Using Higher-Order Thinking to Improve Reading Comprehension
Reading Detective’s standards-based critical thinking activities develop the analysis, synthesis and vocabulary skills students need for exceptional reading comprehension. The activities are especially effective at helping students understand more challenging reading concepts such as making inferences, drawing conclusions, determining cause-and-effect, and using context clues to define vocabulary.
Students read and analyze short literature passages and stories that include fiction and nonfiction genres. Then they answer multiple-choice and short-response questions, citing sentence evidence to support their answers.
The Grades 3–4 (Beginning) and Grades 6–12+ remedial (RX) levels are organized into single-skills units with a concluding mixed-skills unit. The Grades 5–6 (A1) and 7–8 (B1) levels include mixed-skills throughout. All levels provide an introductory lesson for each skill.
RX activities are "prescriptive" to help under-performing students in Grades 6–12+ improve their comprehension skills. Reading level is Grades 4–6; story content is Grades 6+.)
Each reproducible book contains goals, pretests and post-tests, lesson guidelines, 50 activities, a glossary of terms, and answers that include evidence and detailed explanations of the evidence. Reading and literary analysis skills are based on grade-level standards.
Grades 3-12