Supporting Diversity Through Reading

Interactive “foldables” help students learn new vocabulary through defining, illustrating and using words in sentences.

In this visual strategy, students divide vocabulary words into parts and draw illustrations to represent the separate meaning of each part.

Meet New Vocabulary uses a graphic organizer to help students acquire new vocabulary while reading. This strategy is most effective when teaching challenging, domain-specific words (Tier Three).

My Pile, Your Pile is an interactive word game that increases students’ Tier Two and Tier Three vocabularies.

A personal picture dictionary is an individual vocabulary and spelling resource students make themselves.

Students use this tool to identify a word’s meaning, its parts and its opposite. After organizing the information on an illustrated flashcard, students practice using the word in a sentence.

A word wall is an organized display of vocabulary words drawn from central texts students are reading.

“Annolighting” (annotating and highlighting) shows students how to identify critical information in a text during close reading. Students learn to annotate text, highlight important facts and summarize what they have read to capture main ideas, concepts and details.

In shared reading, learners observe experts reading with fluency and expression while following along or otherwise engaging with the text. This strategy should focus on a specific instructional element (or mini-lesson) that improves targeted reading comprehension skills and promotes Common Core readiness.

This strategy exposes students to multiple short pieces of a text before they read it in its entirety. Students read selected quotes out of context and comment on both the selection and the comments of other students. The activity ends with students reflecting on their reactions to and predictions about the text.

Fishbowl is a strategy for organizing medium- to large-group discussions. Students are separated into an inner and outer circle. In the inner circle, or fishbowl, students have a discussion; students in the outer circle listen to the discussion and take notes.

Save the Last Word for Me is a comprehension strategy that builds speaking and listening skills by structuring a text-based discussion for students. Students highlight two to three of the most important sentences of the central text, then discuss their text-based responses in small groups.