters, passages with questions, and directions for "vote with your feet" PLUS all answers - Just click here!

Once your students know how to IDENTIFY text structures, you can show them how to "level up" their skills by USING text structures to analyze text.  Read more in this post!

Until next time, thanks for stopping by!

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