Teaching Strategies

Exploring Texts Through Read Alouds

Inspire young readers with strategies that help them define text types, examine how text structure affects meaning, and identify audience and purpose.

9 TEACHING STRATEGIES

Anchor Charts

An anchor chart is an artifact of classroom learning. Like an anchor, it holds students' and teachers' thoughts, ideas and processes in place. Anchor charts can be displayed as reminders of prior learning and built upon over multiple lessons.
Grade Level
K-2
CCSS
R.K-2.4, L.K-2.4, L.K-2.5

Creating Questions to Engage Critically with Texts

This strategy provides tools to create questions that help students engage critically with Perspectives central texts and examine them for issues of power and social inequity. The activities suggested here also encourage readers to bring their knowledge and experiences to the reading of a text.
Grade Level
K-2
CCSS
RL.K-2.1, RL.K-2.2, RL.K-2.3, RL.K-2.6, RI.K-2.1, RI.K-2.2, RI.K-2.3, RI.K-2.6

Examining Texts

Children will learn about the key components of paper and online text structure. Students will also gain the terminology necessary to talk about the structure and parts of a text.
Grade Level
K-2
CCSS
RI.K-2.5, RI.K-2.6, RL.K-2.5, RL.K-2.6

Realia

Realia are real-life objects that enable children to make connections to their own lives as they try to make sense of new concepts and ideas. This strategy brings the Perspectives central text to life for students by using everyday objects during the read aloud.
Grade Level
K-2
CCSS
RL.K-2.1, RL.K-2.2, RL.K-2.3, RI.K-2.1, RI.K-2.2, RI.K-2.3

Student Journals

Student journals are a collection of students’ written and illustrated predictions, reactions, understandings and questions based on Perspectives central text read alouds.
Grade Level
K-2
CCSS
RL.K-2.1, RL.K-2.2, RL.K-2.3, RL.K-2.6, RL.K-2.7, RI.K-2.1, RI.K-2.2, RI.K-2.3, RI.K-2.6, RI.K-2.7, W.K-2.2

Who's Telling It?

Students explore the same Perspectives central text from various viewpoints and identify author, speaker point-of-view, publication date, intended audience and characters.
Grade Level
K-2
CCSS
RL.K-2.1, RL.K-2.3, RL.K-2.6, RL.K-2.7, RI.K-2.1, RI.K-2.3, RI.K-2.7
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Our work has evolved in the last 30 years, from reducing prejudice to tackling systemic injustice. So we’ve chosen a new name that better reflects that evolution: Learning for Justice.

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